Chương 58: Chapter 57: The Memory of the Flesh

Immediately, she grasped them both using the sleeve of her vest, protecting them as if they were fragile treasures. She spread them out in her hands, feeling the contrast in temperatures even through the fabric, though it was fainter now. Then, she headed toward Kaela. She crossed the passage quickly, her steps echoing on the stone with an urgency she couldn't explain, a need to share, to see, and to understand.

Once she spotted the tanner, she reached her side, finding her repeating the same letter over and over in the dirt with a small stick, her tongue peeking slightly from the corner of her lips in that familiar gesture of concentration. Elian, sitting beside her, observed with infinite patience, correcting her with nothing more than a whisper when necessary. As soon as she reached her, Selena touched her shoulder.

Elian and Kaela immediately turned around, but the tanner's eyes were fixed only on the bracelets Selena held in her hands. Her eyes lit up with that childlike spark that rarely appeared on her face, and smiling, she asked: —Are they for me? She raised an eyebrow, curious, but there was a restrained hope in her voice, as if she didn't want to get her hopes up too high. Selena replied simply, without ornament or detour: —That's right. She extended both hands toward the tanner, offering the two bracelets.

—Pick whichever of the two you like. Kaela looked at the bracelets for a moment, her eyes jumping from one to the other without finding any difference. Then, with the naturalness of one choosing without knowing what they are choosing, she took the one on the right. The very same one that had provoked that icy shiver and that metallic taste of phantom blood in Selena. She slipped it onto her wrist with a quick, almost automatic gesture, and then looked at it, satisfied. Selena arched an eyebrow in perplexity.

She couldn't understand it. She expected a reaction, a startle, something. But Kaela just smiled, contemplating the bracelet on her wrist like one receiving an ordinary but beloved gift. —Do you feel how cold it is? —Selena asked, her voice tinged with incredulity. —It's as if it were made of frozen iron. Kaela looked at her, and in her eyes was an expression of amused confusion. —No —she replied with total normalcy, as if Selena had asked if the sky was blue. —It's just a traditional local bracelet, Selena.

They sell many things like this in the market stalls. A playful smile touched her lips, that smile that always appeared when Selena said something that betrayed her ignorance of the world. Selena only managed to say, as she placed the other bracelet on her own wrist, feeling the comforting warmth spread across her skin: —I was told they protect you. Though I don't believe a symbol can truly do that, I choose to believe that if something happens, at least you'll have it with you.

—Thank you —Kaela said, and her gratitude was genuine and deep, the kind that needs no grand gestures to be felt. —I have to keep studying, but truly, thank you. You're the best. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Her expression was warm, appreciating the gesture more than the object itself, valuing the intention above any supposed power. Selena nodded, smiled, and turned away.

She walked back toward the office, deep in thought, her mind fluttering like frightened birds over what those bracelets Corren had left might actually be. Her left wrist, where she wore hers, gave off a slight heat against her skin, a constant caress, a reminder that something about them was different. Once she finally reached the office, driven by a reigning curiosity, she reached for the parchment Corren had left for her.

She unrolled it over the coralwood surface, smoothed the edges with her palms, and began to read. The handwriting was the same as in the previous note, precise and angular, but the words now held a different gravity, as if each question had been seared into the parchment after years of meditation.

"Throughout the time the Path has existed, we have encountered several questions that have made us doubt. Some of you have already been able to answer, and I am grateful for it. The enlightenment of thought is gradual. For that same reason, I present some of those doubts here." Selena swallowed hard. Her hand trembled slightly over the parchment.

"The first of them is: If there is no divinity outside of ourselves, where does the sense of transcendence arise from?" The hammering began in her forehead. Light still, but present.

"The second is equally powerful: If the soul needs no master, why do humans seek guides or gods?" The words resonated in her head like tolling bells, each one opening new questions, new abysses.

"The third, for its part, is the center of a new branch we are attempting to question: Is mental clarity possible within a society of faith and obedience?" Selena felt the pain intensified, ideas struggling to find shape, to express themselves.

"The fourth is: If truth is not imposed, how can it be shared without falling into proselytism?" She took a deep breath. The air filled her lungs, anchoring her to reality.

"The fifth and last of them is: What drives a human being to act with kindness without gods or eternal rewards?" The answers struck her head like a rhythmic pounding—each question a blow, each word an echo. She knew what to write. In her chest were the right things she wished to capture, ideas boiling like lava about to erupt. But then, an equally deep, equally insurmountable problem arose. She did not know how to write in the language of this world. That language Corren was called Erahari.

The same one from the books, the signs, the conversations. She spoke it fluently, she understood it perfectly, but the marks on the paper —the strokes that transformed sound into symbol— were completely foreign to her. She let out a deep, dejected sigh. She only had in her memories the signatures with Elara, those marks she made in Spanish while the other women made shapeless blots. The letters that Lyra had not been able to understand.

The barrier that separated her from communicating everything she carried inside. But then, like a lightning bolt in the dark, an idea surged within her. If she knew how to speak it, if the words flowed from her mouth naturally, perhaps the body knew how to write it. Perhaps the memory of the flesh —muscles trained in another life, in another body— could find the way.

An image came to her mind with the clarity of a dream: the man from Earth writing at his glass desk, fingers flying over the keyboard, words springing forth effortlessly. And the words she had said in the dream resonated in her soul with the force of a revelation:"Stop thinking in your language. Submerge yourself in the new to understand it." It was then that the philologist from Earth, the imprisoned man, gave in. Selena felt it like a surrender, like a warrior laying down arms after a long battle.

Instead of fighting the current, she let herself be carried away. She eliminated all interference of Spanish from her mental flow; she pushed aside every word, every grammatical structure, every sound of that language that had been hers in another life. She emptied herself of her own language as if draining a vessel, leaving only a clean, empty space, waiting. Then, quite simply, she let her hand move. It happened.

Selena's hand —the hand of this borrowed body— slid across the parchment with a natural, elegant fluidity, as if she had been doing it her entire life. The angular strokes and peculiar curves of Erahari sprang from the pen with an innate precision, every letter in its place, each word forming with a beauty that overwhelmed her. It was not she who was writing. It was the deep memory of the flesh, the habit etched into the nerves and muscles, finally released from the interference of her intrusive consciousness.

It was Selena's body —the original, the one that had belonged to another woman— reclaiming its knowledge, its skill, its identity.