Daughter of Three Suns

Chapter 7

Daughter Sun moved away––eventually—and Mother Sun returned to her rightful place in the sky. We greeted Grandmother's small red face as she revolved around our horizon. Her breath blowing across the land shook the tinkling chimes at the island's entrance and called us to first meal. When she moved to the opposite end of our island, it rang the deeper gongs located there and signaled our sleeping time. The comforting rhythm of our existence resumed. Life was the same, yet it was not.

The women spent more time together. There were meetings underground with the seers. There were whisperings, and private conversations, and meaningful looks that none of the girls were allowed to hear or see.

We waited, the other girls my age and me, for our classes to begin and our training to start but no one mentioned them. Instead, we focused on harvesting and preparing our daily food and watching the younger girls because the women seemed to be busy doing other things. Elise was weaned, and I spent more time with her and Emma, sometimes in their home and sometimes in mine. Charles was with us almost constantly, but we only saw Emmett occasionally. It bothered me that I didn't know what was happening, but then I would think of Irina, and I was content to be left to my ignorance.

And then Rosalie disappeared.

I returned to my home to find mother caring for Emma and Elise. "They will stay with us for a while until Rosalie returns," she explained. She would not tell me where or why my sister had left. When I checked Rosalie's home, I found most of her supply baskets empty and her staff and knives no longer hung on the wall. Emmett was also missing.

It seemed she was gone for a long time. Elise would sometimes cry for her mother when she was tired or hungry. Emma and I played with her and tried to keep her happy, but she was too young to be separated from her mother. I wondered what could be so important to make Rosalie leave her daughters.

...

I was skinning a freshly caught fish when a large shadow passed overhead. With a rush of wings, Emmett landed beside me. It swayed awkwardly and could barely remain upright. I offered the fish, and it began tearing at it with beak and claw. In minutes, it was gone. A second fish disappeared as quickly as the first. Only then did it drink the water I scooped for it.

Footsteps sounded near me, and I looked up to find Rosalie standing there. "Bella," she whispered as she all but collapsed beside me. Quickly, I ran home, returning with a bowl of cooked fanio grains mixed with rubus berries and a large gourd of cooled water.

I studied my sister as she ate and drank. Her journey must have been a difficult one for she was obviously thinner. Her clothing was frayed and torn, and there were deep scratches down one thigh. "Rosalie?"

"Later," she answered, then added a "thank you" before picking up Emmett. "I'm going to bathe first, and then find my girls. Will you prepare more fish for us, please?" When I nodded, she headed down the stairs, and I knew she was going to the bathing pools underground.

The fish was still hot, and there were meal cakes and fresh appa when Rosalie joined Mother, me, and her daughters in our gathering room. Elise and Emma swarmed over their mother, climbing into her lap and hugging her when she sat down between them. She cuddled them both and soothed Elise when she began whimpering into her shoulder. Emmett was with her, and the girls soon turned to greet it. It trilled and chirped and rubbed its face against their cheeks.

My sister did not speak of her disappearance. Every time I tried to ask, I was silenced by my mother's frown, so I sat and listened, hoping to learn where and why she had gone. There were several long looks between the two, but nothing I could understand.

Almost as soon as she finished eating, Rosalie left, taking her daughters with her and thanking me for the food. I did not see her again for another three cycles.

...

She came for me when I was eating first meal. "Come, sister," she said and led me to the rock terrace at the entrance to our island. We had recently cleared away the older, thicker stalks of the appa vines, and they were piled at the entrance ready to be broken into smaller pieces for our cooking fires. "Sit," she instructed, then told me to close my eyes.

"Tell me what you feel."

She handed me one of the thicker stalks. I ran my hands over it, then tossed it to the side. "A big stick," I answered opening my eyes and grinning up at her. My sister was not amused.

"Do not try my patience, Bella." She glared. "This is important."

I nodded.

"Now close your eyes. Run your hands up and down the stalk. Let your fingers see what your eyes cannot."

I rolled my eyes at her but did as she asked when she handed me another piece. Slowly, I moved my fingers over it, trying to understand what I was supposed to find. There was a slight indentation near one end. My fingers lingered, following the weakness behind it.

"What have you found?"

"A flaw, a fault point. It will break here," I realized.

"Good," Rosalie answered. "Now try this one."

It was the same. My fingers traced a split in it, and I knew it would shatter if struck. The next two were no different. Each contained some flaw that weakened it. My sister handed me a fifth one, and my fingers examined it carefully but could find no wrong in it. I weighed it in my hands. There was a heft to it, yet I could still lift it. There was a hard knot at one end, but the rest was smooth and seemed made just for my hands. I opened my eyes to find Rosalie crouching in front of me.

"Tell me of that one," she said.

I nodded. "It's mine." I smiled.

"Yes." She laughed. "This is your stake, your staff, your spear. When you make your offering to Daughter Sun you will tie yourself to this stake. When you travel to find your basherter, this staff will ease your way, and when you face what is waiting there, this spear will defend you."

"Rosalie?" But she would not answer my unspoken question.

"Come," she said. "We begin training now."

I picked up my new staff and followed her out onto the dunes where we stood facing each other. "Brace yourself," she instructed. "I'm going to try to push you down with my staff. I want you to resist." Rosalie placed one end of it on my chest and began to push. In a matter of moments, I was staggering backward, then fell with a plop onto the soft sand. "Now do the same to me."

I placed the knob end against her chest and pushed as hard as I could. She shifted her shoulders sideways, and I stumbled forward, falling face down into the sand. "Again," she commanded. Each time I tried to knock her down, she managed to move her upper body in such a way that my staff slid off her and I fell.

Hot, tired, and covered in sweat, I flung my staff down at her feet. "This isn't fair, Rosalie! You're a woman grown; I'm still a child. You are bigger and stronger, and I will never be able to make you fall."

"One more time," she urged.

I huffed but picked up my staff, waiting for her to get ready for me. My sister faced me, knees slightly bent, arms at her sides. I placed the end on her chest, then pushed with all my might. She staggered, arms whirling to keep her balance, then fell onto her back. She grinned up at me from the sand while I stared at her in disbelief. "You let me knock you over," I accused.

"No." She laughed. "That was all you."

"But I did nothing different."

"I know," she said. "But I did. Now, watch and see if you can understand what the difference is."

Again, she faced me, feet slightly apart, knees bent, and arms at her side. Once again, I managed to push her to the ground. When she stood a third time, her stance was different. She placed one foot in front of the other and turned her body slightly away from me. She dodged my thrust easily.

"You changed the way you're standing," I said. "It means you can move away from my push."

"Yes." She grinned at me approvingly. "Now you try it."

I mimicked her position, one foot forward, the other behind and to the side, my body angled away. When she tried to push me with her staff, I shifted my weight a little and avoided most of her shove. I giggled, and she laughed.

It became a game between us. She would thrust her staff at me, and I would try to evade it. Left and right, up and down, I twisted and leaned, shifting my weight to keep my balance. "Watch my face and eyes not the staff," she told me. "They will signal my next move."

I tried to follow her directions but lost my concentration, and she hit my upper arm with a sharp blow. I gasped in pain, tears stinging my eyes, while I clutched my arm. Instantly, Rosalie dropped her staff and hurried to me. She examined my arm, reassuring me that the skin was not broken.

"I'm sorry, Bella. I know that hurt, and you're going to have a really nasty bruise."

Instantly, the image of Irina's bruised body flashed through my mind. Shaking, I began to back away from my sister. "Is that what happened to Irina? Did someone hit her over and over with their staff?"

More tears welled up in my eyes as I considered what Rosalie was teaching me. "Is that what you're training me to do, Rosalie? Do you want me to hurt someone? Because I won't!" I threw my staff on the sand. "It is a terrible thing to harm a living being. I won't do it! I won't!"

I turned from her, stumbling my way back toward our island, sobbing at the thought of my sister expecting me to inflict pain.

"Bella! Bella!" She caught up with me quickly. "I'm sorry, little sister. I don't want you to hurt someone, rather I want you to be able to stop someone from hurting you."

"I don't understand."

"Come," she said, handing me my staff. "I know you're tired. Lean on this."

We walked to the entrance of our island. Rosalie sat on the rock edge and motioned me to join her. I waited for her to speak, enjoying this moment of rest. The breeze lifted the hair from my neck and dried the sweat there. It carried with it the scent of the desert––baked sand and dried herbs.

Overhead a basherter called, and I looked up to see Emmett riding the thermal updrafts. I realized it had been watching us this whole time. Again, I wondered how it must feel to have that freedom, to be able to soar above the desert and see the world spread out below you.

Rosalie looked up and smiled but sobered as she turned to me. "Do you remember the tiny lights in the sky on the night of the Anamnesis celebration?" When I nodded, she continued. "Those lights are other suns. They look small because they are very far away. There are worlds that belong to those suns. When a woman seeks her basherter, she travels to those other worlds."

I stared at her in shock. "I don't understand. How does a woman get there?"

"There are doorways," she explained. "Openings connecting our world with the others. We walk through the opening, and we are …" She paused for a moment seeking the right word. "We are transported … moved to that world."

I looked out at the desert around us, trying to imagine what she had described. Endless sand and barren rock stretched in all directions. The light from Mother Sun bathed everything in its golden glow. "I don't see any openings, Rosalie. Everything looks the same to me."

My sister chuckled softly at my words. "I know, sister mine, but when you change, when you finish your Metanora, your eyes will be yellow and you will see things differently. They're not nearby; they're in the deep desert. You'll journey there when you're ready."

I considered her words, then gestured at the scene in front of us. "Do you see things there that I don't?"

"Some." She nodded. "I know you can see the shimmer of the updrafts where the warmer air rises to the sky. The ones Emmett is enjoying right now." She added with a smile toward it. "But I can see them more clearly than you. They have swirls of energy within them, areas of cooler and warmer air that allow me to measure how strong they are. The sand is different. The cooler areas are a different color than the warmer areas.

"My sight is much keener, too. I know you can see Emmett in the sky, but I can see each feather, the blink of its eyes, and the tilt of its head. And there"— she pointed at a slight depression in the sand nearby. "A sand lizard is hiding there just beneath the surface waiting for its next meal."

We sat quietly while I thought about her words. "I think that must be a wonderful way to see," I finally said.

She laughed softly. "Yes, it can be."

Another quiet moment passed. "Rosalie?"

"Yes."

"How will I know which doorway to pick?"

"The one that Grandmother Spirit has chosen for you will glow red. You'll know it when you see it."

"How does she pick the right one?"

Rosalie thought for a moment. I could tell she was trying to choose her words carefully. "The Spirit sends us to a world where the basherti need help. Sometimes, it is a world that is dying. When we bring them here, it gives them a chance to live. On others, it is too crowded with too many beings and life is very hard for them. Then, there are other worlds where their kind is hated or feared. Some of those places …" She grimaced and shook her head slowly. "Some of those places are filled with an evil so terrible that seeks to destroy all beauty and goodness. The basherti are captured, tortured, and killed because they are different."

She stared into the sky above us, eyes following Emmett as it flew with joyous abandonment. I could see the love on her face, but also the trace of sad memories. I hesitated to ask what I knew I must.

"That terrible world, is that where Irina went? Did the evil there try to kill her and her basherter?

"Yes." She nodded slowly. "And the other girls who left at the same time. They all went to the same world to save the few basherti that are still there. Irina managed to escape. She returned to tell us what had happened so we could try to find a way to save them."

"And did you? Did the women think of a way to rescue them?"

My sister did not answer me but turned instead to face me, taking my hands in hers. She stared at me a long time, and I saw my answer in the sadness on her face. "Bella," she whispered. "I …"

"No, Rosalie, no." I began to cry. "You cannot ask this of me! I am only a child. How can I fight such a terrible evil? Why don't the women go back?" I tried to stand, but she held me fast.

"Bella, stop! Only a woman who is searching for her basherter can go through a doorway. They are closed to the rest of us. Do you think I haven't tried? That's where I went on my journey. I had hoped to be able to go through it and find our missing women, but it will not open for me again."

"Again? You've been to this world?"

"Yes. It's where I found Emmett."

I stared at her, stunned. "Did they hurt you, too, Rosalie? The way they hurt Irina?"

"Not as badly," she finally admitted. "Emmett and I were able to get away sooner. They were ready this time, however. When Irina and the others arrived, there was a trap waiting. They were captured immediately."

"Then how do you expect Jessica, Lauren, Angela, Rachel, and I, not to fall into the same trap?" I asked, naming the other girls who were my same age.

My sister did not speak, but the answer was plain to see on her face.

"They aren't going, are they?" I whispered. "You're sending me by myself."

Once again, she did not answer my question. "Did you know, little sister, that you are the third daughter of a third daughter? As was our grandmother, and all our grandmothers before her? Thrice times thrice times thrice, you are the twenty-seventh, third daughter to be born in our lineage."

She pulled my arms and hands toward her, examining the brown scars that covered them both. "Daughter Sun has already burned you twice. When you go to your Metanora, you will burn again. Thrice times thrice, times thrice born, and thrice burned. You are the one the seers have waited for. You will go to this world, rescue our people and the basherti there. When you return, you will change our world, too."

I stared at her, shaking my head in denial, refusing to accept her words.

"And I promise you, Bella, I will do everything I can to prepare you for this journey. You will not fall blindly into their trap. You will prevail and return to us."

Her words and belief did little to reassure me.

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AN: Thank you for reading, and thank you for the wonderful reviews. Much love to Sally for finding my mistakes. It was 77 degrees here yesterday, a big change from the -4 just a week ago. I took a walk in the sunshine. :)