A Dear Sister

[Eidolon]

 
Zurafai & Malaika

 
Out in the night, Malaika finally let the weaves distorting her features fall. Saidar she kept, infusing herself with its warmth as much as she dare without losing control. Battling the damane had taken it out of her, and she was relieved she could still touch the Source, that it was still pliable to her will. There would be no Travelling tonight, though; that much was beyond her instinctual safety parameters, unless necessity dictated otherwise. But neither could they stay here.

She had studied the area beyond this inn long before her journey, and didn’t need to fish the map from her bag. They walked the road south for a long time; hours passed, until the joys of saidar began to burn too intense, and she was afraid that if she didn’t let go, it would wrench from her control and the world would plunge dark. But she couldn’t trust Zura to walk, either, so she led them off the deserted path and into the adjacent trees. She dumped her bag at the base of one, her legs a trembling mess at the thought of rest. She moulded Zura into a position more comfortable at the base of a tree, tied the flows of Air and then let saidar go. It felt like the roaring rush of a passing waterfall, and she sat quickly, before her legs gave way beneath her.

Now what? The tentative plans she had made in her head, the results of every eventuality she could fathom, had never included this. She had never once considered that Zurafai might be sul’dam, not damane. Had not ever had reason to even suspect it.

---

The dropping temperature did not bother her, but she was far from comfortable. Her arm throbbed, her head spun. Exhaustion had been chasing her since the inn, but she could not sleep – dare not even let her lids drop, because there was no one to watch her back if she did, and she had no energy to construct a ward. The road had been deserted at this time of the evening, and they were far enough away that they were not visible from it, but Malaika was not accustomed to this kind of travel. All she knew was that they were two woman, alone, and if they were approached, she wanted to be awake when it happened.

She pressed her head back against the tree, thinking through the situation with as much clarity as she was able. When morning came, she would have to make a decision. Whether Zurafai would accept it or not, she had the capabilities to touch saidar, but Malaika was under no disillusion that the former sul’dam would go quietly to the Tower. How could one force another to embrace, if she were set against it?

“So, what now, dearest sister?” From the folds of Malaika’s thick cloak, Zurafai’s eyes glared like augers. It was the first time had spoken since the death of her damane.

Entering a dialogue was probably stupid, but Malaika would forever be tugged by the softness of her heart. She might deny it when necessity struck, when it was important to function without the trappings of emotion, but for all her blank stares and void expressions, Malaika was far, far from immune. Cupped in the shadows of the tree, she sat very still. Despite the conflicts within, her face betrayed none of it. It never did.

“The feast-day I was taken, you were barely more than a babe,” she said. Her expression was even, as was her voice, and her gaze met her sister’s without hesitation.  It was important to show Zura the depths of her control; not simply with the Power, but with every aspect of her life. “I remember how love for me withered from our parents’ eyes. How Assaru stared, suddenly afraid of the young sister he had always tormented. Do you remember that you cried, Zura? That you reached out your arms to me, because you did not want them to take me. That memory has fuelled me for much of my life. That I was loved, even at the height of my shame.”

“I don’t remember,” she answered, smiling with sugary sweetness. “I was a baby. Life continued without you, marath’damane, as it always does when a girl is collared. I forgot you quickly enough. Whatever my memory was to you, you were never anything to me. Not even the whisper of a memory, not even a dream.” Even now, ensnared in threads of Air and barely able to move, Zaura displayed an innate confidence; she was sharp where Malaika was soft, quick of tongue where Malaika was slow. Were it not for the ring on her finger and the years of training behind her, she might have crumbled under that strength, have doubted her own control of the situation. Zura’s smile turned sly, her eyes like slits in a mask. Even as Malaika considered the sister she had always coveted, Zura was five steps ahead.

“Forgot until our brother returned, that is.”

“Chakai.” She said the name carefully. How dangerous would it be to pursue this path? The furtive beat of her heart, the restlessness in her soul, was desperate to know – to grasp at the connections to her past, and to make some sense of the present. How muddled her memories were with her Arches, which had been filled with Seanchan and Chakai. But could she even trust that the truth sprang from Zura’s lips? Her words cannot hurt me if I don’t let them.

“Dearest brother Chakai, home from his adventures as morat’torm. He was inappropriately upset to find you gone." The sul’dam kept pausing, stretching the painful memories to breaking before continuing, her slurred voice agonisingly slow. Malaika said nothing, but her gaze never wavered. Whatever games Zura played, she would not win against an Aes Sedai. The Brown defended herself with her walls and barriers, created a fortress about herself that words could not penetrate. She would listen, she would remember, and later – when she was safe, when she was alone, she would let the reaction come.

“He simply couldn’t let you go, refused to believe that you were an abomination. It was such an unhealthy interest. Tragic, really.”

“If you have a point, I suggest you get to it.”

“But it’s such a beautiful night for telling stories. And you did ask to hear this one.”

More cryptic than a Blue. When Malaika did not grace her with an answer, she continued, that knowing smile never far from the edges of her lips. “I looked for you when I earned the right to be called sul’dam, but by then you were long gone – in fact, I thought you dead until recently, and would never have given you a second thought, but for Chakai. He never believed; he thought I hid you from him, wanted to see with his own eyes what you had become. He could never… accept, and that is an ill quality for a person to have. It was far below his station to even think on a damane, let alone worry about one. It concerned me. I am a dutiful citizen, marath’damane – in fact duty is very important to me. Everyone has their place in the Empire, and must shoulder their responsibilities accordingly.

“He asked me for a favour, blood to blood. He wanted to see you, to put his final ghosts to rest.

“So I reported him.”

Malaika blinked, her only outward reaction to the way this … tale… was unfolding. There was a storm outside her fortress, but within its walls she was impassive, calm, serene.

“I hoped he would realise his error, would finally come to his senses. Morat’torm are hard to come by, and our brother was among the best of his ilk. Oh I’m sure they gave him chances, and perhaps he did repent, I don’t honestly know. All I know is that they took that which he held dearest to his heart, and crushed it into a thousand pieces. Lesson learned. Never cross the Empress, May She Live Forever.”

His leg, she realised suddenly. He had not fallen, had not faced the random wrath of the animals he so loved; that story had never sat right with her, if she’d never given it enough thought to work out why. All animals had loved Chakai, and he’d had a flair with the torm that was unrivalled. Light above…

“They exiled him to Ebou Dar, but they never let him go. And that is why he hates me, sister dearest. And why he hates you too. His little … obsession… ended his career.” A tinkling of laughter caressed her throat. “And to think, all the while you were a matter of miles away. He lost everything for you, and it was all for nothing.”

And then I carelessly shunted my way back into his life, reminding him of everything he had lost for a ghost, for a memory. I had everything, and he nothing. And then I took the one thing he did have left. I took his son. Things crashed together with astounding finality. Malaika’s head was going to explode, terrible thoughts and realisations banging at her gates, risking a suddenly fragile composure. She knew it was what Zurafai wanted – perhaps was even counting on. Beneath the warm wool of the cloak, she imagined the woman’s arms straining, searching for the smallest weakness in the bonds that held her immobile.

The scar in her palm flared pain, hot as the day Chakai’s blade had sliced through her flesh. Love overflowed for the brother she had idolised, for the tragic man he had become – all because of her and her cursed gift – then regret for the pain she had caused him, and would always cause him because now he knew she alive. That she was Aes Sedai. She had to shutter it out, to maintain control despite the fatigue and the grief. Her Tests, her training, they all culminated in the way Malaika’s expression glazed over, that she was able to simply close her emotions down, deny them all.

“So Chakai let me think he disowned you because you were damane, when in fact it is because you are heartless. He thought that I would be caught unaware, that you would collar me, and he would never have to see my face – or yours – again.” The flicker of a smile. Perhaps her words had not been as even and impassive as she’d have liked, but at least she had finally grasped the truth of it. “You are a channeler, Zurafai. Given the right training, you would touch the One Power as effortlessly as me.” Zura stared blankly – looked as though she may have tried to shrug the statement away – but her eyes flashed fear, denial. She already knows. Malaika felt a grim satisfaction at the way the tables had finally turned. She locked away the feeling stirred by Zura’s words, buried it for now as if it had never happened, and circled back to Zurafai’s initial question: So, what now, dearest sister? She held the woman’s eyes, stretching the silence in cruel mockery. “You realise that it means you belong to the Tower.”

---

Cold morning rose pink then white, light like great shards of ice. It wasn’t until she shivered awake that she realised she’d dozed some time in the night, foolish as it seemed in daylight. Zura still had her cloak, and the plummeting temperature had burrowed into her skin while she slept. Her shoulder flared pain as she moved, her arm cold and heavy and painful – more so than it had been yesterday. Dull eyes found the sul’dam motionless at the base of a tree; asleep or feigning, Malaika couldn’t be sure. The events of the evening rushed back in as her senses readjusted to her surroundings, each and every querulous emotion forced back into cool submission. Somewhere inside of her, she imagined a child weeping. Sadness was like a seed in her heart; yet to grow to its forbidding potential, but there like an illness. Inevitable.

“Zurafai.” Her mouth was dry as bark, her voice scratchy. No response. She supposed she hadn’t expected it. With gentle caution, she opened herself to the flow of saidar, and found her strength returning in delicate measures. Enough to Travel, perhaps.

Would that she could open the silvery gate this very moment, and leave her memories here to wither and die.

But she couldn’t. Not until she resolved what to do with Zurafai.

Home was like a beacon, but even that longing grew shadowed. She had hoped to return with a sister, her beautiful fragile sister whom she would help bloom to her potential. Instead she had snared herself a sul’dam, and was left with the distasteful decision of what to do with her. Last night she had threatened the Tower, and that was where Zura should go, but a dark reluctance grew in Malaika as coldly as her grief. She did not want Zura there, forever a reminder of the tattered remains of a past she had spent countless years coveting. But worse than the shame of having a sister who fought the Tower’s aid at every turn, reflecting shame and guilt on the young Brown who had thoughtlessly brought her there, was the possibility that Zura might endure. That she might outshine her sister in strength and sharpness, and all the qualities Malaika wished she had, but lacked.

It shamed her to admit it, even in the quiet privacy of her thoughts. How selfish it was, to deny another – and of her own blood – the support and guidance that might be the making of her. She ran a hand over her face, quite desperate to unearth some compromise that appeased both her conscience and her pride. When she looked up, Zura’s eyes were open.

She imagined the woman would be cold, and stiff, her limbs still incarcerated in unforgiving bonds of air. Darkness ringed her eyes like bruises, but despite it all her expression had the quality of steel. There was also resignation in that pale face, but the resignation of one who had no other choice, not of one who accepted what was to come. That apparent strength stoked faint anger in Malaika’s chest, but she cast that away with the rest of her quashed emotions.

For a moment, a long and painful moment, they stared at each other in silent battle. Malaika was surprised when it was Zura who broke.
“What now, marath’damane?” There was no mocking ‘sister,’ no sense of cruel scorn, just a blunt detachment. Malaika wondered how long and tortuous the night had been for her sister.

“You were right about something, Zurafai. I never wanted to be released. But it happened, and I am glad that it did.”

“Spare me the sermon, witch.”

“Do you know what I discovered at the Tower? I discovered that the Empress lied to us-” Malaika continued speaking over Zura’s muttered “may she live forever” – “and the whole institution of damane and sul’dam is built on those lies- -”

“That Tower is a monolith of lies, and it spreads its heinous deceit to justify the freedoms of channelers.”

“The Tower has existed for centuries, and has the world broken again? Do you know what caused the fall, Zurafai? It was the taint, the taint on saidin. Men destroyed the world, not women. Men driven mad by the Dark One’s touch on their half of the Power.”

Zurafai closed her eyes, a frown lining her brow, her lips pinched. Maybe she wasn’t even listening anymore, but Malaika continued on. She wanted Zurafai to hear this, to have it gnaw at her in the dark moments before sleep’s solace, to grow like a seed of doubt in even the staunchest moments of faith.

“That power you have within, you could grasp it if you wished. You could grasp it and the world would not end – indeed it would grow brighter and more beautiful. The Empress denies us that. She calls it filth, but it is purest light.” She struggled on stiff limbs to stand. Her sister’s head had dropped, but even if she tried to block those words out, she would hear them. Somewhere in her sub-consciousness, she would hear them.

“Zura, I’m not going to force you to the Tower. Without teaching, you will never channel.” Malaika opened her satchel, the a’dam within like silver poison. Her sister’s face had risen, eyes for a moment wide before they narrowed in suspicion. Malaika forced herself to withdraw the horrific object without flinching, keen that Zura should witness her fearlessness. The bag she tossed at Zura’s feet. “I have no more coin, not that Tar Valon gold would do you much good. But there’s a little food, some clothes.” Books, too, but they would have to be sacrificed.