Ryana would never remember the war. But she would always remember the wave that ended it.
She remembers the dream she was having before they came to wake her. It was a splendid little dream. In it she was with her father, mother, and her uncle. They were teaching her to fly. All four of them were soaring above an endless ocean, encouraging her to push herself further, laughing as they cheered her on to flap harder and climb higher. She wanted to. Wanted to see how high and far she could go on her own. She had wanted to fly with them for so long up into the clouds. She wished it could have lasted longer.
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, 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. Ryana could see that she was afraid of something.
And that made her afraid.
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.
Beyond the harbor, the sea slowly stirred awake. Then it began to rise.
The wave rose higher and higher on the horizon. Until there was no horizon at all.
As the shadow slowly spread across the land, ryana stared in confused awe as the wall grew taller and taller. She felt frozen in place, watching as the ocean swallowed up the entire world and blanketed her home and all of them in darkness beneath it.
She wanted so badly for this to be a dream as well.
She closed her eyes and opened them again. The wave was still there.
The roar it made came first.
The palace 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 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.
It entered through the windows. Rushing in to flood 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.
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.
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.
Only to find jagged glass where her eyes had once been.
She froze. Then cried out for anyone who would 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 waited alone in darkness for what felt too long. And no one replied or came for her.
The silence stretched on until it felt as though the whole world had forgotten she existed. She Curled into herself, she waited in the dark that would not end.
She's over here!! She heard a voice cry out. I found her! She could hear loud footsteps. Hear rubble being cleared as a soldier wrapped his paws around her gently. She could feel the cold metal and fur tightly against her. Hear the sound of rocks shifting at his feet. Hear the sound of his heartbeat.
"I've got you, Snowflower," the deep voice rumbled as it climbed over rubble. "Just hold on."
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 amid the ruins, not daring to let her go and risk losing her again.
"I've got you," the new voice whispered as a promise. "As long as I breathe, you'll never be alone."
She knew that voice.
Mother.
She began to cry. Both of them did. Neither could stop.
She didn't remember the rest. Only the tears that she could not shed. But she would remember that wave forever. So would everyone else.
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.