30th Spring 517
Sorla had spent several days cutting and stitching, and at last her new clothes were ready. After so long in tatty travelling clothes, she had been anticipating the feel of the soft, new garments on her skin with a hunger close to lust, but now the clothes were ready she realized that she couldn’t possibly put them on in her current state of grime. There was a pump fountain in the courtyard she had been using to wash every day, waiting for the coast to be clear before hastily stripping and splashing water over her body, but she hadn’t been able to get herself properly clean. She decided to pay a visit to the city bathhouse.
Once her clothes and backpack were safely stowed in a small changing room, with Rikar perched on top to guard them, Sorla walked out into the huge bathing pool. Her breath caught at the beauty of the night-black water that seemed to be strewn with tiny stars. There was something incredibly soothing about the place, and as she sank into the hot water and watched the lights swirling around her, the fragrant scent of some exotic incense drifting through the air, she could feel the tension of the last week in Alvadas melting away. In fact, it was the tension of the last half year. The journey from Wind Reach had been hard, although she had learned to appreciate the pleasures of outdoor living. But before that… she had been forcing herself not to think about her previous life, but now that her mind was no longer occupied by thoughts of survival, and without a needle and thread to focus her meditative energy, she could feel her thoughts being carried by the gentle lapping of the water, drifting inevitably, inexorably back to home. To the gruff voice of her father patiently explaining a new stitch, to the taste of her mother’s hot stew, to her sister’s beaming, hopeful face. At the thought of Torva – sweet, kind, happy, slow Torva – her heart seemed to contract.
She hardly dared imagine where Torva was now. Would she have made it through the winter? Would their parents have been able to do anything to help her? A wave of sadness and guilt poured through her veins and up into her chest, hot and bitter. Her nose burned and her jaw ached from the effort of restraining the tears, but eventually she gave in, letting them stream down her cheeks and into the waiting water. She tried desperately to cling to whatever remained to her of hope to stop herself drowning, but she didn’t even know whether to hope Torva was still alive, or whether it would be kinder to hope her sister had escaped from all the pain at last. She sent a whispered prayer to Priskil. ‘I don’t know what to hope for anymore, but I know that I need hope. All I want is what’s best for Torva. Please, teach me what to hope for. Please.’ There was silence. Still sobbing, but slower now, she forced herself to return to the present. She soaped her wrinkled, pruny skin and scrubbed it hard, as if she could wash away the lingering stain of guilt and homesickness along with the dirt.