While Elka, Rowan, and a couple of the Turhmos soldiers keen to help in the kitchen and garden brought together a meal for them all, most of the rest of the group started digging a hole for the soldiers Llew had been unable to revive.
Although unused to being surplus to need, Jonas didn’t mind this time, since every ounce of energy he used cost Llew in blood. While she gave it willingly, he’d assured her he was better than he was after all she had already given to the injured and dead soldiers. He thought it likely he could manage until their usual evening transfer. Still, his muscles fatigued. He sat on the edge of the porch.
Anya was already there, with her knees up, her dress tucked down between them to preserve dignity, and her chin resting on her arms. Jonas had never seen Anya in such a pose. Llew did it all the time, her preference for trousers not a problem, while Anya followed the protocol for women she had been raised with; tidy dresses, upright posture, gentle tongue. She had also assured Llew she was fine, despite the clear haunted look in her eyes, and now sat watching her friend converse with the Ajnai trees. Jonas thought he understood that look. She had just died and lived again thanks to Llew’s magic. It wasn’t something you went through and carried on with life as you had been. It wasn’t something you could talk through with Llew either, not while you sat in debt to her. She wouldn’t see it that way, but Jonas certainly lived with it.
Llew placed a palm to a tree and stood a few moments in silence before moving to the next. Jonas understood that the trees spoke to her, though he doubted he would ever fully comprehend it. They certainly didn’t talk to him, even the one planted over his children was silent to him. Something in the Aenuk-Ajnai bond. Something Quaver, under Aris’s urging, had tried to destroy. So many lives lost – Ajnai trees, Aenuks, and the countless people that could have been saved by such a pairing – all for Aris to retain his own. And what had Aris done with that costly extended life? Retained control over a select few individuals with Syakaran power. To achieve what? To live and live and maybe one day regain his powers? And then what? Destroy all Aenuks and Ajnais simply so he could retain his immortality? It seemed the old man had so feared his own death he’d rather have watched the rest of the world burn than face it.
So, what had it all been for? Cowardice, as far as Jonas could tell. Cowardice and the lies formulated to protect it.
Gaemil returned from helping to dig the mass grave, pausing to look on Anya with concern. After dealing with the ambitions of Aris and Braph, there was something refreshing in seeing smudges of dirt the on the earl’s clothing and temple, and the dark lines of dirty fingernails. Jonas lifted his chin and gave Gaemil a reassuring wave. Gaemil gave a thin smile and stepped onto the porch to wash his hands at the water basin. Anya remained fixated on Llew.
Gaemil turned a worried look Jonas’s way once more and Jonas dismissed him with a casual smile. He reckoned he had this in hand, while Gaemil’s anxiety might clam Anya.
Gaemil headed indoors and Jonas shifted closer to Anya, ready to be an understanding ear if she was ready.
While she remained still, having not reacted to Gaemil’s arrival nor departure, Anya’s eyes shifted, noting Jonas’s attention before returning their focus to Llew. They glistened, with tears sitting in her lower lashes.
“Feels like we can never repay what she’s given, huh?” Jonas hazarded.
Anya ignored him.
After a time, she whispered, “It’s not that.” The first tear tracked down her cheek. She wiped it away with the inside of a wrist, sniffed, and returned her chin to her arms, still watching Llew. “I don’t know why I feel this way. I only know I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Yes, you are,” Jonas said it without thinking. He didn’t need to.
“I shouldn’t be, though. I don’t deserve it. I was so stupid. I know what she is, and she could easily have healed off an Ajnai. But I just ran out, head empty, and grabbed her hand. So stupid. And I know how she’d feel if she hadn’t been able to bring me back, which she shouldn’t have been able to do, but look at her. She’s a miracle. And me? A waste of space.”
Jonas looked at her, but she didn’t meet his gaze. “You’re not stupid. We all make mistakes when it comes to Aenuks. I spent years trainin’ to fight them safely, and I still got it wrong sometimes.”
“In the end, even though I knew she’d be sad, I made peace with it. I was ready to go and pay for my stupidity. And now I don’t know what to do.”
“Make peace with still bein’ here.”
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Anya looked at him. Blinked. “Don’t make it sound so simple. I’m wallowing.” This time, instead of returning her chin to her arms, she pressed her mouth into them. Stifling a laugh? Her eyes gave nothing away.
He considered a quip like ‘Wallow away’, but didn’t know how Anya would take it in the moment. It did seem simple to him. Anya was alive. Watching Llew reconnecting with her trees, he hated to think what kind of mess she’d be in if Anya had stayed dead.
“Llew needs you alive. Whatever else you gotta think or do to be okay with bein’ here, start with bein’ here for her. That’s all she needs from you.”
“Yes. I get it.”
“I know you like to make yourself useful; you need a worthwhile project. You’ve got one in Rakun. Brurun is a great and prosperous country unfortunate enough to share borders with both Turhmos and Quaver. It needs strong leadership now.”
“I’m hardly a leader.”
“But you’re part of that structure. You have a voice. At the very least, you bring Gaemil joy. I’ve never seen him happier than the day you arrived in Rakun. Start there.”
They sat, Jonas allowing Anya her wallowing and Anya doing just that, until she asked quietly, “What comes after this?” She lifted her chin and looked at Jonas, her eyes finally focused on that short distance. “There was nothing.”
“You’re never truly gone until a Syaenuk can’t bring you back. What comes after? That’s a mystery you’re fortunate to still live with.”
Anya blinked at him a few times, before setting her focus back on Llew. Or, at least, in Llew’s direction. “Huh.”
The Ajnai that had helped Llew do what shouldn’t have been possible – returned stolen ghi – still clung to life and assured her it could heal, given time. Through her touch, the Ajnais projected images and an emotional understanding as clear as if they had spoken. Despite appearances, these trees were young. They had yet to establish the connections the ancient Ajnai had achieved through its root system and relationships built with a range of underground life – other plant roots, fungi, and a myriad of tiny animals; beetle grubs and worms, millipedes and mites.
Some of these Ajnai had finally made contact between their roots, but the dead tree she’d used to heal Ard also meant the trees either side had farther to reach. It would take months yet for the entire row to be fully connected. Once they were, the potential for helping Aenuks would grow even faster. Llew asked them when they might sprout seeds so she could spread them even farther and was met with sadness. It could be hundreds of years before these trees could produce seeds. It just wasn’t something such traditionally ancient trees had to do at this stage in their life-cycle, and was usually only a process called on in the throes of death.
But it gave me seeds when I brought Jonas back.
The sense she got from the tree she was touching, quietly accompanied by the trees it had contact with underground, felt like a “Hmm” and a raised eyebrow. They had opinions about Kara. Opinions planted with each seed.
“It won’t get any better with attitudes like that. It’s not Kara that are the problem, it’s people who behave like Braph or Aris. It’s this—” She waved her hands at the tree. “—hate you won’t let go of. You disapprove of Jonas because of what he is, but he’s a man capable of learning, capable of looking beyond the hate he was born to, capable of loving me, despite a lifetime of learning hate.” Llew took a breath. “I get it, I do. The Kara nearly wiped you out, but that wasn’t Jonas’s doing. He’s dedicated to freeing the Aenuks now, and to planting more Ajnais, if that’s possible.”
Llew scanned the tree branches, but there was no hint they were about to produce seeds just because she wanted them to. That meant that when she and Jonas finally freed the Aenuks, there wouldn’t be Ajnai trees dotted all over the place to allow destruction-free healing. A fear of the potential devastation they might wreak fluttered Llew’s heart. Maybe freeing the Aenuks was the wrong thing to do? Such a thought sat uncomfortably in her gut. These were people she was thinking about. People capable of learning and making good decisions.
The memory of the devastation Llew had wrought in the Aghacian town of Stelt, and since, flitted through her mind along with the imagined demise of the little girl killed by Llew’s power. Yes, she had made mistakes. Devastating mistakes that she wasn’t sure she could ever balance. The other Aenuks would also make mistakes. Potentially deadly. But was that possibility worth their lifelong captivity?
Llew looked back to the homestead where Jonas sat beside Anya, where Merrid and Ard had lived, where they had housed Aenuks and given them the tools to step into the free world and remain undiscovered. How many Aenuks had the farmers equipped with such knowledge over the years? Probably not many, though they’d likely dreamed of freeing them all. That’s what Llew had to do. Bring Aenuks here, teach them what they needed to know to make it out there. Give them this base to return to if necessary, and send them out to the lives they deserved.
Vimes Art's website. It's an interesting process as we go from choosing poses, to finalising character stances (head angle, hand placement, etc), to working out colour swatches and balance, to the final detailed artwork.
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