“What do you mean, ‘became erratic?’” I spat. “This is ridiculous. My mother is the best Imanu that the Souda has ever had!” All of a sudden my earlier exhaustion was forgotten. This all had to be a lie. A fabrication on Naroba’s part. Maybe even a sick joke by a girl who had used to call me names and pull my braids when she thought no one was looking.
“This is all your doing isn’t it—” I snarled at Naroba, who didn’t even stand up but continued to look at me in that steady, cat-like way.
“Narissea…” Abioye murmured warily behind me. I flashed an angry look at him to see that his face was full of concern. But it only made me feel angrier.
“Stay out of it, Abioye!” I snapped at him. What right did he have to butt in! I turned back to Naroba to find her eyes alight with glee as she opened her conniving mouth to give me another piece of ‘wisdom.’
“Nari—your mother grew unstable after you were taken. Four years ago. Her judgments made less and less sense. First, she advised attacking Inyene’s forces whenever we saw them—and then she advised playing dumb and bringing them close. She traded vast amounts of the village’s resources for those clerks and magistrates to come and do nothing but get the whole tribe into more and more debt…” Naroba spoke these things without emotion—which somehow made it worse.
No. It couldn’t be true, I thought.
But. Hadn’t Tamin himself said that my mother was growing frantic, trying to find a way to get me back from the Mines? The bitter thought needled into my heart.
And Naroba could only have the staff of the Imanu if the village had conferred it on her, I knew. If Naroba—even Naroba—had tried to steal it or take it by force, then the entire tribe would have risen against such a crime and insult.
“But no—no it can’t be true,” I said in a softer tone as I held Naroba’s steady gaze, only to see in her eyes that it was.
Suddenly, I was sitting on the ground, blinking away my tears. My legs had given out from underneath me as the emotions tore up as if from beneath the sands of the Plains themselves.
My mother has had her heart and mind broken by me. By my failure to escape, I kept thinking.
“Narissea!” I heard a voice, and a scuffle of feet as suddenly Abioye’s arms were around me, but I could no more feel the warmth of his body as I could stop thinking about how much damage I had caused.
“She had to learn somehow,” Naroba said caustically from somewhere in front of me. My eyes were too full of tears to even see her, as I heard Abioye’s voice.
“Stay back! Give her some space!” he said bitterly, although he didn’t move from his crouch, holding my shoulders firmly.
“Maybe you were right before…” I found myself whispering to Abioye. “When you said that this expedition was over. That we’ve failed.” How could I carry on, knowing my mother was out there somewhere, heart-sick and half-mad?
Abioye made a pained moan in the back of his throat. “Don’t say that. You don’t get to say something like that—not you!” His voice was fierce, and his grip around me tightened a fraction—but it wasn’t constricting. If anything, it felt good to have him there, as I feared that all the pieces of my life would fly apart otherwise.
‘Fierce Little Nari…’ I could hear my mother saying, her tone exasperated and fond. That was who I had always been to her, wasn’t it? I knew that she loved me, supported me, respected me—but I had always been a source of frustration to her, hadn’t I? And now I had sent her mad.
Nari, the Imanu’s daughter, I thought. Who was supposed to one day become the Imanu of the tribe, if none of this had happened!
Nari the savior of her people, who had only so far managed to get a whole load of my own people killed!
“Nari, my Little Sister,” a different voice broke into my thoughts—it was Ymmen, and I could feel how his heart was bursting with worry and love for me. It was too much. How could I deserve it?
“Silly little sister,” he scolded me, although there was no anger in his voice. “We never deserve our friends. That’s what makes them our friends.”
He was right, of course—but now, after everything that I had just learned about my mother? I had even failed to do better for the Souda. They now had a new Imanu in the form of Naroba—whom I had never really liked—and yet was sure would do a better job than I ever could!
“Hsss!” This time, Ymmen’s voice really did sound annoyed as he breathed a little flame into my mind. “You are too clever to lie to yourself. You know this woman. I can see her heart through your eyes—and she may be a leader of her people—but she is not the leader that you will be.”
“But how can you know that?” I murmured and heard a surprised muttering from Naroba just in front of me.
“She’s going mad, clearly talking to herself—just like her mother,” Naroba said.
“Shut up!” Abioye’s voice from above my shoulder was vehement. “How dare you speak to her like that!”
“How dare I?” Naroba countered. “You Three Kingdomers know nothing about us Souda, or the Daza, or the Plains! How dare you come out here and walk on our land—”
The heated argument between Naroba and Abioye continued, and all I wanted was for both of them to stop and to leave me be. Maybe Naroba was right. Maybe I was mad—just like my mother now was—for believing that I could do anything worthwhile for the Plains. For believing that I had a fate, a destiny. I even felt ashamed at how arrogant I must surely have been to think that my wits and skills alone would be enough to stop Inyene.
But, if I was in danger of falling—it was always Ymmen who would reach down and catch me before I hit the bottom…
“How can I know you will make a great leader? Fierce Little Nari—look!” Ymmen said in my mind, and then he did something which he had not done before. It felt as though Ymmen was there, surrounding me, and that he somehow turned my thoughts and all the parts that were myself around to face him—the real him.
All of the sensations of the outer world—the arguing lord and new Imanu, the grit of the sand under my palms, the scent of cooking fires from our group faded. It was as if my soul were lifted up from this place and I was instead standing before a great, burning bonfire.
No, not a bonfire—a sun, I thought. It was a ball of bright, ever-roaring flame that did not burn or hurt me. Instead, as the waves of ‘heat’ hit my heart, they came with waves of strength, passion, vitality. It was a little like the feeling I had when I was young and carefree and I was stepping out onto the Plains in the bright summertime. Every ray of the sun was a gift, and it filled me with strength and hope.
“Ymmen?” I muttered, hearing my voice in my own ears. It was difficult to characterize what the dragon was doing, but I knew, as certain and as unmistakable as you know when you are feeling hungry, or tired—or happy—that this WAS Ymmen. This sun of burning, giving fire that was full of glory and force was the dragon in some way.
And he was opening himself up to me, and I was staggered at the vastness that the dragon contained within him.
I started to see flashes of pictures—of skies that were so achingly deep blue that they would break your heart just by looking at them. I saw citadels with white walls far below, and mountains that smoked. I saw forests that stretched for years, and seas that were dotted with sharp-peaked islands for which I had no name for.