The soft hum of rustling leaves awoke Anelle from her restless slumber.
Her room was gone. The walls were made of grey stones with dark lines running through them, wedged precariously together. Moss and vines clung between the crevices like glue.
A small cluster of stones lay next to a hole in the far wall. A slither of sunlight shone through the gap, leaving a pool of light on the floor.
Anelle climbed out of bed and looked through the hole. She raised her hand against the blinding sunlight. She could make out hedges and a stone path.
Something moved just out of her vision. She jumped, falling backwards.
In the centre of the hole was a lizard basking in the sunlight. It turned its head to the side, looking at her with its large yellow eye. The creature held her stare for a moment. Its mouth opened and its tongue lashed out and cleans its eye. It looked towards the gap in the wall and back at her, before waddling off the stone.
Anelle looked back at her bed with the thought of climbing back into it and ignoring this new place, of falling asleep and waiting till Yulin woke her. The last few days had been a whirlwind that uprooted her life yet again. But she remembered the fish and the flaming dancers under the ocean. Maybe this would give her answers?
She shook off her doubt and crouched in front of the hole. The hole was only just big enough for her to slip through.
On the other side she climbed to her feet and felt the warmth of the sun. It was a warmth she had never felt before, like the sun was far closer than it should have been. The stones were toasty against her bare feet.
Anelle stood on a path lined with tall hedges. The leaves rustled together and shifted in the wind.
Halfway up the path a long object stuck out from the leaves. It was covered in scales. It jerked and slithered into the bushes. Anelle jumped backwards. The memory of the snake dancer at the festival brought shivers down her spine. More memories of that night flooded her mind. Anelle pushed away the memories of Kae and continued forward.
At the end of the path was an old door set into a stone archway. The iron bands holding it together were more rust than metal. The lock had fallen away leaving a gaping hole.
The lizard reached the door, jumped and climbed up the wood grain into the empty keyhole.
Anelle pressed her hands against the door. It didn't move. She pushed harder, adding more and more pressure. The door wouldn't budge. She stopped a moment, taking deep breaths. Then leaned her shoulder against the door and used her whole body to push. The hinges screeched in protest. But only moved a few inches. The small triumph of movement spurred her on. Anelle kept pushing and the door swung wide.
She fell forward and kept falling.
The ground came up to meet her and the air was knocked out of her lunges. Pain exploded from her face and chest. She lay there stunned. Moments that felt like hours ticked by as she waited for the air to re-enter her lungs. Blades of grass obscured her vision as she lay there. The pain began to subside and her breathing returned to normal.
She looked up at the cliff, ten feet above. The door she had just fallen through was wide open, creaking in the wind as if it was laughing at her.
The clearing was a crescent shape with bushes and trees on either side of her. Across the clearing the edge fell away to reveal a larger forest far below, filled with strange giant flowers. To her right the ground began to dip downwards and descended into stairs crafted from thick tree roots. The centre of the clearing was ten feet wide consisting of three consecutive stone rings. In the very centre was a fountain with a plinth sticking out of the middle.
Anelle stepped forward but stumbled on her dress. Her nightgown had been replaced with a long white dress that resembled flower petals carefully overlapped to make a garment. At her chest the petals were the size of her finger tips and gradually became larger as they descended. The veins of each petal glowed slightly with the sun's reflection. The hem brushed the top of her feet and trailed behind her. It was incredibly light. Anelle would have thought she was naked if she couldn't physically see the dress covering her body.
She took a deliberate step forward onto the stone, letting her dress hang on the bridge of her feet. A sea of lizards scurried into the cracks and crevices, disturbed from sun bathing. The outer stone ring shifted under foot. She carefully stepped onto the second ring.
The small fountain in the centre was pouring water over a central plinth. Glowing hieroglyphs shone through the water. No. The fluid wasn't water. The substance reflected the light in iridescent waves of blue, green and silver.
The fluid trickled over the fountain's basin and into the cracks of the stone circles. Anelle edged her fingers into the fluid, expecting a cool wet sensation but she felt nothing. She inched her hand deeper. The not-water moved around her hand. It felt like the softest cloud. Anelle sensed a pull within her chest; something inside her called to this strange substance.
She stepped back from the pool. Her heart racing in her chest. The feeling of being consumed reminded her of a familiar embrace she so longed to sink into. Fear brought her back from the edge.
She stumbled backwards, falling onto her backside. The stone beneath her feet shifted to the side. Maze-like markings over the stone circles drew her attention. The marks didn't line up and the not-water pooled over the stones. Anelle shifted the second and third stones until the paths lined up. The fluid weaved through the crevices, around the circles of stone and over the edge of the cliff.
Anelle watched the small waterfall. Wisps of smoke evaporated into the air as it gushed over the cliff's edge into a river below. The giant plants along the river's path shifted and perked up as it flowed past. The flowers were the same as the petals of Anelle's dress. The petals began to lighten from green to white. Anelle watched in disbelief as the petals shifted from white to clear.
A path sprouted through the dense forest; a map from above.
Anelle walked to the natural staircase made of overlapping tree roots. Each step was a different height from the last. She ducked under the canopy of leaves. The stairs ended at the edge of the waterfall. The dense canopy blocked out most of the sunlight, casting shadows in every direction. The sun shone a path through the clear petals along the river.
Anelle stepped on spongy purple moss as she followed the brightly lit river. The not-water twisted and turned under fallen trees, between boulders, getting steadily wider. The path beside the river eventually disappeared and Anelle wadded into the ankle deep shimmering liquid.
The forest animals talked back and forth. She felt many eyes watching her just out of sight. She heard their mocking tone as they whispered about her. She scanned the forest, trying to find the intrusive eyes.
Anelle shrieked in horror. The petals along the hem of her dress had turned clear up to her ankles and were slowly creeping up her legs. She moved faster into the forest. She felt those pervasive eyes getting closer and closer.
She ran around a bend and the river opened out into a large pool. A small grove inclosed by stone pillars and foliage stretched out before her. Thirty feet above, leaves reached out across the sky trying to enclose the space. A circle of sunlight shone in deviance over the pool. Soft green moss covered the ground with small yellow flowers intermingled throughout.
Across the pool knelt a woman who stared into the water. She was unlike any woman Anelle had ever seen. Her skin was white as snow with green markings winding across her cheeks, neck and arms. On closer inspection some of the vines were fused into her skin, thorns and leaves stuck out in places. Her hair was made of moss, it ran down her back and spread across the floor, making it impossible to tell where it ended and the forest began. Stands of yellow flowers pulled her hair away from her face. The woman turned. Anelle gasped. She had another face on the side of her head. One set of eyes were green like the new leaves. The second were dark green with brown clusters like the dirt clinging to the roots of a new tree. They wore a dress made of a thousand wild flowers woven together, the tops of the flowers made tiers as the dress descended down their body.
They turned their gaze back to the not-water and beckoned Anelle closer. Anelle stopped at the not-water's edge and looked down.
"Beautiful, is it not?" The twins said together.
Anelle stared into the pool. It swirled slowly around, the green and blue's reflected the sunlight. Darker shadows around the edges rose just under the surface before descending deeper. Anelle took half a step back.
The twins chuckled in different pitches.
Anelle looked up into their eyes. Her breath stuck in her throat. The two sets of eyes felt like they could swallow the forest at any moment. No. They were the forest and everything in it.
"If the eyes are the windows to the soul then you should be careful whose soul you gaze into." The twins spoke in sync.
Anelle felt the presence of these immortal beings in every part of the forest around her. She studied both women, noting their appearance and temperament. The first immortal she met under the sea was like a sharp blade noticing all; quick and to the point. The twins were like a razor sharp whip; slow and meandering in their approach with thorns ready to slice you to ribbons as they laughed at your misfortune.
Anelle stayed consciously quiet.
The twins smiled as they looked back down at the water.
Anelle looked into the pool.
"Do you not have a single curious bone in your body?" The first twin asked. "Or do you simply accept when your world shifts with no question?" The second twin finished.
"I apologise, my world has shifted twice in a few months." Anelle looked around the beautiful grove. "If this is to be my new home then I have no complaints."
Silence fell again and two sets of eyes focused their curious gazes upon her. The darker twin waited with raised eyebrows, letting the silence speak for them.
"Where are we?" Anelle finally asked.
"Our domain." They said together.
"What am I to call you… your eminence?"
"Nati-," the light one started. "Cya," The dark sister finished, "and you can dispense with the pleasantries."
"Why bring me here?" Anelle asked. She looked between the two faces.
"Your feet brought you here." Nati said.
"Then why show me the door?"
Cya smiled wide. "We were curious." They said together.
"Curious about what?"
A familiar feeling settled on to Anelle's shoulders. She wanted answers to why these powerful beings seemed so curious about her.
Why was she abandoned? Who was she really? Who was she supposed to be? Anelle thought.
"You, my dear." Cya said. A mischievous smile reached her dark green eyes.
"Your bloodline is filled with women who took whatever they wished." Nati continued.
Anelle sat for a moment letting the new information sink in. "Who were my ancestors? What can you tell me about them? What does it mean for me?" She asked.
"Oh, so many questions." Nati-Cya said together. "Your ancestors were remembered as warmongers and tyrants who burned an empire into existence. But those who win the war get the honour of writing history."
The words hung heavy in the air. The new revelation felt wrong and painful to accept. An ache swallowed her heart. The pit of her stomach churned at the words. She didn't want to believe them.
"Is that why I was taken as a child?" Anelle asked.
Nati-Cya looked up sharply. "You knew?"
Anelle looked down into the not-water. Nati-Cya tilted their head to the side. Anelle slowly nodded.
"When my mother got sick… she told me the truth. Her third daughter was small and sickly when she was born. The child cried all day and night. One night, when mother was exhausted, the child had finally gone quiet, too quiet. But my mother was so relieved she went to sleep. When she woke the next morning I was the child in the crib." Anelle's breath hitched in her throat, tears spilled from her eyes. It had been such a long time since she had thought of her mother's final days. Anelle chose to remember her as a lively woman who loved parties and dancing. On her deathbed she had been a shadow of her former self. "She knew I was not her child but loved me all the same. She held me when I was scared and sang me to sleep when I was sick." Anelle trailed off. She tucked away the memory of her mother into a dark corner of her mind. "I had always felt different to my sisters but it had nothing to do with her."
"You are fundamentally different. You can wield the Tue." Nati-Cya brushed their hand through the water, pulling strands of it up as their hand rose."You are one of its chosen. The people chosen by the Tue could wield it to their benefit and elevated themselves to kings and nobles. Those who could not were treated like lesser beings. Such oppression led to a civil war that the nobles won but those who saw the end coming sailed to other lands and founded a new nation."
"I… see." Anelle took a moment to process everything. "Why was I left in Garlon?" She asked.
"I am afraid we do not have the answer to that question. Perhaps there is another we can help with?" Nati-Cya aired expectantly.
"What is the Tue? How do I… use it?"
"It's right in front of you." Nati-Cya ran their fingers through the pool's surface again. The Tue swirled and moved in the light. "Inside you as well. But it lies trapped. You need to forge channels for it to flow through your body."
"How do I do that?"
"Let it return and then take it back. You feel it inside calling to itself. Allow it to leave your body." Nati instructed. The twins nodded at Anelle before looking back down at the pool.
Anelle focused on the feeling in her chest, the push and pull of the Tue trying to escape. A tide began to crash against her chest. The Tue coiled and thrashed like the sea in a thunderous storm. Pain pierced her chest as the power fully awoke. Anelle gasped, releasing her grip, letting the waves calm. Her heart pounded in her ears.
"Answer me this, what is easier?" Cya said. They scooped up the Tue and let it slip through their fingers. Anelle looked up. "For a thin object to slowly wind its way out of a tight gap or a larger object to force its way through?"
Anelle calmed her heart and started again. This time pulling the Tue into a thin strand and winding it across her chest. It moved slowly like a fine pin slicing through her veins. The pain was manageable this time. She took deep breaths, focusing on the tendril as it flowed down her arm, slicing and cutting. It reached her hand. The Tue wound down her finger tips and flowed into the pool.
Nati and Cya smiled as they watched her. "Now very carefully and slowly use that channel to take the Tue into your body."
Anelle leaned over the pool's edge. She braced herself and began to pull the Tue back up her hand. Pain exploded through her fingers. She fell back, her fingers twisted at odd angles.
"Patience girl! You will ruin your body like that!" Nati-Cya rebuked.
Anelle lay there for a moment. Tears pricking at the edge of her eyes. Why was she doing this? Would it allow her to break free of her new prison?
"Try again." Nati-Cya said firmly.
Anelle placed her hand back into the Tue. She imagined a thin slender tendril winding its way back up her hand. She felt the power slither its way back into her hand, up her arm and into her chest. Her chest became heavy and full, like the feeling of eating a warm home cooked meal.
She released her breath, unaware she was holding it.
Nati-Cya smiled up at her again. "Very good."
"So is that it?"
"That is just the beginning. You need to practise internalising the power. Let it infest every part of your body. See what you can do with it inside you first before you try to externalise it. You must remember that the Tue is an abstract power, it can do many things but also nothing at all."
"But how?"
"You will need to figure that out yourself. Even if we knew, everybody is different and what they are capable of depends on them.Your patron is rather gifted in this area; perhaps you should ask her. And tell her paramour the debt is settled. Now you will be missed if I keep you any longer."
Patron? Who could they mean?
Nati-Cya lifted her hand and beckoned Anelle forward.
"Step closer, girl."
Anelle tentatively stepped into the pool. The edge was shallow, only reaching her mid calf. Her dress was still turning clear up to her mid thigh. She lowered her hands trying to cover her exposed legs. Nati-Cya laughed at her failed attempt at modesty. Anelle took another step forward. The Tue rose above her legs to her hips.
"Sink below its surface." Nati-Cya said.
Anelle took a deep breath and sank into the dark.