Sacrifice
Old kingdoms have risen – is that why she’s here?
She, child of queens-turned-entities, is an embodiment of kingdoms. Or she is supposed to be. Craft said as much, telling tales of the Deserts. You’re like them, she said, you’re good.
Is she?
She hasn’t had a chance to be anything but good, kept in her sterile life, as it’s been. She’d left Beqanna, when she’d had the chance, but had returned – as most of them do – pulled back by some magnetic field, the way monarchs migrate, pulled by something so deep and intrinsic that even generations who have never seen their homeland know what path to go.
Old kingdoms have risen – but not hers. Not the one she is supposed to be meant for.
You’re good, she thinks to herself. And she certainly looks the part, gold as she is, able to shift herself into something even more beautiful. An angel in her bones, the sands at her beck and call, she’s a thing made for a dead kingdom and now adrift.
She goes to the river. She likes the abundance of water, likes the richness of it.
She steps in, the water splashing at her ankles, her knees. She imagines stepping in further, letting the current take her, carry her somewhere else – all the way to the sea, maybe, where she could be lost in its vastness.
But she doesn’t go further. Not yet. She stands, quiet, and lets the cool water soothe her.