Ryana would never remember the war. But she would always remember the wave that ended it.
She remembered the dream she was having before they came to wake her. It was a splendid little dream. In it her father, mother, and uncle were teaching her to fly. Together they soared above an endless ocean, laughing as they urged her onward. To them, this was just another day out. Her father winked beside her. Her uncle answered with one of his own. Her mother only had to smile and kiss her cheek as she flew upside down beneath her. She giggled and chased after them toward the clouds, wanting to finally see what was up there. She wished she could have flown just a little higher to find out.
Then the dream ended.
Someone was shaking her shoulder for her to wake. When she opened her eyes, she saw that she was on the ground with her mother. Only she was not smiling as she had in the dream. Her mother said they were going somewhere. Before Ryana could tell her about the details of her dream and ask when they were going flying for real, the doors burst open, and people flooded inside with even paler faces than her mother's. Ryana faintly remembered clutching the stuffed doll against her chest tighter as they hurried about. The sudden light momentarily blinded her as she squinted at the curtains being drawn then at a large brown mass approaching her.
"We're going on a little trip her nanny said with a reassuring smile. "Away from the coast, but its not forever." The old walrus smiled when she said it before helping Ryana with her shoes, her hands were trembling as she tied her shoelaces. Normally Ryana believed that smile. Yet today something felt different. Every few moments, her nanny's warm brown eyes drifted toward the windows.
She watched atop her bed as mother and the servants packed in a hurry. She remembered watching the jewels fall before the cases slammed shut. She was tired and groggy and still not understanding of everything around her that was happening. All this chaos. She began to ask question after question as she rubbed her weary eyes awake.
Why is everyone scared?
No one answered. Only her mother looked to ease her worries.
"Ryana."
Her mother knelt in front of her. Wrapping her scarf around her and hugging her close.
"I need you to be brave."
Ryana nodded. She promised she would be. Or at least try to be.
Really she just wanted to go back to bed.
Growing bored while the adults hurried about, she wound her favorite music box and watched it play with her arms folded atop a nightstand. Two tiny birds began to circle one another as their gentle song filled the busy room as people started to argue behind her. She paid them no attention and pulled the music box closer to better hear it. For a moment, everything felt normal again.
Ryana frowned as another sound intruded. This one louder.
She couldn't hear the birds anymore.
The air raid sirens were too loud. But she paid them no mind. Her nanny said they were just to keep everyone safe. It would pass. She just had to be patient.
As Ryana waited for The little birds to complete one final turn, her mother than seized her hand. She forgot to bring the music box, and watched it hit the floor as she left it behind. One bird cracked and slid under the nightstand while the other continued its dance alone. The air raid sirens blared louder in the distance, but she could still hear the faint song of the lone birds echo through the halls before it was lost.
She wished she could have taken it with her.
Soldiers surrounded them as they hurried through the palace halls. Dozens of them. Ryana didn't know where they were taking her. She had never seen so many soldiers before. The polar bears in silver had always seemed like gentle giants.
But the giants of stained glass were bigger still.
As they ran She glanced up at the great colored windows that watched over the hall. Father's portrait was among them at the very end still not finished. She kept asking when he would come home. Uncle as well. But no one would tell her. Father's eyes seemed to follow her through the hall. But it did not look like him. Not really. He smiled whenever he saw her and wrapped her in his wings. She missed that smile terribly. The older stern glass faces had always frightened her. But not as much as the terrible sounds outside. She wished it would stop.
Then it did.
Everyone stared, confused and frightened, beyond the cold glass windows. Ryana looked out at the vast icy city landscape for a moment. Far away, a lone speck dropped into the sea from something overhead. Hardly anybody saw it. She could barely make it out. She had to squint.
There was a blinding blue light.
Beyond the harbor, the sea slowly stirred awake. Then the sea rose. Then the wave came alive.
The wave rose on the horizon. Stretching from east to west. Until there was no horizon at all.
The shadow swept across the land. Ryana didn't understand as the wall of water climbed higher and higher until it blotted out the clouds she had dreamed of touching. The same sky she still so badly wanted to explore. It wasn't supposed to do that. Why was it doing that? She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak. The halls of the palace went dark around her. Daylight gave way in an instant.
It finished eating the sun. But it just kept eating.
First the shore. Then the docks. Then the city. It kept coming and coming toward the palace walls. Toward her. She could only watch as the monster swallowed the only world she had ever known. She wanted to run. To fly away. But she didn't know how. No one had ever taught her.
She was too young.
She wanted so badly for this to be another dream. To wake up safely back in her bed beneath her covers.
She closed her eyes and opened them again. The wave was still there.
But the roar hit them all first.
The world shook. A sound louder than thunder hurled everyone to their feet. Made their ears ring and the windows rattle. Cracks raced through the white marble walls of the palace and across her father's face. The sound rumbled deep inside her bones as chandeliers shook overhead. The air raid sirens blared louder in the distance as the wave grew closer and closer, eating everything in its path.
Then they went silent.
There was no point any longer.
It all happened so fast, yet to her it seemed forever as the only world she had ever known crumbled around her. She clutched her stuffed doll so tightly its stitched wing nearly tore loose as the wave ate the city.
She let go of the doll the moment water engulfed the palace.
Ryana watched as her world ended. And it claimed her as well.
It entered through the windows. Flooding the palace halls she had played through a thousand times, filling every room, every bedchamber, every crevice it could reach. Her music box was carried out to sea still playing it's last song with no one to hear it. Ryana remembered the fear etched on her mother's face as she flew towards her, her hand outstretched, begging her daughter to take it. She really tried to.
She remembered the ceiling collapsing in on itself and falling. Her nanny shoved Ryana aside. A falling pillar struck her instead. Her mother told Ryana to look away from the window. She did not listen. The wave broke the stained glass windows and sent them to hurl through the air towards her like a thousand reflective knives. For a single terrible instant, she saw her own frightened reflection in every shard. Then her father's eyes staring back at her. Her eyes went wide.
Ryana simply stared. She tried to look away. Too late.
It would be the last thing she ever saw.
Then came the darkness. The feeling of weightlessness.
Her back hit something as the current carried her.
She reached out for something, for anything. She clung to what felt like a pillar.
The water tried to tear her away. To drag her under. But she held on. Held on until her nails split. Until her arms burned. Until she could no longer hear everything collapsing around her.
Finally, the current weakened.
She fell from the ruined pillar, trembling and alone in the ruins of what had once been her family's home.
The first thing she then noticed was the pain. Everything hurt.
Something warm was running down her face. She touched her cheek.
Her fingers came away wet. But it didn't feel like water.
Strange.
Her head hurt. She didn't remember hitting her head.
Around her came muffled cries that slowly went silent. Splintering wood. Cracking walls. Distant sounds of ice breaking and waves thrashing. Something big sounded as if it had just toppled over. Or part of it had. She wasn't sure. Her head hurt too much to make sense of anything.
She blinked, trying to check.
Nothing changed.
She blinked again.
Still nothing. Perhaps dust filled the air. Perhaps the lights were out.
Perhaps—
A terrible realization crept into her thoughts.
She slowly lifted a trembling hand toward her face.
And felt the shards. Blood ran from her eyes like tears.
She froze.
She called out for anyone to hear her who was left. For her mother. For her nanny. For anyone to come and save her from this new darkness that frightened her. She cried until her voice hurt. She stumbled, she climbed aimlessly.
Alone, she felt her way through the darkness.
Rubble shifted beneath her feet. Then broken glass crackled.
The air smelled of salt and fish.
Somewhere nearby, something flopped weakly in a puddle.
Then she felt it.
A hand.
It was half buried beneath the rubble beside her. She waited beside the hand in the darkness for what felt like forever, waiting for it to wake.
It did not.
She hid beneath her wings, drawing her knees to her chest. And waited. And waited. Soon, a blanket of snow had settled over them both. She could feel it.
Water dripped somewhere overhead.
...plip.
...plip.
The sound echoed across the empty halls.
Then even that stopped.
The silence lingered. She searched for the hand until she found it again. She meekly gripped it beside her in the cold refusing to let go. It helped. She clung to the fading warmth it had left behind, tracing the grooves of their skin with her fingers. Even after it became cold. She held on anyway. Not wanting to be alone in the dark. Beyond the shattered cliffs, the last of the ice broke away into the sea. The waves slowly grew quiet as she waited for someone to save them both.
At last...
they were still.
She's over here!! She heard a voice cry out. I found her! She could hear loud footsteps that followed the sound of her voice. She heard rubble being cleared as a soldier wrapped his paws around her gently. Could feel the cold metal and fur that bristled tightly against her cheek. Hear the sound of rocks shifting at his feet as he broke into a sprint. Feel the cold mist of his breath against her face. Hear the sound of his heartbeat.
"I've got you, Snowflower," the deep voice rumbled as it climbed over rubble beside her. Glass cracked beneath his feet. "Just hold on."
She did. She let go of the hand that had kept her company. She did not want to. She wished the voice could have carried them both. Her fingers slipped from the cold fingers as the voice carried her away. Just her.
She could hear someone wailing in the distance. The sound grew closer and closer as The paws placed Ryana into a new pair of arms that cradled her like the infant she had been not long ago, refusing to ever let her go and risk losing her again.
"I've got you," the new voice whispered, the words trembling with promise as she made her vow. Wiping the blood from her daughter's eyes. "As long as I breathe, no one will ever hurt you again."
She knew that voice.
Mother.
She began to cry as she clutched her mother. Both of them did. Neither could stop. Neither could let the other go as the last heartbeat of an empire fell silent around them. Ryana grieved. Grieved for the tears she could no longer shed. For her nanny. For her lost music box. For the home she had loved so much that was now gone. But most of all for her mother's face. For the warm smile she knew she would never see again. All that remained were memories of it. She would carry them forever. And never let them go.
Ryana would never remember what came after. But she would remember her mother's voice cradling her in darkness. Always.
But she was not the only one to survive.
The children who survived this day would inherit a different world.
What they chose to do with it would become the story that followed.