Sunbroken

Chapter 39

Djuna

I have proof now.

I'd sensed his vichya before--but he'd only have been in the same pain as me if he could manipulate the lifeforce, as well. That means he has to be part Unakai. That means...Eternal Reimha.

If his soul is as saturated as mine, then he, Namiko, and I are the most powerful souls in the country. One of us has to be the one to free Mara. It doesn't have to be me.

It does, though. If one of them dies and I live on, I would go utterly mad. Grief and guilt would eat away at me like parasites, til there was nothing left of me but a shell of the ferocious girl I'd once been. I'd be even less of a queen than I would be if I were dead.

I'd be doing my people a favor by sacrificing myself. The hands of someone else would be better than my own withered hands once another person I'd given my heart to was dead.

I can't lose either of them, or I'd lose myself. Either way, I doom my people. At least this way, I can ensure they'd be led by a sane person.

Whatever this was, this kiss, this sliver of heaven, only cements that thought in my brain. Still, however, a phrase echoes in my head.

Are we defined by our broken pieces, Djuna, or by the way we put them back together?

I dismiss it without a second thought.

When the pain finally subsides, it is mid-afternoon. The rainclouds have fled from the sky, followed by warm, pervading sunlight. The horizon is littered with trees of all kinds, flourishing in the spring weather; hills and valleys bend the would-be straight line into a deranged wave, Mount Aqul cutting the largest arch into it. Snow still stubbornly covers the top of the mountain like a baby's firm grip on its mother's finger. Relentless.

To the west lies the temple. After we cleared the peaked ridge, it came into view. I study its construction now, as well as I can from a distance. It appears small in regards to its square footage--perhaps 2,000 square feet at first guess. It's simple, in the tradition of the Unakai: tiers upon tiers of delicately carved windows and minimalist designs, tinted in ivory and bloodred. The top bears a row of cerulean bulbs, which are wind-beaten and worn.

It looks undisturbed. But I don't trust that Namiko and whoever else is working with Mara hasn't arrived first.

A wave of nausea hits me, reminiscent of the vichya rift that had debilitated Ezio and I earlier. There's too much energy that's been released from the deaths...and not enough babes to consume it. Vichya that raw, in that amount, can only be absorbed by the most pure of soul: the infants. And if there aren't enough of them to balance out the deaths occurring, the lifeforce just sits idle in the atmosphere. A floating temptation for those of us who know it's there. We could gather trace amounts of it, of course. But taking it all in would be like trying to pour a half-full pitcher of water into a completely full one. It simply wouldn't fit. Our souls are already formed, their capacities already determined by how we'd been molded as infants. Namiko, Ezio, and myself have all been born during the War, which explains why we're more powerful than others. As far as I know, though, I was the only one who came into the world on the battlefield. In a tent meant for the wounded, but who'd spared an extra bed for my laboring mother.

Only Reimha knows who she was. And what she was doing there.

But it happened, nonetheless.

Am I as fearsome a creature as the saying dictates, though? I used to think I was. But I doubt myself more with each passing day.

Ezio brushes a soft caress down my arm, ticklish through the loose sleeve of my shirt. My head pirouettes frantically. My arm begins to shake. Why? Why now?