Hassa didn’t reply, just looked back at her with eyes alight with mischief. Sylah turned back to the next engraving.
This cavern, drawn primitively, but clearly marked in a hexagon. A discussion in this very room, back when Ghostings could talk, four hundred years ago. The drawing followed the Ghostings as they grouped together outside the gates of the Keep that was now occupied by the Embers.
The truth weighed heavy on Sylah, and her legs faltered. She thought again about what Hassa had said the day before. It is a role to be the forgotten, to be a ghost in your own land. Haunting the stolen.
“You taught them to bloodwerk and in return they stole your land?”
Nods around the room.
The next etching was scoured with chaos and blue flecks of sand. The tidewind roiling across the empire. Sylah wondered of the significance, but her mind moved on, hungry to learn more, to see more.
“The Siege of the Silent.” Sylah knew the next part, she’d been taught it like every citizen in the empire. The Ghostings had risen with bloodlust and anger against the wardens. And the empire had cut them down and vowed to remove the hands and tongues of every Ghosting forevermore.
But the siege here wasn’t vengeful or fraught with anger. The drawn faces were peaceful, silent. The siege went on for two mooncycles. For two mooncycles they kept the Embers locked up. The peaceful protest turned bloody after an army of Dusters, drafted by Embers, attacked the Ghostings at night.
Their blood, like rain, ran through the streets of Nar-Ruta. The final image captured the hanging bodies of the four elders who had organized the siege, the tongue and hands of all the others beside them. Their penance.
This is the treasure beneath the ruins. A treasure we have collected and pieced together over the years.
Sylah looked at the trunks, packed ready for travel. Hassa opened one, the large handles made for Ghostings to loop their forearms under. Sylah couldn’t help the hiss of shock that whistled out her teeth. They were bursting with items: books, pictures, lamps, letters, scraps of wood, pieces of crockery.
Sylah thought of all the items she had traded over the years. Items that Ghostings gratefully received but would be worthless to anyone else. Somewhere in this cavern were the goods she had used to barter for joba seeds.
These are the belongings of our ancestors.
Sylah nodded. She knew she understood, because all she could feel was shame.
“What of the Ending Fire?”
Their laughs shifted the smoke around the room.
They lie. Every day they breathe out the lie and everyone inhales it. The Ending Fire was them, they caused the chaos and destruction of our land, Elder Dew signed.
“They took away your words. They took away your hands. So you couldn’t tell, couldn’t write this story…couldn’t bloodwerk.”
A sea of nodding faces, like waves eroding rock in their assent.
“We need to tell everyone the truth.” Sylah reached for Hassa’s shoulder and clenched it hard. “We need to get your land back.”
Elder Reed snorted, her blue eyes flashing. See, I told you this was a bad idea. Her first instinct is to open her mouth.
No, stolen child, now is not the time to bare the truth. Though it has taken us four hundred years, we have learned from our mistakes. We want our land but we want it whole.Elder Dew stamped their stick to punctuate the sentence.
“The tidewind?”
Dew nodded. We have been moving as many of our people as possible out to a cave on the coastline. There is a Ghosting settlement there that has lived freely for some time, covertly, acquiring materials and goods—
We learned to steal from our invaders too.This was the first time Elder Ravenwing spoke, and Sylah was taken aback by the malice in his eyes. His dark shaven hair, so unusual for a Ghosting, left a shadow on the top of his head. Raven wing indeed.
We’re preparing for a journey.
Sylah’s eyes flicked to the trunks and bags, then back to Elder Dew.
The tidewind,Dew continued, it came with our invaders and now it rages more fiercely than it ever has before.
“So you’re just going to leave your land?”
Elder Reed’s laugh was pained. She understands after all.