Work Text:
When Aelwyn comes out of the forest, she is nineteen, which is to say that she is eighteen, which is to say that she is nineteen minus one. Which is to say that her hands are nineteen and her head is eighteen, which is to say that her hands are trembling and her head is full of fog and clouds and a heavy, heavy, heavy rain. A thunderstorm, a lightning strike, crackling like her mother’s magic, crackling like her mother without any magic anymore. Does Aelwyn feel bad? Does Aelwyn feel guilt? Does Aelwyn feel anything? Aelwyn presses a hand to her stomach and neither her hand nor her stomach feel anything at all, like a sleeping limb, like sensation on a severed nerve.
The orb spins and the orb spins and the orb spins and the orb spins. In the early days, Aelwyn thinks alright, someone’s got to be casting this spell, someone’s got to be maintaining this magic, there’s got to be a weakness somewhere, there’s got to be a chink in the armor, there’s got to be an escape route. No one can be perfect forever, and wouldn’t you know, Aelwyn Abernant? In the early days, Aelwyn is naïve. In the early days, Aelwyn thinks one more minute, one more hour, one more day, hold out a little longer and we’ll get out of here. What haven’t we survived? What can’t we do? Are we not Aelwyn fucking Abernant?
Once her knees start to blister and bleed under the aggravation of perpetual movement, once the beds of her fingernails tear and sting as she scrabbles at the smooth implacable surface in search of purchase, once she loses feeling in her arms, once the days spin from dawn to dusk in the span of a single blink, the question is no longer rhetorical. Are we not Aelwyn Abernant? Are we Aelwyn Abernant? Who is Aelwyn Abernant? Is that me? I think that’s me. I’m very tired. I’d like to go to sleep. I think my name is Aelwyn Abernant. Please tell me my name is Aelwyn Abernant. I’m very tired. I’d like to go to sleep.
Elves, traditionally, do not sleep. They can, if they choose. If needs must. If push comes to shove. If they’re weak enough.
Aelwyn’s eyelids droop and shutter and she slips into sleep and there’s a second of silence, blissful and sweet and black—and the blackness crests and shatters and Aelwyn falls to the bottom of the orb as the orb spins and the orb spins and the orb spins, and her jaw is jarred with the impact, and blood dribbles from her mouth where she’s bit through her tongue.
In the morning—is it morning? Morning is when the sun comes, and the birds sing, and are there birds around here, and why did the birds stop singing? There is a vault on the first floor, and I think my name is Aelwyn Abernant, and I want to hear the birds sing, please, I’ll do anything, aren’t there birds around here, why did the birds stop singing?—her father comes and takes her from the orb for her once-daily meal, and he tuts at the state of her, slick and smeared with blood and drool down her front, a pathetic rag of a girl, crumpled and stained. “Are you ready to behave?” he asks, and he sounds weary, and what right does he have to be weary? What does he know of being weary?
And Aelwyn thinks of the failsafe spell in her head, the wards erected as soon as Kalvaxus fell—it’s only a dragon, little sister, what was he going to do, breathe fire at you? What’s a dragon compared to you, Adaine Abernant? What’s any evil compared to you, Adaine Abernant? What am I compared to you, Adaine Abernant?—protected with a hall of memories only her sister will follow and an act of charity only her sister will offer, and Aelwyn promises herself, at least we won’t have to remember this. No matter what, we won’t remember this.
Aelwyn plays the memories on repeat. Let everything else crumble, let these alone be preserved. She doesn’t remember why this is her mission, but she knows if she fails—she knows if she fails—she knows she cannot fail. She knows she is not someone who fails. She knows she cannot afford to be someone who fails.
Aelwyn plays the memories of her failures on repeat.
(You are eleven and your mother’s hand is heading for your sister’s cheek and Adaine is a baby of eight and a half and she risks a look at you and her eyes are round and pleading. A good sister—a successful sister—would call attention to herself, would throw herself between the hand and the baby, would do anything to protect her little sister from harm. You avert your eyes and stare at the plush carpet as the slap rings in your ears.
You are eleven and your sister is at your door, imprints of rings bitten into her cheek, a spot of blood drawn and a little trickle trailing down to the chin. A good sister—a successful sister—would hold her and wipe her face and promise her everything will be okay, she’s safe, she’ll be okay, you’ll keep her safe. You close the door.
You are eleven and your mother says to put some concealer on, for Galicaea’s sake, Adaine, cover up that unsightly bruise. A good sister—a successful sister—would give your mother a bruise of her own, a taste of her own medicine, see how she likes those apples. You stare down at your breakfast and swallow down your words with a deep drink of your tea and pretend not to notice the aftertaste, sour as poison in the back of your throat.
You are eleven and your mother doesn’t hit your sister often or anything, not at all, it’s not like that, it’s only when she’s been especially monstrous, and Adaine really is a brat, and Adaine really should know better, and Adaine really should watch what she says, and Adaine really should remember her place. How hard is it to remember her place? A good daughter—a successful daughter—would remember her place.
You are eleven and you remember yours.)
The orb spins. There’s a voice in Aelwyn’s head. There’s a voice in Aelwyn’s head that Aelwyn thinks is not supposed to be in her head, but Aelwyn is not unused to voices that are not supposed to be in her head. Aelwyn is not unused to her sister’s voice in her head. Aelwyn saw her sister earlier, but when does Aelwyn not see her sister? When does Aelwyn not dream herself up a chance to right her wrongs? Hello, sister, I’m sorry, sister, you’re not really here, are you, sister? Aelwyn thinks, though—Aelwyn thinks the Adaine she saw earlier is not the same as the Adaine from her memory. When Adaine comes to rescue Aelwyn, in her imagination, she is the Adaine from her memory, sometimes six and sometimes seven, sometimes ten and sometimes, rarely, thirteen, and she is always silhouetted in gold, somehow, against the darkness, and she is always willing to forgive, somehow, against the overwhelming weight of all of Aelwyn’s wrongs. She is never fully-formed, never soft, never caught in some machination of their father’s and trapped in the other room.
The orb spins.
Adaine’s in the other room. Why is Adaine in the other room? Adaine, silly, what are you doing in the other room? Adaine, that’s not where you belong, you ought to stay where you belong, you ought to do what’s good for you, but you were never very good at that, were you? Adaine, weren’t you strong enough to run? Adaine, weren’t you smart enough to know they were wrong? Adaine, weren’t you brave enough to say they were wrong? Adaine, did you know that there is a vault on the first floor? Adaine, is that you? Adaine, can you hear me? Adaine, there’s a vault on the first floor. Adaine you brilliant girl you stupid spitfire you spit in their faces you left you were safe you left you need to leave. Adaine please don’t leave me. Adaine I don’t remember what I did but I know I am sorry I know I was wrong I think I love you very much after all. There’s a vault on the first floor.
The orb spins.
Aelwyn’s memory stops the night of Aguefort’s prom and starts up in a forest somewhere in Fallinel in the shelter of a hot bath. She recognizes her Modify Memory spell, remembers sculpting up her charm, storing a copy of Aelwyn Abernant where no one could touch. Let them come, let them take me, let them do what they will with me. My memories are mine, and I will keep them, motherfuckers. She set up the museum in her mind, the monument to her inadequacy—the twin shames, that she did not act and that she is ashamed of not acting: when my father invades my mind, may he see only his golden daughter’s tarnished failures.
She did not, in whatever there was of her heart, really anticipate a rescue. Despite all appearances to the contrary, Aelwyn is not a princess, and dragons aren’t rescued from imprisonments in tall towers, and a dragon’s grief is no great tragedy.
Aelwyn raises a hand to brush her hair from her face, and finds that her arm is an immovable weight.
“Ah,” Aelwyn says, something like eighteen and something like surviving (something like alive, though the verdict’s still out on that one), looking at the layers of scabs and scars on her hands that hasty healing spells haven’t touched, looking at her reflection in the lake, sunken-cheeked and bone-skinned and shivering, wrenching her eyelids open once a second when they try desperately to close. “I’ve been very badly tortured. Is that correct?”
I’ve been very badly tortured, a sentence constructed in the passive voice, devoid of agent. As if torture is like rain, something that simply happens, something that falls without will, something that is not done by one someone to another someone. If she were braver, if she were stronger, if she were Adaine, perhaps she would rewrite the sentence to what she’s nearly certain is a closer truth, an active voice: Our father tortured me very badly. Is that correct? But Aelwyn is not brave, is not strong, is not Adaine, and there are shadows creeping back into the corners where they don’t belong, and she suspects she cannot put the torture into the past tense.
Aelwyn’s body doesn’t match her mind anymore. How long has she been gone? How much is she missing? Where did the scrape-scars on her knees come from, and how is she supposed to move her hands, and did her voice sound so scratchy last time she checked, and who is she, please? Who is this impostor in her body, who do these bones belong to, who is she replacing? Which one is right, body or mind? Can somebody help? Can anybody hear her?
“Mother,” Aelwyn whispers, that night in the Owl and Harp, when Arianwen is kneeling knife in hand and Killian is bound and bleeding in the corner and Aelwyn is sitting against the wall with her arms wrapped around her knees and her breath in her throat, her breath in her throat, her breath in her throat. “Mother, what…what happened to me?”
Adaine told her to look into her head, to see the memories that Adaine had seen—but there was a shadow over Adaine’s shoulder, and even if there wasn’t, even if her fate was her own, Aelwyn would’ve demurred, found a way out, abjured herself. She knows this. Aelwyn wasn’t born with a spare fraction of her stupid sister’s stubborn strength. Aelwyn is not the girl who faces down dragons and gods and the tragic wreckage of her grief. Aelwyn is the girl too scared to stare down her own shadow.
What Aelwyn knows: she was very badly tortured. She is still so tired. Her feet have never felt heavier, and heavier with every step towards the end. She is clinging to consciousness with white knuckles and bloodslick hands.
What Aelwyn knows: she is not okay.
Arianwen spares her a glance, only a glance, shadows harshing the lines of her face, casting the wrinkles on her forehead in sharp relief. “Aelwyn,” she says, and she says this in a way she has only ever said Adaine before, rich with disappointment. “I’m really very busy.”
“Please,” Aelwyn says, soft as a whisper. Her eyelids cling to each other each time they meet with magnetic strength, and she hardly has the strength to wrench them open again; she wants to slip down into the darkness, she wants to sleep, she wants everything to be sweet and soft and silent—and she forces her eyes open again; she needs to know what’s wrong with her, she needs to know how she shattered so she can pick the pieces up, she needs to hear what happened to her so she knows for sure Adaine wasn’t lying.
(Was Adaine ever a liar, Aelwyn? Wasn’t that always more your purview, Aelwyn?)
Arianwen sighs, stabs her knife into the floorboard, leans back on her heels with her hands braced on her thighs. Until everything, up until the wreckage of her junior year, Aelwyn had never seen her mother in any state other than picture-perfect composure. Now there’s sweat dripping down from her forehead in trails and bags hanging heavy under her eyes and dirt on her hands, under her fingernails, in the tangling roots of her hair.
“You were kept in…well, I suppose stasis would not be an inaccurate term. This was…not my idea, you understand, but your father thought this the most efficient method of limiting your magic. No rest, no restocking your spells. Hence the constant rotation of the orb. You were kept in that state from the moment you were brought to Calethriel Tower until your sister’s…escape attempt, aside from a brief break each day for maintenance. I imagine that your body is still struggling to recover your strength. Does that answer your question?”
“And you…” Aelwyn can hardly hear her voice in her ears. “And you didn’t…”
“Didn’t what, Aelwyn?” Arianwen picks up her knife. “Didn’t stop them? Didn’t try to save you? No, dear, I did not. You were bested by your sister. You allowed yourself to be caught and imprisoned. Actions have to have consequences, do they not, Aelwyn?”
“Yes,” Aelwyn murmurs, and her mother returns to carving out the sigil for the ritual. “Yes, I suppose they do.”
She doesn’t know what she was hoping to hear.
Aelwyn sees some of her missing months—her missing year, she can call ten months a year, can’t she, hasn’t she earned that right? Isn’t an elf supposed to spend one-sixth of her time in trance, and wouldn’t that make twelve months with rest equal to ten without?—in her sister’s head, and she sees herself wretched in her orb, crawling, crawling, crawling, color blanched out of her cheeks and mouth, and she sees herself tell her sister she’s sorry, and she’s such a frail and fragile little thing: so very broken, so very breakable.
Aelwyn sees her missing year. This does not bring the year back. Seeing a memory through another person’s eyes is not the same as remembering.
They’re miserable memories. She doesn’t know why she’s upset at their theft.
Aelwyn and Adaine were both born in the spring, a space of three years separating them. Aelwyn was born in early spring, as the crocuses pushed out of Fallinel’s soil amidst the slow lingering melt of the last snow. Adaine was born in later spring, as the noon sun scorched away any early-morning chill left in the air.
This is to say: Aelwyn turns nineteen as the orb keeps spinning, although she will not know this for three more months; three months later, Adaine turns sixteen as the orb keeps spinning, although she will not remember the date until three days later.
Cupped in Cassandra’s palm, tangled around Aelwyn, crystal casting eerie light across her cheeks, Adaine makes a strangled sound and stirs Aelwyn out of her reverie staring at the earth beneath them. “Oh,” she says, and they might be the only ones awake, and Aelwyn’s body might not remember how to rest anymore, and that must be a problem for later. “It’s—it’s the sixty-fourth. Of spring. I hadn’t—” And tears well up in her eyes, and Aelwyn shuts hers and curls closer, and they are slumped against each other in a divine hand that is carrying them home, and Adaine is not fifteen anymore, and Aelwyn will never be eighteen again, and maybe they can make something out of sixteen and nineteen, together.
Aelwyn puts her head on her sister’s shoulder and feels something stirring in the wreckage of her heart, like pins and needles, like phantom pain, like a limb too long deprived of bloodflow waking up at long last.