If only it was enough to reach her.
If only it was enough to dig into the core of her and pull her out from where she stands, the fires of her new powers whipping around her, blurring her vision. But even though the winds die down in the wake of his fevered kisses, even though her vision nearly clears, it cannot overpower the tsunami of magic that has taken a new life of its own within her. The magic that roars in her mind and molds her anew.
Into something dangerous and powerful and distant.
Into something that stares into the sun as she once looked at her family.
Pieces of her break when he proclaims his love and then refuses her offer. Pieces of her shatter beneath it, but they are beneath the current, so deep within the vast oceans of her that she can barely feel the aftershocks. She merely studies the way his lips feel against the dapples of her neck, the heat of it, the insistence of it. She wonders at the woman she had been who had gladly buried her head in the sand.
The woman who would have traded every injustice for just an hour in the afternoon glow of him.
Who turned a blind eye to the injustices caused by his own hands.
She can’t anymore; she can’t.
“I don’t hate them,” she says, her voice even, “but I will see an end to the cruelty.” She lifts her eyes again so that he can see the depths of her words when she says them, so that he can understand just how much she means them—the weight of it. “If that’s your decision, then I will let you make it.” A pause as she considers him. “But our children need to come here or be sent somewhere safe.”
She breathes in deep, feeling it settle into her lungs—all of the knowledge that now blooms in her.
“Return home then—go to your King and give him a message from me.” The ground beneath her begins to vibrate just barely and it rattles up through her as she inhales deeply. “Tell him he is to release every healer and every captive that he currently hoards in Loess and reverse every wrong done by the kingdom.”
It doesn’t matter who gave the first order. It doesn’t matter that the core of her loves the man who issued it. It doesn’t matter that it was an order given in the storm of the loss of his mind.
None of it matters so long as the ripples of it can be felt through Beqanna.
“Tell him he can choose that or the next time I return to Loess, I’m bringing the heavens down with me.”