Chương 20: Chapter 19: The Fragile Truth

The name of the man who had been her friend in another life remained stuck to her tongue with a flavor of pure nostalgia. Román. She felt it in her chest with a force that oppressed her sternum an echo of something that had once been real and now, in this new existence, lived only as a ghost in the interstices of sleep. She blinked, and as she lowered her eyes to her hands, reality imposed itself with its habitual crudeness: they were hers again, those of this foreign body, those of Selena.

Thin, pale, barely stained by the dirt of the courtyard. She sighed. The cool morning air anchored her to the present. The morning unfolded with a learned normalcy. After everyone had bathed in the cold outdoor showers, Anya assigned the tasks with her maternal efficiency. Today, the rotations had changed. It was Selena's turn to draw water from the well, and her partner would be Lyra. They headed to the center of the courtyard, where the stone well stood like a silent heart.

The wooden bucket, tied to a rough rope worn thin by use, waited on the curb. Selena grabbed the rope with both hands and began to pull, feeling her arm muscles protest with every tug. The work was tedious, rhythmic, mechanical. A good time to think or not to think, depending on one's preference. Lyra worked beside her, but her silence had a different texture. It was a heavy, expectant silence, like that of someone who has been circling a question for hours and is only waiting for the right moment to let it go.

Selena sensed it in the way Lyra avoided looking at her directly, in the way her hands moved with unusual clumsiness as she adjusted the rope. It was while Selena was pulling that Lyra spoke. Her voice was a low whisper, almost a hiss, ensuring that Enara and Nyssa, who were sweeping near the baths at the other end of the courtyard, could not hear. —Selena— she whispered, her tone that of someone leaping into the void without knowing if there is a net. —Are you truly a merchant's daughter?

If you aren't, I don't blame you. Selena did not pause her task. She kept pulling, the bucket ascending slowly, while her mind processed the question and all its possible ramifications. —But if you are a merchant's daughter— Lyra continued, and in her voice was a mixture of hope and desperation that tugged at the heart —that means you know how to read and write, doesn't it? The bucket reached the edge of the well.

Selena grabbed it with both hands, feeling the damp, cold wood against her skin, and placed it in Lyra's hands. Then she turned toward her, her green eyes fixed on the reddish mark, that stigma that had branded both her skin and her soul. —Yes, I do— Selena replied, keeping her voice neutral and controlled. —But why do you ask? She arched an eyebrow and waited. She had learned that silence, well-administered, was a more powerful tool than any direct question.

Lyra looked away instantly, as if eye contact were a luxury she couldn't afford. She gripped the bucket tighter and emptied the water into one of the wooden barrels lined up next to the well. The liquid hit the bottom of the barrel with a hollow, crystalline sound. —It's just... — she trailed off, searching for words, choosing them with the care of someone treading on slippery ground. —I always wanted to learn. I was raised in Lord Otto's house. A thin smile formed on her lips.

It was a smile that did not light up her face, but rather seemed to emerge from the shadows, timid and fragile. —I was in charge of the shopping there— she continued, and for an instant, a hint of pride appeared on her marked features. —I'm good with numbers, truly. She paused, savoring that small acknowledgment of her own worth. —I even had other maids under my charge. She sighed, and the sigh brought with it the weight of time, of losses, of everything that could have been and wasn't.

—The master held me in good faith— Lyra proceeded, her voice growing lower, more intimate. —He promised me he would teach me to read. Then her face transformed. The fleeting pride gave way to a grimace of bitterness; her lips tightened, and her brow furrowed with an intensity that contracted the skin around the mark. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. —Until they did it— she muttered, the words coming out like a spit. —On one of my days at the market.

Those damned vipers. She lowered her voice even further, until it almost vanished, and added with a cold, contained resentment that had fermented through months of injustice: —I'm sure they believe in Thar'ven. The name sounded like a barely veiled curse. Then, Lyra composed herself, her voice returning to a more normal tone, though the bitterness remained embedded in every syllable. —They stole the Mistress's money.

I couldn't prove it— She touched her cheek, the reddish mark, with her fingertips, as if she could still feel the sting of the injustice. —And I ended up here. Selena observed her in silence. A tangible mark. A thief. A woman broken by the lies of others. The thought ran through her head like a shiver, but it wasn't a cold thought of judgment. It was a thought of recognition, of that unspoken sisterhood. Selena bent down slowly, feeling her knees protest from the exertion at the well.

Her fingers searched the packed dirt floor and found a dry twig, thin but sturdy. Without looking up, she traced letters in the dust. She traced: Selena. The letters remained there, sharp, clear, perfectly formed in perfect Spanish. —I only know how to write in this language— Selena said, her voice sounding strangely defeated as she spoke the truth. —I'm sorry, Lyra. She stood up, brushing the dust from her hands. The twig fell to the ground, insignificant.

Lyra stared at the strange characters engraved in the earth. She didn't understand what they said, but she saw the shape, the structure, the evidence that knowledge existed tangible and accessible, and yet, for her, it was barred by a boundary she could not cross. With a gesture of sadness that made the heart shrink, the girl said only one word: —Thank you for trying. She sighed, the sigh of someone surrendering to the evidence, someone accepting that some bridges cannot be crossed.

Her eyes drifted to the horizon of the morning sky, and when she spoke again, her words were heavy with a wisdom only gained through daily survival. —Our identity— Lyra said slowly, as if shelling each word to taste its meaning. —Who we are as people. Even if our blood is always the same color, and even if we can do the same things they do... She pointed vaguely toward the north, where the powerful resided. —... as you see, all of this which is a truth even for our Lady Aelthra is a fragile truth.

When our fate hangs from the hand of another. The task continued. The buckets went up and down the well with a mechanical rhythm. Water filled barrels, sweat soaked brows, and the sun rose slowly in the sky, indifferent to the small tragedies brewing in its shadow. But in Selena's head, the throbbing pain in her forehead did not cease. The feeling in her chest, that agonizing certainty that she was forgetting something important, that there was a key piece slipping through her fingers like water, would not go away.

She gritted her teeth and kept pulling the rope over and over, as if physical effort could exorcise the demons of her conscience. Then, upon finishing the task, as they both wiped the sweat from their brows with the backs of their hands, the words burst from Selena before she could stop them. —The slave is not for himself, but for the master— Selena said, her voice possessing a gravity unusual for her.

—His identity is not recognized, and therefore, his truth as a human being remains hidden and humiliated under service to another's will. Lyra's eyes widened. Surprise, and something that might have been fear, dilated her pupils. —Did you hear that from the heretics? — she questioned, her voice a whisper loaded with alarm. Selena held her gaze. No worry appeared on her face, only that forced calm she had learned to maintain like a shield.

—When I traveled with Papa— she explained, weaving the lie with the skill of an experienced craftsman —I heard it from an old man in a gray and brown robe. He had the face of a thinker and a hunched posture. He was respected by the townspeople. She sighed, letting the story float in the air, with enough detail to be credible and enough vagueness to remain unverified. Lyra stared at her for a long moment. Then, her expression changed.

Surprise gave way to genuine concern, and she lowered her voice until it was almost gone, forcing Selena to lean in to hear her. —That old man? He dresses like the heretics... — she paused, looking both ways to ensure no one was watching them. —Try not to tell anyone else. The Church of the Eternal Sap hunts them under ecclesiastical laws. Just two months ago... they burned three of them on the outskirts of town. Fire.

The word ignited an image in Selena's mind: a bonfire, figures twisting against the flames, black smoke rising toward an indifferent sky. An imaginary heat ran over her skin, a shiver that wasn't from cold but from ancestral horror the kind engraved in humanity as a reminder of what faith can do when allied with power. Selena's mind had drifted elsewhere, to that space of understanding that opened before her like an abyss. The Church of the Eternal Sap.

The same institution that gave bread to hungry children, offered refuge to homeless women, and preached the compassion of Aelthra and the Eternal Flow of life. That same church, with its kind fathers like Theron and practical sisters like Anya, was also the one lighting bonfires for those who thought differently. It must not be as good as they claimed. After all, the power of faith always came with the repression of man, with social control.

It was a lesson humanity had learned time and again throughout the centuries, in all worlds, under all skies. Compassion had limits, and those limits were marked by orthodoxy, by the need to preserve the structure, and by the fear of what different ideas might unleash. It wasn't surprising. Her mind was already becoming accustomed to what this reality offered. Often, what it offered was an uncomfortable certainty: that power structures, whether political or religious, were fundamentally the same.

That truth, that fragile truth Lyra spoke of, was always the first victim when the order felt threatened.