An Elegy of Heroes

by K. S. Villoso

  “The girl in your story. Priests didn’t take her.”

  “You’re right. I remember now.” He gives another grunt. “Curious, now that I think about it. They should’ve come for her. She clearly had the gift. Mages, you say.”

  You stop. I hear the wind again, whistling as if they are rushing through trees the way they do in my dreams, back when we shared those dreams together. “It’s a Dageian word,” you tell him.

  “The Dageians always want everything,” he replies. “Our words. Our lands. Our lives. And now they’re at our doorstep.”

  He falls silent. We hear other voices. Your heart speeds up, and I realize that deep inside of you there still exists a part that could hope and feel. You are looking for something, that same thing I look for in you now that the dreams are over. I have no name for it; I only know the feeling as it burns deep inside the both of us.

  In one of the dreams we used to share, I would sit on your lap by a window and just watch the sun rise over the sea, your heartbeat like a lullabye. Sometimes we would be alone, and I would get the chance to just sit with you and let you stroke my hair while I gazed out of the open window. The stars were always so beautiful—yellow pinpricks against the blue-black velvet of the sky. I imagined they were other souls, disembodied, weightless, looking down on us with longing and envy. Life is precious: cold, clear water down a parched throat.

  I remember one dream where another woman sat cross-legged on the rug in front of us. She looked like you—dark skin, dark eyes with long eyelashes, full red lips.

  “I had to do it,” I remember her telling you. “You wouldn’t listen to me. You wouldn’t listen to your father. The priests would’ve taken you away. They would’ve taken you away and we would’ve never seen you again.”

  “You could’ve told me. I could’ve been prepared, at least.”

  “And what would you have understood, as little as you were? How was I supposed to explain such a thing to you?”

  “I would’ve at least understood enough to know that my mother cared. You sold me to a Dageian, Mother!”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “He treated me like a slave. The things he did to me…if I had not run away, I—”

  The other woman got up and approached us. I curled my hand on your knee, staring at her, creased face, greying hair, unshed tears brimming in her eyes. “I didn’t sell you,” she said. “I wouldn’t have done such a thing. I loved you, child.”

  You turned away, frowning.

  “He almost didn’t want to take you,” the old woman continued. “But the priests would’ve stolen everything that makes you who you are and turned you into something else. The only life in Gaspar for the gifted is a life of servitude. They would’ve made you into a weapon for the Holy King. It’s not Gaspar’s fault—we do what we must to defend ourselves. It’s why Gaspar has never fallen to Dageis in all these years. But not you. I couldn’t give you up for that.”

  “And so instead you sent me to the enemy.”

  “To save you,” she said, her voice growing desperate. “Gaspar has more than enough warriors at her beck and call. I would not have you be one of them. I couldn’t bear it.”

  “For our people, I would’ve gladly become a weapon,” you replied. “You don’t know what it means to try to carve your life in a strange place when you would rather be home. To live among people who look at you as something less than them, no matter how well you excelled in their little games. They look at me and all they see is a Gasparian trying to be Dageian, nothing more. And now I can’t be home. Ever. As far as our people is concerned I am a Dageian now, Mother, which means I belong nowhere.”

  She touched your face with the back of her hand. “You make it sound like it’s the worst thing in the world.”

  “It is. The Dageians are our enemy.”

  “And you hate them so much?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “And him?” She glances at me briefly. “The power in him is stronger than yours ever was. Don’t tell me you won’t try to protect him as I have tried to protect you.”

  You turned to me then, silent for a long time. And now I remember that this was our last dream together. Maybe that’s why I recall it so well—every detail. The way your eyes looked. The fear that stirred in the pit of my stomach.

  “He’s more Dageian than I could ever be,” you managed to say. “This war will go on for years. They will use him. I can’t give them that power.”

  “He is your son.”

  “Should I let the Dageians have their way with him the way they did with me? Should I let them use him to destroy our people? I still love Gaspar. I can’t willingly hand them the thing that will turn the tide in their favour.”

  “So instead you will use him to destroy them.”

  “Use him? Mother. We will work together to protect Gaspar from Dageis once and for all. And then maybe we can all be free.”

  “You are asking too much from an unborn child. Your man, the father…does he have no say at all?”

  “He will support me on this.”

  “Will he?”

  “He loves me, Mother.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “Mother, I—”

  The dream ended there.

  I wake up now to the memory of it, recalling the fear in your voice and wondering at the worries that must’ve gnawed at you all this time. I don’t know where we are or what we are doing here, but the walls of your flesh is getting too close, too cramped, too suffocating. I am ready to leave this darkness and be by your side.

  Somewhere on the other side, I hear you scream.

  I have heard you scream before—at servants back home when you lived with that man, when they would burn a meal right before a gala or ruin the man’s clothes before a forum. This is nothing like that. This is anguish, and the sound sends a shiver up my spine and a dagger through my heart. I kick at the walls, trying to reach you, trying to tell you I am still here. I am here! Let me comfort you, even if you will not do the same for me. Let me…

  “Who killed her? Who?” you scream, and I hear rain falling, the sound of sloshing mud.

  “We found her like that…” a woman’s voice calls out. “You need to calm down. There is nothing more you can do for her.”

  “I find my mother in an unmarked grave and you tell me to calm down?” you cry out. “My brothers—where are they? My father?”

  “They were sent to the frontlines when news of the war first broke out.”

  “They’re dead too, aren’t they?” There is bitterness in your voice.

  “There’s nothing more you can do for them. I suggest you sit down before you hurt yourself. Think about your child.”

  Footsteps. I feel a tingle run down my arms.

  “Tell me what happened to my mother,” you say in a voice that has gone dangerously cold.

  There is silence for a few moments, a silence heavy enough to break walls, with the potency of poison. I hear you take a deep breath and then hold it inside.

  “It was the men,” another woman finally blurt out. “They were drinking, and then someone started blaming her for…for…”

  “For what?”

  “For being a Dageian sympathizer,” the woman manages. “They said they know what she did to make that Dageian smuggle you across the border all those years ago. They called her a traitor and a whore.”

  “He killed her for that?”

  “They followed her out into the night. We don’t know. We thought everyone had gone home. And then we found her in the morning…”

  “Murdered. Defiled.”

  “Come to my house. Have some tea. This is not good talk for someone in your condition.”

  “I am going home.”

  “Home doesn’t exist anymore. Up there is an empty house, and…”

  “I am going home,” you repeat. There is a finality in your voice that they must have paid attention to, because suddenly there is silence again.

  I hear som
ething creak—a door, I think. I turn to my side as I feel you shuffle indoors. The sound of the rain is gone. You sit on a chair.

  I expect you to weep, but you don’t.

  The days pass. The walls tighten. Waves come and go around me. I can feel your pain with each one.

  There is one marked difference, one that happened since that night you learned about your mother and found yourself home at last. You have started to sing again, the same lullabyes you once did way back when things were better. You still don’t touch me, but at least you sound happy. I wonder at that. Has someone visited you while I slept? Or perhaps you have seen something, heard something that eased your heart. It makes me happy to hear the spring in your step. You have been so sad the last few days and you deserve all the joy in the world.

  “What have you been doing, locking yourself up there?” the raspy voice of a woman calls out one day. “The midwife says it’s only a matter of time. Come and live with me for a while.”

  “I’m perfectly fine,” you say. Her voice upsets you, and I want her to leave you alone.

  “Is this your first one? Childbirth is no easy thing. And there’s—”

  The door creaks open. I hear one footstep, and then no more. “It smells something foul in here!” the woman continues. “What in the Holy King’s name have you been doing? You’d think this was a slaughterhouse!”

  “Leave.”

  “The others are getting suspicious. They think you’re up to no good here, that the Dageians have filled your head with nonsense. They haven’t forgotten how you left, Nuthatch—”

  “Naijwa. My name is Naijwa. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  “Well, Naijwa,” the woman continues. I hear a grit in her voice, as if she is determined not to drop the conversation even if it’s the only thing she wants to do. “I’ll be honest with you. After what happened to your mother, it’s foolishness to stir suspicions like this. I don’t think they’ll dare call the priests this time. They’ll put matters into their own hands.”

  “Good,” you say. “Let the murderers come forward.”

  “And then what? How will you fight them? You can barely stand.”

  “Are you done lecturing me?”

  “Your mother was my friend, Naijwa. You don’t have to mourn her alone.”

  “Thank you. You can go now.”

  I hear the other woman pause, breathing loudly. I hate her for upsetting you. Everything was so peaceful before she interrupted you, and then…

  A wave again. You crumple down, heartbeat getting louder, stronger. But you don’t cry out in pain, and my attention drifts to the chaos happening around me, to the darkness threatening to choke me. Darkness. Outside, footsteps. “I’ll call the midwife!” the woman screams, right before you slam the door behind her.

  You bolt it.

  There is a pressure on top of my head. My shoulders hurt, and my neck. I feel as if I am covered by a tight blanket, one that grows smaller, wrapping me inside of it. I want—need—to break free.

  “Not long now,” I hear you whisper, and there is something in your voice that calms me. “Not long,” you croon, and it is enough for me, the return of that warmth, the sweet honey of those tones. My own heartbeat slows. I allow the darkness to come closer. You could call me to death and I will follow, Mother.

  I hear a pop and feel warm fluid gush around me. You scream now, more gut-wrenching than when you saw your mother’s corpse. I open my eyes, truly open it for the first time. It burns briefly. And then I see light coming from a lamp near the window and the rafters on the ceiling. I also see the flames from candles. There are so many of them, on the table and on the floor. They look like hundreds of tiny little eyes.

  I try to turn and realize there is nothing holding me to you now, nothing but air. Fear strikes me. I open my mouth and a cry tears its way out of my own lungs.

  But it is over as soon as it begins. You bend over and pick me up. I see you now, for the first time. You are as lovely as you appeared in my dreams. I can smell the sweet stench of the sweat on you, the tinge of milk that hasn’t come yet. I turn to nuzzle your neck as you press me against your body, ignoring the sea of blood around us. Is that normal for you to be so covered in blood? Is it all right for you to have that gaping hole in your belly? Do mothers often have daggers in their hands when they embrace their child for the first time?

  “I’m sorry,” you whisper to me. Blue light surrounds us, and the flames from the lantern and the candles begin to dance.

  I don’t know what you did or what you are doing, but I forgive you.

  You are with me as we tear the houses down with my claws, me and all the others that join us as we kill them all. The stench of death, of blood and urine and feces, fills our nostrils, invigorates us like the nourishing milk of a mother’s breast. We feed on the pain, on the suffering, on the fears. And why shouldn’t we? Do the living not feast on these very things as well?

  The only time we pause is when the man and his friends arrive. He is a stranger, but also somewhere in the back of our heads we think that we knew him, that we would be sad to see him go. He looks at us with tears in his eyes.

  “What have you done, Naijwa?” he asks.

  What have we done?

  Only what was necessary.

  Only what the world has forced us to.

  His friends come, wielding spells and power. We frighten them, but they also frighten us. We try to run. They tear at us with blades and hot, white fire, and I pull back for a moment to look for you in the midst of the chaos. I see your shade in the corner, unmoving, distant. Is this not what you wanted? You have nothing to worry about. I know what you meant for me to do. I know why I’m here.

  Let me sing that lullabye for you, Mother. Let me sing it to the world. Everything will be all right.

  Acknowledgements

  The Agartes Epilogues was my unsellable fantasy debut series, and so I was prepared to walk this road on my own when I started out.

  But sometimes, when you’re lucky, you don’t have to. Sometimes you find people, or they find you, and the sky suddenly seems brighter, the burden all that lighter.

  It’s been almost two years since Sapphire’s Flight was first self-published; four since Jaeth’s Eye was first released under an indie press. To say that it’s been quite a journey is an understatement. I learned a lot of things, came to a lot of realizations. One of which is that luck hides in the strangest places, and sometimes all you need is to listen to those signs to convince yourself to keep going. Sometimes that’s all you need.

  I want to of course continue thanking my team of editors, betas, and cheerleaders, whose passion and dedication to this craft is pretty much a weapon of destruction. Ash (also the artist of the wonderful first edition covers of this series), Quenby, Mandy, Chey, Bo, Sheena, and to the other members of our writing group who have stayed with us through thick or thin—I wouldn’t be a fraction of the writer I am today without you. Your loving critiques, your encouragement, your deft understanding of the craft, but most importantly…your willingness to listen to my rambling even when I’m falling apart…has been instrumental. Write, they say, even if the world doesn’t listen, even if you’re alone…but you were there from the beginning, so I was never alone.

  And now, to the people I’ve met along the way, who somehow gave my work a chance despite the overwhelming signal-to-noise ratio of the self-publishing world. Dawn of Grey Cat Author Services, Dani of Book Geeks Unc., the famous Esmerelda-Weatherwax of r/fantasy fame, and BookWol: you four were the first to really make me feel as if what I write had value. Dawn, incidentally, was the first ever reviewer for Jaeth’s Eye, and she sent me a private message after she’d read the book: "You have something amazing here...this is worth fighting for." Dani and her brother Gregg, without making a big deal that my books were self-published, made a whole podcast episode discussing the series, which I listened to with goosebumps—it was the first time I realized my characters and world had jumped from my hea
d and into someone else’s. Esme single-handedly brought Jaeth’s Eye to the r/fantasy crowd’s attention, including BookWol, who jumped at the opportunity to help out with her (now very popular!) cocktail blog, saying, “I may just be screaming into the void, but I’m going to damn well try.”

  And then there’s the rest. I’ll run out of room if I mention everyone, so I’ll have to stick with The Fantasy Inn Blog and co. (you know who you are), r/fantasy, and The Terrible Ten and the Filipino Writers’ groups. Guys, you read my books, recommended them, encouraged me, offered me guest spots in your websites, swapped with me for mailing lists, etc. The little things add up. The world runs on little things.

  I also want to give my thanks to Mon Macairap, who took care of the artwork for the omnibus, and Wilfred Cabrera, who brokered this relationship.

  Last but not the least, my most sincerest thanks to my partner and best friend Mikhail, who has built all of this with me the past 18 years. “You were always going to make it,” he told me recently. “It was only a matter of time.” I don’t know what “making it means,” in the grand scheme of things—I just know that I’m content to be in a place where I can share my work to the world, and have this wonderful support system in place. There were so many ways this could’ve gone wrong, and as such, it is a privilege to be heard. Consider myself forever grateful.

  A mass murderer's daughter, abandoned wife, and Queen of a divided land: the perfect catalyst for war.

  In a nation of lost glory and fallen cities, mad dragons run amok and warlords bristle under the guise of peace. Now a woman must stop the ruin she helped create, but how do you fight what you are fated to fail?

  Check out K.S. Villoso’s flagship series Annals of the Bitch Queen, beginning with

  The Wolf of Oren-yaro.

  Publishers Weekly Starred Review calls it a “...remarkable tale of nonstop tension, action, and betrayal. This excellent work will appeal to all readers of epic fantasy.”