“Can I tell you a secret?” Maeve whispered, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
“Of course,” Ember replied. “I won’t tell a soul.”
Maeve nodded as she took a shaky breath. “I don’t think the gods are real,” she whispered, “not anymore.”
Ember furrowed her brow. “Of course they are,” she reassured the little girl. “They gave us our magic, of course they’re real.”
“Then, where were they?” Maeve asked, as angry tears slid down her cheeks. “When I screamed for them at night, when all the little children cried, when I begged them to save us, where were they? Because they never came. They left me there, rotting in that cell. Loving gods don’t abandon their children.”
Ember felt her chest crack. She wanted to comfort Maeve, to assure her that the gods were there, that they always would be,but she didn’t know if she believed it herself. Maybe they were real once upon a time, and maybe they locked themselves away when they saw what their magic had turned into.
Maybe they died a long time ago.
“I don’t know if the gods are there or not,” Ember shrugged, “but I know that you have a family who will never leave you. We will always find you.”
“Every time I close my eyes, I’m back in that dungeon,” Maeve continued. “When it’s quiet, all I can hear is crying and screaming. I never knew the silence could be so deafening.” She took a shaking breath as she bit her lip. “Sometimes I come outside just so I can hear something else, something happy,” she whispered. “Does it ever get any easier?”
Ember stared at the sunset and sighed. She thought about the way she could sometimes still hear her father’s screams in the quiet, how she could hear the whispers of the waves beating against their boat. She still had dreams of that night, of the pitch black and the way it wrapped around her like a cloak, sinking through her skin and into her bones.
“I don’t know if it gets easier,” Ember replied, as she shook her head, “but it does get quieter. You learn to make space to sit with it instead of trying to push it away. It’s not fair, but this is a part of who you are now.”
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” Maeve whispered, as she shook her head, tears rolling down her freckled cheeks.
“You are Maeve,” Ember said, as she grabbed her hand. “You love to draw and sing and chase the sun. You are an incredible friend and daughter. You have a laugh that can fill up even the largest of rooms.” She squeezed her hand gently as tears pricked her eyes. “You fight for those who can’t fight for themselves, and you are the greatest sister anyone could ever ask for.”
Maeve smiled as she squeezed Ember’s hand. “We are so much more than what happens to us, right?” she asked, as she stared at the ground, resting her chin on her knees.
“If we decided to be.” Ember nodded. “You might not be able to control what happens to you, but you can control how it shapes you. You can be both strong and soft—the two don’t have to fight for space inside of you.”
Maeve grinned with a nod, wiping the tears from her face as she dropped her legs over the side of the couch.
“I’m glad you’re my sister, Ember,” she whispered and wrapped her arms around Ember’s neck.
“Me too, Maevie,” Ember whispered back.
Maeve pulled away and grinned, and Ember’s breath caught in her throat, eyes widening as she gasped. The light from the setting sun lit up her freckled cheeks, and her eyes shined like she had been given new life—a second chance. But they weren’t the bright blue Ember had become so used to seeing. They had changed, forged in the fires of that dungeon where she had been forced to rebuild herself from the inside out. They were no longer the beautiful blue that the rest of the Kitts seemed to share.
They were fields of lavender… flecked with ash.
The End
