A Love Transformed But Never Extinguished

20260630

Written for Bradley Ramsey’s Power-Up Prompt #34.

The first thing I notice on entering the inner temple, the Tomb of Linara, is the hush. All sound of distant revelry is cut off as the polished stone doors close behind us. As if joy does not dare intrude into this place of sorrow.
A shiver runs through me. Partially from the damp, biting cold of the space, which pierces the robe I was given to hide my cursed body. But beneath that mundane discomfort something else gnaws at my spine. A pain which makes me want to drop to my knees and weep.
I notice the priests have drawn closer together. Each pair reaching for their soulmate, seeking solace. It’s then I realise what this pain is - loneliness. Crushing, aching loneliness.
Of course I couldn’t identify it. It’s all I know. I am cursed. Unholy. The only person, since the Blessing of Linara, born without a soulmate. When my parents took me to be named, when my drop of blood was given to the sacred fire to show my other half, nothing happened.
It has been drummed into me that my existence is a violation of Linara’s will. I was sequestered, kept from public knowledge to avoid mass panic, only kept alive so sages could study me and discern what unholy power caused this.
But no answers have been found. And no soulmate arose. No heart called to mine. Nobody sought me. I seem doomed to never be whole.
So, as the eclipse begins, signalling the sacred time Linara stirs within her statue, I have been brought here, to her sanctuary, that the sages may plead for her guidance. Either I will finally receive an answer for my tragic fate… or I will be cast into the sacred fire before her, my errant soul erased.
Either would be a relief.
A final pair of doors open to a room illuminated by a column of sunlight. A shaft which is narrowing as the eclipse begins.
We are right on time.
I kneel before the statue of Linara. It’s… less impressive than I expected. Small and with no visible face. Like someone tightly hunched. They claim she took refuge here to mourn her lost soulmate and wept so long she turned to stone. Ever since, her grief and loneliness choked the temple, forcing them to build warding stone shells around it.
I feel for her. So strongly that it’s all I can do to restrain myself from embracing the statue. But I keep my head bowed and my hands at my sides. Waiting while the priests pray.
At first I assume my eyes were deceiving me. An illusion caused by the moving shadows cast by the shrinking light, or the flickering of the torches. But no.
The statue is… breathing?
Before I convince myself one way or the other, much less work up the courage to speak, the statue suddenly shifts. Unfolds. Dust pouring away to reveal an eerily beautiful woman who glows bright as the half-sun overhead.
I stagger to my feet. The prayer falls apart into coughing and exclamations.
A goddess stands before us, her gaze fixed on my face, her expression bright with joy.
“Silara!” She steps forward, arms outstretched, then falters as I flinch away. “What is the matter, my love? Don’t you recognise me?”
Recognise her? Well, of course, I have seen her visage everywhere. Employed as a talisman to try and contain whatever unholy powers caused my cursed existence.
But she clearly meant something else.
I search her face. Trying to understand.
The head priests step forward. “Oh Radiant Linara, she who banished loneliness… we have come before you to ask why this…” They falter. I suspect they had an entire spiel which was derailed by the goddess not only returning but greeting me. “…child has no soulmate.”
“But they do!” Linara reached a hand towards me. Slowly this time. Her gaze imploring me to take it. “They are Silara. How did you do it? How did you come back to me? If I had only known…”
Me? A god?
“Ah… Your Radiance…” The priests are clearly as stumped as I. “Are you, um…” “Quite sure?”
Linara laughs, a tinkling, bell-like sound which makes my heart dance in my chest. “How else do you explain them being able to look at me?”
Every shrouded head turns to scrutinise me, wondering murmurs sweeping along the columns.
For my part, I only now realise that everyone else is keeping their faces turned down, not because they do not wish to stare at the goddess, but because they can’t.
I look back at Linara. Searching her face again. Something in her eyes calls to me. Like no effigy of her ever has.
“Your face is different.” Linara murmurs. To herself? To me? “Your whole form is different, in fact. You’re a girl, now. But your soul is the same. Can’t you feel it? We are two halves.”
“I…” I don’t understand. How can I possibly be a god?
“Please, love.” Linara begs. “Take my hand, and see.”
I can’t deny her. I can’t. I reach out, my whole arm trembling, and touch my palm to hers.
She’s so warm. Tears spring to my eyes, an ache old as my first breath dropping away and leaving me flailing.
“You’ll never be lonely again.” She whispers, and I know it’s true. She’s right. I don’t know her, I surely am not a god, yet… we are halves.
“You don’t remember anything do you?” She murmurs, and I can only manage a choked sob of apology and sorrow. “Sh! Shh. It’s alright, my love.”
She steps close, and I embrace her with the desperation of the drowning. Pressed together like this, almost one… it feels right. This is where I - we - belong.
Her voice trembles as she says “I may never know how you were reborn, but I will always be grateful. Even if you are no longer Silara, you are my love. And I will love you always.”

Prompt was “The Forlorn Island. The Lonely One. Starting Over.”