The Mayaware's reign has to end.
In a world of demonic beings with a hunger for human flesh, and thirst for blood, Hesi Renen knows it well. When her siblings are taken to the harvesting farms, she must do everything she can to get them out, even if...
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Hesi waited. And waited.
Two brides didn't come to the room.
No amount of waiting could change that.
She hadn't budged from her spot, her uninjured shoulder growing stiff from being pressed against the warm and rough rock wall for so long. Rehema and Semret. They haven't showed up since they were led out into the arena.
"Hesi, we need to go," Barteset's voice bled into her ears. Tagara and Isueri had tried long ago to no avail. Even Petra, with her usual bubbly attitude able to diffuse any negative feelings in al of them, has given up. The woman had resigned to the corner Rehema once occupied.
She shrugged the older woman's hand off her shoulder. The arm hanging from its socket throbbed when she whirled towards Barteset. "You all go on ahead. I'll wait some more."
A click of the tongue and Asrate was in Hesi's face. Her cheek flared with pain and Asrate's hand stayed in the air for a few seconds before falling to her side. Did she just...?
"Wake up, Hesi," the High King's bet chided, her tone stern and unkind. "They're not coming back."
Anger boiled inside Hesi's gut. She raised her burning gaze from her bare feet—her sandals had long snapped free from them—and met Asrate's eyes. They stared back at her, empty, dark, and helpless. Hesi hated it. Because they reflected her own whenever she looked into a mirror.
She promised she'd get them out of here. They believed she would keep her word. They trusted her to do her part and they'd do theirs. She failed. Just like she did Mensa. And the countless other women who have found themselves in this fanfare's clutches.
"Let's go, Hesi," Uzare's gentle voice was laced with a thickness Hesi knew all too well to be because of tears. "Rehema and Semret. They're in a better place now. Topt will take care of them in Her Fields."
Hesi closed her eyes and yanked her hand away from the bride's grip. Her chest heaved, amplified by the nerves from the fight that still haven't subsided. She wanted to punch something, to make something explode, to squeeze the life out of something and watch blood water the stones, to wash over the sand baked by the midday sun.
Rehema talked about going back to her herds, to which she sang and cared for as best as she could. And Semret, a sweet girl barely older than Pai. She has a whole life ahead of her if she didn't get tangled into this mess. She and Pai would have been friends, the best of them, even. Or they would hate each other up to no end and proceed to pull each other's hair.
And now, none of them would get to see any of those futures. It's all because of Hesi. If she didn't introduce a sense of safety and camaraderie among them, they'd still see this as a competition. They'd do their best to win. They'd never succumb to defeat just like that. It was Hesi's fault. She had saved them from one death but shoved them into another.
