The Power of One

One second might not tell

When held against an hour

One hour might not count

When weighed against a day

One day may not matter

When considering a life

- Mary Havran

The village was deserted.

Naturally, Emma knew that wasn't the reality of the situation – she could see the warm, inviting glow of hearths burning through the windows of the homes they passed. She could hear the crows cawing up on their perches, beady black eyes peering down at the deserted paths. She could see that the doors of the main house were open, most of the village in the middle of a raucous feast held in yet another celebration of the birth of a son of their leader's blood.

And yet, as Yewande led her through the town square and towards the main gate, steps quick and steady, the rest of the world seemed to have fallen asleep.

"Where are we going?" Emma asked, once she found the courage to speak. The gate was usually supposed to be shut at this time of night, leaving the rest of the village unprepared for an attack otherwise. Yet it was wide open, and those men unlucky enough to be spending their nights circling the top of the palisade were nowhere to be found.

"Not far."

For the rest of the journey, Yewande said nothing more, and Emma forced herself to suppress every question that burned her tongue and made her mind run wild. She thought she should question the decision to walk so recklessly from their masters, but something stayed her tongue. Together, they walked in tense silence, until Emma could no longer see the lights of the village when she cast a glance over her shoulder, and even further still. They left the path eventually, continuing on until, eventually, they stood on the edge of a flowing spring, the light of the moon and the stars reflected in the cool water.

"Here. This is where we need to be."

"Why here?"

There was nothing particularly special about the spring, although Emma found the stillness of the night much easier to appreciate here than anywhere else in the village. After the chaos of the day, the opportunity to clear her head and allow herself to think of something other than her own misery was welcome.

"My mother once told me that there is no better place to be than where the moon and the water meet. I have found that advice more useful for every year that I survive in this world – especially when my joints started to ache in the cold."

Chuckling to herself, Yewande knelt on the damp grass, removing the leather sack she'd brought with her before they left. Emma realized that it was the same sack she'd brought with her earlier that day. It looked almost too heavy to carry, stitched together from various pelts and leathers, and as she began to empty out its contents, Emma gave into her curiosity and joined the older woman on the ground.

The leather-bound tome that she left open between them caught Emma's attention first – it looked ancient, pages weathered and yellowed with age, filled with lines of scrawled handwriting that she had no hope of understanding. Some of the sketches seemed familiar, shapes and symbols that she'd dreamt about in childhood, reminding her of the charms that her mother had once hung around their beds.

For protection, she'd once told them.

Wisdom.

Strength.

Tearing her eyes away from the sketches, Emma looked up just in time to catch Yewande empty a small pouch into a roughly hewn stone bowl. The chalky powder that spilled out looked almost like ashes, which didn't entirely make sense, and it was, at that exact moment, that Emma came to the unfortunate conclusion that she had not a single idea about what was happening here in this little patch of moonlit forest.

In front of her, Yewande had stopped what she was doing, staring at Emma with an oddly knowing expression on her face.

"Troubled, are you?"

Emma supposed it might have been more worrying if she weren't.

She managed a sharp nod, pressing her fists against her thighs to keep them from trembling.

"Tell me what bothers you."

"What bothers – what bothers me, Yewande, is that I have no idea why you've brought me out here and that every answer you've given me so far seems to have been meant to leave me more confused than I already am."

A few moments passed in which Yewande regarded Emma, her dark eyes sharp and bright in the shadows that the moon cast over her face. Finally, she rose to her feet, taking only a few steps before she sank to her knees beside Emma, close enough that their shoulders brushed against each other.

"May I tell you a story?"

"I – I suppose."

"The people in my village revered my mother. She was – she was someone they often turned to for guidance, someone they depended on when the other elders could not muster an answer for their problems. They called her a diviner, a healer – blessed by the ancestors with the power to cleanse our community and protect our people."

"My mother, Emma, was a witch."

Emma blinked as the meaning behind those words finally registered, turning to meet the older woman's unflinching gaze.

"A witch?"

The people in their village had often referred to Ayana as a witch, whispering it conspiratorially behind her mother's back when she ventured far enough away form their home to walk among them. But they had all relied on the pair, Ayana and her mother in equal measure, in those dark days when their infants grew pale and quiet, or when the nightmares became too much to bear. When there were questions that they couldn't answer themselves.

Her mother, a witch.

It didn't seem like such an outlandish thought now, after all these years.

Perhaps if her mother were here, she might feel differently.

"Indeed, and a powerful one too. Just as powerful as you could be."

"No," Emma exclaimed suddenly, the mere thought driving her to her feet, heart racing as her mind whirled with the possibilities, "no, I am – I am not a witch. I couldn't – I couldn't be."

"Not a witch? Or simply never knew that you were one?" Yewande was surprisingly calm as she regarded Emma with an assessing eye, one hand stretched out for her to take, and Emma couldn't make up her mind as to whether that made this entire situation worse. "What about your friend Nessa – on the brink of death one moment, and the next, healthier than you had ever seen her? Luck, or something more?"

"Do not lie to yourself, Emma. You know as well as anyone that there are some things the gods cannot do for us, some things they will not do for us, so we must find a way to do it ourselves. That is what it means to be chosen to wield our power – to take control of the world around us and shape it."

Her father had worshipped the gods as a sensible man might, a man deprived of the ability to control the chaos of the world around him.

Her mother had never prayed.

Perhaps she had never needed to.

"I can make you into what you were destined to be. The only that you must do is trust me."

Calming, slowly yet surely, Emma considered all that she knew about what Yewande was offering. So little she was certain of, and yet, she realized with blinding clarity, she had never known absolute certainty about anything in her life. There were so many directions that her life could have taken, and yet here she was, certain only of what she had lost and the captivity that defined her.

Quieting the voices in her head that warned her of the unknown dangers ahead, Emma met Yewande's gaze.

One more uncertainty, then.

/Ω/

"My mother called it a goddess."

Emma shuddered as Yewande drew the knife across her palm, quick and steady.

"A goddess with three heads. One that spoke to warriors and kings, guided armies as they charged into battle, shepherded the dead away to the ancestors. One who spoke to my mother in her dreams, shared with her knowledge of places she had never seen before, of people she had never known."

Blood welled up quickly in the cut, but it was much less painful that Emma had expected. Soon, crimson blood flowed freely from her hand, staining the ground where it fell, until Yewande guided her wrist over the bowl.

"A goddess yes, but one whose power could not exist in this world without a vessel. Unseen by anyone but herself, her actions and intentions rendered meaningless without a body."

When the ash in the bowl was soaked in her blood, they bound the cut with a spare scrap of cloth, and Yewande put her pestle to work grinding the ingredients into a thick, black paste.

"But a single vessel was not enough – no, three were needed. The first, to perish. The same for the second. And the third – the third brought them all together. Bound their power, made it one. Made the goddess whole again."

The mixture burnt slightly where Yewande smeared it on her skin, calloused fingers drawing sweeping black lines across her face and down her shoulders. Emma shed her clothes as the lines traveled further down, across her back and up her legs. By the time Yewande was scraping down the sides of the bowl, there was not a single inch of Emma's body that was free from the faint, irritating sensation. It wasn't easy to ignore, but she made an effort nevertheless.

"My mother was the second. You, Emma, are the third."

Laying on the damp grass, staring up at the stars, Emma somehow felt both exposed and secure under the pale gaze of the moon. She didn't entirely comprehend everything that Yewande was speaking of, but there was a part of her that recognized that the events about to take place were not something any person should take lightly.

In its own way, it almost felt sacred.

As though it was meant to be.

"Tonight, she will return to this world. And you, Emma, will share in her power."

Pressing her thumb into the middle of Emma's brow, the older woman inhaled deeply, then looked into Emma's eyes with an intensity that pierced her thoughts.

"It is time for you to be whole again."

Yewande spoke then, quickly, in a language that Emma did not know, and the faint burn that she'd nearly managed to forget erupted into pain, sparks of white-hot coursing through her blood and scattering her thoughts. It consumed her entirely, left her body convulsing in agony, and through the haze that had overcome her mind, Emma thought she heard herself screaming for it to stop.

More words, whispered in her ear, and Emma gasped as her limbs became numb, falling limp against the ground. Darkness crept in at the edges of her vision, dragging her down into its suffocating depths, the tranquil sounds of the night fading away into a terrifying, deafening silence.

And with Yewande's voice ringing in her ears, Emma slipped away.

/Ω/

It was dark.

Was this what death was supposed to feel like?

Was death supposed to be so quiet? So cold? So lonely?

She could not begin to guess.

We have waited.

The darkness shifted.

She saw a field littered with corpses, blood soaking into the ground beneath them as the battle claimed its last. A clear sky hanging above all the ugliness, and a single crow circling the carnage.

We have seen you.

A pair of silhouettes still standing amidst the dead, blades bloodied and thirsty for more, desperate for their chance to claim victory. A single move, and for one of them, the war will have finally come to an end.

A final drop of blood spilled that day, and she could not see whose it was.

We know you.

Two faces in the darkness, two voices in her head, two lives already lived, speaking to her in a language she had never heard, foreign and familiar, setting her blood ablaze and splitting her face with a grin, bloody and fierce.

Who are we?

She saw endless plains of deserts under a shining sun, trees so high she couldn't see the top, red soil under her feet and music in the air.

Do you know what we are?

She saw clear waters surrounded by snow-capped mountains, weapons forged out of steel and hands blackened by coal, children in her arms and her people kneeling at her feet.

What we will become?

And with a shuddering gasp, Emma opened her eyes.

We are one.