Red And Black

Red.

And black.

Red as blood. Black as a midnight sky. I am staring at this strange fabric studded with sparkling things that might be silver threads or might be shining droplets of mist. It feels like silk, but the colors! So beautiful.

My mother made this for me. I found it in her things when we went through her tower, searched her rooms. My name is embroidered on the hem, just like she put our names on all of our clothes when we were small. When Maria and Josephina's clothes were handed down to me, my mother would carefully pick out the name of the sister it had belonged to, sewing my name in its place.

That stopped when I was fourteen, after I grew taller than both of my sisters ever would be. My mother would look at me, sometimes, just put down the sewing in her lap and gaze at me, her gaze neither approving or hostile. I wondered why she looked at me like that.

I found out, later.

Red and black. Red for the blood we did not share. Black for the bruises she left on my arms.

I learned later that there was a reason I grew so tall and thin, why my hair was a heavy fall of starless black instead of her auburn curls. Why my eyes were green as leaves instead of brown as mahogany. Why I shared none of her beauty, the beauty that my sisters inherited in full measure.

I trace the black threads of the embroidery with my fingers. There are birds described in those threads, peeking out among the vines and leaves. She made one of these shawls for each of my sisters, when they married. Somehow she learned I was in love and thinking that after the war was over I would marry. But the war is done and my love is dead, as is my mother. Neither of them will meet the child I carry, when she is born.

Even in the depths of her madness, she made this for me. That madness took so much from me. Took colleagues, friends, loves. The thing she started, the dark god she served in her insanity, the war she fought, all of it took things from me that I will never replace.

And look at me now. I have become something the child that I was never dreamed. Nearly everything I want is within my reach. I have no need for riches; dragons play court to me, children speak my name with reverence, art is made to amuse me and when they slaughter, it is my blessing they call for.

Everything I want. Except my mother with me, sane and whole. Except for my lover at my side.

I find that everything I want is little enough indeed.

Red for my hope. Black for my fear.

When I have this child, I will give her to mortals to raise. She will not know the name of the one who bore her, just as I did not. She will love her mother, the woman who will raise her, and I will turn away and let her become whoever she is going to be. So it has been for millennia, and I feel no need to contradict the wisdom of the ages.

I never cared much for power. When I was given to it, I tried to learn how best to use it without losing myself. Instead, I lost almost everything I cared for. Mother, father, sisters, friends. The simple pleasures of honest work, of turning soil, of mucking stalls.

I lost my innocence. I gained the world. I am still not certain if I regard it a fair trade.

They call me the Blood Lily, the goddess of life and death. Lily for my name, for the cupped flower that is a symbol of purity and hope. Blood for the blood I spilled on the way to goddesshood, for the war I fought, for the spies I executed. Gods do not sleep, but I do dream. In my dreams, the walls drip with blood. I still look into the faces of every person I killed, enemy and friend.

I have a very long time yet to live with the consequences of my actions.

Yet I would not give it up, even if I could. I believe that this world needs its gods, its demons, at least for now. Perhaps, one day, we will make ourselves irrelevant. Some day, the only prayers we will answer will be small ones, with unspectacular results. We will not be needed, and when that happens I will still be here, dwindling, watching the world as it turns without me.

Another month, and my daughter will take her first breath. She will have her father's curly hair and my stormy green eyes, his passion, my strength. She will be well-protected; knights will guard her sleep and dragons will watch over her when she travels.

I wish her father, my lover, had lived to meet her. It comforts me that there will still be something of him in the world, but that comfort is small and cold.

Red for my sorrow. Black for my joy.

I pull the heavy silk around my shoulders. I close my eyes and remember the dead, and the living.

Red for the past.

Black for the future.