Chapter 45: In your memory
She went straight to Zephira's tent. They truly didn't touch her stuff.
Zaelia let the tip of her fingers wander on everything around her. They didn't even clean the cup of tea she had served before leaving. Zaelia sat at the table and watched in front of her the dirty cups, she was staring in front of her where Zephira was only one week ago. Her heart tightened in her chest and she felt a heavy weight in her throat. She placed her hand on the table and lowered her head, in a blink of an eye, tears were flooding her eyes. The silence of the tent was troubled by the discreet sob of the young woman. She whispered to herself.
"What should I do now Zephira? I am lost."
She raised her head in the hope of seeing the elder in front of her drinking her tea and complaining about her behavior as usual but this time, nobody was there for this. She felt so alone in the world.
"Eight men died in the desert, Zephira, and the elders don't want to change anything. Did they die in vain?"
She started to cry a bit louder, she placed her arm on the table and hid her face in her elbow. She was a mess, she didn't know what to think. Zephira knew things would never be the same after this expedition and Zaelia understood only now, too late, why Zephira didn't want her to leave. She knew she would succeed and she knew she would never be able to continue to respect the other elders after that.
There was this saying the elder was repeating constantly: "Sometimes it is better to remain candid." These words were taking all their senses now. Zephira was wise in this way.
Zaelia felt broken, not only because of her loss, no, that was also deeper than that. She felt broken because she realized that the tribe was a cage. She realized how wide the world was, how many flowers there were, and how much the sky could be different. She had the experience of a floor that was not sand, a floor hard to walk on, and she discovered what it was to lay on the grass to stargaze. She felt the soft and gentle caress of the wind instead of the brutal whip it could be in the desert.
She learned the existence of another world that was asking to be explored and the elders made it clear that they didn't want to send other expeditions out of the desert.
They made it clear that they would only keep pillaging the villages around the tribe, the elders were the vultures they always were and they wanted to force the tribe to follow them but the new generation, the generation of Zaelia, was aspiring too much more.
She stopped to cry slowly, raising her head to the usual place where Zephira was sitting before. She lay down on the floor at the place she was and she contemplated the ceiling of the tent. She took a deep breath to try to calm her mind.
"What should I do, Zephira? Tell me you left me something to guide me, please."
Zaelia remembered her last discussion with Zephira. Word after word. "I am afraid your dreams will surpass you". Zaelia didn't know what her dreams were anymore. After seeing this new world and the reaction of the other elders, everything was confused. She always wanted to act in the glory of the god, she never thought of anything else than her love for Archanium.
"What do you want?" she asked in the space, hoping in vain for an answer.
She couldn't believe that Archanium was content with the tribe as it was. It was said that the first man to come to live in the desert ascended to be a god and took place next to Archanium for eternity. Zelia couldn't understand why.
He came there to be closer to the sun but their conditions of living were terrible, they were not meant to stay glorious for a long time.
"Did he ascend because he unified people? Or because he lived in the desert, close to you? Tell me how to please you, my god."
If it was not for their strong constitution their tribe would never have survived until now. Did the elders realize it? They seemed like they thought the blessings of Archanium would protect them forever. They acted as if the first god ascended had to be responsible for their survival.
It was now the middle of the night. She sat in the tent and she watched her hands.
"Archanium, my god, I hope you will be pleased by what I am about to do..."
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