#771 AQUARED DEEP DREAMER FULL#

“We understand he refuses to meet you here. Avex protected us and the rest of the sacred city. She was as frightened as the rest of us.Īn Avex warrior came into the room then, her body painted with the symbols of the Twin Serpents who brought forth the waters Alcanzeh was built over.

My mother appeared calm, but I could see the tension in her jaw, the way the vein in her throat flickered with her heartbeat. “He demands we join him at the Temple of Memory.” All of us were crowned by our own hair, our black braids wound around our heads and pinned up in styles sacred to Dreamers.Ī runner came in and whispered into Safi’s ear. We wore ceremonial tunics, embroidered with the creatures of earth, sea, and sky dark red sashes tied beneath our breasts. She was born into a body of thick legs even as a child, her thighs had rippled with beauty as she walked. Zeri was still growing into her body’s shape and appeared younger than she was. Delu and I had the same roundness of hip and belly as our mother, but I was shorter so it showed differently on my body. Zeri looked as if she was a girl dressed in the robes of an elder, shifting her weight from one foot to the other the way she did when she was nervous. To my right, Delu looked as regal as our mother and aunts, her posture straight and grounded. Outside of anything else that happens, we are Dreamers. My daughters,” Safi spoke to all of us, but her eyes focused on mine. Safi flashed her dark eyes at her sisters, then at me. “He isn’t the boy who was taken screaming from Alcanzeh anymore we don’t know who he is.” Kupi’s voice was gentle. Ixara spoke her mind freely, while Kupi always tried to keep the peace between her sisters. She seemed to bite back her response, her lips pressed together into a thin line. Our mother inhaled, her wide nostrils flaring. “Safi, if there was ever a time to be bold, it is now.” Ixara snapped her fingers. Kupi and Ixara were identical the only way most could tell them apart was by Kupi’s broken front tooth. They had the same sharp nose, wide lips, and brown eyes that missed nothing. All three were long-limbed with abundant hips. They looked like smaller, wilder versions of our mother. “We’re ready for him.” Our aunt Kupi grinned. Our temple was lit for ceremony, sacred Ayan smoke hanging in the air, all of us dressed and waiting for him to come. The entire city of Alcanzeh was awake, waiting. We gathered in a small chamber adjacent to the main gathering chamber at the center of our home, the Temple of Night. Delu’s mouth constantly curved as if she were about to tell a joke or flirt. Our black hair rose in braids twisted into the shapes of the Twin Serpents who protected us.

We looked like our mother, our aunts, like Dreamers.

#771 AQUARED DEEP DREAMER FULL#

Our bodies were shaped differently, but we had similar faces: wide jaws, dark eyes, our lips full and wide. The temple worker held out a reflector, and we examined ourselves in the polished and oil-lacquered wood. We painted each other’s faces with pigment mixed in rendered animal fat. I held Zeri’s thin braids in place as Delu pinned them up. She’d chosen carved bone jewelry to contrast her damp-earth brown skin. “Indir.” Delu handed me the necklace she wanted to wear. Delu knelt-she was the tallest of us, born into a body that wore strength, muscle. I held Delu’s thick braids in place as Zeri inserted the combs. As we had done countless times before, we tied on each other’s sashes. The small, familiar rituals around preparing our bodies for ceremony didn’t calm me the way they usually did. For all we’d prepared, we weren’t ready.Ī temple worker rushed into our chamber, a lit torch in her hand.įrom within the walls of our own temple, a human wail began. The three of us held each other in silence. The conch horns were louder, the drums a steady beat, closer, closer, closer. I reached to her, pulling her small body up from her hammock and into an embrace. Zeri, the youngest of us, began her languid waking stretch, but her eyes flew open as she realized what was happening. Delu, two years older than me, opened her eyes first.

I kissed them each softly, Singing a small waking Song, my voice breaking. I knew they were in Dreaming, their bodies struggling to pull them back. Three cries for peace.ĭelu and Zeri stirred. An answering conch blew thrice from our own warriors. I rose, blood rushing through my body as I swung from my hammock. Unfamiliar drum rhythms pounded in the distance, echoing off the stone walls of our temple. I wanted to wail in response, in grief, in terror.ĭogs began barking on the outskirts of the city. The wail of a far-off conch shell woke me from my already broken sleep.

771 aquared deep dreamer