Aeryn had been plagued by voices, sounds, and visceral horrors ever since the day she first wielded the immense power of the trinity, but after the last vivid dream two months ago; the one where she saw the ancient Queen Anya; she had found a brief, unsettling reprieve. But tonight, the psychological pressure returned with a vengeance. After the charged events of rescuing the twins, she was restless, unable to settle. She blamed anything but herself for the tension coiling in her gut.
And even tonight she was still feeling a strange vibe boiling in her gut. She tossed and turned, her ears ringing with a relentless, low buzz she couldn't place. She covered her ears every now and then, pulling the furs tighter, but sleep remained an impossibility. Finally, she sat bolt upright. She took out a polished bronze mirror from under her pillow and looked toward the small, bracing herself for the inevitable vision.
It was the same image, sharp and terrifying: a cityscape of blood-dried bodies and ruined architecture, a landscape of razed cities and utter destruction, as if the dead walked among the wreckage.
With a gasp, Aeryn threw the mirror. The shattering sound was swallowed by the thick canvas of the tent, a small voice of panic escaping her lips despite her rigid control. "This can't be…"
She tried to push herself out of the bed, but glanced down at her hands and froze. They were covered in dark, fresh-looking blood. She tried to wipe it away on the sheets, but it kept getting redder, spreading up her arms, saturating the linen. She scrambled backward on the bed, horrified.
Then, a voice came. It was the same voice she had encountered in the palace; the low, resonant voice of the faceless, hooded being that haunted her.
"We told you!" the voice echoed, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. "Those who defy the One who created them, cannot help but be razed to the ground. This is His will to protect you from what is not yours. Was never yours to carry."
Aeryn hauled herself off the bed, stumbling away from the phantom blood, her bare feet meeting the cold earth. "Who are you?"
The voice continued, cold and relentless, "Until you forfeit your powers, your misery won't end!"
Aeryn came closer to the source of the voice, which seemed to come from a dark corner of the tent. "I am not doing this to myself! Why should I forfeit? How can I even forfeit?"
The voice, as if deaf to her desperate pleas, kept repeating the tume of ruin: "Greed kills. Envy kills. Pride kills. Possessing what doesn't concern you kills. Let it go..."
Aeryn cried out, "Who are you!" She picked up the water pitcher near the bedside and hurled it weakly toward the shape of the being in the shadows, but the pitcher passed right through the air where the form had stood. The being was anything but solid, it was air, maybe it was only a voice, she couldn't decide, but the voice remained, repeating softly, maddeningly: "Let it go. Let it go. Let it go."
Aeryn's legs gave out. She started sobbing, falling to her knees amidst the scattered debris of the broken mirror. The immense strength and fury she felt in the day had dissolved into helpless, shaking terror.
A frantic, muffled sound brought her back.
"Your Highness!" "Your Highness!" "Your Highness!"
Aeryn opened her wet, stinging eyes to find Sakina stooped over her, holding her firmly by the shoulders. She tried to get up and found that the entire inner circle was there; all the girls, the main maids, servants, and a few close guards had rushed in, drawn by her crying.
"What happened?" Sakina asked, her voice tight with alarm, scanning the tent for a threat.
Aeryn looked around at the faces staring back at her with confusion and tiredness. She looked at her hands, which were blessedly clean. Then, she looked toward the direction where she had seen the hooded being. Finally, she looked at the water pitcher; it was resting innocently on the floor, near her bed, intact, and not shattered. The mirror, however, was in pieces. A clear evidence of the threat being a real entity.
She held her head, which was clammy with sweat, and without looking up at Sakina, she said, her voice strained, "Let them sleep. I am okay."
Sakina motioned them all to leave with a sharp, silent gesture. Once the tent was empty, she sat down by Aeryn's side. Aeryn, without saying another word, put her head directly into Sakina's lap, closing her eyes tightly. Sakina's eyes grew teary, reflecting the depth of her queen's unseen suffering, and she began to softly stroke Aeryn's hair until the tremors subsided.
They remained that way until the first pink light of dawn crept under the tent flap. Aeryn pulled away, her expression now wiped clean of all emotion. She stood. "Sakina, summon the girls, including the twins." Her voice was flat, devoid of its usual royal command, yet infinitely more dangerous.
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