“We will build our kingdom here,” he said. “We will work with the moons and slowly gain friendship from the sun.”
“But, Father,” Sandhana asked, “how can you be sure?”
“Because I will get the Eternal Fire,” he said, and they realized that it was not the desert that captivated him but the silence beyond. In the darkness below the horizon, they saw the ghostly shape of the mountains. Jodhaa whispered to her sister that she saw a light—a tiny glimmer, fainter than the stars, but a light nonetheless in that mass of darkness.
“You can’t capture the inferno,” Jodhaa said, but Alabore Ravence gave a cold, hard smile, unlike any she had seen him wear before.
“I know of a way,” he said.
And so it began. Alabore Ravence’s ardent followers trekked out to that unforgiving sea of sand, buoyed by his speeches of prophecy and destiny. He preached until his throat was sore and his face red, but his voice never left him. They worked in the cloak of the night, in the steady gaze of the twin moons that Alabore Ravence had already befriended in his dreams. That portion of the year, the nights were long and cool. As kings and queens fought against sandstorms and heatstroke to claim the land as their own, Alabore Ravence and his followers worked deep in the desert, untouched. Even his daughters could not believe their good luck.
Alabore himself knew this was the easy part, that the moons would protect him. The real challenge would come when the city he built could no longer be ignored, and the sun would take notice. The mountains beyond would take notice.
When that day finally came, Alabore Ravence took his two daughters into the heart of the desert. Like before, they traveled at night. And as dawn glimmered on the horizon, they stopped.
“Are we to build sand hovels here?” Sandhana asked. The air was already beginning to warm. A solitary bead of sweat rolled down her father’s forehead.
“Close your eyes,” he told them.
His daughters obeyed. He watched as the sun drew their shadows on the ground. He knew what he had to do. The vision had shown him how to acquire this desolate land and its flame. But for the first time in his life, Alabore Ravence hesitated. The sun glared. As quietly as he could, Alabore Ravence drew his sword. He closed his eyes and saw his kingdom, and brought his sword down.
Jodhaa shrieked as the limp body of her sister fell to the ground, her blood staining the sand. Jodhaa stared in horror as her father plunged his sword straight through her sister’s chest and withdrew her heart. Alabore Ravence knelt and, with his own bare hands, buried his daughter’s heart, and the sword that viciously claimed it.
“This is the heart of the desert.”
And as he spoke, the light within the dark mountains that Jodhaa had seen grew brighter. Stronger. Higher. A plume of smoke steadily rose from the mountain, and it was then that Alabore Ravence and his daughter knew the deed was done.
The Phoenix came to them in a shower of light that seemed as if the sun had dropped to the earth. Flames rippled across the desert, but it skirted around them, forming a circle. Jodhaa cried, hiding her face, but Alabore Ravence did not balk. He spread out his hands, stained dark with the blood of his daughter.
“This is the heart I give to you.”
The Phoenix flapped Her wings, Her voice rising from the dunes, vibrating through his bones until he was full of song.
“So you shall have mine,” She sang.
The desert rumbled. The dunes undulated, and the sky burned and filled with smoke. The cries of the warring kings and queens echoed as the Eternal Fire within the mountains roared and burnished the heavens. Amid it all, Alabore Ravence stood tall.
“This will be the Ravani kingdom,” he said.
And so it was.
Within months, the kingdom arose. Some fanatics say the desert itself helped, but scholars believe border sandstorms weakened opposition, leaving Alabore Ravence and his followers to build in peace.
Ravence was built three hundred suns ago. Alabore Ravence lived a long, successful life, forging a flourishing kingdom in the middle of a desert. Under his reign, wars ended. The sands finally saw peace.
He ordered the image of the Phoenix to be etched onto the Ravani flag, for She had sent him his vision.After his death, he was succeeded by his only daughter, who wore an eternally haggard expression. But Jodhaa too reigned with a steady, forceful hand. For on that fateful day when her sister died, Alabore Ravence had turned to his daughter and allayed her grief.
“The heavens will forgive us. Every one of us deserves to be forgiven.”
Note: The page after this has been torn out, Jasmine. There is hesitancy in Priestess Nomu’s prose. Is it because she came to know the truth? That the Kingdom of Ravence was built not on the power of the Phoenix, but through a darker god? I shall resume my studies after searching the libraries at the temple. For now, Elena weeps for mangoes. I must attend to her.—A. M.
CHAPTER 35
ELENA
The night when Alabore Ravence built his kingdom, it is said that men feasted on starlight. For it was Alabore Ravence who brought the heavens closer to Sayon, who brought the power and mystique of the Phoenix into a real, solid hearth. The desert may be unforgiving, but it was spun from stardust, and to stardust it will go.
—fromThe Legends and Myths of Sayon
