Elizabeth
On the morning of the cleansing ceremony, Elizabeth awoke in bright and red light. The sun had risen barely above the horizon, bathing earth and skies in crimson and gold. The ice reflected the light, making the world appear on fire - or bleeding.
Angelique was already awake, sitting up in her furs, pressing a hand to her head. Her other hand was closed around a steaming cup. “Damn their wine,” she muttered drowsily as she crawled down and pulled on a pair of trousers.
“I thought you slept in the icehouse,” Elizabeth noted. Last night, Angelique had been very keen on keeping her away from their shared sleeping space and she had retired to her tent instead.
Angelique looked up at her. “I did, until I was awoken by chanting this morning,” she said. “Are you ready?”
Elizabeth’s stomach was in knots and she felt like vomiting, but she nodded.
“You look pale,” Angelique stated. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I have to.”
“No, you don’t.” She narrowed her eyes. “You have a choice. They cannot force you to do this.”
Elizabeth sighed. “You know what I mean.”
“And you know I don’t believe in it.”
Elizabeth simply sighed again before stepping out from her furs. She walked away from the tent, shaking her limbs back to life. The sun warmed her face, but her feet could feel the cold creep up through the soles of her feet. She looked down and began kicking at the snow, digging until she reached the ice. It was as white as the snow, but hard, and gleaming. And sometimes, it seemed the white was only fog that covered for the blackness underneath. Soon, I’ll be underneath it. Soon, I’ll see what hides underneath the world.
She sat down with a bowl of soup that she got from Ishmael. When Jamie joined her, she asked how long he thought it would take to make it to Etheron.
He frowned, clenching his eyes against the sun as he looked to the south-west. “I spoke to one of their navigators yesterday, while you were preparing,” he said. “It is not that far. A month, maybe a month and a half.”
Her hand tightened around the bowl. “That’s too long. Shakan’s men are dying like flies. They can’t stand the cold.”
“I know. It is a strange thing, to see so many of them die while the ashmen live.”
“A thing I can’t explain.” She let out a frustrated growl. “For all my fine education, I can’t explain it. I cannot think what I could possibly need epistemology for right now, and yet that is what I spent three years of my life studying. What difference does it make?” She laughed to keep from crying in desperation.
Jamie ignored her stress. “Epistemology?” he asked instead.
She sucked in a deep breath, blinking away the tears that had collected at the edges of her eyes. “It’s… the theory of knowledge. What is real, what is not, and what can you be certain of. That kind of questions.”
“Those are important questions,” he told her. “Especially in a society like Hi’taab. Once you learn how to survive, you need to learn how to live. You need to start asking questions, so that you can evolve. And you need to know what is right and wrong, once people start craving more. It will be needed in Etheron.”
Her voice trembled when she spoke. “But I can’t use it now, can I?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Then it doesn’t matter.”
Jamie moved so that he was in front of her, his eyes unavoidable. He kneeled and spoke, “Your Grace, is anything the matter?”
She turned away her head, looking down at her gloved hand in the snow. “I just… I feel so weak.”
“Weak?” He was clearly shocked.
“My people is dying and there’s nothing I can do.” She licked her lips. They were dry and chapped. “I am so reliant on my sister, she has to ask if she can do the ritual for me, even if she believes it to be of no use.”
“Elizabeth.” He leaned towards her. “Look at me. Look at me.”
Reluctantly, she turned her head to face him. “What?”
“Don’t think like that,” he told her. “Of course Angelique offered to take your place. You are the Queen, and this ritual is dangerous. As your sister and your subject, she would want to protect you from danger.”
“But I am the only one who needs protection,” she said, her words half a question, and half a sarcastic statement. “I never see any of you ask for help. My raiders can keep walking until the moment they die, no matter the pain, but I cannot jump into water without having to ask my sister for help.”
“You didn’t ask for help,” he reminded her. “She offered it. We all offer our help, because we know that if you die, all of this would be for nothing. If you die, we are more than halfway to Etheron with miles and miles of ice behind us with no purpose to go on.”
Elizabeth’s eyebrows drew together. Her throat was raw from the cold and the crying she kept back, and a knot had tied in her stomach. Her head hurt. How can I be their purpose? How can I be anyone’s purpose?
Guia came to get her shortly thereafter. Elizabeth had dressed in a dress from her time at Junus’. It was white and layered by light fabric that would be transparent if she only wore one layer. She had pulled a large white fur around her shoulders to keep warm. She was led away, out into the snowy desert, to a small tent a little away from the hole that had been dug through the ice. When she was taken there late the night before, she had been shocked at how dark the water had been - black, actually, even though she had to wonder if it was only because of that it was night and dark. Gods, I hope it is not black, she thought.
But her fears were confirmed almost immediately by Guia. “Before you dive into the blackwater, you will have a rope tied around your waist.”
“Blackwater?”
The old woman nodded. “That is what we call the ocean beneath the ice. It is so dark, it is almost black to the human eye.”
She turned and brought out a bowl with some sort of green clay. Elizabeth remembered seeing a serpent once, with that very same colour. With two fingers, the crone dove into it and then painted a line from Elizabeth’s hairline, across her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, past her lips and to the point of her chin.
“Strange creatures hide in the dark,” she told Elizabeth. “You have to be somewhat… dark yourself, to survive in the blackwater. But only dark things can prevent dark things from happening.”
Her fingers returned to the clay before drawing a straight line from each of Elizabeth’s temple, a line that curved upwards and crossed the other line just above her brows. Her finger pressed against the crossing. “This is your inner eye,” she told her before letting her finger drop. “It does not see this world, but the otherworld, the blackwater. There will come a point when you will need to breathe. Don’t go up. It will feel like you are going to drown, and it will be painful, probably more painful than anything you’ve ever felt, but you need to stay and wait for the second time you get this feeling. Then come up.”
Elizabeth swallowed deeply, then nodded. “Alright.”
“Good.” Guia smiled and took hold of her hand. “Remember, we are just above you, and we will pull you up if you do not resurface after too long.”
“What’s too long?”
“A man will count slowly to one hundred,” she explained. “Then we will pull at the rope. If you do not answer by pulling back, we will pull you up.”
“And if I do answer?”
“Then he will count to thirty, and do the same,” she answered.
Elizabeth sucked in a deep breath. The thought of being down there for so long felt suffocating. “What do you do if I…” Her voice was weak and she had to clear her throat before going on. “If I do not breathe by the time you pull me up?”
“That has happened before,” Guia said. “We know how to deal with it.”
I need to trust her, Elizabeth realized. “I need to get some air,” she muttered, lifting herself to her feet and exiting the tent. Her eyes fell closed and she breathed in the fresh, cool air that surrounded her. The sun warmed her face. She tried not to think about how all of this would be taken from her before long. Only momentarily, she reminded herself.
Angelique’s voice brought her out of her reverie. “Elizabeth!” her sister called as she marched towards her, red hair blowing in the wind around her. Suddenly Elizabeth understood why it reminded some people of fire.
“Angie,” Elizabeth greeted when her sister was closer, but Angelique ignored her.
“I spoke to Jamie,” she stated, her voice nearly a shout. “Why the fuck can’t you just understand?”
Elizabeth cringed at the foul words, words that her sister had learned in the brothels. “What are you talking about?”
“You know why we follow you, right?” Angelique asked. “You know what you mean to us - all of us, not just me. Jamie and Ishmael and all of the ashmen and raiders.”
Elizabeth furrowed in confusion. “I am the Queen.”
“Yes,” she screamed. “Then why are you crying? Then why are you asking Jamie if you’re weak when we offer our help?”
“Because I don’t understand.” Elizabeth thought that her voice seemed so fragile compared to her sister’s shouting.
Angelique sighed deeply. “Because you matter, more than we do.”
For some reason, Elizabeth felt anger rising within her. “Then why did you leave me?” Now it was Angelique’s turn to look confused. “Why did you leave me, years back when Junus gave me that place at his school? Why couldn’t you stay?”
“Do you even know why I left?” Angelique exclaimed. “I left because I was so jealous of you. When you got that scholarship at Junus’ school…”
“Wait, what?” Elizabeth furrowed, tilting her head. “I only got that place because you did not want it. You would have gotten it if you did not walk out.”
“No.” Angelique shook her head slowly, looking down as if ashamed. Suddenly, her voice was not so strong anymore. “There was only one spot open, remember?”
“Yes, and you were going to get it.”
She drew in a deep breath, stepping towards Elizabeth. “I wanted to.” Her voice broke, and it took a moment for her to collect herself. When she spoke, she spoke slowly, reverently. “I went to talk to Junus that day, with you. It was such a beautiful place, so full of… everything. But I failed miserably. I was so nervous, I wanted it so much, and when finally I was called in, I could not stop stammering.” Her eyes clenched shut, but tears still fell. The next time she spoke, she was hoarse. “So I told you and father and everyone that I did not want to bother with such a useless science as philosophy. I did not need Junus, I did not need anyone - not even father. And then I left.”
Elizabeth watched in awe as more tears rolled down Angelique’s cheeks. It had been long since last time she saw her cry. It had been before she left, before Junus and all of that. “Why would you ever be jealous of me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Angelique asked. “But I couldn’t hate you. It’s very hard to hate you.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Philip did not seem to think so.”
“Father didn’t hate you,” Angelique stated. “Sure, in the beginning when he looked at you, he saw the evidence that the woman he loved left him for another man. And just after she killed herself, you were the result of the thing that killed her. But that’s not why he wasn’t there in the end. That was because he was ashamed. He was so ashamed, and not of you. He was ashamed of himself, and every time he looked at you, he was reminded why. You were not the proof that mother left him for another man - you were the reminder that he could not let go of that, even when she returned. The reminder that he could forgive you for a sin you never committed - that he could not love a child as sinless and as beautiful as you.
“But you always thought he hated you. You thought he did not love you because of something you did or were. And that’s the expectation that you meet the world with. Even though you have been special and powerful from the day you were born, even though you have been working to become even more so since the day you were born, you don’t expect that to change anything. You know that you are wise, more clever than most people, but you still expect everyone to despise you, because that is what you are used to. In every step that you take, there is a plea for someone to love you - and that’s why everybody does.”
Elizabeth was at a loss of words. He did not… But Angelique kept crying and that was all that mattered, so she stepped to her sister and embraced her. “I never knew,” she whispered into her sister’s wild hair. “I am so, so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Angelique told her, pushing her away so that they could look at each other. “I just needed to tell you before… well, before this.”
Elizabeth nodded and looked down. “I should go back,” she said.
“You should,” Angelique agreed.
They did not walk back together, but when Elizabeth reached the tent, Guia was waiting for her. “I’m ready,” she told her.
“Good,” Guia said.
They walked to the hole, where the people from the clan as well as Elizabeth’s followers had united in a circle around. It seemed smaller in the daylight. The circle was almost perfectly rounded, and nearly two steps across. The black water did not gleam, but seemed to suck all the light from the sun away. Elizabeth’s throat tightened and her heart hammered in fear.
A man stepped forwards. He held a rope in his hands. She did not realize why until he reached around her and tightened it around her waist. It was bound in a tight knot, and he pushed it both up and down to check if it could possibly slide off her. Then he nodded to Guia, who led her forwards with a soft pull of her hand.
When they stood closer to the hole, so close that Elizabeth could lean forward and see her own reflection in the blackwater, she knelt down and took off her shoes. The cold of the snow burned her feet with its intensity, making them cramp up, and when she let the fur fall off her shoulders, the cold winds seemed to tear through her skin. The skirts of her dress billowed around her legs and her hair flew around in all directions.
“Take a deep breath,” Guia advised, “and hold it.”
She did, holding it as long as she could before letting it go.
"Good,” Guia said. “One last advice: when you jump in, do not breathe. It will be cold, and you will want to, but don’t. Don’t let fear and panic overwhelm you.”
Elizabeth nodded, focusing on her breathing, focusing on how the life-giving air felt as it rushed through her.
“And when you’re ready, jump.”
It took her so long to do it. Uncountable times, she felt ready, and she looked down as she thought, Now, I’ll do it, but somehow, control over her own body was lost to her. Her legs would not move. Finally, she closed her eyes, felt the world vanish a little. The cold was stronger at first, but then it vanished to the back of her mind as her thoughts wandered. I give them strength, she thought, but what gives me strength?
Her eyes opened and her eyes fell on a little girl standing across the pool. Her dark eyes were wide with anticipation. And for some reason, the way that girl looked at her - like she was something far better and far stronger than she felt - gave her strength.
She closed her eyes, relaxed herself. Her last breath rattled a little as it passed her lips, catching in the lump in her throat, but she kept it, deep within her.
And then she jumped.
The water stabbed her like a thousand frozen knives. A pain in her chest that felt like a thousand small explosion tore through her, and she wanted to scream. She wanted to pull herself up. She wanted cry. But most of all, she wanted to breathe.
Don’t let fear and panic overwhelm you.
It was hard to remember when her stomach curled together and the air seemed to leave her body. She thrashed around kicking and hitting in pain for a few long moments, and then… her body stilled. Everything went numb. The cold was soothing her, she realized, bringing her into a state when she could not even think of moving. Her limbs floated to the side, numb and weightless, and yet heavy. Her hair spread in a halo around her as her face calmed and turned serene.
Her eyes opened, and her vision was not blurred the way she expected it to be. Instead she saw clearly, every scratch and contour in the ice layer above perfectly clear to her. The ice seemed to glow greenish - a pale, sick color.
Don’t let fear and panic overwhelm you.
Even though panic tore through her, she kept calm, and even though fear filled her, as cold as the blackwater, she managed to turn around. Beneath her, there was only more darkness, only more black. There was nothing. No spirits. Like Angelique told me…
Then she remembered what Guia had told her, about her inner eye. It does not see this world, she had said. Her eyes closed, and she let herself think.
Are you there? Is somebody there? she thought, unsure what else she could do. Please, if you hear me, help me. Do not let Guia’s prophecy come true.
She remembered the little girl, her wide, innocent eyes. And then she remembered her mother, with wild, golden curls, and mysterious eyes that spoke of hundreds of secrets. She had a smile that would make you think she knew your deepest thoughts.
Time seemed to have stretched on forever. It felt like years ago that she had flung herself into the water. She wondered if she had been asleep, if she had fallen into a trance. When her stomach tightened in the need of air again, she reminded herself to be still, to be calm. If only she did not panic, she would be alright. As long as she did not fear the blackwater, it could not hurt her.
When she felt the tug of the rope around her waist, she did not have the strength to tug back. After a moment, she felt herself be pulled through the water. Her body bended when the water pushed her back into the depths, but the pull of the rope was insistent.
And then suddenly, the answer was so clear. Drowning, she thought. That’s what Guia warned me about. But she gave me the answer as well.
Don’t let fear and panic overwhelm you, she recited as her body was pulled out of the water, onto the sunbathed ice.