to subside. When they had, she calmly dragged a foot through the touchstone patterns—defying Telhami to restore them again.
“Mahtra went to House Escrissar frequently and willingly, she said so herself. She was there, Grandmother. She was there when Escrissar interrogated me, when he laid me to waste—just like the boy was! They witnessed… everything!”
She was, to her disgust, shaking again, and Telhami stood there, head drawn back and tilted slightly, glowing eyes narrowed, taking everything in, coldly judgmental—as Grandmother had never been.
“And what is it that you expected to accomplish?”
“Justice! I want justice. I want judgment for what was done to me. They should all die. They should endure what I endured, and then they should die of shame.”
“Who?”
“Them!”
The unnatural eyes blinked and were dimmer when they reappeared. “You didn’t,” Grandmother whispered. “That’s the root, isn’t it. You wanted to die of your shame, but you survived instead, and now you’re angry. You can’t forgive yourself for being alive.”
“No,” Akashia insisted. “I need no forgiving. They need judgment.”
“Destroying Mahtra won’t change your past or the future. Destroying Zvain won’t, either. Born or made, life wants to go on living, Kashi. The stronger you are, the harder it is to choose death.”
Not everyone is as determined as you, Kashi. Some of us have to stay alive, and while we live, we do what we have to do to keep on living. Pavek’s sneering face surfaced in Akashia’s memory, echoing Telhami.
“You were assailed by corruption, you were reduced to nothing, you wanted to die, but you survived instead. Now you want to punish Mahtra for your own failure and call it justice. What judgment for you, then, if Mahtra’s only crime were the same as yours: She survived the unsurvivable?”
It was a bitter mirror that Pavek and Telhami raised. Akashia raked her hair and, for the first time, averted her eyes.
“Where is my justice? Awake or asleep, I’m trapped in that room with him. I can’t forget. I won’t forgive. It’s not right that I have all the scars, all the shame.”
“Right has little to do with it, Kashi—”
“Right is all that remains!” Akashia shouted with loud anguish that surprised her and surely awoke the entire village. Embarrassment jangled every nerve, tightened every muscle. For a moment, she was frozen, then: “Everything’s dark now. I see the sun, but not the light. I sleep, but I don’t rest. I swallowed his evil and spat it back at him,” she whispered bitterly. “I turned myself inside out, but he got nothing from me. Nothing! Every day I have to look at that boy and remember. And, she’s come to put salt on my wounds. They know. They must know what he did to me. And yet they sleep sound and safe.”
“Do they?”
She set her jaw, refusing to answer.
“Do they?” Telhami repeated, her voice a wind that ripped through Akashia’s memory.
According to Ruari, Zvain at least did not sleep any better than she. And for that insight, she’d turned against her oldest friend, her little brother.
Something long-stressed within Akashia finally collapsed. “I’m weary, Grandmother,” she said quietly. “I devote myself to Quraite. I live for them, but they don’t seem to care. They do what I tell them to do, but they complain all the while. They complain about using their tools in weapons-practice. I have to remind them that they weren’t ready when Escrissar came. They complain about the wall I’ve told them to build. They say it’s too much work and that it’s ugly—”
“It is.”
“It’s for their protection! I won’t let anything harm them. I’ve put a stop to our trade with Urik. No one goes to the city; no one goes at all, not while I live. I’d put an end to the Moonracer trade, too… if I could convince them that we have everything that we need right here.”
Akashia thought of the arguments she’d had trying to convince the Quraiters, farmers and druids alike. They didn’t understand—couldn’t understand without living through the horror of those days and nights inside House Escrissar.
“Alone,” she said, more to herself than to Telhami. “I’m all alone.”
“Alone!” Telhami snorted, and the sound cut Akashia’s spirit like a honed knife. “Of course you’re alone, silly bug. You’ve turned your back to everyone. Life didn’t end in House Escrissar, not yours nor anyone else’s. Walls won’t keep out the past or the future. You’re alive, so live. You’ve been pleading for my advice—yes, I’ve heard you; everything hears you—well, that’s it. That, and let them go, Kashi.