Queen of Embers

III. Messenger

Sorne knew she was stewing in silence, but she didn't know what else to do. Aitor's words wouldn't leave her alone even after he headed home. She stood on the ramparts of Sakana's wall, eyes focused southward. Her memories of her birthplace slowly percolated up, colored by the pain. Many men are cruel. She flexed her fingers, stretching the scar tissue. With the memories came sensations. Her own screams echoed in her mind when she looked down at her hands. She smelled the acrid brazier's fire mingled with burning flesh. She felt the torment as if it had never ended.

The past refused to let her go.

"I thought you might be up here," a gentle voice said. "We missed you at dinner."

Sorne turned to face Aitor's wife. Eider was a delicate woman, as if one strong breeze away from shattering like glass. Her family had come from the east, marked by skin so fair that blue veins were visible in the backs of her hands. Her hair was raven dark and her eyes a golden brown.  She was dressed for the cold, at least, in a long-sleeved green dress with a woolen blanket wrapped around her shoulders. At the moment, her brow was creased faintly with worry.

"Sorry. I thought you might prefer to avoid a moody guest," Sorne said, a note of sincere apology in her tone. Eider was a friend, a good one, though kept at a distance. Sorne wasn't keen on anyone getting too close. Bad things seemed to happen to the people she let into her life.

"Even when moody, you're fine company," Eider said. She stood beside Sorne, turning her eyes to the south. The last few embers of daylight were vanishing behind the horizon, which meant any walk back to Sorne's home would be in the dark. "Thinking?"

Sorne nodded. She was quiet for a long moment. Eventually, though, the sigh slipped out. Once it had, she knew that words would soon follow. "It used to be so simple," she said softly. She hesitated again and then added, "I can't be who Aitor wants me to be, who these strangers want me to be."

"You can help people, Sorne," Eider said softly.

"Help them how? With a civil war?" Sorne said. It wasn't quite a snap, but it was certainly frustrated. "The people don't give a damn who their lord is, so long as they have food for the winter and know what's coming. I bet most people in Sakana couldn't even name the Duke who runs the place. He's just another lord, one of many. In a war, anything could happen. Suffering and uncertainty would be the first arrivals."

Eider leaned against the nearest merlon of the wall's crenellations. "We are protected by our isolation, a luxury not everyone possesses. One way or another, Genev will break under the strain of injustice and ambition, whether we like it or not. I do not know if Lady Katalin Ibarra is a good woman or not. What I do know is that Sorne Thayer has a good heart, even if she guards it."

Sorne sighed. "A good heart isn't enough," she said quietly. "Not in a war."

Aitor's wife offered her a small smile. "A good heart and your stubborn head would be well more than enough to force Lady Katalin to do the right thing when the metal meets the fire."

Despite herself, Sorne smiled back. "Am I that bad?"

"It's easier to crack an anvil with a spoon than change your mind when you're dead set on something," Eider teased. "Even Vridash keeps his hands clear lest you bite."

"I'm dead set on being left alone, yet somehow that doesn't seem to happen for me." Sorne looked down at her scarred hands again, aware only vaguely of the cold of the stone they were pressed against. She'd lost a great deal of feeling thanks to damaged nerves.

The waifish woman beside her nodded slightly. "I know," she said. "But unlike mortal wishes, Fate is a force equal to the task of pulling you from your rest."