WERE I IF I COULD, I WOULD ERASE YOUR ARMOUR RIGHT WHERE YOU STAND, BURNISHED HEAD TO HEEL BY SUN, A VERITABLE GOD. I WOULD TAKE THE SPEAR AND RETURN THE LYRE, but i can only stare at your golden back as you march off to the dance of war--
There were no birds to scatter, no leaves to fall. The might of her guttural scream—oh, it was as sweet as it was caustic—was not enough to alter the world around her. That, in and of itself, seemed like a beautiful metaphor for the incomprehensible, tyrannical, colossal feeling of her life. It simply fuelled her fury. Here was Boudika’s everything. Here, in Boudika’s rising, lonely howl, was her everything; every effort of her years reaching a feverish pitch, summiting the summit, more raw than flesh.
Here was her dejected walk through the cobbled road of Oresziah during the storm, as she was sentenced to death. The crowd, jeering. The names, oh, the names. They stripped her of everything she had ever been, of every title she had ever held—and called her, worst of all, girl. No longer the general’s son. No longer the defeater of the Prince of Tides. No longer the cadet, the lieutenant, the brother, the companion. No. The girl.
The scream was a roar.
Here was her year of imprisonment, with the most lovely creature she had ever met, whom in meeting she had condemned.
Teetering, rising, higher, higher—
Here was her father’s death, leaving her utterly alone in the world.
And dropping, deep, guttural.
Here, more than anything, was Vercingtorix.
The scream tapered—grew coarse—and ended.
This was the wound that did not bleed, the wound that existed forever within her, as abysmal as the sea. It was hopeless and profound; but more deeply intrinsic than any other aspect of her soul. If she were iron, she had been smelted and reformed to a new shape. The content remained the same, the very ore of her being, but everything else… was different. More than anything, she wanted to reverse everything—she wanted to take her declaration of love back, she wanted to save it—
She breathed in, preparing to continue, but her eyes caught the sea.
Even from here, she could see it. And Boudika knew she could not escape it. None of it.
There was no summit that would end the torture; no odyssey that would rewrite her history. At this distance, Terminus Sea was hazy, made indistinct by ozone and atmosphere. Blue, blue, blue—the type of blue that one could be lost in. From this distance, there was nothing savage or brutal about it, and Boudika would have laughed at the sheer audacity of the sea. She had never known something so beautiful and so horrific; and she thought of the water horse she had met here, his promise. I could Make you, the words that haunted her. Would it be possible, she wondered, to slough off her former life and choose the shape she must now exist in?
Boudika sighed, deeply, exhausted—and she turned her head. In doing so, she caught a flash of brown that did not belong to the rest of the scenery, and she started. Until that point, she had been utterly unaware of Marisol’s presence. Not knowing how long the other mare had been present, Boudika felt a rush of both rage and embarrassment. The moment had been private. Boudika’s crimson eyes narrowed, and a muscle in her face twitched with the rage renewed—directed, dangerously, at this observing stranger.
Rather than act on it, she exhaled through her nostrils in a sharp snort. “I hope this isn’t your go-to, hell-bent screaming spot, and I’ve imposed.” Her father’s voice, unbidden, came to her—reminding that, in times of anger, to breathe. Boudika focused on three deep inhalations and exhalations, reeling in her emotions. They had scattered, more ambivalent than a herd of many anxious deer. “If you would like to give it a try, it’s very therapeutic.” She could not quite contain her sarcasm, but even that had sense of authenticity.
