Aeryn looked down at her hands, remembering the night they turned red in the firelight. Not from a wound. But from awakening.
"And Anya found this all out?"
"Yes she did. She even tried to protect her mother but she was too late because of her indecisiveness and this further enraged her, made her more determined and more powerful."
"What about her father? Who was her father?"
"Her father was king's son. He was killed in a battle days after the incident in the prison."
Aeryn looked at her, with disbelief. "she was fire bender, she was water bender, she was blood bender and she was a royal!"
Sakina nodded and sighed as if she knew it was too much for a teen queen to handle.
Aeryn put her hand on her chest rubbing it. She was feeling overwhelm.
"Anya knew all of this. She was pained by it, she was disgusted. this all only fueled her fury. She was too intelligent. Even though grief stricken, she used all these in her favor. And no one ever crossed her again or tried to use anything against her" Sakina added.
"I don't know what to do with this,sakina" she whispered. "why I even have to know about this? About hama, her daughter! Like … yeah I am understanding that she invented this power and somehow I also had this power but… Sakina…" she looked at her with squinted confused gaze.
"You embrace it," Sakina said firmly, putting her hand on her shoulder. "Not to become her. But to finish what she began. A century later, you are the continuer of a legacy long buried beneath shame and fear. Aeryn she is your great great great grandmother."
Aeryn looked up slowly. "How do you know all this?"
Aeryn asked crossly irritation visible in her tone.
"You don't believe me", sakina said with a smile and back off.
"How can I Sakina!" she cried
"Your highness. This is your past your legacy and your beginning."
She continued to say, I wont say anything more, but you can go to outskirts of the capital right now, or talk to any senior minister of the court, all of them know about queen anya, of course not much but enough to prove what I have just told you is truth! My whole family has always been loyal to the monarch. My great great grandmother served your great great great grandmother. We have a link and I have a responsibility. We were always taught to be diligent in case a powerful monarch arose in the dynasty, whose power no one can rival!"
Aeryn felt like the walls were spinning around her. "Why… Why did no one tell me this? Not even my father? Why was this hidden from me?"
Sakina's eyes darkened. "Because your father had no such power. He was a ruler only by blood of royal men; but it was you who carried the fire of Hama's rage, Anya's legacy, and Katara's silence. First daughter in century after Anya. Your father feared that. Feared what he could never control. He tried everything; experiments, scrolls, forbidden rites; to awaken it in himself. But the blood rejected him. Every man after Hama was cursed. No man could bear the weight of it."
"Then why me?" Aeryn's voice cracked. "Why didn't I feel powerful since birth? Why did my parents never see it?"
Sakina's voice softened. "Perhaps it was grief that buried it. Or perhaps the gift was waiting. Waiting for the moment when your heart cracked open like Hama's did. Maybe it was the night you buried your parents with your bare hands, in the garden where roses refused to grow. Maybe it was pain that unlocked it. Or maybe…"
She leaned in, her voice almost a whisper, "…maybe blood remembers."
Sakina's voice lowered, as if touching something sacred and feared in the same breath. She continued.
"And now," she said, "you are the first of her line to awaken all three veins again. Blood. Fire. Water. The forgotten trinity. The royal inheritance that no man could bear."
Aeryn looked up slowly, her brow creased. "Why? Why couldn't a man bear it?"
Sakina exhaled, the silence before her answer speaking louder than words. "Perhaps it was a curse. A silent oath whispered by the blood of every woman who had suffered. From Hama... to Anya… to the hundreds whose names we no longer remember. The pain they carried was not only of war or captivity; but of betrayal. Men broke them. Burned them. Took from them what could never be returned."
Aeryn's heart pounded.
"After Anya, the line continued… but only sons were born. Almost hundred years of silence. No daughters. No one to carry the weight of that power. No one the blood would trust. And then, after a century, you were born."
Aeryn stared at her own hands, suddenly unsure whether she was blessed or condemned.
"You are the first daughter a queen in a hundred years," Sakina whispered, her voice like trembling flame. "The blood has waited. It would not answer to men. Not after what was done. Perhaps it refused to pass into hands that did not bleed like theirs did… or cry like theirs did in silence."
Aeryn swallowed hard. "So I… inherited their rage."
"No," Sakina said. "You inherited their truth. Their sorrow. Their fire. The blood sings in you now because it finally found someone who could understand it. Not use it for conquest, but carry it with honor… or vengeance, if that is what you choose."
Aeryn's question lingered in the still air between them.
"But…?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "My father… his brothers… all the heirs before me. Not even one? How its possible?!"
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