A/N: this is a short story written for @forgedzine! although preorders have ended for the print edition, you can still grab a copy of the PDF edition for as long as you’d like! make sure to check out all the incredible art featured within.
The moons’ light welcomed them to the small town under the Mersa mountains in southern Ihai. Larjah set out to find a smithery as Rudra sought a place to pray. They had agreed to meet at the town’s inn. Larjah released her winds, pleased when they returned the faint scent of Salali, the nightseeker she was hired to kill.
Dropping off her damaged sword, she couldn’t help but feel frustration building toward their situation. How had Rudra’s pilgrimage turned into a cross-country hunt for a nightseeker?
Larjah’s mind was focused on vengeance as she made her way to the town’s inn. Salali’s heart would be at the end of her blade tomorrow so she could find peace.
In the inn’s courtyard, Rudra was singing a song of worship to Rala, the Goddess of Water and Healing. With her maiju she fetched water from the fountain that she used to float around her as she prayed. Her dancing made the water pulsate out around her. Water arched high, making rainbows in the droplets as the moonlight kissed it.
Rudra was beautiful. Her gold eyes and brown skin glistened as she brought praise to her goddess. Looking at her, Larjah knew that Rudra would make someone a lovely wife.
“Jaha!” Rudra raised a hand in greeting before she went back to her dance.
When Rudra was done, she joined Larjah, who was consulting with the innkeeper about their room. Again, Rudra had gotten one room for them. Larjah glanced at Rudra, frowned at the lingering traces of the desert’s sand on her, and asked for a bathing tub.
“We don’t have time for that, right?” Rudra asked.
“I don’t want to lie to your Temple Mother when she asks if I treated you respectfully.”
“Couldn’t it wait until we finish the hunt?”
“No.”
“Are you two here on a hunt then?” the manager asked as he turned to them. “Did you come because of the disappearances?”
“So people have gone missing” Rudra said. “You weren’t able to find the bodies?”
“Not at all. It’s gotten so bad that we sent for Jahla’s priestess to help — so are you the maijuns they sent?”
“Actually, we were hired by a Lord across the valley! Maa jaha’s a hunter.” Rudra aimed a smile at Larjah who looked away. “She’s skilled in hunting monsters.”
“Oh!” The manager was pleased. “Are you a kakaja and an anaka? We are truly blessed then that a bonded maijun pair has come to help us!”
“It’s our honored duty, sir.”
Larjah didn’t have the energy to start a public fight because of Rudra’s stubbornness in lying about their relationship. “Please bring our meal to our room.”
Larjah walked away as Rudra said, “She’s tired. Please excuse my kakaja—.”
“I’ve heard that kakajas can be easily angered — why don’t you go calm your kakaja, anaka mahila?”
“Rudra.” Larjah called as she followed the servants carrying water to their room.
While she waited for the tub to be filled Larjah was silent. She ignored the exasperated looks Rudra tossed her way when she finally joined her. When the servants left, Larjah readied herself to speak but Rudra did first.
“Why won’t you accept that we’re bondmates, jaha?” Rudra was in front of the mirror, twisting her black hair into a bun for her bath, as she watched Larjah.
Larjah shook her head. “Why won’t you accept that your spouse is in Dumvasi? You’re going to end up hurt if you keep lying.”
“I’m not lying.” Rudra turned toward her. “I’m not the one who cuts off my maiju’s connection to you. I’m not the one who won’t accept that we’re interwoven with each other, that each day only proves our maijus call for each other. That I’m your anaka. That you’re mine.”
“You’re not mine,” Larjah said. “You’re meant for something so much greater than anything I could give you; so don’t pin your aspirations on me. Your goddess, Rala, speaks through you—you want to throw that blessing away to be a cursed person like me? Mother Rasa would never let you—”
“Since when do you care what anyone thinks?”
Larjah looked at the beautifully stubborn girl in front of her. One day, Rudra would accept her fate, but tonight was not that day. Rudra had promised since childhood that Larjah would be hers, and that remained her goal.
“I’m going to get another room.” Larjah didn’t linger for Rudra’s reply.
The next day as Larjah neared Rudra’s room, a foul smell drifted toward her. Her first knock was unusually ignored given that Rudra didn’t hold grudges and woke at dawn.
“Rudra!” Larjah knocked louder. Unease rising, she forced her way into the room.
Larjah stepped on glass. The mirror was cracked, the bedsheets tossed to the floor, and the window was opened. The smell was stronger now, barely faded in the early morning winds.
Rudra had fought. The black blood belonged to a nightseeker and the stench belonged to Salali. He had come for Rudra— though there was no red blood, that didn’t mean that he had taken her alive. It wasn’t necessary for a nightseeker to bleed a maijun like a human.
Her temper flared as winds gathered around her, spiraling out the window to gather up the nightseeker’s trail. Salali had drained dozens of maijuns and killed even more humans over a couple months. That monster had Rudra?
Rudra, a priestess, who was considered a healing prodigy thanks to her water maiju, who always had to help, who was the beloved of Rala and—Larjah reached for her blade only to remember that it was gone.
The winds returned, bringing faint traces of Salali’s scent. Larjah let herself drop from the window, releasing the wind to call upon the earth, feeling it shift to accommodate her as she ran to the smithery. She switched between her wind and earth maijus, fighting to keep his trail fresh in her mind and hurried to get her sword.
Larjah fetched her blade from the smithery and moved out of town using the ground to push her forward. When Larjah was outside of town, she let the wind circle around her to send her rushing toward the mountains.
The mountain’s face gave way as she switched to using her earth maiju to soften her landing. The strain of switching between earth and wind was draining, but if her curse to use all maijus would help her save Rudra she’d survive any pain, any further shortening of her life.
She passed through empty cave after cave as her maijus fought within her. Each part of her was seeking Rudra’s maiju signature. Her core was unfocused, forcing her winds to slam against her skin as they returned without Rudra’s scent.
Larjah landed in a cave’s entrance, ready to let the winds carry her to the next one.
Then she saw him. Salali. His skin was white, fragile as paper, his eyes cloudy grey. Larjah couldn’t focus clearly on him, eyes sliding past him, past the villagers’ corpses, to Rudra against the cave’s floor. Larjah let their maijus brush and Rudra looked at her. She looked pallid from Salali starting to drain her maiju.
“Salali.” Larjah’s voice was layered with disgust, her anger making her maiju become frantic, as she released the wind and planted herself into the earth. She felt the earth extend her senses as he laughed, a mocking sound from him. It would be his final mockery as she pushed up with her hands to force him back.
Salali twisted out of reach. He had grown stronger— how many maijuns had he claimed? How many lives had been taken to fuel him?
Rudra’s maiju was touching Larjah’s maiju eagerly, as if sensing her rage, urging her to calm down. Larjah let Rudra in, let their maijus mingle properly as she pulled her sword from her thigh, switching maijus and letting her winds give her the extra push to force her blade into Salali’s heart.
He shifted so that it hit his shoulder instead, and he was laughing again, even as she forced him back toward the wall while his cold blood coated her hands. As she pulled the blade out to try to reach his heart, and twisted himself into a tunnel in the wall. Larjah reached out, fingers closing around his cloak but he escaped, hiding deeper inside the cave’s tunnels.
She let out a scream of frustration, and Rudra’s maiju flooded into her, amplifying her sight. Larjah could see Salali crawling out of reach of her blade, yet not out of reach of her earth maiju. She stomped her foot and collapsed the tunnels throughout the cave as he reached them. He would have to escape or be buried alive.
Salali burst out of a collapsing tunnel teeth bared. She locked stone braces around his wrists and ankles. His screaming mingled with hers, but she kept focused as she prepared her sword for him. As she switched from earth to fire maiju, a whimper from Rudra reached her.
Her concentration slipped.
Salali threw himself at her, teeth bearing down into her shoulder as they slammed to the floor, her sword fell from her grip. Larjah reached for her dagger, fingers closing around the hilt as her vision swam. She felt powerful as she stabbed the blade into his back. Fire maiju swept from her fingers, and down the dagger to engulf him.
She felt him burn, felt the fire lick against her skin as he turned to ash on top of her.
Then there was Rudra drained yet angry above her, repeatedly saying, “Don’t die.”
I can’t promise that, Rudra, Larjah thought before she drifted into dreams.
After they let the villagers know where their dead rested, it was time to go.
“I felt you,” Rudra finally said after watching Larjah pack their beasts.
Larjah looked at the fence where Rudra was waiting for her to finish. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Larjaha, how can someone named after love itself be in so much pain?”
“I’m not.” How much of her core had Rudra seen? It had been careless of her to have allowed Rudra in after trying so long to keep her out. “Forget everything you saw.”
“Maa jaha, how could I?”
“Rudra, enough.” Larjah stepped away from their beasts. “It’s time for you to go home.”
“Larjah.”
“What?”
Rudra took hold of Larjah’s arm. “If you kiss me and can still say that we’re not bonded, I’ll go home without a complaint.”
If it was that simple… Larjah to kiss her cheek. “We’re not bonded.” Rudra rolled her eyes. “You promised, Rudra.”
“I meant a real kiss.”
The way to deal with Rudra sometimes was to give in. Mother Rasa said it spoiled her, but now Larjah could only look at the still drained girl. Rumors said that a bonded maijun pair could restore their maijus from contact… but Larjah didn’t know if it’d be fair to kiss Rudra based on a rumor. It also wasn’t fair that Rudra was demanding it from her.
There was no god she could ask for guidance as she shifted and kissed Rudra. Rudra gripped her shoulders as the world quieted. This could be their everyday, Larjah thought as she let herself feel the depths of Rudra’s love for her. She could feel Rudra’s maiju replenish itself, drawing on Larjah’s own reserves. Feeling that was enough for Larjah, it gave her resolve that Rudra needed to be safe. Neither could be selfish when Rudra could do so much good for the world, would do so much when Larjah was gone, left only to memory.
A/N: This is a short story that takes place in the same universe as her troubled heart, her lying mind. I hope you enjoy this story of the Oracle Mali and the Yyla Tylana.
"Will you speak for me?" The voice was as gentle as the waves on the beach below. Each word was a quiet crash of surf upon sand, pulled by the immutable tides. The words harmonized so perfectly with the waves that Mali didn’t answer at first. She chose to maintain her five year oath of silence.
But this voice? This voice held echoes of power. It tasted like salt against Mali’s cheeks. An undercurrent of laughter bubbled in the voice as it called Mali’s name once more.
“Mali.”
There was only one person who would call out to her with such authority. It seemed that, at last, Mali’s prayers had been heard by her people’s Goddess.
When Mali opened her eyes, a world of blue overwhelmed her. A maelstrom of color swallowed her whole and plunged her into its depths until she almost felt as if she were looking up from the ocean floor—blues, greens, filtered yellow sunlight, the quietest rush of the ocean’s call. Sensations overwhelmed her heart, mind, and soul. Mali drowned indefinitely in that blue until she came back to herself and answered her Goddess— her Yyla— with the only word she could manage without crying.
Yes.
Mali had been waiting, hoping, and devoting herself to the idea that she could do what others had failed. At times, remaining faithful became a difficult task. After all, what could Yyla Tylana see in someone like her? How dare she, of all people, even dream of becoming Yyla Tylana’s chosen Oracle?
That role had sat empty for five hundred years.
Mali was only a woman who sat in a cave near the beach, meditating in silence, living each day with only the waves and sea life for company. Was it possible that Yyla Tylana recognized her devotion above all who had embarked on similar paths and failed? All Beemicans knew of those who had prayed to Yyla Tylana, hoping until their final breath that she would choose them.
Mali was one of countless who had sat, naked, robes having long since worn away to nothing. She was just one of so many, yet it was her that had been chosen above all to be the Oracle.
Yyla Tylana stepped out from the divine Mahzen and joined her people—joined Mali—on profane Kagian soil for the first time in ages. Without even the slightest pause, the Yylan gathered Mali into a lover’s embrace, one so familiar yet achingly new.
Every salt-enshrined kiss gave Mali a vision of her own death stretching out before her with such immutability—with the same resolve and endless determination that the oceans sang with their ancient song. She could taste the end of her life in the brine of those kisses and knew that she had doomed herself by making this choice.
She didn’t care.
Yyla Tylana was known as the most faithful and faithless— the most fickle— of all the Pantheon. She had hidden herself away from all of her devotees, speaking only through floods and droughts that caused nothing but harm and instilled fear in an already fragile people. Gone was the Yylan’s love that had made the Beemican peoples flourish centuries ago. With the Sehelese from the west encroaching and forcing the Yylan’s people from their homelands and with their prayers falling on deaf ears, the Beemican people became trapped in a seemingly endless war, withering away into desperation without their Yyla’s support.
Mali’s people had long since lost all hope, yet Yyla Tylana was telling her to inspire them, to give them back the hope they had lost after she had abandoned them.
When Mali told her Yyla that the Beemican people would not listen, Tylana only laughed. The carefree laugh reminded Mali of children splashing in those monsoon seasons, jovial and unrestrained. At the sound, Mali could do nothing but smile back at her joyous Yyla Tylana.
Tylana took from the power of her mantle, her maiju, and pulled the mineral-rich groundwater seeping into Mali’s cave, from the walls and pools. The Yyla wove these waters into an luminous veil to shield Mali’s once green eyes, now dark blue, from sight. From the sea, Tylana pulled the pre-dawn mist to weave robes of grey and black. She fastened Mali’s robes with small seashells and placed a crown of peachy, living coral atop Mali’s kinky black curls. Dressed in such finery, Tylana told Mali to go to her people and let them know that their Yyla had returned, but Mali knew that her people’s faith had been shaken so deeply that only the presence of Tylana would convince them. An Oracle, whether or not divinely ordained, could never turn these tides alone. The Yyla absolutely could not return to Mahzen without letting her people know she had returned. Mali presented her argument, fearing her Yyla would vanish once more, but in the end it was not difficult to convince Tylana to stay.
Thus, clothed in a gift from the Divine, Mali traveled back to civilization for the first time in years. Farmers, villagers, all saw her—saw Yyla Tylana—and believed. By the time the two reached the capital city, their combined presence had turned the people’s hearts back to faith. Every eye that fell upon the grand woman, towering over even the tallest man and radiating ancient, incomprehensible power, knew that this was their Yyla. There was no way that a mere mortal could have eyes so deeply, endlessly blue. No mortal, Enbalan or not, could have the blue-black hair that flowed and twisted in waves behind her like a ceremonial train. In her hair were small sea creatures, moving and dancing with each footstep she took. Joy, a renewed hope, glimmered in each small, pearly smile she gifted her people.
Here and now was their purpose restored—their new Oracle was telling them to take back their pride, to reclaim their homelands, instructing them to follow her, the Oracle Mali, into battle.
#
The Beemican returned quickly to their worship of Yyla Tylana. Her temples had been neglected during those dry times before her return, falling into despair. Now, the Beemican people scrambled to restore their Yyla’s temples to their former glory. In return, water flowed throughout their lands. Rivers that had slowly dried up in the The Yyla’s tears and devotion more than made up for her abandonment, and in turn, the Beemica atoned in kind with the only gestures they knew. The Beemica started to use their maiju openly once more, fearless of the Sehelese’s retaliation now that they had their Yyla beside them. They returned to their water songs, their water dances, their praise of life and of Tylana. With Oracle Mali with them, they had little to fear. And it was not just Mali who gave them this confidence and contentment, but Tylana beside her. Together, they lead Beemican’s greatest warriors into war against the Sehelese.
Complacent after decades of no resistance from a downtrodden people, the Sehelese were slow to react. As the Beemicas moved westward, the deserts of Kagia became scarred with black rivers as blood soaked into the dry earth, freeing all who were oppressed under the Sehelese—all who had been forced to locked their maiju away, to practice their religion in secret or to convert to a Yyla who did not hear them. How could such a Yyla hear these children when they belonged to the sea and wind instead?
The fearless Beemican warriors drove on, guided by the love of their Yyla and her Oracle. Victory bathed them in glory as their battles to reclaim their lost lands led them deep into the heart of Sehelese territory. Even still, they knew no fear, for their Yyla was there.
Mali lead her people confidently, spear in hand, eyes and heart set on a goal long ahead. She was no longer the stubborn girl in a cave, waiting and hoping. She and her Yyla shepherded their people onward, their resolve unshakable as an oceanic storm. However, a great roar rolled over the dunes and sands, erupting with vitriolic hatred as molten and raw as lava and as devastatingly crushing as a rockslide hurtling down a mountain. The earth beneath the Beemican armies’ feet trembled like an egg waiting to crack open, shaking them all to their very core.
Rage.
The Yyla Ayana awoke from her slumber, rage burning in her breast and tearing at her heart.
The Yyla sang her rage, opening her mouth wide, a single doomed note echoing from Mahzen into Kaiga, amplified so terribly that a part of the continent broke and drifted into the sea.
All of the Beemica and their siblings in the Tiali lands knew of the great war amongst the Yylan siblings. Long ago, the Great Mother Lann gifted her three children with their own tribes, and their Father Ayn blessed each people in turn with a piece of Divinity—maiju—to give them the power to create in the same way as each respective Yyla. Afterward, neither Yyla Lann or Yyla Ayn had been seen in Kagia again. Following in their footsteps, their only son, Yyla Tee, the Yyla of the Wind, left his Tiali people under the care of his eldest sister Tylana. But after Tylana had also hidden herself away, the Tialin tribes fell into the grip of Yyla Ayana’s Sehelese people and their greed. Yyla Ayana— arrogant, stubborn, and full of wrath at the very thought that either of her siblings’ peoples could match against her own chosen people— waged war time and time again against her sister. It was after the death of the Oracle Sey, the last before Mali, that Yyla Tylana abandoned both her people and her brother’s people, to her sister’s rage. Since that time, the Kagian seas had gone still and quiet. Life itself seemed to be brought to its knees as the Sehelese marched into Tialin and Beemican lands and forced them all to bend to the Sehelese will.
Briefly, the Beemicans wondered about their Yyla’s intent—whether or not her return was one of rage or an extended plea for forgiveness from her forgotten people. Regardless, here they were, marching forward with their Yyla beaming in a way that she had not in centuries. Surely, they would say, Mali had to be Sey reborn.
Mali did not know how to tell them that the circumstance was far more complicated. She could only be who she was. A child of secrets, who had always been filled with a desperate urge to escape to the sea, to bring back her people’s Yyla and save them all. Mali was not Sey and could never have been Sey. Despite that, Mali sometimes wondered if Tylana too thought she was the former Oracle, returned at last. That if each time they embraced one another the Yyla imagined Mali was the Oracle Sey kissing her and pressing their bodies together until they were just two hearts beating in union for a moment, however brief it was.
But Mali could not be Sey. She could not be as soft as the former Oracle once was. Mali would not yield her ground, she would not fall back. She was of the sea. She was the tempest, the hurricane sweeping ever inward from the water leaving only great change in its wake. She was no tranquil pool in which to reflect. Her people rode with her, fought with her. All of them knew that they would pierce every Sehelese heart if it would ensure their regained freedom. They would not be contained again, forced back into servitude and silence.
Even if it took years, Mali would not—could not—end this war. The number of dead Sehelese could never atone for the destruction of her people across these many ages. She could not be moved from this path of revenge until her people finally peacefully existed as they had in the past.
#
The Beemica marched deep into Sehelese’s homelands, pushing onward to the capital. Each victory bought with it a flood of freed people to join their tumultuous rampage. Each victory bought with it more stains of blood against Mali’s body.
It was in the aftermath of a great battle, just a few weeks’ march from the Imperial City, that Mali walked into Tylana’s portable Shrine and stripped down to purify herself and finally asked her Yyla, “Do you only care for me because you see Oracle Sey in me?”
The smile she got in response was bitter yet still so beautiful. Everything about the Yyla was beautiful. From her dark, rich brown skin to her sea-blue eyes, her magnificence went beyond any human limitation. Yet, this great being from Mahzen, her lover, Yyla Tylana, bowed to Mali. Tylana lowered her head to the ground and said, “If that is how I’ve made you feel, please know that your life is no longer bound to my own. I care for you because you are you. I picked you for my Oracle because of your faith in me. Do you doubt my choice, Oracle Mali? Do you doubt my devotion to you?”
It was the closest Tylana had gotten to saying, I love you.
Mali picked up the blessed cloth and wiped the blood from her arms, from her breasts, and face. When she was cleansed, three times poured over with water, only then did she speak. “Do you question my doubt? If what you’ve said is truth, know that I bind you to me, O’ Tylana. Faithful as you are, faithless as you are, know now that there is no greater force than my devotion for you.”
Tylana lifted up her head and Mali could see her love, even as she asked, “Faithless?”
“You left your people for centuries, my Yylan.”
“I grieved for my people until I met you, my Oracle. I could feel your power, I could see your devotion as you sat every day in that cave, waiting for me. How could I not feel hope renewed because of you? I was honored. I am honored of all the paths you could have taken, you put your trust in me. And so, I knew that in return I could place my trust in you.”
There was nothing left to say, so Mali said nothing. She kissed Tylana with the taste of the earth lingering on her lips, with the taste of the sea soon overpowering that until they both faded away altogether.
#
In the meantime, Ayana sent an entourage to accompany one of her many oracles to their blockade around the walled Imperial City. Ayana seemed to be extending a peace offering, but from stories Tylana had told, from legends Mali had learned, Ayana was never so quick to make peace. She was as steady and unchanging as the earth once she decided upon her path. Much like a mountain, her hatred for her sister could only be worn away with time, with controlled effort.
Mali knew that, and more importantly, Tylana knew that. They also knew that the core of Ayana’s hate was that Tylana dared to have sexual engagements with mortals, making a mockery of what was meant to be the greatest boundary between Yylan and Enblan. Tylana could have easily duped her sister with a ruse that would misdirect attention from Oracle Mali’s long nights in the Shrine, keeping their business unknown. It would have been a logical, natural thing to do considering what had happened to Oracle Sey. But Mali was stubborn, and Tylana was easily influenced.
Mali kept their sleeping arrangements.
Ayana’s oracle returned with her report.
It was that report that pushed Ayana beyond the brink, as Tylana would say later. Ayana’s chosen people, the Sehelese, had been forced back into their natural borders as the Beemican people continued their march, freeing enslaved Tialians as they did so. With so many Tialians converting to worship Tylana, Ayana’s rage shook the very ground, her anger birthing jagged cracks and seemingly endless gaping wounds across Kagia.
That was enough to scare Tylana. She did not come to her Shrine, to their bed, for a full month. Mali paused their army’s march across the continent and went into mediation to commune with their Yyla in sheer desperation. Two months dragged on before Mali could finally send her spirit-self into Mahzen, home to all Gods, both Yylans and not.
Mali found Tylana on a beach not too dissimilar to where Mali had first been chosen, where she had made her choice. Here, in Mahzen, gone were all the costumes of humanity. Here, Tylana was fully divine. Her body was so large that she might as well have been the ocean itself, or perhaps, she was. All Mali could see was Tylana’s body from the chest up. Here in the Yylan homeland, Tylana’s once soft brown skin was now scaled, rough, and glistening as many shades of blue as there were drops of water in the sea. Her hands were so large that they spanned the entirety of Mali’s body and then some. They could bury islands if they wanted and so much more, but that wasn’t what they wanted right now. Had they not given life to so much? These hands of Tylana could only barely hold her up as she shook with terror and a bone-deep sadness. Each word dipped like a drop of rain, resigned and predetermined. “My sister will kill you just like she did to Sey. She considers herself the enforcer of our parents’ will. I cannot risk losing you. Go back home. Tell our people to go home. We’ve done enough.”
"You are Yyla Tylana.” Mali climbed onto Tylana’s hand. As she spoke she took careful steps up Tylana’s forearm, pausing in the crook of Tylana’s elbow for breath before Mali scaled her shoulder by wrapping and cutting her spectral fingers on Tylana’s scales before she could bury her face in Tylana’s neck. “You are the Yyla of Water, of the Sea, of the Floods, and of the Waves. You were here before the lands, the desert, the beaches. Before any of that, you were here. So tell me, my Yyla, who does Yyla Ayana think she is? Has she no respect for her elder sister? Have you failed to teach her fear, my Tylana?" Mali pressed her small lips to a familiar space on Tylana’s neck before she looked out at the beach she had left behind. “I will not tell our troops to withdraw. We still have a war to win.” She could feel her body being hit, a rough call for her spirit to return to the physical world. “You promised that you would bind yourself to me, Yyla Tylana. Do you mean to be so cruel as to break that promise? Let them come for me if they dare. But don’t you dare abandon us again.”
Another jolt forced Mali back into her body. When Mali opened her eyes, she found herself surrounded by devotees and soldiers alike. However, in the center of them all, head uncovered because no heat would dare touch her, Yyla Ayana stood with her haughty pride and primordial fury.
“Come.” Ayana demanded as she walked away from the ocean. Her body trembled in time with the earth beneath them. Her voice spewed poisonous hatred as she asked her first question, “What are Yylans, Oracle Mali?”
“Our Gods.”
“And what does that make you, Oracle Mali?” Ayana spat Mali’s name like a curse.
“I am the speaker for Yyla Tylana…” Ayana nodded, and the quakes slowed. Mali regained her balance, and, despite fearing the Yyla, Mali continued with a firm voice. “I am the Oracle Mali, and I am Yyla Tylana’s lover.”
Everything stopped. The world held still, suspended in one crystalline moment, before Ayana snapped, spinning and reaching a spiteful claw out for Mali, who darted away quickly. Did Ayana think that Mali would fall so easily to her? Had Mali not lead this war to her doorstep? Ayana stopped, realizing the effort was fruitless, and screamed. Her followers came running, panicked.
“This world will experience a dark age never before seen unless this place runs red with this sacrilegious Oracle’s blood!” The earth groaned, and Mali started to run back to the beach. There was no chance that mere humans could catch her where a goddess like Ayana could not. Still, Mali ran, ripping off her bangles, her headscarf, her skirts, her shirt— ripping off everything until she ran naked into the sea and was swallowed whole by it.
#
At the edge of a distant sea was a cave where Mali had lived for five years. It sat nestled underneath a cliff that looked overlooked the sea. It was there that Mali had done little more than sit in silence, waiting for a voice that none had heard in centuries, waiting to hear it speak once more.
It was there that she had kissed Tylana for the first time.
It was there that she had been chosen and had chosen to take up the blade and fight for her people.
Yyla Ayana did not scare her. She had faith in herself and even in Tylana, as fickle as she could be. So instead of running, Mali prepared herself for a fight, gathering the sea toward her as she rushed out into it. Ayana did not fear the sea and was all the more foolishly arrogant for it. Ayana’s pride fueled her eagerness and hunger, her bold determination to try to destroy her own sister.
How many years had Mali’s people lived in fear? How long had it been since they were free to use their maiju, to dance with the water, to let the water of life flow through them? To use the water as only they knew how, to let it move with them, to be separate and yet one with their bodies? Was Mali not of the sea? Even as her people had let fear control them, she had always stood at the edge of the water, resenting the land that trapped her. Mali had lived for years with that itch, and when the voice came to her heart, when she felt a sadness that was not her own, a pain that she had never known, had she not taken up her task with pride?
All of that, all she had done for Tylana. For her Tylana.
“Tylana!” Mali’s scream echoed with rage as she wrapped the waters around her, twisting upward in a hurricane that swept the beach clear of those that would try to drag her back to land. Now, it was they who were dragged out to sea, forced to pay worship to a god who could not hear them.
Alone, faithful even in the absence of Tylana beside her, Mali crashed down on a crest of the waves, letting them break upon the beach so that she could face Ayana, shrouded in a power that she knew better than her own self.
“I am here,” Mali said.
Ayana was as alone as Mali, every last devotee dragged under the churning waves.
Ayana did not flinch as Mali stepped out of the water. She held her ground and held her head high. “You think to face an Yylan, Oracle? I have killed all of my sister’s Oracles before you and will kill all the ones after you as well. I have soaked in the blood of all those who dared—”
“You are a jealous and petty Yyla.”
The earth beneath Mali feet felt so different now. What once trapped her now beckoned her as much as the water always had. A part of herself she had always ignored, shoved down began breaking free. Mali balled her hands into fists as Ayana scoffed. This Yyla thought that she had seen all that an Oracle could do. Did she not see that Mali had never just been Tylana’s Oracle? Her maiju had never been so easily defined by such limitations.
“You are a petty and finite Enbalan.”
Mali looked at Ayana and waved the sand from beneath the Yylan’s feet, forcing a void into existence so quickly that Ayana couldn’t react. The Yylan fell into the newly created pit, and Mali jumped in after her.
Now, Ayana looked at Mali with something more than just hatred. She feared Mali now. She feared the control that had been so readily stripped from her grasp—control that had been reformed, remade, and stolen.
“You are Beemican.” Ayana circled Mali. The Yylan’s body began losing all vestiges of mortal constraint. Though Ayana’s body stretched in all directions, Mali’s pit still swallowed them completely. Ayana had become one of the snakes that graced her deserts, her face and torso all that remained of her human form. Her tail encircled Mali and still Mali held her ground.
“You are of the sea,” Ayana hissed. Her tail slapped the ground, sending quakes through the earth, yet this pit remained unchanged under Mali’s control.
Mali looked at the unlit pit’s walls, the sea echoing in the cavern, filling her with certainty. As Ayana loomed above her, ready to strike her down as she had done to Sey before her, Mali laughed. Mali was not Sey. She could be no one but herself, and she had forced part of herself into silence for too long. But not now. She looked up at Ayana, opening her hand and calling a a spear of earth to form in her palm, ready to strike down this petty Yylan. They locked eyes, each ready for the next moment, the next blink, when one of them would die. Even still, Mali knew something Ayana did not. A truth she had never spoken came out at Ayana’s assumption because, after all, Mali was not just of the sea.
“My father was Sehelese. A soldier passing through our village. I am of the earth, I am of the sea. And I will not be moved.”
Ayana shifted, bringing her long, curious face to meet Mali’s. “Why fight for my sister? Why fight for such a weak people?”
“My people are not weak.”
“You could have been one of my Oracles with that power… and yet you picked such a weak, fickle Yyla? You picked someone who abandoned your people for centuries?”
Suddenly, Tylana laughed, appearing high above them yet so close that water flowed into the pit. “You speak as if you had no part in that, my sister.”
Ayana looked up and then leapt, reaching her hands upward to drag Tylana down. Mali moved too, stabbing her spear deep into Ayana’s back, pinning the Yyla to the wall as more water filled the pit. Ayana screamed. Tylana held out a hand to her lover, and Mali took it as the pit overflowed with water and blood until Ayana gave up her physical form and retreated to Mahzen, suddenly and soundly defeated as the tides turned in Mali’s favor.
“You came back,” Mali said, watching her lover carefully.
“I didn’t want to be known as the faithless Tylana anymore. I couldn’t let my sister kill another of my Oracles.” Tylana didn’t let go of Mali’s hand, and the shakiness to her hold was not of her nature like Ayana’s, but rather of her fear. “But I was almost too late.”
“Have more faith in me, Tylana.” Mali drew the sea water from the pit and sealed it. She could feel the hole still there, but hidden, sealed to protect innocents from stumbling into it. Yet, there was a permanent scar in the ground. It would serve as a warning to Ayana, a reminder of what an Enbalan, one of her sister’s chosen, could do.
“I have more faith in you than I have in myself, my Oracle.” Tylana let out a sob, tears falling as she looked at Mali. “But no… you’re not my Oracle anymore, are you?”
Mali looked at their joined hands. She could feel a pull on her body, a call to a place far from here. It was a place that was as secret and as unknown as the most distant star.
Tylana spoke, her heartbreak clear in each word. “I have never felt such an untapped reserve of maiju from an Enbalan before. Not even Sey had such power. But, until now, it has always been sealed away deep inside you. I always wondered why…”
“Is that why you choose me?” Mali’s voice felt splintered, hollowed, echoing. She bit her lip, squeezed Tylana’s hand as she pressed a hand to her stomach. She felt like a void was opening inside her, a space that could never be filled— should never be filled— but swelled shut with each breath she took.
“Weren’t you the one who choose me?” Tylana wrapped an arm around Mali’s waist, holding her up even as Mali’s vision swam. Mali couldn’t speak and felt nothing but darkness before a salty kiss brushed her lips for the briefest moment. Mali was drowning in blue again, and she knew that this was the end that she had seen so long ago.
She had no regrets even as her consciousness faded into nothingness.
#
“What have you done, Tylana?” Ayana asked. In Mahzen, both Yylans discarded all pretenses of humanity as they waited. Ayana coiled herself high on a cliff, tail curled underneath her as her face peered down into a newly made cave that overlooked Tylana’s sea.
“I have done nothing,” Tylana said. “I have only been a witness to something new, something extraordinary.” Ayana slapped her tail against the ground, causing miniature quakes. Her powers, all of their powers, were neutralized here, unable to force massive change to such an holy, eternal place. Despite that, Ayana was being loud, deliberately trying to wake the one who slept inside the cave.
“Ayana, I will swallow whole all you hold dear if you keep up that noise.”
“This is not what Mother nor Father wanted for us.” Ayana pulled her head out of the cave, gold eyes slitted in curiosity. “This is not what they wanted for an Enbalan.”
Tylana looked at tranquil cave. “Then they shouldn’t have left us alone. They shouldn’t have have given them such potential. How can they be shocked if this is the outcome? How can they be surprised if a new god has been born?”
Clothed in shadows, in the dim light of distant stars, in the light of a new moon, Mali stepped out of the cave, leaned up, and nudged Ayana’s head away. Mali sat in the entrance to her cave, looking down at Tylana. Her voice was hollowed, echoing. “I have been to visit our people.” She looked at Ayana next to her, voice firm, eyes black as night. “Call back your armies, Ayana, or I will ride out with mine. We will bury them, and your deserts will flood with their blood.”
Ayana glared but moved back onto her cliff, her body tight, her voice annoyed. “You hold no power over me, Enbalan.” Tylana rose up on a wave and stared at her spiteful sister. Ayana scoffed, letting her tail hit the cliff to make another soft quake. “What right do you have to try to command me, sister?”
“What right do any of us of that we do not take? Will you heed my wife, sister?”
“For now,” Ayana said. She slithered away, grass and flowers blooming in her wake.
Tylana frowned, and Mali held out her hands until Tylana joined her in her cave. Once she had, Mali simply said, “For now, this is good enough. Let them know peace. The future comes in its own time.”
#
Oracle Mali disappeared from Enbala, and with no Oracle to guide them, the Beemican armies retreated. They were satisfied with what they had already won back, and they had finally come to the aid of their Tialian siblings. Now all of three tribes could once again live in balance within their borders. The wounds of the past wouldn’t heal so easily, but with each new generation, the pain lessened as each tribe sought to heal the trauma of their ancestors. Sometimes, Beemican children would run home from the sea, claiming that they had seen the former Oracle Mali, now Yyla Mali walking hand and hand with Yyla Tylana. These children would say that now the caves and the sea that filled them were forever united.
