The Chosen by Gadira

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The Chosen

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The lots had been drawn on the village square: white round pebbles picked by the riverside, which each individual had to take out of a large clay pot. Of those pebbles, nine were marked with a small, fiery spot of red dye. When Ayina showed hers before the assembly, she could see sorrow and anguish in some faces, most of them family and those who knew her better, but sheer relief in many more. One less spot to fill, their brows appeared to be feverishly calculating, it is so unlikely that among so many I should be singled out. She knew because she had been thinking it only a moment ago.

Her mother’s grief was loudest of all. She tore her clothes and hair with keening wails, as if they had been attending Ayina’s funeral. No one blamed her for mourning a living person, for they all knew, only too well, that not even her bones would find their way back to the village.

By contrast, her husband only affected enough gravity at the news to prevent tongues from wagging. He would not be mourning her very long, and even as they spoke their farewells to each other she could imagine he was thanking the foreign god who had so kindly rid him of the main obstacle to his happiness. Now, he would be free to marry that girl who had warmed his bed since he left hers, after the birth of their second child. Ayina could not help but feel resentful, since he had been the one who had shirked in his duties, and she who had been punished for it. This had been a terrible year for the village, with the failed raids to the hideouts of the mountain folk, the dead warriors, and the resulting shortage of tribute. But even so, no pregnant woman had ever drawn lots, just as no warrior ever had. The village needed new children to make up for the losses, as much as they needed those who could bear arms. If he had not wasted all his seed on other women, Ayina would not be forced to leave now.

As for her children, Rina was too young at three to be aware of what was happening, and though Ayina wanted nothing more than to embrace her and cry her heart out on her shoulder, she could not bear to scare her. Meled, on the other hand, was seven, and shortly ago he had begun to take his cues from his father, so he stood proudly by him, copying his grave demeanour. Ayina wondered if the day after her departure he would suddenly realize she was not there anymore, and ask for her. Perhaps he was already too old for that.

It was cold on the morning they set out, amid tearful faces of relatives and smothered sobs of parents and children. The skies were grey and stormy, and Ayina heard the warriors wonder if there would be snow in their path, though it was not the season anymore. Such weather was bad news, for the clouds could mean fog and bad visibility when their route brought them close to the mountain paths. There, the mountain folk could ambush them, and though Ayina’s fate was sealed anyway, there was a great difference between dying for her village and dying for them. If it was not their own warriors delivering them to the city, it would be as if they had sent no one, and then those who remained would have to draw lots again or face destruction. The same would happen if one of them escaped, or fell ill and died. That was why children and old people did not draw lots, either, for the odds that they would survive the journey were not good enough. As for escaping- she knew that it had happened in the past, for some people were desperate enough to risk their luck in the wilderness. But the warriors claimed that they had found them afterwards in the city, led in chains by the mountain folk. True or not, those stories had been enough to dissuade others from trying.

For all those reasons, everybody was well-behaved during the journey, and the warriors did not treat them as prisoners, but as fellow villagers who had to be escorted in a perilous mission. They solicitously offered her, and the other three women who had drawn the red marks, a hand when the path became rockier, carried them through a flooded area, and left them the warmer spots near the fire. Every night, they talked amiably with White Tiger, asking him for advice on how to proceed, and more often than not following his suggestions as if they were orders. But of course that was not surprising, for they had been following the man’s lead for so long that it should be difficult for them to grow used to this new situation.

White Tiger had been a respected warrior leader, who had received his warrior name from the animal he had killed with his own hands. For almost ten years, he had led expeditions against the mountain folk, most of them successful, and made so many prisoners that the villagers had not needed to draw lots. Then, however, disaster had struck. He had got himself and his men ambushed, resulting in two of them being killed and four taken prisoner, and lot-drawing had been restored. To redeem his honour, he had claimed a place among the chosen, which is why there had been nine marked pebbles instead of ten. There had been a great stir at his decision, as despite his failure he was still regarded as an essential asset for the village. But none of those who tried to make him reconsider had managed to change his mind, and the law stated that no one willing to go with the Chosen could be prevented from following his calling.

The day they glimpsed the city in the distance, a large sprawl of houses ensconced between two mountains, the warriors were glad. They thanked White Tiger for leading them well one last time, to which the former warrior answered only with a wordless nod. Since they were young, warriors were taught to suppress improper emotions which could hinder them in their tasks, but Ayina had not received any such training, beyond learning to hide her anger at her husband for his behaviour. As they waded across winding streets and painted buildings, ogled by the curious and unkind glances of the city dwellers, and drawing ever nearer to the great square where tribute was delivered, she began to feel the first smatterings of panic, which the familiar surroundings and the shared, immediate peril had been able to keep at bay so far.

The warriors seemed to be aware of this effect, because their expression grew grim, and they closed ranks around them. It seemed to Ayina that the others suddenly moved in a more skittish, nervous way, like an animal upon realizing that it was in a cage, turning in this or that direction to see how long they could go before they found a spear before their faces. A young man, probably no older than sixteen, began to cry and say that he wanted to go back to the village. Nobody answered him.

When the officials had them stand in line, and one counted them distractedly while laughing at his companion’s jokes, Ayina’s panic became clouded by a feeling of unreality. She could not believe this was happening, that the warriors would go back home at the other side of the mountains and leave them there. Next to her, a woman was sobbing, but she did not want to look at her, for emotions were infectious. Instead, she chose to look at White Tiger, who stoically gazed ahead, as if he had judged those puny officials unworthy of being counted among his enemies. Somehow, it worked, and she did not surrender to despair, even when they marched them behind a barbed fence whose gates were guarded by warriors almost as big as White Tiger himself.

This newly-acquired bravery, however, proved a short-lived effect, while their stay in the crowded enclosure was very long. A whole day passed by, then a night, then another day, and for all that time more people kept being pushed in, until there was barely room to lie down and the air was rife with the smell of sweat and urine. Groans, cries, and raised voices kept Ayina awake as much as grief and terror, though her body was exhausted. When she managed to fall asleep, even for a moment, she had horrible nightmares from which she awoke screaming, hushed angrily by the people who lay next to her. Most of her waking thoughts, strangely enough, were not for what lay ahead, but for what she had left behind. She worried about Rina, whose welfare she had entrusted to her mother, because her husband would not take good care of her, and his new wife would probably let her starve so they could raise new children together. What if her mother grew too old, and was no longer able to look after her? What if she did grow up, only to choose the marked pebble like her mother? Bad luck was like a curse, some said that it could be inherited.

Finally, one day, they herded them out, one by one, pushing them into a long line. The Emperor’s men surveyed the manoeuvre, while their underlings bound their hands so every person would be tied to the five closest to them. Only three of Ayina’s group belonged to her village: White Tiger, a woman older than her, and herself. The rest had gradually scattered while they were imprisoned, and as much as she tried to stand on the points of her feet and throw anguished looks around her, she was unable to find them anymore.

Like this, they were taken out of the city, through a very wide road that crossed the valley, then through many others for days, until Ayina’s feet were so sore that every new step was a source of pain. They were headed for the capital, they said, which was a much bigger city than the one they came from, cut in half by a large river whose meanders they had been following for most of the way. Ayina wondered what would happen if she just sat on the ground and refused to budge, or to eat, but after she saw what happened to those who did so, she thought better about it. There was one man who even lost an eye from a beating, and that did not exempt him from being force-fed and made to walk on.

The capital was indeed a big city, with larger buildings than Ayina could have imagined, and streets longer and broader than roads. But they saw this only from afar, for there were enclosures built to hold them in an open field outside. By the time they arrived, they were already full of people, as column after column just like theirs had been arriving from every corner of the land. Ayina had never seen so many people together in one place; in fact, before then, she would never have believed that so many people existed. She tried to wrap her head around the idea that each and every one of them had lived in a village, that they had drawn lots, or been captured by their luckier and cannier neighbours; that they had been taken to a city, one small group after another, and then from the city to this place. How many villages were there, how many red pebbles, how many Chosen? It was mind-boggling to even contemplate.

White Tiger had never addressed her before, probably thinking her to be beneath his notice. But that night, when he took a look at her feet, he pointed at an herb growing around, which, once crushed, brought some relief to her sores. Then, he told her that he did not think that people like her would be made to walk much further, for the way was long, and they were needed to reach the end of their journey alive. His voice held such authority and conviction that she believed him.

They said that the Emperor himself was there in the morning to inspect the arrivals, though Ayina would never have been able to see him from her crowded corner. He was very proud, they said, of his tribute: no other ruler in the world could boast of sending so many souls to the West. There was the rumour that he intended to keep a part of them for himself, to use for his own benefit and grow long-lived and powerful. But White Tiger refused to believe that he could be such a fool. If a word of this reached the Emperor in the West, he claimed, the Emperor’s own body would be the next to feed the flames.

Ayina did not know anything about these matters, but she was thankful at his other prediction coming true: the road to the West was in an excellent state, and carts were brought in to carry those who were not strong enough to walk longer distances. Ayina was loaded in one of them, but before that, she was thoroughly searched. They were looking for anything sharp or pointy that could be used to end one’s life or that of others, and to her surprise they took issue with her hairpin, which they pulled out of her hair. Ayina did not even know why she wanted to cry at this. The hairpin had been a present from her husband, whom she hated, and it was not as if they had taken her clothes off. But she had not shown herself before others with her hair hanging loose since she was a young girl, and she could not help feeling embarrassed.

After that, she lost track of the days, of the mountains and rivers they crossed, of the cities, towns and villages where people who did not look like them or speak their language stared solemnly as they passed. Her life had shrunk to the tiny space where she sat every morning as the driver roused the beasts that pulled the cart, to the blanket that she would pull over her body every night under the vigilant eyes of the warriors, and to the food she would share thrice a day while exchanging whispers with her companions. They told stories about their own villages, about how they came to be here, about the loved ones they had left behind. They engaged in feverish speculation about where they were going and the people who lived there, and though their fate appeared to be set in stone, some still tried to be hopeful about it. There was a young man who claimed to have heard from one of the warriors that not all who went West died in the altars. Before they reached them, there were vast lands in constant need of strong labourers to grow food and extract precious metals for the men of the West. He would probably be chosen, he said, so often that Ayina was sure that he was trying to convince himself of his own words.

Three moons and a half later, they finally came to the last land before the end of the world, so close to the setting sun that its rays had even scorched large parts of it. Ayina was very affected by the heat: though there was a woollen awning over their heads, when the sun was highest in the sky she could almost feel her skin burn. Her nightmares grew worse, and usually featured flames and altars in one way or another. One fateful day she awoke to realize that Maya, the woman from her village who had been curling next to her, was exuding heat. When questioned, however, she moaned and complained about the cold. Ayina did her best to nurse her, giving her parts of her own food, and they all decided to keep her state hidden from their watchers.

Two days later, Maya died. They took her body one morning and dumped it on the road, a tasty morsel of flesh snatched away from the god’s table by the wild animals of this land. Their watcher got an earful for it, but the empty space was immediately filled with a new arrival: an old man whose skin seemed to have been tanned and dried by the sun, and who could not speak a single word of their language. As it turned out, the choosing system was very different in the lands of the West. Here, only rebels were taken away, together with their entire villages -tribes, they called them-, which is why there were old people joining them and, even, to Ayina’s horror, more than a few children. She wondered who would be so callously deluded as to rise in arms against the Emperor of the West knowing what their failure would entail for their friends, their old parents, and young sons and daughters. These people were savages with no feelings, she decided, just like the mountain folk back home.

The cities of the West were also very different from the others she had seen on her way there. They were built high, piling houses on top of other houses as if they were mountains. Like the mountains, too, their buildings were made of stone, carved with such skill that it did not seem as if human hands had worked them. Before they reached the greatest of their cities, they had to cross a great wall, made of large blocks of stone piled on top of one another, which made them gasp in awe. Above it, someone pointed at the tiny silhouettes of warriors who paced to and fro, doing their vigilance rounds. If they looked that small, Ayina thought, they must be very, very far away. How could they have cut all those huge blocks, carried them all the way up and joined them together so they would not fall? That is the magic they do with our souls, a man claimed.

Behind the wall, there was a large city of warriors, then fields, then the city they called Umbar, full of the biggest stone buildings they had seen so far. Crowning them all, a large round structure gleamed under the sun’s bright rays. Part of the Chosen would stay here, the rumour spread quickly across the caravan, to work for the men of the West. Suddenly, Ayina felt the first stirrings of hope that she had harboured since the beginning of the journey. She was not strong enough to do hard work, but what if they needed women too? She could do a lot of things: cook, clean, weave, sew, milk goats to make cheese and yoghurt, pickle food, have children….

The men who came, however, were not interested at all in her. Nor were they interested in the young man who had been so sure that he would be picked up. They were only interested in White Tiger, who for the first time since the start of the journey looked broken and furious as they took him away. Ayina watched him disappear in the distance, amazed at the unfairness of it all. He had been striving for a noble death, while she would have given anything to be allowed to live the most ignoble life. Now, neither of them would have what they wanted.

During her brief foray outside the cart, she could see the men of the West from up close. They were very tall, taller than White Tiger even, and their eyes were clearer than those of her people. When they looked at her, even for a moment, she felt an almost superstitious need to cast her glance down. According to the lore of their people they were long-lived beings descended from the gods, and the capital of their empire was surrounded by the sacred waters from which the world had emerged, in the houses of the Sun. Other stories said that their Emperor had wrestled a god, like White Tiger had wrestled a tiger, and that he had defeated him and taken his powers. She had even heard that the Great God had appointed him warden of the mortal world, enjoining him to conquer all the lands in it so he could keep Him supplied with souls. Whatever the case was, they scared her, and when they came to take them to the waters beyond the world, she lost what little composure she had left. In terror, she grabbed the cart with both arms and screamed as she was pulled away.

Ignoring her struggles, they dragged her with many others towards a large, wooden cart that floated on the water. Before they herded her down a flight of stairs and into a dark hold, she managed to catch a glimpse of the horizon ahead. She saw a huge cave, hewn in a mass of rock -the Gates of the World, a woman whispered near her in trepidation-, and beyond it, the Sun itself sinking like a ball of red fire on an unending mass of water. Later, as she tried to force her shivers to subside, hearing the water pound against the wooden structure that surrounded her, she wished that she had never looked.

It took most of those who were with her a long time until they emerged from the state of stupor induced by the fear of their surroundings. More of them had to be force-fed now than they had in all the previous stretches of the journey, though many vomited afterwards, and the stench remained there until it became too unbearable for those who came in to bring their meals. The old people and children who had briefly joined them in the Western lands had been given, together with the rest of their kin, to the temple of Umbar, but even those in the flower of age were hard put to withstand this ordeal. On the fifth day –Ayina counted them by the recurrence of their feeding times- the young man who had wanted to work in the West died. He had not been able to keep anything down almost since they arrived, and Ayina did not feel too bad for experiencing relief at the knowledge that he would no longer vomit next to her. After all, his fate would have been worse if he had lived.

There was still one small, remaining hope, said a woman who came from the great Southern plains and spoke a dialect that Ayina could barely understand. Beyond the waters, in the abode of the men of the West, it was said that some of them were allowed to stay alive to serve their needs. Someone added that they lived so long that their servants had to be replaced often, like the people in Ayina’s village had to replace their goats when they no longer gave milk. But anyone would not do for such a task, only people of great beauty and skill. Ayina was no such person: she hadn’t even been able to prevent her own husband from seeking other women, and the idea of living outside the world terrified her. Still, she could not prevent herself from trying to comb her hair with her fingers and arrange it behind the nape of her neck, or from cleansing her face with some of the water they gave her to drink. Just as she had thought when they were in Umbar, life was still life.

As she had suspected, however, no one paid attention to her clumsy attempts to look good. The men who were inside the wooden structure with them just gave her cursory looks, for the time needed to ascertain that she had eaten her food, kept it inside her bowels and was not ill. And when they finally came in one day, barking orders in their strange language and gesturing towards the stairs, she headed for the open air with a heavy step, certain that those who waited outside would not spare her a second glance either.

She took a sharp, shocked intake of breath. Above her head a giant, like those who were said to roam the mountains during thunderstorms, was brandishing a sword whose enormous shadow covered both the water carriage from which she had emerged and many more that lay beside it. Instinctively, she closed her eyes and cowered from the strike. Somewhere near, she could hear laughter, and when she was forced by the pull of the rope of those who had gone before her to open her eyes again, she realized that the giant had not moved from its position. It was made of stone, like the buildings, the temples, and the walls.

The men of the West who had laughed led her towards a large landing also made of stone, where many of the Chosen had already been unloaded. Though her stomach was doing somersaults, more than it had during the journey, she could also not help herself from staring around her and taking it all in. Wherever she looked, she found something she had never seen before: water carriage after water carriage, all of them floating beside each other for miles around, a second giant matching the first, standing on a long stone structure built over the water itself, and a city of tall buildings next to which Umbar might have been a village. And behind her, the most frightening sight of all: the sacred waters, stretching all the way to the horizon, giving no hint, no sign that Ayina’s world was still there somewhere.

Mother. Rina. Meleb, she whispered to herself, irrationally afraid that her memories of them would fade just like the world if she did not say their names. Mother. Rina. Meleb.

Meanwhile, people kept coming out from the carriages to join them. At some point, the men of the West realized that, soon, even their enormous landing would not be enough to accommodate them, so they started marching a part of them to an even larger square surrounded by stone trees, holding the weight of large ceilings which covered the sun. There, she saw men of the West who were quite different from the ones she knew. They were dressed in silk and gold thread, followed by a retinue of servants, who were as good looking as Ayina had been told. Their behaviour was hard to read, for they did choose some among their number after much thought and consultation, but then they carried off whole ropes of people of all kinds without as much as a second look. Ayina was part of neither of those groups, so she remained where she was until the powerful men left.

Other men and women of the West came and went after those, much less richly dressed than the previous ones. They seemed to be there out of curiosity, staring and pointing at them as if they were some kind of fascinating animal, but as soon as the warriors noticed their presence they barked at them and they left. The strangest of all was a small group –two men and a woman-, who looked sad and angry. They approached Ayina and said things that she could not understand, but their clear eyes were filled with pity. This was confusing and unexpected, and made her want to cry. Perhaps she would have, if the warriors had not come and struck one of the men, who tried to argue with them while the other took the woman away.

That very afternoon, many Chosen were forced to start another journey. A man said that they were not in the capital yet, and that the land of the West stretched for many miles, like another twin world beyond the waters. So she was forced into a carriage again, though many others were made to walk. From her sitting position, she could not see much of the land or the people in it, but she could still see the buildings towering over her head as they made their way across this strange world.

The men of the West had to be in a hurry now, for they kept going even by night. The roads here were paved with stones, so flat and polished that it seemed impossible to have accidents, though for those walking it must have been an ordeal to be unable to rest or sleep. The following night, they did stop, however, for apparently a few of them had died or were unable to continue and this was unacceptable, no matter how tight their schedule was.

By now, Ayina was growing used to the men of the West, to their cities, to their ability to take the greatest marvels of the world and replicate them with cold and dead stone. That was why the capital left her indifferent, and she was also too busy trying to swallow the overwhelming terror at the impending end of her journey. All the tales, whispers, rumours she had ever heard about the Temple were suddenly rushing into her mind, with every horrifying detail magnified by a thousandfold. She wondered why she hadn’t thrown herself from a ravine when they walked her away from her village, why she hadn’t stopped eating, vomited what they fed her, or thought to use her hairpin to pry her veins open before they took it away from her. She had been focusing so much on living, on avoiding pain and danger, that somehow her awareness of what lay ahead had grown blunted.

“Look!” someone said next to her. “The Temple!”

It was similar to the one in Umbar, she thought, grabbing the railing for a moment, if infinitely larger. Above the circular top which gleamed like the Sun, however, there loomed a mountain, a real one, tall and proud and covered in snow, like those she could see from her village. No matter how great the Temple was, the thought crept inside her mind, it would never be like this mountain. And then came a second thought, incongruous with her surroundings as well as with her own plight: the men of the West are not so powerful after all.

The crowds who had gathered in the streets to look at them were cheering and singing as they passed, dressed as if for a feast. They did not look like gods, she realized with her newfound, perhaps mad clarity. They looked like the people of her village when they got drunk on fermented goat milk in the spring feast, just a little before boys would start chasing after girls and left them pregnant as her husband had left her once upon a time. And they would keep cheering on as they were sacrificed, like the people in her village had cheered as the blood of the goat had rained on the ground and made it fertile. Except that instead of owning goats, they owned men. Which probably made them as good as gods, in the end, though the gods in tales had been more mysterious and awe-inspiring.

They were unloaded from the carts, and ushered in through the back gates of the Temple and into a very dark hall, where even the floors were black as night. Ayina noticed that not all of them had followed: most were left behind with the carts, for they would not fit in the space inside. She needed to blink many times to become accustomed to the sudden lack of light, and this, together with the turmoil of her thoughts and the exhaustion of the long journey, made the world begin to spin around her. Her hand rose towards her forehead with more difficulty than she had expected: it was burning. She did not know whether to laugh or cry.

White robed priests came to prepare them for the ceremony, cleaning the most visible parts of their skin, and divesting them from clothes that would hinder access to their throats and chests. Ayina had been upset when they took off her hairpin, but now she did not even budge as they left her breasts exposed. One of them said something to a companion, pointing at her and brushing her forehead with his hand. The companion shrugged.

Around her, many of her fellow Chosen were moaning and weeping, though others seemed as dazed as she was. Somewhere ahead, though she could not see it because the place was crowded, and she did not have the strength to stand on the points of her feet anymore, there was the ominous sound of a large gate opening. She heard a powerful voice giving orders, not at them but at the priests, she assumed, as none of them could understand the Western tongue. And then, there were shrieks, and people ran, and someone pushed her to the floor. Was there really that much of a difference, between men and goats? she could not help but wonder. They would allow themselves to be herded all across the world, even across the sacred waters, and only try to flee when the trap was closed and the shepherds came to get them one by one. They would tell each other stories, build hopes, think of other things, until they saw the knives and the fire with their own eyes.

As she was already on the floor, and she did not feel like she had the strength to struggle on her feet by herself, Ayina was a very easy target. Two priests grabbed her by the arms and forced her to stand. They did not care that she would not walk, or support her own weight; probably they were just thankful that she was not kicking or struggling. A part of Ayina wanted to kick and struggle, but it was too weak to win the upper hand.

The main hall of the Temple was right beyond the gates. Even before she set foot there, Ayina could hear a noise coming from them like a rumble of thunder: the echo of a thousand voices chanting the same prayer. They belonged to the most exalted among the men and women of the West, all dressed in magnificent robes of many colours, embroidered with gold and silver thread. Cleaving this crowd in two, columns of tall warriors had left an empty passage, through which Ayina and the others were brought in. She stared left and right, only to see eyes and more eyes, fixed on her, devouring her with their intensity. They were staring at her with something akin to rapture, perhaps even admiration, though there was also something violent tainting it, just like how a man would look at a woman after he had drunk. She did not want to look at them, so she focused her gaze ahead and tried to conjure images of her children in her mind. What would they be doing at the village now? Were they thinking of her?

A huge fire rose from the altar, its flames roaring high and its smoke veiling even this impossibly tall ceiling. Its heat could be felt from every corner of the hall, though it became more noticeable as they advanced towards the stairs which led to the raised dais. Ayina felt it burning her face, but it could not penetrate her skin: a great cold had settled in her chest, and nothing in the world seemed able to dissipate it anymore.

Prey to these conflicting sensations, she looked up, towards the imposing figures of the Emperor and Empress of the West. He was crowned in gold and wore a purple cloak, while she was clad in silver and blue. They made much better gods than their people, cold and beautiful, and gazing at her with an aloof indifference that seemed far above the petty emotions of mortals.

Suddenly, just as she was thinking this, a shadow moved beside them. The priests who were carrying her froze in their tracks, so Ayina had no choice but to stop too. It was a man dressed in white, like the other priests, but he was wearing a purple cloak like that of the King. He advanced towards the altar slowly, beckoning them to approach. As soon as she set her eyes on his countenance, she could not repress a gasp.

The stories had been true. There was a true god in Númenor, whether the Emperor had wrestled him or not. He stood there, revealed to them in all his divine majesty, and even in her feverish state, Ayina was struck dumb at the sight. His eyes were the colour of the morning sky, his hair golden like the sun, and his beauty could have made men weep. His glance pierced the haze of her thoughts, reaching the core of her mind, where everything she was feeling, her anguish and fear, all that she had been since the hour of her birth in a distant world until this moment was revealed to him.

You have been very brave, she spoke to her, even without moving his lips. You are a hero, Ayina daughter of Irya. Thanks to you, your children are safe. Your village is safe.

Slowly, Ayina freed herself from the grip of the priests, who just let her go, and began climbing the stairs. She was feeling very weak, and her legs were heavy as lead, but he knew, and lent her the strength that she needed to triumph over the last obstacle between her and her duty.

Mother. Rina smiled at her. She looked so beautiful as she milked her goats to feed the three children who fussed next to her. Alerted by their cries, her husband came by and picked up one of them; immediately, the others began to protest that they wanted to be picked up too. I have the life that you always wanted. And every day, I thank you for it. You are the one who made it possible, Mother.

Wiping the tears away from her eyes, Ayina lay down on the altar.