Years ago, the gentle Sil Ebi had turned back victorious from the revolt aroused by the unfaithful men on the distant mounts of Saillan, where the armies of the King had found death by the hands of the Sword of God. That victory meant the end of a century of wars, but in the hearts of mortals still existed a rancor and a hatred that would not take long to explode once again. Sil Ebi knew that it would not take long before he was summoned back to lead the clashed on the east.
Standing on the porch of his house, he watched the rising of the King Star while he lulled in his arms the fruit of his love.
'"You will be called Ada, the light of this word,"' whispered he the words his wife had last spoken before leaving towards the deepens of the earth.
There was no way the gentle warrior knew his daughter would grow up, tall, gentle and beautiful, without a father to take care of her until she was old enough to fend for herself, for she wasn't yet a month old when the hordes of God attacked the town. During havoc, Sil Ebi took his true form and flew seeking the security of the forest, which was the west of the world, carrying his beloved daughter in his mighty claws. Mortally wounded by a hundred arrows, Sil Ebi was able to hide Ada inside a little cave, opened in the face of a cliff crowned by a young sprout of an oak.
'Don't cry, my sweet light.'
But tears were already coming from the tender eyes of the baby, who yearned for a warm embrace. And her father, through great pain, sang about the place beyond the east, where flowers blossomed with delightful scents as notes from a melody captured with fine colours in the memory of a dancer.
'There you'll go one day, oh bright light of this world. And in your tiny hand, as strong as this oak, there will be a force greater than mine.'
Some time after, the sister of her mother, a witch, found little Ada Ebi and raised her as if she was her own daughter, until she was a girl no more. It was then that Sanelo appeared for the first time. Exhausted and wounded, he came from the west still a youngster of the age of Ada, who found him in the same cave. Ada and her aunt took care of him with tenderness until he recovered his strength and was able to tell them that he was the son of the King and the Queen, who had been forced to give him to God as a peace offer; that he had escaped from Kasatan, unable to stand the Wrath of God in his own bare flesh; and that he couldn't come back to his parents. So Ada offered him a home and her friendship.
Years passed with the tension of a town oppressed by God, and whispers that spoke of war about to rage, but no one had come to claim the fugitive and take him back to Kasatan. Knowing himself free, Sanelo and Ada, once reached the majority of age, celebrated their union before the oak that had once been haven to both of them, and from that union flourished three children: Hero, Esro, and Aro Ebi, to whom Ada taught the Arts of witches and wizards, and Sanelo, the one of the warriors. But when the horns of war were blown once again, the King Diuren Garan sent for the grandchildren of Sil Ebi, now fully grown, so they would command the forces of the armies, and he summoned his own children, spread throughout the reaches of the sky and the earth, to face God one last time.
'We must stay here, Ada,' said the aunt to the wife of Sanelo the night before his departure. 'Battles are a matter of men, useless foolishness they are. Our place is our land, our home, to take care of them, to protect them, nurture them, and cultivate them. Here lie our powers, our secrets. What's the use of killing? How does raising weapons benefits us? What concern us the battles, murderers of men, when here it is what we love, what we are, what we need to live? Let the men march to unleash their stupidity upon the walls, a senseless enterprise!'
Wars were horrible, and Sanelo had to observe how his sons were dying one by one in the unholy earth; while his brothers and sisters were hunted until extinction.
Then came the betrayal against Diuren Garan and the total defeat with the death of the King.
The second time Sanelo appeared had been before the fall and his exile. Ada had tried to kill her grandchildren, and he, taking her by the wrist, drew her close, hugged her and took away the knife from her unpolluted hands. However, he hadn't been able to remain too much time on earth, for his mother had called him back to the sky, only to had him expelled in a fit of rage, born of a deceit that would led to her own destruction...
⊹⊱✫⊰⊹─────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹─────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹
When the Exiled One woke up, Ada Ebi was looking at him under a dead sky, where the Queen appeared no more. A fire was fighting to keep away the cold from his bones; but the cold was too fierce and too cruel.
'You're again with me, Sanelo,' said Ada Ebi, clinging to his hand with despair, 'but it's too late'.
Only then did the Exiled One discovered the truth, marked in the face of his wife — the suffering from the death of his children; the natural weariness of a mother's life, and the one of a grandmother; the toll the long winter had taken on her body.
'No,' whispered the Exiled One. 'No...'
'I'm afraid I can't do anything,' replied Ada Ebi. 'My magic can no longer keep me alive. We promised to be together for ever, but I think that won't be.'
The Exiled One stood up as the body of Ada Ebi fell. He took her with tenderness in his arms and started singing to her a song she hadn't heard in a long time.
'There you'll go one day, oh bright light of this world. And in your tiny hand, as strong as this oak, there will be the a force greater than mine. And in the tears you shed there will be the memory of the thousands of smiles that I gave you, and the millions of kiss I couldn't give you. And, though we are apart, we will walk together the path to tell our memories...'
The spirit of Ada Ebi escaped from her body, turning the first lights to touch the sky since the betrayal against Diuren Garan. And the third quarter of the night was yet to come.
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