Redana does not hesitate to take that hand. She slips her fingers against Bella's palm as if it were a natural reaction: like a falling rock, like the failure of electricity, like the erosion of the Lethe. There was nothing else that could happen, unless a god were to step in and catch her by the wrist. But none does. None materializes. None lets their breath fall on her neck. None tells her that she is making a mistake.

Her mind is the surface of a moon, blasted and clean and bereft of life. The wind howls there, and it howls one name. There is a statue there but her back is turned to it. Her back is turned to her. Her back has been turned to her this whole time. What is there to say? What is there in acknowledging her but pain?

The options were simple. Come back in glory, or don't come back at all. It is impossible to face [i]her[/i], unnamed but increasingly undeniable, in anything less than triumph. Not after fleeing. Not after being disobedient, and impious, and a disgrace, and unworthy.

(She's only had the dream about coming back to the palace that was her home and finding another and better Redana already there once. Only once. But it's curled around her throat now. She can't speak that fear. She can't name it. Maybe that Redana who is not a disappointment is a shadow on that moon, beyond the touch of the sun. Maybe she is patient and waits with immaculate poise for a crown that will never come because you cannot succeed from a god unless they vacate the throne, and she is the sculpture of a flower in the sculpture of a vase, cold and nothing like her father at all.)

Redana walks with Bella, and it is very difficult to say which of them is supporting the other. It is Bella who leads and Redana who is dragged forward by love and fear. It is impossible now to deny what is coming. Her mind is the surface of a moon.