Page 302 of Awakened

Branwen’s eyes open and she frowns. “Why’d you stop? What happened next?”

I shake my head, half my mind on the story while the other half chases the thread of something I’m sure I’m missing.

“Sorry. Uhm... she finished the blanket, and when the sun rose, she went back with the messenger to deliver the gift to the Queen herself. The Queen wept when the Weaver placed it in her hands, as it was the most beautiful piece of work the Weaver had ever created. The Prince was squirming in his father’s arms, but the moment his father swaddled him in the blanket, he calmed.”

“Well, did it work then? Did the Prince grow to be a good King?” Branwen asks, and I almost laugh at how much she sounds like I did as a child.

“I don’t know. That’s the end of the story.”

“Bullocks,” she huffs. “How do we even know if it did what it was supposed to do if that’s the end?” Throwing up her hands in exasperation, she points an indignant finger at me. “See, that’s the problem with these old stories.”

“What is?”

She shoves to her feet and plants her hands on her hips. “The Happily Ever After is always implied, but nobody ever writes a sequel, so we don’t know for sure. I mean, isn’t it a bit problematic that absolutely no one ever bothered to check up on these people?”

I frown. “I don’t think that’s⁠—”

“I mean, take Snow White,” she continues, pacing back and forth. “What if she didn’t want to live in a castle? What if she was perfectly happy in her little cottage in the woods with her seven buddies, huh?”

It’s clear this isn’t meant to be a conversation, so I don’t respond. Instead, I slip my hands into the water and swirl my fingers back and forth, enjoying the liquid against my skin.

“The Prince could be a total wanker. We don’t even know him. He like—randomly shows up and makes out with a dead girl? That’s some major trigger warning behavior. I mean, did anybody even stop to think, ‘hmm, we should ask Snow White if she even wants to marry that bloke’?”

I laugh, nearly missing it when the water trembles faintly against my fingers as though responding to my emotion.

“What good is it being friends with seven dwarves if not one of them thought to at least look into his background? He could be riding through multiple kingdoms, looking out for sleeping women to make out with. We don’t know! Snow White could have married a predator, Idril!”

“Branwen,” I whisper, but she doesn’t hear me over her tirade.

“Honestly, now that I think about it—what were seven dwarves even doing living alone in⁠—“

“Branwen!” I hiss insistently, and she spins to face me, face twisted in annoyance.

“What?”

“Just… wait,” I whisper, letting my eyes flutter closed. I continue swirling my hands in the water, letting the gentle liquid swirl until it stops feeling separate from my body. When I still, the water stills as well. I don’t react. I don’t think about the water. The only thing I focus on is my fingers and how they feel fully submerged.

The thread I’d been searching for moments ago appears, and I latch onto it before it can slip away again.

Deep in my chest, something shifts.

“They were one and the same,” I breathe, voice so low I’m not sure Branwen can even hear me. It doesn’t matter, though. Taking a steadying breath, I let it out slowly and focus all my concentration on the feel of my fingers in the water.

I begged my powers to work. I denied them, and then I tried to force them. I pleaded with them and even tried to barter. I commanded and willed them to do something—anything—for almost three entire days.

Fire, Earth, wind, water. It doesn’t matter which; I tried it all with each one. But the whole time I was doing it all wrong. Nothing worked.

I’d been doing something wrong, and now I think I finally understand what.

I open my eyes, and my gaze settles on the mural in front of me. Specifically, the woman with her hands buried in the dirt, wonder and freedom in her eyes. Plants and trees and blooms sprout from the soil, and not because she’s forcing them. She isn’t willing the Earth to do her bidding. She’s not beginning or cajoling, either.

It’s so clear to me now, in a way it wasn’t before. The look on her face… she’s one with the Earth. One with the plants blooming and the air she’s breathing.

My gaze slides toward the dais in the middle of the Chamber. All four elements are etched along the edge, but not separately. They were drawn specifically to imply a connection. Water overlapping with air, fire with Earth, and so on. So that, at first glance, you see a single entity rather than four separate elements.

This power… It’s not something that was given to me. I am my mother’s daughter, and whatever this is came from her. And probably her mother before her, and her mother’s mother after that. Generation after generation of women, each carrying these gifts and passing them to their daughter.

Until me.