Awakening

Samara wakes after battle with only her name, her purpose, and some lay of the land.

Samara woke with a throbbing skull and a belly bursting with river water. She spewed on foreign rocks and sand, convulsing until she was empty, and rolled onto a sharp stone. She felt as hot as the sun was bright and then icy cold. The cycle repeated for what felt like days, but the sun had hardly moved in the sky.

This is Gadaya. She knew the name of the land, the stone, the crystal water, and misty mountains over the pine forest within a span of the river shore. She could imagine a map in her mind with the bends in the river around shallow valleys and wild lands. Tiny fine letters wove around the name of the mountains and tiny city names that were still foggy in her mind’s eye. She was on a river bank somewhere along the western border of Gadaya.

She knew her name - Samara Labaster - and that she was traveling to the summer palace of the Golden Throne to protect someone. She could somewhat make out the name - arl? Early? - and see locks of golden hair around a wide smile. Her memories were of chasing a boy carrying a dead snake, but as soon as she could snatch the memory, it began to fade again. 

Someone had sent her this way. She had a duty, something so important that she could not stop or rest until it was done. Lives depended on this. Her life? She shook her aching head. She could not remember any more of her details, even if she tried until her brain sizzled.

Her memories would return in time. Somehow she knew that time was not a luxury she could afford, so she pushed off the stones and tried to stand.

Hot pain exploded in her shattered body. She cried out and spewed again. Her left foot felt like a bag of broken sticks and stones. Parallel gashes ran in rows over her flesh and dark leather armor. She lay on the stone and closed her eyes until the pain allowed thought again. Somehow, she was not concerned with imminent death. 

Then Samara remembered. She was the most powerful mage she’d ever known. The memory struck her muscles and bones more like instinct, more of using a sword than remembering a word.

She rested a hand on her leg and sent warm liquid power from the channels in her blood to her bones. Without pain, each jagged shrapnel oriented and threaded back into long, even pieces. The blackened vessels and strings of tissues woke from death. They spindled together and formed flesh, white and tender, over each wound. Her muscles flexed and relaxed with renewed strength.

Samara pressed against the stony shore again and stood. Then she remembered another deep-rooted instinct:magic was absolutely exhausting. Her body, freed of broken bones and wounds, wobbled beyond her control. She fell forward and scraped her arms. Her head pounded, but she had no time for such exhaustion. Her mission had already been delayed by events she’d forgotten, events that likely marred her memory to such a state. Samara stood like a fawn and stumbled over the stones again, twisting one way and another, until she was in the habit of putting one soaked boot in front of another. 

The stones turned to dunes that sucked her feet into their hot sands before yielding. Then she reached the brunt of the wilderness and its treacherous gnarled roots that tripped her at every shadowy hill. Thorny branches with bright new growth slid over her thick armor, but her wool cloak snagged and ripped. As her body burned and ached, she thought only of the urgency at the summer palace.

She stumbled through the woods until the warmth of afternoon turned to muggy twilight. Then she found a narrow road, filled with holes and muddy in its dip at the base of a willow tree. Samara leaned against the tree and panted. She could not sleep. She would not stop until she reached the palace. The sun still hung over the trees well into the evening. It was late spring; she would have several more hours until the sun’s light was completely gone.

Samara trudged through a flooded dip as the moon rose. Her eyes could see the shapes of the forest with the half-moon’s light, but she could afford a small luxury of light. With a whispered word, a balloon of pink light appeared above her and followed her. The energy needed to maintain such a small feat through the night was equal to that of scratching her neck, but it cast long shadows around the road and frightened the shy night creatures. She walked under the light through the night on legs beyond pain and fatigue. Yet when the sun rose, it seemed too early to the urgency resting in her lost memory. Something urgent demanded her presence.