In Eden's Shadow

by Amanda Churi

  Mabel sighed in exhaustion, looking back at their small gathering with much concern. She sheathed her sword within her suit, cautiously approaching Seek through the burning forest. Seek purposely kept her eyes down, even when Mabel took a knee beside her. What was she going to say? What could she say?

  Mabel could not meet her gaze either, only finding the strength to grip Seek’s shoulder. “Seek… I’m so, so sorry…”

  Whether that deserved a slap or a hug, Seek couldn’t decide, so she ignored her—looked up at the smoky sky and listened carefully. Humming motors lurked beyond their line of sight, hidden within the layers of clouds, but their roars weren’t retreating. “Something isn’t right… Why did they suddenly run? We weren’t winning…”

  Eero scoffed. “Don’t know, but I guess my astounding strength was too much. After all, it made that purple cloud rain himself.”

  “…Of course, that was it,” Korbu grumbled.

  “Maybe Typo just saw the odds weren’t in his favor once we showed up,” Mabel offered thoughtfully. She squeezed Seek’s shoulder a bit tighter. “Regardless, they’re leaving, right?”

  Seek did not answer, pulling Sybil closer and focusing on the slick, still sky that slowly began to change its ancient appearance. From the overlapping dust and vaporized blood, something awfully similar to the beautiful sun reached for the rebels, capturing her complete attention.

  It calmed Seek for a moment, making her think that some miracle had happened and freed the legendary star, but it only took an instant more before she knew it was anything but, screaming bloody murder as the sun fell for a second time.

  Fourteen

  Ascension

  “Please, Lord, bless us in these difficult times… Bring back the rain, I beg … Lessen the winds, I cry… Quell the heat, I scream… Destroy this famine—”

  “Just give us food!”

  She remained composed for a moment, hands folded and directed at His greatness before her patience waned, and she opened a single eye to glare at her little brother.

  Like her, he was on his knees, but he kept his forehead to the thatch rug. Yes, ok, he was young, but at ten years old, he should have known not to be so direct. Still… His defined ribs pushing through his dark skin told all, as did the knobs of his knees engulfed by starvation. His spine tried so hard to break free that, when bowing, he was a cat on guard. What was once a meadow of black hair now held a charcoal tint from malnourishment, but the fibers held on tight, nearly all to protect him from the ferocious sun looming beyond their shelter.

  A good look at her brother crying while he had his try at praying renewed her fleeting faith. With a deep, broken sigh, she reformed her hands and finished a now altered prayer. “God… I know my faith is not the strongest, but please… If You do exist as I have heard, as I have tried to believe for so long, then please… Give me a sign. Show me that You hear our cries and that You have not abandoned us.”

  Sniffles cracked the air beside her. “Just please in the form of food…”

  His innocence and despair only clenched her heart tighter; she called it quits there. “Yes, food would be especially wonderful… As they say, amen.”

  “Amen…” her brother echoed. With a drawn-out exhale, he opened his eyes and sat up straight, staring ahead at the small fire burning toward the back of the shabby hut. Ringed with stone and stocked with dried reeds, it burned majestically, filling their abode with a light, delectable scent that only brought torment to their insides.

  Neither sibling spoke, reflecting on what they would soon lose. The thin skins of butchered beasts surrounded them on three sides, their backs to the open world that they so deeply regretted being part of. The hides that were strung together with thread and wound about wooden stakes helped to mask the scorching heat, but patches of sunlight continued to find flaws and squeeze through. The fire did not help the temperature either, but the sister had insisted—after all, if she wanted her wishes answered, they had to sacrifice, and humbly at that.

  Beside the dancing embers, she reached out, grabbing a withered stalk of wheat. She stared long and hard, her stomach crumbling with temptation; her brother experienced the same inward battle, a drop of drool weaseling out of his mouth.

  “This may not be much,” the girl shamefully admitted. “I know of people who sacrifice the finest of their herd, even children, but to me…” She painfully released the stalk into the young flames. “This is a piece of my lifeline.”

  Just because her brother had gone along with the ritual did not mean he was satisfied, and the way his chapped lips twisted when the wheat incinerated only reinforced that. “Amazing. I feel even emptier after all of that.”

  She winced but tried not to take it personally. “Hey… Come on, I had to try.”

  He irritably shoved his knuckles into the dusty floor. “I do not see why. It is only rumors, Tah. Why do you have to risk everything to try and impress an idol? Her existence is proven; His is not. Stop trying already.”

  Her gray, scorched eyes widened in disbelief; she had to stand up to remain calm and avoid striking him. “Toboé, I do not know why I continue to seek Him. I just know that I have to believe in something—in something just, and I have to have faith… Faith in something hard to find.”

  Toboé crossed his arms and mumbled beneath his breath as he got to his feet, kicking a mountain of sand into the fire to smother it. Continuing to wallow in enraged pity, he snatched up his knapsack and briskly headed on out.

  Tah did not even bat an eye or feel a twinge of guilt as she followed him out into the harsh climate, wrapping her neck and short hair in a white veil. The shift in temperature was staggering, quickly sapping a large portion of energy as it always did, but it did not burn her skin; the terrain had permanently encased her in a layer of brown dust that was far more dull than the radiant bronze hues of her tribe.

  Heads did not turn to her as she trod through the sticky sand, the thick calyces on her feet creating barriers between skin and solid fire. Most faces remained down, particularly those kneeling at the cracked river bank while filling up a small fraction of their pots. Crops which once flourished among the shore had withered away, the last survivors being plucked and added to a pathetic-sized pile.

  But of the few eyes raised, she was not the target. As a potential heir, Toboé received the utmost respect in spite of his age, not to mention the fact that he was a spitting image of their tribe and culture. Tah trying to expand his viewpoints while he was still young and open-minded was not taken well by the rest of the people, especially because of her sex, and ever since her interest in the Father appeared, she had been branded as an outcast. The only reason she had not been exiled was simply because of her blood.

  Her tie to her father, the chief, was her safety net, but even so, the personal feelings of the tribe had marked her. She was never given her share of food nor looked out for in any way; if she wanted something, she had to work for it herself. The only slight interest shown in her came from men—those who had a perverted way of seeing good and saw Tah as a potential pleasure point on legs.

  Toboé walked on without giving a word to the many passerby, scrunching his nose and giving the strap of his pack an anxious tug as he picked up the pace. She didn’t know why he was always so humble about his position; she would have begged to be seen as important and even more so to talk to someone outside her immediate family.

  The hot breeze carrying the dry sand made the short walk pass by Tah in a blur, turning her into the mirage that she was amongst her never-to-be people. It swirled and tugged at her ankles, trying to throw her down, but with a hand suppressing her thin dress, she proceeded.

  Pentagrams created with dead reeds and tinder hung within the passing, portable abodes of the tribe. Each put a chill into Tah’s overheating heart, especially when they passed through the center of the village, where the blackened skull of an old horse was buried in a nest of fresh ash.

  She understood the importance of offerings and
sacrifices, but knowing that it was to please the village god, Reeve, sickened her.

  The god’s presence seemed to have flocked across the barren land overnight. Rumors of her cruel tactics and mercilessness brought respect out of fear. As a superior spirit of a fractured world, the cattle disguised as humans took to her as their shepherd without a discontented bleat—in fact, Reeve’s darkness renewed them, reviving something Tah had never seen amongst her family.

  And, of course, Tah taking to the opposite side of her tribe’s religion did not go over well; the true God was the Devil, and the Devil was God.

  The watching eyes of the ice queen followed Tah until she and Toboé came upon their destination with a hesitant pause. The fickle, drained reeds of the frame bent in the torrential gusts while the thick skins slapped and flapped. The torches mounted out front on stakes were black and devoid of fire; a curtain draping the entrance kept out dust and peasants.

  The siblings allowed the wind to batter them in silence. Even with the heat, the location and reality of the situation made the chill in Tah’s heart reach out and gorge her skin. Groaning with complaint, she anxiously tugged on her veil, lowering her head to await her young brother’s orders.

  In the howling gales, she heard Toboé’s feet depart from her fleeting world, and he went under the tarp, leaving her to the storm. She did not break her stance. She mesmerized herself by watching the rough sand pile over her feet, keeping her voice where it belonged. Toboé had little faith in her beliefs and ways of thinking, but that smidge was the largest of any around her. In the presence of the higher-ups, her words were nothing but a nuisance, forbidden not by written law but tradition.

  It could have been minutes or hours that she stood there like a doormat, allowing rules and customs to reign over her life. She had taken to counting grains of dirt when the flap to the entrance lifted, and her awareness surged—but her head was still down.

  “Father agreed to the viewing.”

  Toboé’s statement graciously relieved Tah of her stance. Stiff, she fixed her face upon his, but he only held it for a moment before turning back inside.

  Mindful of her inferiority, she stayed in close tow, dipping beneath the pelt and stopping just short of the exit. Her entire living bloodline was there, along with those who loomed at the top of their tribe’s social hierarchy. The first sight she took to was her father.

  Sprawled across the earth on a bed of itchy hay he lay, fading away in body and mind. His bronze-tinted skin had never seen such light hues, nor had the framing of his face been so close to being exposed to the outer world. His black hair resembled a tumbleweed, the wiry strands of his long beard beading with sweat. The old eyes remained shut, but the heart continued to beat, however insignificant its strength may have been. A translucent stretch of white silk reached over his degrading body, giving him a sense of decency without the burden of heat.

  All eight of her brothers were present, encircling their father with folded legs, but Tah remained standing beside the entrance as did her mother. Three of her father’s closest advisers kneeled at his head, keeping constant watch. One kept a jar of water near, dabbing her father’s head with a soft cloth; another prayed to Reeve for mercy on his soul, and the third simply sat back, waiting for the last breath.

  Perhaps Tah was supposed to feel guilty, some oncoming grief for her father’s approaching death, but there was nothing—just a void inside unable to be filled by words he never gave her, let alone love.

  Her eldest brother kept hold of her father’s wrist, eyes closed and lips accepting the blessing that the chief was too weak to verbally give. The eldest was in his mid-twenties, a prime age for rule, but even so, the fact that even her ten-year-old brother received such ample respect…

  Her knuckles cracked beside her. So, he would allow her to see his fickle, fleeting body, but not even attempt to offer up a goodbye? He was no father—just a donor of seed.

  “Tah…”

  She looked at her mother. Her worn face was unusually tense, the wrinkles invisible as they shared a stern glance.

  “Hey!” the chief’s underling bellowed. “Silence from you!”

  Tah’s mother veered her stone-face to the man. “Avis, my children are losing their beloved father. Can you not see that I am trying to comfort my stricken daughter?”

  Stricken? Tah queried. As if.

  “Then do it outside! Do not burden the chief’s last moments with your pointless blabbering! Get!”

  Her mother bowed, tugging on Tah’s wrist and leading her out without explanation.

  When they were safely beyond the house of men, Tah let her thoughts run free. “What were you speaking of, mother? You know my feelings.”

  “I know,” she acknowledged, continuing to guide her only daughter away through the desert. “But I needed to speak with you.” Satisfied with the distance between the hut and themselves, the mother stopped, turning Tah in to face her.

  It was an odd moment for Tah, especially when her mother sincerely smiled. Her leathery hand cupped Tah’s sharp cheek, her long, graying hair blowing over Tah’s shoulders. “Dear, it is time.”

  What is she speaking of? “For?”

  The joyous peaking of her mother’s closed eyes confused Tah all the further. “For you to prove your worth. Your father is passing, love—worsening at frightful speed. We both know that the safety I have been able to secure for you will no longer be guaranteed when your brother takes rule.”

  A stone settled in Tah’s heart; its next throb hurt unlike any before. She could see it was out of kindness, but that did not lessen the brunt of what she was being told. “You want me gone…?”

  Her mother opened her eyes, revealing hers of an identical gray. “No, never. This is temporary, love. Your father desperately needs medicine that we are far too poor to afford—too isolated to obtain. If your father leaves us, Avis will most certainly take me as his wife. There will be nothing I can do to help you any longer, both in and out of the council. Your father is not the kindest, no, but at least he shallowly understands the concept of respect… Please, his time has not yet come.”

  Each dusty breath entering Tah’s clogged lungs hoped to bury her in all that she rose from—all that she was created to serve—but those clots gradually melted the clearer the predicament became, resulting in a stable, searching voice. “And how am I to obtain this remedy?”

  Her mother was not staggered nor troubled replying. “Virgins never fail to get a job done.”

  “WHAT?!” All composure lost, Tah knocked her mother away. She was huffing vehemently with burning fists, glaring at her mother as she landed harshly on her rump. There was nothing to say; the power behind Tah’s silent statement held such ferocity that the mother just stayed there, cowering at the sight of her released child.

  It took Tah what felt like forever to sift through her feelings and even longer to find the words. The betrayal was so hot and simmering that it couldn’t rest on her tongue a second longer. “How… Dare you… How… Dare you! Maybe purity is obsolete in Reeve’s eyes, but in my Father’s, it is precious! What, you thought that I would freely give up one of the few things that are mine in this world?! To save a father that I have no emotional ties to other than rue?”

  Her mother flailed in the sand, desperate for some sort of reconciliation. “He brought you into this world! He allowed you to stay despite your rebellious nature!”

  A scoff was inevitable. Tah questioned if her ears were even working correctly. “Rebellious? For thinking differently? For believing in something far more holy, sane, kind?”

  “For speaking of it! You can prance around within your head, but you do not let those thoughts reach the ears of men!”

  Tah’s fueled fingers felt like they were about to break off, and the force in her usually soft voice began to pry open her mother’s blind eyes. “I do not need someone to label me as property, unlike you… I am a wild mare, and I will not let a man change that. You fear not of father, but yourself
—what will happen if Avis claims you.”

  “B-but…” Her mother’s own body shut out her voice. She was stricken—with fear, despair, even hate. “Tah… It is not only that—”

  “But that is definitely the largest part.”

  Her mother managed to curl her restrained lips, but her head deceived her, relinquishing a brisk nod to her daughter. “Yes—what will happen to both you and me. Please… Your father let you remain here because of me. Return the favor and allow him to stay too.” Her head fell at Tah’s bare feet. “Please.”

  Tah tried to collect her scrambled, flying emotions that scattered the moment their cage broke. A weight tugged at her stomach while watching her mother’s head that would not rise. She could feel the hot water hitting her filthy, caked feet while the shivers of desperation from her mother infiltrated her own body. Still, her mouth remained shut; the only part of her that moved was her neck to point her nose up toward the sun.

  Why are we so incomplete? she wondered. All I see are kings and thieves around me… They try to rule my life, and what little I have, they try to steal away. Why should I settle here? For these accursed people who You will just one day turn to ash for their insolence?

  The sun’s glare forced Tah’s eyes to retreat and fall back upon her weary mother. The words working their way up stuck to her windpipe, but she pulled them off, hoping she chose correctly. “I will find a way to get the remedy as a retribution to you.”

  Her mother gasped, her torso flying up and eyes watering. “Thank—!”

  “But I want Toboé to come with me.”

  “…Toboé?” Her mother stood, distancing herself. “Why? He is only ten.”

  “Having a male of any age with me on my travels is better than none.”

  “B-but he is devout to your father! He would never agree to leave, especially as he lies on his deathbed!”

  Tah sighed with frustration. She closed the ground between them, resting a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Under normal circumstances, no… But like all children, he wants to be praised for what he does right; tell him that it is a mission only he can do, and he will go, especially if it is for father. Besides, he has at least attempted to understand me, unlike anyone else here; he is the only one I will even consider traveling with.” She brought her eyes back down. “Tell me where I must go, and I will obtain what you desire. But it will be on my terms, those terms, or I will not go.”