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Once upon a time there was a Wanheda who ruled her realm alone. She was judicious and wise, but an unwavering fire was constantly burning in the blue of her eyes.
Everyday she woke up between the warm furs of her bed, feeling them cold because of the absence of her love. The powerful, indomitable Heda who had stolen her heart was dead; Betrayed by her own Teacher.
Wanheda had cried over the lifeless body of her love, hands full of dark, boiling blood, and, with the last breath in her lungs, the Heda had asked her to took her spirit and to remember her.
A small talisman was all that was left, in Wanheda’s hands, of her magnificent warrior and Wanheda cherished the token everyday, as if the spirit of her Heda could hear her words.
Heda’s body was put in a sumptuous crypt along with her ancestors and the whole reign cried for the loss.
One day the Teacher, remorseful for his act, came back to Polis and asked to meet Wanheda. The ruler, still fierce in her anger and pain, gave him only one chance to speak; To honor the desire of her Heda who wanted Wanheda to forgive the fool man.
The Teacher told Wanheda of his exile, recounting of his studies about rituals and his discoveries. Wanheda listened to his word with a roaring heart, full of endless hope and when the Teacher narrated the existence of a ritual to bring Heda back to life Wanheda felt her soul mended by the expectation.
She threatened the Teacher, saying that he would be dead if he was lying. The Teacher reassured Wanheda and pleaded the ruler for a chance to remedy to his dreadful mistake. Wanheda allowed him to execute the ritual and together they prepared the necessary in Wanheda’s bedroom.
They brought the lifeless body of Heda, folded in a black shroud consumed by time, and they laid the corpse on the furs as Wanheda requested the teacher to do.
Wanheda uncovered the body and tears filled her eyes, seeing the perfection of her love’s face corroded by the cruelty of death.
The teacher started chanting unknown words in an ancient language and Wanheda took the amulet with Heda’s spirit between her hands. It started to warm up, becoming more and more scalding at every words pronounced by the Teacher and, at the last, murmured syllable of the prayer Wanheda cried in pain, letting the boiling token go .
The talisman blazed as if it was alive and as soon as it touched Heda's body a light exploded from the woman and Wanheda and the Teacher were forced to cover their eyes, unable to endure the beaming aura.
A shattered breath cut the dense silence of the room and Wanheda lowered her hands to look at her love. A pair of green eyes greeted the young Wanheda and Wanheda yelled her joy and she threw herself in the warm embrace of her love. Heda was alive and again between her arms.
The days passed and Heda became stronger and stronger and one day she finally took her seat beside Wanheda again, to rule together their realm. Love had never ceased to enlighten their hearts, even in front of the unavoidability of death and Wanheda and Heda spent joyful days among their people, ruling with wisdom.
But the shadow of a war came to shatter the pace of their reign and Wanheda and Heda tried to find a solution to avoid the conflict. But the Queen of a faraway land had a heart as frozen as the dirt of her realm and she refused every treaty that Heda proposed to her.
The Queen wanted the power of Wanheda to rule over the Death; Because Wanheda had defeated the Death, bringing Heda back to life, and whoever defeated Wanheda could have her power.
Heda was torn between fury and desperation, for her people and her love. She couldn’t let anyone threaten her and her Wanheda and she declared war to the realm of the Queen.
Heda was deaf to Wanheda’s demands to stop the war.
I can’t lose you again she said every night to Wanheda, kissing her hands with devotion I can’t lose you again.
And Wanheda didn’t answer, embracing her Heda in the furs of their bed.
The time of the war came and Wanheda and Heda spent their last night together, waiting for the dawn of the battle. They murmured their love, again and again, whispering it against tender lips and glimmering eyes.
Heda closed her eyes under Wanheda kisses who murmured tender words to her, accompanying her while she was falling asleep.
You need to rest my warrior She said, watching Heda with sad blue eyes You need to be strong, my Heda. Heda murmured she was strong enough and Wanheda answered that she knew.
But Wanheda knew, also, that she had to be stronger and she left the bed in the silence of the night, when Heda’s breath became heavy.
She run through the tower, leaving her home with heavy heart and heavier legs. She run in the forest till she reached a circle of rocks in the middle of the obscure sea of trees.
The Teacher was waiting for her in his ceremonial robes and Wanheda stepped in the middle of the circle and knelt.
Tell her the truth she begged the teacher with a firm voice Tell her that I will be forever with her, looking at her from the sky.
The Teacher nodded, unable to speak in his own pain and he started his ritual when Wanheda told him she was ready.
He betrayed his Heda again, helping Wanheda to break the anathema that tied her soul to the Death. He betrayed his Heda again to rescue the entire kingdom.
He chanted his pray to the Lady of the Sky, to beg her to accept and welcome Wanheda in her embrace. As a daughter, among the stars of which she was the mother and the Queen.
Wanheda’s body faltered and a warm ray of light encircled her in a tender hug. She herself became light and she ascended in the sky becoming brighter and brighter till she stopped in the highest point of the sky among her sisters.
The Teacher cried looking at Wanheda in the sky, a beacon of hope for her people.
The Queen surrendered, accepting the treaty of peace, when she knew that the power of Wanheda was lost forever and the peace came back in Heda’s reign.
The Heda never loved anyone else since that day because she knew that her heart was in the sky with her Wanheda. And every night she felt Wanheda’s hug when she looked at the sky, her eyes finding at once the brightest star in the darkness of the Lady’s embrace. And she never cried because Wanheda was always there for her, lightening her nights and filling her dreams.
Heda became old and she knew that her time had come at least. She fell asleep in her bed and her body never woke up.
She greeted the Death as an old friend and she followed it in her last journey. And the Death brought Heda in the sky, fulfilling the last promise it had made to its commander, the queen of death, the Wanheda.
And so Heda met again her Wanheda, becoming a star beside her love. And since that day no one ever divided them anymore and they lived for the eternity in their embrace of love.
And even now if you look up in the sky, when the Moon is not full, you can see Heda and Wanheda, burning one beside the other, the brightest stars in the night.
For the eternity.