Snowblind {complete}

Wet - Haze

Days passed.

For Lanna, they passed in a muddle. She got over her fit quickly – it had been minor – but her thoughts kept her subdued. She shuffled around, head bowed. Chowa mentioned nothing of what the Emperor had said and nothing of her offer.

Lanna tried to be kind to Epen, knowing the man suffered in truth. Frez hovered, ever at her side. She had only to wince with a slight headache and he would return her to her room to lie in the dark.

Those hours alone were a torment. Her thoughts turned. Was this a grand manipulation? Lanna still hadn't got the truth on what the presence in her mind was. It was a person, Lanna knew that much. A person that had asked her to free them.

Why had she not tried? Why had she done nothing to aid someone in need? Lanna knew the answer. She was afraid – afraid of what the presence was and of how it affected her. Chowa said if she took the implant, the presence would fade. Was that another lie?

Lanna didn't like that idea. Its warning rang. Refuse – lies. It wanted something from her too. Liberation. Would it lie to her to achieve that?

Then there was Ashioto. His attitude had fooled her, just as it had the entire palace. He had ambitions and drive. How he must have laughed at her judgement of him. She didn't know him at all.

Then there was Chowa. Chowa, who had ripped her from her family, taken her from her happy life in obscurity and thrown her at the feet of the palace as a diversion. A diversion that she could mould into something to secure her place and let her continue her life's work. Well, Chowa had never lied about that. But even now Lanna was sure Chowa held back the full truth.

She was at a loss. There was no one to trust.

The days dragged on with her in limbo, so unsure of all around her. Lanna felt the isolation as keen as a fleem blade in her heart. Clanspeople couldn't function in solitude. Her appetite waned and it wasn't long before sharp dark eyes saw this.

Lanna scrubbed the benches as another warm, rain-filled day ended. Drained, and lethargic, she looked forward to her sleeping mat. When she slept, her mind didn't swirl with confused questions. A knock on the door made her sigh, then steel herself. Someone could be hurt and need Chowa's assistance.

Her eyes were greeted by a boy, a novice official in black. Two red bands on his arm declared him apprenticed to the treasury. He wouldn't look her in the eye and thrust a sealed bamboo scroll into Lanna's hands before scurrying away. Perhaps he worried about staying too long? Someone might decide a prepubescent boy may be a threat to the succession and unman him.

Shaking her head, she closed the door and thumbed open the seal, pulling off the ribbon. Inside was a short message from Ursula, written in common Imperial for Lanna's benefit.

He takes his place, and it is the economy he turns his eyes to first. Thank you, Li-hem. Should you need my assistance, you have it.

'I did nothing—'

Chowa's voice cut off her denial. 'You think you have no influence in this place? You play the game, do you not? The ripples are felt,' Chowa said, having shamelessly read over Lanna's arm. 'You have allies in high places and the Emperor asking for your opinion.' Chowa spun away and turned to a shelf, then placed the implant box on the bench Lanna had just cleaned.

'You are an asset, of that there is no denying. If you wish to continue as you are, I will not mention this ever again.' She gestured to the small silver box. 'If you do take this, however, and it works as I hope...' She trailed off, looking into Lanna's light blue eyes. 'Then you will be indispensable. Think of the influence you will have. Think of all those you could aid.'

Chowa turned away again and took something flat from her sleeve. It was a tiny, rounded metal lump, combined with a hard, blue coloured substance. The surface bore chips and a network of cracks.

Chowa reverently placed the lump on the bench and beckoned Lanna. Lanna bent to oblige, her attention riveted to the thing. It would fit in the palm of her hand. Everything about it was unfamiliar, from its angled edges to the matt blue material, as bright as lapis lazuli but with no tool marks or signs of polishing.

Chowa looked at Lanna's face as she pressed the sides of the device. A crackling voice spoke in strangely accented Southern.

'This is... Franklin.

'New Dresden has fallen. Repeat, New Dresden has fallen. Casualties are... beyond counting. A firestorm caused by green light. It's the new weapon; it must be. A... of h... HQ, please advise? Repeat, please advise?'

The woman's voice faltered. Even over the centuries that must have passed, Lanna could hear the terror in her voice as she tried to make her report. The device crackled, and the woman's voice returned, sounding empty and lost.

'No, there are no survivors. My squad was late to muster due to a skirmish. We... we saw it all... I-I don't know what to do...'

Lanna felt something warm run down her face and drop onto the wood below. The device cut off and the only sound in the workshop came from the bubbling formula in the condenser apparatus behind her.

The histories... she knew of this event. New Dresden. The first city of the conflict to be wiped out. The reports of Jane Franklin peppered the accounts of events, but this was her voice. Lanna's ancestor. Not the hero of war she had learnt about by the fire at night, but a woman frightened and at a loss. Her voice held no hope. What must she have thought as she saw green death rain from the sky?

Lanna realised she was crying, moved by a voice long dead, for losses that had echoed down the years and been instrumental in the formation of her people and culture.

Chowa didn't need to say anything. She took the voice device away and went back to her laboratory while Lanna cried like a child, hugging herself. She had never mourned those the histories recorded. They were numbers. Statistics she had learnt and recounted.

Now she wept for them all, and for herself.

People like her had been created in a desperate time. Was not her own time desperate? Should she not do all she could to make the sacrifice of those gone before worthwhile?

'We lived,' she said in a small voice, to the heavy stone ceiling. 'It wasn't all for nothing. We survived.'

An item from the archive. This was Chowa's last gambit to convince her.

'Well played, Chowa,' Lanna said, laughing through her tears. 'I give up.' She no longer doubted. If she could help, she should. If Ashioto wanted reform and progress, then she would assist.

The dead demanded it.

She ignored the faint whisper of warning in theback of her mind.