An ending is also a beginning.
The stars were replaced by wood beams and brown thatch, the sea becoming a soft bed and the endless horizon enclosed by stone walls. A tender breeze caressed her face then departed. From nearby, a woman hummed a lullaby.
Dnara turned her head to find the blackrope cast in backlit shadows from a low afternoon sun, her head bowed, eyes closed and lips smiling. Dnara opened her mouth to speak, finding it salted and bitter, raw from swallowed tears. “Jenny?” she managed on barely a rasp.
The blackrope’s eyes snapped open and she came to Dnara’s bedside, quick as the wind. “Oh, bless Faedra, you’re awake!” Jenny whispered through a smile. “Had us all worried again, you did. Water?”
“Please.”
Jenny helped her sit up then held a cup of water to her lips. “Slowly, now,” Jenny instructed. Dnara’s salted mouth couldn’t be satiated with one cupful, so Jenny refilled the cup and helped Dnara drink her fill. “One would think you’ve been lost out in the Uriman Desert,” Jenny quipped.
“I’ve been lost somewhere,” Dnara replied, her mind drifting back to the dark sea. Her body still felt like it was bobbing along the waves, up and down, and her lungs were heavy. But, unlike the times before, her arms didn’t hurt. Looking at them, she saw the bandages had been removed. “The scars didn’t bleed?”
“Not at all,” Jenny said. “This time, it was like you couldn’t catch your breath, like you were drowning. But your lips were so dry, and anytime we tried to give you water, you’d cough it back up. Athan bought you some lip balm from the market.” She nodded to the nightstand where a small round tin of beeswax balm rested. “He blushed something fierce when Penna told him to put the balm on your lips himself. But, he did. Played his flute for a bit, too, hoping to help you rest. You calmed right down, but then he had to go to a meeting with some fellow by the name of...Garrett, I think?”
Dnara did her best to keep up with Jenny’s jubilant talk, especially since the blackrope had rarely said more than four words at one time, usually ending in a question. It was then that Dnara noticed the renewed clarity in Jenny’s eyes; the appearance of a woman with her wits quite intact. “Jenny?” she asked, fear quivering her vocal chords. “Your mind seems... clear.”
Jenny immediately caught her meaning and the source of her fear. “It’s okay,” Jenny promised, setting down the empty cup and bringing the chair from the window to sit at her bedside. “I mean you no harm,” Jenny emphasized, resting one hand on the bed and fisting the other hand over her heart. “I swear to it.”
“You remember?” Dnara asked, needing to hear the truth of it. “Everything?”
“Everything,” Jenny confirmed. “Honestly, it’s been coming back to me in bits and pieces, ever since the blight let out that awful scream in Tobin’s fireplace. My name. Where I come from. What I do with those ropes.” A brief grimace marred the soft expression she’d been keeping. “Then, today, I was standing in the middle of the market with Tobin when a great wind swept up around me, and all my memories seemed to come back to me with it.”
Jenny looked down at her hands and let out a breath. “I didn’t want to say anything when I first noticed things were coming back, so I played along, asking ‘what’s that?’ about everything.” She let out a small chuckle. “Think I damn near drove Tobin to madness with my questions.”
Timidly, Dnara moved her fingers along the bed so they touched Jenny’s hand. “Why? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Jenny’s gaze rose and her expression sagged with sadness. “I wasn’t ready to see that look in your eyes, that fear. I couldn’t bear it.”
Try as she might, Dnara couldn’t completely remove the fear, even as Jenny’s words touched her heart. “I don’t understand. You’re a blackrope, and I’m...” It still felt strange to say it out loud.
“A mage?” Jenny finished for her. “I’ll tell you a secret, ain’t many people know.”
Jenny leaned in closer and held out her hand. Dnara’s heart sped, afraid there might suddenly be a coil of black rope clenched within Jenny’s grasp. Jenny turned her empty hand over, palm facing up, then shut it tightly before opening it again. When she did, a blue spark appeared, bathing her face in a soft glow before dwindling into shadow.
“You...” Dnara’s words were breathless, surprised. “You can do magic?”
“Aye. Only a little bit. Can’t do things a real mage can, not like them in the Red Tower.” Jenny withdrew the hand back to her lap and looked at the empty palm. “See, that’s irony of it. We don’t have enough magic to help people, but we have just enough to hurt them.” Her fingers slowly curled into a tight fist. “And oh, how we hurt people. Broken, we are, most of us, either by life or by the training we undergo, and the only relief we feel comes from breaking others.”
Jenny looked up from her hand then and shook her head. “Not that I’m wanting to excuse it. No, there ain’t no excuse for the things I’ve done. Not a single one.”
Within Jenny’s steely eyes, Dnara saw the search for something; a forgiveness or, at the least, an understanding. “What’s changed?”
“I don’t... I don’t rightly know,” Jenny answered, leaning back in the chair and thinking it over for a quiet moment. “When I found you outside the bathhouse, when you did whatever it was... You didn’t just take my memories away. You took away everything. And when the wind gave it all back this morning, I think... I think it kept all the anger for itself.”
Jenny drew in a long breath, and when
