Hope Sundered

The first full night passed uneventfully, to the immense relief of the huddled refugees. They’d been surrounded with the ominous sounds of nocturnal wildlife, but nothing crossed the barrier of light maintained by the fires Keila kept burning to ward off autumn’s bite. More than once before sunrise she wondered if any of them would ever feel safe again.

The morning came with its own worry, as no one knew what to do beyond finding their next meal. Arnebet were easy to catch after flushing them from the thickets of tall grass, but there wouldn’t be enough to sustain the group for long.

“We head east, for Ob’Riant,” Keila announced to her chosen aides after spending the day mulling over various ideas. “They’ll grant us asylum, I’m sure of it.”

“That’s a long hike across miles of open plain,” Ekard pointed out. “Everyone might not make it.”

“I don’t see any better options.”

The others didn’t either, so they presented her plan to the rest of the refugees. Having witnessed her defeat two boats of Azrahteran soldiers, they’d come to trust their late governor’s daughter, and accepted her direction with hopeful eagerness.

The first casualty came the next day, when Widow Qessal collapsed from exhaustion and died in Keila’s arms. Heartbreak brought the group’s march to a halt, so they made camp early. The morning came again, but Romi’s infant failed to wake. After burying the child, Keila spent the rest of the day trying in vain to console his hysterical mother.

Keila’s own anguish gnawed away at her, but she forced herself to focus on shepherding the refugees. Her heart ached to the point of bursting. She missed her father desperately, needing him there to hold her close and tell her everything would be alright. She needed him to wake her up and tell her it had all been a terrible dream.

“We’re almost out of water,” one of Keila’s aides said during one of their daily meetings with her. His tone made it clear what would happen once they were.

“We dig,” Ekard stated. “There’s water everywhere. We just have to tap into it. If we hit it, we replenish, maybe stay an extra day. If not, we move on and try again.”

“What if we never hit water?” Talise asked.

“Then we all die.” Ekard replied with a shrug. “At this point we have nothing else to lose.”

“I agree with Ekard,” Keila said. “Water’s now our focus, so we might as well start digging here. If we find nothing by dawn tomorrow, we move on and try again.”

With little else to consider, the makeshift council agreed and began conscripting volunteers for digging. Two holes were started, and many offered to take turns. The endeavor produced a welcome distraction from their pain.

“Good thinking,” Keila said once the others dispersed.

Ekard shrugged and half-grinned. “You can thank me if we find water.”

“You mean when we find water,” she stressed. “More than anything, hope is what my father’s people need to survive. I can see it in their eyes. They need a reason to wake up tomorrow, to keep going. Despair will kill them as surely as thirst or hunger.

“If these wells give us nothing, then the next one is sure to have water, and so on. Do you understand? If we don’t reach Ob’Riant then so be it, but I won’t have them just give up.”

“I’m with you,” he said.

She sighed. “One way or another we’ll have our retribution. Father fought and died for these people, and I’ll do no less.”

“Of course,” he said.

The sun sank once more, heralding a new night with its celestial wonders. The vast sky seemed intimidating without the encircling shroud of the Deep Wood. Keila stood in the wide open plain, exposed with her soul laid bare beneath the black expanse of space for all the heavens to see.

The vast array of starlight reminded her of the night on Haigan’s Ridge. They’d been beautiful then. Now they stared back at her with indifference from their indigo backdrop, as if the trials she faced were small and insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. The distant, shimmering orbs seemed unimpressed with the life and death struggles of the petty beings scurrying about below.

As she stood there, she wrestled with the beliefs she’d been taught. Her father had always insisted Yajuel could restore what was lost, but those who’d perished in Chastin were gone forever and couldn’t be raised to life again.

How could such unbridled destruction be allowed to happen? Was Yajuel somewhere up there, among those distant twinkling spheres, unaware of the evil below? Was he not strong enough to prevent it? Or was she and the other survivors being punished?

For all their beautiful brilliance, the stars offered no answers.