"what I am to you is not real.”
Somewhere along the line fire became a comfort to me. I'm not sure when it happened, maybe between the burning of the pass and the burning of my city's stores. Maybe it happened before then. Maybe it happened when I was drowning in the sea and all I wanted was to feel warm, and alive, for just one more moment. Everything is a forest of maybes for me now, a forest upon roots of moments. And all of it, every leaf, and flower, and seed, are all watered by the oceans of tears I've cried.
Illu is another tree in my forest, another masterpiece of root, and seed, and possibilities. I should not go to war. I should be a better mother, a better queen. I should do anything but move closer to the fire and beckon her to me not with words this time but with the star-bright ache in my eyes. But I do it anyway before I press my nose into her mane and breathe in everything that makes me water my sorrows. “I am going to be leaving.” I do not tell her that she is not coming.
I could not deny the choice to her, not when one of my own daughters is coming with me.
Only one. Only one. Only one.
I want to cry when I pull away. I want to tremble down to the floor in a flurry of dust and snow. But I only look at the fire and think of all the ways in which I will burn this place to the ground if I stay, if I don't give all my nightmares and all my magic a direction in which to blaze. “Aspara is staying here.” The words do not make me cry like I thought they would. Maybe everything in me is frost now.
I'm still looking at the flames when I ask her the only thing I will every really ask of her. She's too young for this. I try not to think about it. “Will you stay with her?” I try not to think about much anymore.
It's mostly fire and war for me now. This form was not made for motherhood and happiness. I was made to suffer.
I died for it.
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