Now that she was in Oba it seemed only inevitable that Ai would make her way back to the site of it all. Although it was far from intentional, she and Lucijah crossed the scarred grounds where the war had taken place. Ai had only briefly mentioned it as they walked, but her eyes lingered and her heart bled.

At night she walked back to the hollowed grounds and listened to its ghosts. Earthlings and alkidike alike had died here; each more brutal than the last. Ai herself had taken her fair share of lives and even as a young girl she’d known the price. The pain in her chest that never seemed to go away only intensified when she thought about one person in particular she’d lost here.

Her mother; Xai.

Xai was the epitome of strength. She was a respectable woman whose swords were as smart as her mind. There wasn’t a situation she couldn’t handle nor a battle she couldn’t win. While some saw her as a muscle-bound monster Ai knew that her mother was so much smarter than that. She poured over battle plans at night, focusing on her enemy’s strengths as well as their weaknesses and taking the extra time to exploit any holes in their defense. There had been nothing she wanted more in this world than to earn her mother’s approval so Ai dedicated her very life to it.

They were inseparable. Vilasini had Iona and Xai took to Ai. Instead of being a unified family it was as if two single mothers just so happened to share a home. At times the tension would be so thick that it was all Ai could do to stop screaming, but Xai would take her away. She encouraged Ai to have hobbies outside the blade; hobbies that would ultimately sharpen her senses, but hobbies never the less. She wanted nothing but the very best out of her brood. Iona was a weak link so she’d been cut out, but Ai? A never ending fountain of potential.

Then came the war.

Ai had readily joined her mother on the battle field. Vilasini tried to stop it, but Ai was determined. She was fourteen summers, a woman grown in her eyes, and more than capable of defending herself. Xai couldn’t have agreed more; she’d encouraged her daughter’s bloodlust.

“If she thinks she can handle herself then let her do it!”

And that’s all it took. Just a few words and Ai was shipped off with the rest of her extremist sisters to fight a losing battle. It was the first, and last, time that she’d ever seen true war. The battle itself was fuzzy. Blades flew every which way, arrows buried in her skin and she remembered seeing a radaku tearing into the throat of an alkidike that had actually sided with the earthlings, not against them. The beast couldn’t differentiate which only made things harder on the earthlings themselves. Which ones were evil and which weren’t? For Ai it was simple. At the time the extremists marked their bodies with special paints, skulls and colors to separate themselves so to her it was a winning situation.

Seeing her mother work had been nothing short of awe inspiring. It was like watching a beast finally be released after years of enduring chains. It was going so well…

….until it wasn’t.

Until HE showed up.

An earthling sorcerer had spoken an incantation that consumed Xai in a wall of fire. Ai had tried to reach her mother, but the fire was so thick that she was pushed back. Her screams…the sight of flesh melting from bone…slothing off like moss…to this day it made her nauseous. He repeated the chant over and over and over until she stopped moving.

There wasn’t a day that went by that Ai didn’t dwell on Xai’s death. She missed her, like any child would after a parent had passed, and the outrage she felt in her soul after the poor woman’s death fueled her. Grief was a powerful motivator, but somehow being here, in earthling territory, brought her closer to the woman than before. Here she could think on her memories and start to heal.

Because underneath it all it was still just a young child who had seen atrocities. In hindsight Ai knew she never should have been here; she would never allow Fiya to see what she’d seen that day. Still, the thought didn’t take the memories away and sometimes…sometimes she wondered if she’d just stayed home if Xai would have too. They could have gone to Zinris together, seen Elzira grow as a family and maybe….

Maybe she wouldn’t be so alone.

[782]