Trials

Three weeks later and my lips where still chapped to bleeding if I talked or smiled. No matter how much ointment or what amount of water I drank I still felt dry. Talking had not been possible until recently, either. It was like the desert sand and wind had invaded my mouth and held my voice captive in a hard sandy clump. In the five days it took to reach the Spurt from where the next caravan found me, I was only just able to sit up.
I knelt on the dirt floor of the ascetic hall, picking idly at the dry skin on my lips as I stared blankly at my dirty knees.
A panel of plainly dressed women sat before me, conferring with one another. Every now and again they would turn to look at me with a serious expression. I had tried to show some emotion, but all I could manage was something between a grimace and a wide eyed stare.
Most of the women where older, hair graying and skin like pasty tissue. It contrasted starkly with their earth colored robes that they kept wrapping and re-wrapping around their shoulders. They were shoeless and the bottoms of their feet along with the hems of their billowing pants were caked in dust and mud.
"Ashling," said one of the women, firmly.
My eyes flicked up to meet Travsta's steady gaze. She was perhaps the oldest of the women, of all the women in the ascetic sect at the Spurt, possibly in her mid hundreds. She had been kind to me during the trial, though I was apparently little help to them.
They thought I had murdered an entire caravan.
I blinked at her, waiting for her question.
"You were the only person Bosa's caravan found alive at the-er-site," she said delicately.
I flinched all the same, though I could not remember what had happened, I did remember the terror and illness that came with it.
"Yes," I croaked, pulling my fingers away from my mouth so they could hear me.
"And you don't remember anything that happened?" another woman pressed.
I shook my head slowly, bringing my hand back to my mouth and looking intently at the floor. I made myself concentrate. Nothing was more important right now than the way the dirt made little lines and mounds in front of me.
"I know it might be painful," Travsta said soothingly, "but if you can't tell us what you saw maybe you can tell us who did it?"
"It wasn't me," I whispered.
Mummers broke out on either side of me along the walls of the chamber. The audience that had come to watch often grew restless when the panel questioned me.
I knew it must look strange. One young woman found among a slaughtered caravan with no recollection of what happened was a curious situation. Though I didn't remember what happened, and the events leading up to it where blurry at best, I did know that I hadn't killed them. Why would I? How could I? One small girl against thirty or more was hardly a threat.
I shifted on my knees, digging the fabric of the light colored pants I had been lent farther into the earth. It stung a little as my skin chaffed against it, reminding me that I was still alive.
"There were no signs of foul play," said one of the younger women, hotly. I tried to remember her name, but couldn't. She had been on my case since the moment they carried me into the tunnels.
I blinked slowly at her. "Besides everyone being dead?"
"She's lying, Travsta," she said again. She must have said it a hundred times. "She's hiding something."
"We know your opinion, Palk," Travsta replied coolly. I barely contained a giggle. How could I forget a name like Palk?
"Do you have anything to say in your defense?" she asked me just as coolly. She hadn't mistaken my small laugh as a cough like I'd hoped.
I looked up at her, suddenly tired, and shook my head slightly. Everything I could possibly say had already been said. No, I didn't kill anyone in the caravan, let alone the entire party. No, I did not know who had. And no, I didn't remember anything about it. It was like my mind had erased itself, leaving me stranded in a perpetual fog.
"Then we have someone to speak on your behalf," she said. Shock must have shown on my face because she nodded toward the doors on my left where my grandmother was being let into the room.
I frowned at her, wondering why she was here. Something nagged at my mind as she made her way over from the dark wooden doors. A memory played just below the surface of my conscious, something with blue eyes, tan skin, and brown-almost blond-hair...
Travsta nodded to Grandmother, who inclined her head slightly in return. She didn't even glance at me as she strode onto the open floor, her layered robs billowing and swishing about her legs. Even though we generally upheld a mutual loathing for each other I was often struck by how beautiful she was. She had cropped her hair short, sweeping it to one side to give her a severe, regal look. Her nose was delicately slopped, allowing her dark eyes to easily stare disdainfully down on anyone from above her high cheek bones.
Her beauty made me cringe internally. The same beautiful face had dolled out the harshest punishments in my childhood as my invalid mother lay in bed.
"Thank you for coming, Madam," Palk said, puckering up to the old woman as if she could be sweetened.
Grandmother didn't even bother with a response, standing a few feet away from the panel's desk. Which also happened to be farthest away from me.
"Your grand daughter," Travsta began, "is on charge for over twenty counts of murder. Though we can't see how she may have accomplished this, but no evidence has been provided to suggest anyone else. Can you give a testament to her character?"
She was entirely the wrong person to ask. She hated me. Found every excuse to punish me and begrudged every expense necessary to take care of me. But being a family meant something, didn't it? Her hate wouldn't go so deep that she would--
"She's wretched," she said simply.
Or maybe it would.
"She's been a torment since she could walk," Grandmother continued, never looking at me once. "She's a selfish-"
"Hey," I said quietly.
"-greedy, lying, thief that stole-"
"Hey!" I said a little louder. Did she want me to be executed?
"Shut up, swine!" she shouted, turning on me then. Her eyes burned as she advanced on me.
I scurried back, tripping on my loose clothing.
"You killed your own brother! You murdered him because he was good! I knew you had it in you, but I thought you loved him. Now I see what you really are!"
Now I pressed myself against the far wall as her hands came flying at me, her nails biting into my cheeks, arms, and neck with each slap. I might have fended her off, but the image that I had been holding off for nearly a month came crashing into my head. My brother, blood running out of his chest but still smiling with his beautiful blue eyes. How hot the sand felt as I held him and he died in my arms...
Tears were streaming down my face now as I remembered. Some people had come to pull the mad woman off me and guide me back to my place in front of the panel. They looked at me with a mixture of expressions as I cried.
"You... had a brother?" Travsta asked hesitantly, looking confused.
I could only nod. I had sucked in my bottom lip to keep from screaming out as my memory assaulted me with the image of my brother's corpse. The chapped lip bled into my mouth.
"He was on the caravan?" she prodded again.
Grandmother was being consoled by some of the women in the audience on my right. I nodded again.
"Why didn't you tell us?!" Palk shouted, accusation coloring her voice.
I took a steadying breath so I could try and explain. "I don't know. I-I didn't r-remember and-"
"You didn't remember your own brother?" she said sceptically.
"I don't know why didn't remember but-"
"Did you think you could get away with it if you didn't mention him?" she said over me. "Did you think we wouldn't find out?"
"No, but the Erynese-"
Palk was about to say something else but Travsta stopped her with a raised hand.
"The Erynese? What about them?" she asked shortly.
"They were there," I said in almost a whisper, memory flooding my head. "They had a ship, huge and gray, and strange weapons that made things explode. They attacked us-"
"How did they get past the sands?" Palk asked hotly, not believing me. "No one can. Stop lying!"
"I'm not lying!" I shouted back, finally feeling my own anger bubble up. "They attacked us and killed everyone!"
"But left you alive?" Palk countered. "Why would they do that?"
A strange image entered my mind then. The Erynese men dragging me away from Berrik's body. The sense of power flowing through me, consuming me. My own light blinding my eyes and pushing me into darkness...
There were gasps from the crowd. Pulled out of my revere I looked around for the source of the disturbance. They were all staring at me.
I looked quickly down at myself to find my skin glowing once again. My hands lifted in front of my face, seemingly of their own accord, for my eyes to examine. It was brightest around my hands, where the skin pulsed with luminescence.
My breathing sped up and I chocked it back to try and calm myself.
"Ashling!" Travsta barked, stealing my attention.
I looked at her and the glow faded.
Travsta's expression was serious, as was the rest of the panel's. Except for Palk's; she looked like her eyes might pop right out of her skull.
"Have you ever displayed this... ability, before?" Travsta asked.
I looked at my grandmother, she was standing on her own now slightly apart from the crowd. Her eyes regarded me more coldly than I had ever seen before. If that were possible.
Still looking at Grandmother I shook my head. "No."
"Do you know what sort of power this is?" she asked.
I shook my head again.
"Demon!" Palk spat.
"Silence Palk, or so help me I'll cut out your tongue!" she threatened. Palk's mouth snapped closed, but her eyes still accused me of every evil known to man.
"It is an evil," Grandmother said quietly, stepping forward to face the panel.
I sighed. Grandmother shot me a withering look.
"My mother had the same ability," she confessed, sneering at Travsta's choice of words. "It ended up killing my the rest of my family and several other house holds in the area. I was outside of town with it happened. You could see the light erupt for miles."
My mouth fell open. This was not a story I had heard before.
"It often happened when she was emotional or angry," she continued. "Something must have happened and she couldn't control it. Ashling has never faced any sort of emotion short of foolishness, something must have triggered it."
"When the Erynese took me from Berrik-" his name burned in my throat "-that's when it started," I offered.
Travsta frowned. "If you're saying that the trauma of seeing her brother die brought out her abilities, where were the bodies of the people from Eryn?"
I blinked. I had not been awake when the caravan found me or taken me away from the gruesome scene, but no one had mentioned Erynese bodies among the dead. Had I completely obliterated them? I shivered at the thought.
The audience was getting restless again. The women covered the mouths with heir scarves to speak with one another in hushed tones.
"We will convene and return with a verdict," Travsta announced after taking in the stirring crowd the other unsettled panel members.
The panel rose from there seats and crowed out of the room for a moment. I looked at my hands again wondering what they could have done. Even with my memory now intact the scene was still blurry. Had I really killed the Erynese? If I had then where were the bodies? Where was the massive earth roving ship that I saw? This all seemed to be moving at the pace of a dream.
The panel returned to their seats in far too short a time for my liking. Trasta remained standing. One of the guards came to my side and helped me to my feet as well.
"Ashling," she said, her voice strong with authority. "The story you've told us is shaky at best. We cannot know exactly what happened in the desert a month ago. What the panel has seen and heard from your grandmother, though, cannot be denied. You have been cursed."
I felt my knees weaken, thankfully the guard had a firm grip on my arm to keep me from falling on my face.
Travsta turned to my grandmother. "You have been granted the choice. Death or enslavement?"
Grandmother turned to me, her eyes suddenly softening a little. I pleaded with my eyes. She knew what I would have chosen.
"Sell her for slavery," she said surely, turning away from me and striding out the door.
Travsta nodded absently and the gavel fell, sealing my fate.
The panel dispersed and the guard steered me out the door. If not for the guards strong hand I wouldn't so much as crawled. Grandmother waited in the hall and the guard stopped a moment as we faced each other.
"Death would have been kinder," I told her simply.
She reached out and patted my cheek, the most intimate gesture I had ever received from her.
"I know," she whispered.