Promise of Dusk (Endings #1)

Chapter 29

Mariana

The world is on fire.

I scan the horizon, invisible smoke in every mountain in the midnight skyline.

It’s there. I can’t see it, I just know.

Whispers at my back. Traitorous murmurs of replacement. Snakes in the grass grasping at my father’s seat that he left to no heir. A kingdom of dreams with no castle, no power, nor money, only a dying flame.

Their whispers mean nothing. My solemn silence at the front burns a trail through the grasslands of Suri.

The only thing that means anything to me is this task. Justice.

Reach the mountains, establish a place to put these hopes, some place that may hold them.

Then what?

I used to dream of traveling across the Great Salt Seas. I used to dream that my family would wander, unbroken, seeing everything. I wanted to see every bit of water that ever fell over a cliff-side. I wanted to see every animal that ever lived its quiet life of survival. I wanted. I wanted everything all the time. I wanted to know what it was to live and experience. I had so many dreams I never thought one single life could contain them all, but I would have tried.

Whatever demon holds my leash now wants nothing but justice.

“We need someone with strength.” “Someone wise; you barely know how to read.” “Someone with vision, Rhodri’s shared vision.” Their words ring in my ears. Three men vie for the opportunity to lead this mewling rebellion, squabbling amongst themselves.

Eldrick may be the obvious choice. He made a good showing of himself in the battle with the hounds and Crows. He knows it too. His arrogance grates at my raw nerves.

Osian is cunning. Exactly the kind that would have drawn my father’s eye to mentor and made my mother wary. His family always had new leather shoes and food that went to spoil. He is educated, far more than the others in town. Fair-haired but slender in build. He has been to the capital, felt its riches, fit right in with his soft hands. But he’s not cunning enough to defend his position from men that would take it.

Men like Tarrant. The smith’s son has dark features, large stature, and hands roughened by years learning to craft iron, making him a formidable opponent. Ruthless enough to challenge Osian and take his place like taking a toy from a child.

Their endless debate hammers at my walls of apathy long enough.

“None of you deserve to stand where he stood,” I rasp, stopping in my tracks and turning to face the men that follow behind me.

They stop, shocked at my input.

“Who would you back then, princess?” Osian sneers.

None of them can hold my stare as I go down the line. Every one of them is a weak man, desperate to be corrupted by power. They pretend to share looks with one another to avoid my bleak assessment.

“I would back someone with a brain and body to hold power. I would back someone who has even a shred of honor that my father had.” I hold the silence in my fist. “I see none of those things in you lot.”

Tarrant rolls his dark eyes and looks at me as one would look at a child. “This cause needs a head.”

“Obviously,” I reply dryly.

Eldrick speaks it to life, though his voice is full of doubt. “Are you suggesting you lead, Mariana?”

My mother, dead-eyed, shifts on her feet beside me. She has not uttered a word. She only walks silently beside me, occasionally brushing our shoulders. A reminder to both of us that we didn’t lose everything, it just feels like it.

I assess the rest of my audience. Our numbers are at half that of yesterday. Sara, her hand on her son’s head, looks at me with a speck of encouragement. Does she know the consequences? Does she know the price of choosing a woman as the leader of a movement so important?

“Only if people are willing to follow me.” My sentence hangs in the air, coloring it with disbelief. Sara nods at me though, and it feels like a maternal hand on my shoulder.

“Exactly why a woman cannot be allowed to lead. Do you wish to quash this movement before it even really begins?” Osian states, jaw fluttering in dislike.

“What is it? About me. What makes you think I would be a poor leader? And do try to come up with a better reason than what’s between my legs.” I look at my fingernails. They have blood under the whites. I haven’t cleaned them after the battle.

I hear scoffs from a few, far less than I had anticipated.

“Well for one, what would you do if someone tried to take it from you? Tried to kill you dead, just like your father?” Tarrant spits.

His words roar in my ears.

I look from my nails to him, cocking my head. I know he’s baiting me. He’s not the clever one.

“Would you like to try?” I whisper.

They all saw me fight. Saw the Crows that fell under my blade. None have had the guts to question my mother and I about it. I think most are just grateful to have people who know how to wield a blade, regardless of their gender. Tarrant’s arrogance gets the best of him in the best of times though, much more quickly when there is power on the line.

His smirk spells his confidence and his death. “Certainly, princess.”

The smile that crawls across my face is fueled by nothing but violent anticipation.

“Draw your blade. I’ll wait.” I look back at my nails.

It scrapes against its sheath.

I hear steps shuffle back in the grass from the spectators. My mother caresses one hand across my cheek as she turns to join the others. She’s not worried.

I don’t draw a weapon. I don’t need one.

His sword whistles through the air as I dance a step over, ducking under his slashing blow, landing behind him while he desperately whirls around to see where I went.

“It’s alright. You didn’t get a chance to warm up. Try again, princess,” I mock.

He might be decent with a blade against an ordinary opponent. He even held his own with the Crows. His every slash and thrust is swift and smooth, the blade an extension of himself. But he was not trained by the best assassins of an age. There is no comparison.

I lead the dance, blade never making a single moment’s contact.

I’m waiting for him to tire, performing to make a point.

His frustration makes him careless. So pitifully careless.

Using his own movement to trip him, I grab his arm, wrenching it behind his back, disarming and pinning him. I force him to his knees as he cries out in pain.

“Have I addressed the claims you’ve laid against me?” My voice is as dead as my heart.

“You fucking bitch! I’ll kill you.” He spits the words between pants.

I let the weak threat pass, unaffected. “An example needed to be made. Thank you for volunteering.” My voice, sweet as honey, sings to his cries.

I wrench his arm until I feel and hear the crack of his shoulder tearing from his socket. I kick him to the ground. Ignoring his screams, I pin him with my boot.

“Have you any other concerns?” I ask, benevolently.

He’s crying like a child now, gasping through tears.

Men. So unable to push through pain the way a woman can. However did we all become so deluded into believing women the weaker sex? Was it the muscles?

I leave him there, whimpering in pain, and turn to the rest of the group.

“Is anyone else wanting to test their hand against me? Or are you satisfied that issue is laid to rest?”

No one steps up, they only stare in wary admiration. I nod, satisfied.

“What else?” I ask Osian, cocking my head .

“It’s not just about what we think. What of the other leaders? The other kings, landowners, people with money—how will we ever gain allies when nobody could ever take you seriously?”

I look around, noting the nods. I nod with them.

Mom isn’t nodding. Sara isn’t nodding. Most women aren’t. They look disappointed. Pinned in a corner of societal expectation and narrative. They’ve taken the advice of the men and stopped asking for more. Look where their leadership has gotten us.

“Yes, that is a problem,” I state, looking back at Osian’s smug face. Sara stares at the ground, no doubt bracing herself to be disappointed. “I fear my father may not have been clear about what we are fighting for. Not clear enough. It needs to be known that we aren’t fighting to simply usurp a ruler. We are fighting for something more. We aren’t meant to simply survive—to scrape through each day and call that life. No man, nor woman, nor child, should be brought to that. If you don’t believe woman are worthy of representation, aren’t worthy to lead, perhaps we aren’t fighting for the same thing. Perhaps you would never ally with this movement to begin with. Perhaps they don’t belong here.” I look at Osian and Tarrant, looking down their noses at me. “Perhaps you don’t belong here. For what is freedom if it only extends to the few? What do you believe in, Osian? Should only the wealthy have this new world? People like your family. Only the men then? Where are your lines that you would draw? Who do they leave to rot? Would you have us all serve at your table? Would you have us at your feet?”

With that maneuver the tides change.

My mom even has the tiniest spark in her eye.

“Of course not,” he says, glaring back at me.

Eldrick pipes in, dog panting at his feet. “Your vision and approach, while admirable, may leave us destitute. May doom us all. May doom a revolution that has promise. Is it worth the risk?

“I think you'll find that we are not alone in our ideals. I think we will find that the masses probably have similar thoughts. Our circumstances were not wholly unique. We have lived under the same tyranny as many. We have seen the same injustices. Endured the same atrocities. It would be irrational to believe these same circumstances have not birthed a similar thought. I believe many outside of our party will want to fight this fight,” I assert, looking around at the rest of my people, seeing approval in the eyes of most. “I will not force anyone to follow me, just as my father wouldn’t. You may leave. Find another movement, push your own vision of a better world. But if you believe in mine, in my father’s, I would be most grateful to serve you as your leader.” I only wish my voice could sound more than bleak as I say the words that rally a revolution.

It’s Sara who speaks first, my speech seeming to have given her a leg-up as I elevated myself. “Everyone in favor?” She looks down at them all, finding her power in mine.

Suri is diseased. Something rotten spreads. Something greedy takes.

I ask myself what coin, unjustly taken, will be the last.

What gust of wind will be the one that topples a precariously perched empire?

As I look out at my people, I think it will be me.

My lips curl into a tiny smile, my first since my father fell.

And with their acknowledgment, even Osian, Tarrant, and Eldrick, we walk into the new dawn, a burgeoning flame, and I, their leader.

My mother says her first words since he died, “You’re just like your father.”