I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it's left me blind
She had thought about not coming. She is young, certainly. Too young to have considered it, she thinks. But she does not know how not to answer Isilya’s call. It is not a matter of obedience but a matter of allegiance. Because she owes the magician queen her life, she knows. Her mother had never been shy in explaining to Astra how they had labored through the lands of Beqanna in search of the magician hours after Astra’s birth. And Astra can still taste her mother’s desperation like something caught at the base of her throat. The grief that had twisted through the both of them when her mother had realized that she was hurting the child, burning her from the inside, and how she could not feed her in the hours after her birth.
Isilya had saved them both.
So, she is young and she has no business making the journey across Tephra to the meeting Isilya has called. Trailing after a soft-petaled bird the same way her mother had once, she is only strong enough to follow because Isilya had made her so.
She emerges in the clearing to find two others flanking the queen. A girl roughly her own age and an older stallion. Immediately, the other filly’s enthusiasm slides down her throat and curls itself into the cage of her ribs. Tempered only by the stallion’s softness. A kind of wariness that cancels out whatever the other filly is filling. And, again, Astra is left to wonder what emotions are hers and what emotions belong to the others in the clearing.
She is still learning how to protect herself from the emotions of others.
She has no business being a ruler, as young as she is. But she steps forward anyway, smiling softly, shyly at the other two before she addresses Isilya directly. “I’d like to help any way I can,” she tells the queen. “I think I could learn to be useful, to make you and my mother proud.” She nods, unaware of just how good and fair a rule she herself would be.
