IVELLA FONDALI
Y ou were not right nor wrong. There is no such thing as right or wrong when you are learning, what I will tell you is that the entirety of our infinite life is about lessons.’ Ma says she rubs her hand over my hair.
I turn and she is already smiling looking down at me as I lie in her lap.
‘Misperception is a thief. We go into love thinking we know what must be here and that is it, all or nothing. When that all or nothing can ruin something pivotal. I always said that I wanted a husband who had a past with no one. I wanted my own children, I wanted to be the only person in his life that mattered because I deserved it. But, the universe is funny. And she gives you what you need. Not what you covet for. Then, I met your father, I met you and Ira, and all of those thoughts I had about what I knew I wanted was formed through ignorance.’
I open my eyes as I lay at the bottom of the tub and lift through the water.
As I look at the stars that burn in the sky, I see him.
I see the shape of his eyes forming.
So easily his face is outlined.
And within the shooting of the stars, they dance, forming his black and white curls.
The longer I look at the star given eyes, I see all the reverence and adoration he once looked at me with, and then, the distraughtness, the pain.
I stand from the bathing tub and wrap the linen around my body.
The doors to my chamber open and Dyena enters, I see the backs of two guards at the doors and instead of them turning to close the doors, she does instead.
“Ivella?” Dyena calls.
“Here,” I say from the bathing chamber.
She smiles. “Hello sister.”
“Hi,” I say, still standing in the tub wrapped in the linen.
“Are you all right?”
I think so.
Thinking is not knowing.
Am I?
Will I be?
“Come out of the tub,” she holds her hand out and I take it.
She walks me to my vanity and grabs the small jar filled with the cream for my hair that my father made specifically for my curls. Then, she combs her fingers through my hair and our eyes meet.
“Your mind is raging.”
“Are you hearing every thought?”
Dyena laughs. “No, but the energy is pulling.”
“How many bodies were there?” I ask.
“Few, thankfully. Yaro’s son was ridded of before the rest of the rogues could ambush.” She pinches the side of my neck and I smile.
“Battlefields aside,” Dyena uses the end of my linen to wipe remnants of the cream from her hands. “How are you?”
“Fine.”
I am not fine and I will not say it.
“Ivella, you are a mirror of mine,” she delicately speaks. “Yet also an entire opposite of me, still, I know when something is the matter. And I know when you are lying.”
She waits.
She will wait forever.
“You are giving up.”
I tilt my head higher. “I am not giving up.”
“Then what are you doing?”
The stiffness grows. “I do not like this.”
“I know you do not, and that is why we will speak of it right now.”
“Speak of what?”
“You know what. You are angry, are you not?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I love him.” And in saying it, I feel that tiny crack in what I have fought to avoid. “I love him and he is not ready for it.” Making all of the progress I have built to be with him into nothing.
“Just because he is not ready at this moment, Ivella, does not mean never. Men are fragile, they do not admit it, but all they truly want is to be loved, adored, and cherished, and held. They want everything we want and sometimes they want it more than we do, and are any of us ever truly prepared for that?”
No, none of this makes sense.
Love does not make sense.
“He needs time to . . . to heal, to alleviate his–”
“Since when must one heal alone, Ivella? I think after all these years have passed of him not prospering through his trauma is sign enough that he cannot do it alone. He cannot do it without you. He has his brothers, he has a loving sister, he has close people around him. But you,” her voice softens as she kneels in front of me, and her hands tightly grasp my own. “You bring him elation that no one else ever has. You make him forget those years of his life ever existed, no matter how you came into his life, you did. And you changed it for the better.”
He is young, he must be my age.
He has white in his hair.
He is an Orviante.
His cloak is thrown around my shoulders, the fabric is heavy and velvety. Most importantly, I am covered.
For how long?
How long will he be nice to me before he forces me to be a chambermaid like my companions who have been taken?
No, he is not like the others.
I could be wrong.
‘I–I am Laven. What is your name?’
Finally, I breathe and I can hear the fading screams of Ira as I am rushed away in that godforsaken carriage.
Ira . . .
How will he be without me.
‘What is your name?’ I am asked, after all, I do believe I heard him asking for my name, but the screaming. The screaming, wailing Ira is trapped in my ears.
Ivella, but I cannot tell him that.
The first name to come to mind is what my father said he wanted to name me before coming up with the name Ivella.
‘Maivena.’ It hurts to talk.
Maivena.
Yes, Maivena will do.
He is so soft spoken.
‘Did they–did any of those men touch you?’
The hard hands gripping my shoulders reappear and as if I am reliving it all over again, I can feel the tearing of all of my clothing as Ira is held before me to watch.
I shake my head of the thoughts, not realizing he will see that as a response.
‘Please, do not feel like you have to lie to me.’
I cannot say it.
I cannot say the way I was touched in front of such an innocent soul.
I shake my head again. ‘They only took my clothes . . .’ I do not hear myself speaking as rabid thoughts race through my head.
A tear that I have been fighting sheds, but only one, I will not let anyone of this bastard nation see me cry over the putridness of man.
‘One day,’ he whispers, ‘I am going to kill them.’
A great promise from such a young boy.
How will someone like you ever conquer the power of twelve men?
Instead, I ask, ‘why?’ Why harm your own?
I can hear the tightening of his jaw just before he speaks. ‘Because they touched you, and you will learn fast here, Maivena, that I do not tolerate men touching women outside of their consent.’
Finding the courage, I lift my head.
As he stares at me I see truth in his pretty eyes. ‘Laven,’ I mumble. ‘You are kind.’
His smile is lazy. ‘Let us see if you still find me kind when I deliver their heads to their families.’
“Do not,” Dyena exhales slowly as she wipes away the fallen tears along my face. “Do not be so keen on knowing everything. Sometimes, not much good can come from knowing the entirety of a situation. You have gone through far too much for a woman who is only five and twenty. You have been forced to live above your age, you have been forced to overcome trauma, you have been forced to do many things you have not wanted to. Now, I am begging you, as your sister, to just be happy and love him, Ivella. It is what you both need most and that is all he is asking of you . . . to just love him and to let him love you, unless you would like for your greatest regret in life to be letting him go.”
