The war in her is still rising. Her heart is a drum. Her horn is a sword forged and shining that hasn't drank yet of death. The chain about her leg is an anchor waiting to become a noose and each brittle bit of kelp caught in it is a wish waiting. Isra is all the signs of war in and every drop of her violence is waiting to be unleashed.
How did she ever think her magic was made for dreams instead of salvation and vengeance? How did she ever think she was made for stories instead of legends? How did she think she wasn't bred for war?
It's in her eyes when she looks over her charred and healing city. The chains, the blood and the hundred, tipped lashes her skin knew one, they are bits of stardust in her gaze. “We've rebuilt before.” Nothing in her voice suggests that she is happy for it, but oh, she understands already the fire of the phoenix. But evil ghosts are easier to hunt than gods, and she's rising, rising, rising each moment she looks at the sorrows of her people.
And she knows, oh she knows, when he looks back at Katniss, that she has in her the ability to destroy more than just a ghost made from hate instead of grave-dirt.
“Raum will die for this.” Isra whispers, but the promise falls from her lips like a torch, or maybe like a guillotine. However it falls it is heavy and ash coated. It tastes like salt and blood on her teeth, salt and blood and brine.
Off in the distance Fable rises from the lake and heads for the mountains. He knows that if his unicorn is going to be war, he is happy to be an instrument of it. To him there is Isra and there is the sea-- he needs no gods and no ghosts.
Isra brushes her nose across Katniss shoulder and it's another promise that has no words but ash. “How should we protect them? I can give them food, but there is a whole city and I cannot protect them all alone.” Because she knows, that even with a dragon and a beast of magic (that's starting to feel like a god in her breast) she cannot save the world alone. There is still mortality singing through her blood.
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