Chapter 31: A Blessing Should Not Bleed
Liana and Toren recognised the Mother at once and dropped to one knee. Liana lowered her spear, and both bowed their heads. Dorian remained upright, one hand pressed to his temple. If he tried to kneel, he doubted the movement would be voluntary.
The Drommala lifted her trunk.
A low vibration passed through the ground. Dorian felt it climb his bones and find the pain behind his eyes. His pupils vanished as silver spread across his irises, swallowed the whites and turned both eyes into flawless mirrors.
The vibration turned inward. Reflective flickers passed through his mind, carrying meaning without words. His mind recognised it, gave it language and reflected it through his voice.
His mouth opened. The voice was his, but his accent was gone. Even. Empty of emotion.
“What need has carried you beneath a sky not your own?”
Liana and Toren raised their heads. For a moment, horror showed beneath their sacred reverence.
Liana recovered first. She laid her spear on the grass before her, placed both hands beside it and lowered her head.
“Great Mother Drommala. You Who Find the Life Water. We kneel before you beneath your sky. We speak for the Steppe and Desert.”
She lifted her head but remained on one knee.
“Your daughter has found her way to the sky. The life water fails without her. The earth dries. Our people thirst. We come not to command. We come to ask. Entrust another daughter to our care, if it is your will and hers.”
Her words reached Dorian without sound. Their meaning became silver flickers that flashed from his mirrored eyes and travelled across the Mother’s scales.
She gave no answer. Her gaze settled upon Toren. His throat had gone dry. He placed one palm over his heart and the other against the earth. Then he bowed until his forehead almost touched the grass.
“Great Morrawyn. You Who Walk the Buried Rivers. Hear the vow we place before you.”
The first words came rough. The rest did not.
“By the water below and the sky above, we shall care for your daughter without possession. Guard her without chains. Listen without command. Her will shall remain her own. Her life shall be sacred to us. If she chooses us, we shall keep the pact until she finds the sky.”
Toren lowered his head fully. Liana bowed beside him.
Together, they waited.
Then Dorian spoke again.
“Why did my daughter find the way to the sky before her time?”
Liana’s prepared speech became useless.
“We do not know.”
Toren lifted his head.
“She became ill. We tried to heal her. We failed. The Loteri are seeking the cause. The Pain-Bearers are studying what remains. We believe someone helped her die. We do not know who. We do not know why.”
Their answers followed the same path through Dorian. Silver signals moved across the Mother’s scales.
Her trunk curled. The copper in her scales darkened. The world changed with her. Crimson spread through the grass and flowers. The lakes below turned red. Clouds swallowed the sky, and rain swept across the hilltop. Tiny golden birds fled the branches. The insects fell silent.
Toren and Liana remained on their knees, though no longer from reverence alone. The wind struck, tearing them from the ground and sending them sideways. They struggled upright and bent against it, barely keeping their feet.
Every drop of rain caught the Mother’s fury. So did the lakes, the wet grass and every shining leaf.
The whole world reflected it into Dorian at once. He clutched his head and dropped to his knees. Pain tore behind his mirrored eyes. Blood welled around their silver edges, spilled over his lashes and ran down his cheeks.
“Dorian!” Toren forced his way towards him through the wind.
The Mother’s gaze fell to Dorian.
She stilled.
The wind died. The reflective pressure withdrew.
Dorian remained bent over the grass, one hand braced against the ground. His body shook. One final vibration passed through him. Thin and controlled.
“Tomorrow, I shall answer. Until then, you are my guests.”
The Mother’s vast body broke into copper mist.
Toren reached Dorian before the last scale disappeared. As Dorian swayed sideways, Toren gripped both shoulders and held him upright. Dorian remained on his knees, staring through the place where the Mother had stood. The silver drained from his eyes, leaving their usual grey beneath bloodshot whites. Blood covered his lashes, ran down his cheeks and slipped from both ears.
“Dorian.” Toren touched his face. “Can you hear me?”
Dorian blinked. His eyes moved towards Toren without finding him.
“Regrettably.” His accent had returned, though little of its polish had.
Liana crouched on his other side. Rainwater streamed from her hair and clothes. The storm had gone, leaving flattened grass and the smell of wet earth.
“We need to move him,” Toren said.
“The lake.” Liana looked towards the trees below the hill, then back across the field where they had fought the fog beasts. “Our things are still there. You stay with him.”
She ran down the slope.
The headache had followed Dorian since they entered this world. The Mother’s voice had driven it deeper into his skull. He pressed the heel of his hand to his temple.
“I assume,” he murmured, “that went well.”
“You can’t remember?” Toren asked. He checked Dorian’s shoulders, ribs and arms for any damage the Mother’s fury might have left behind.
“In fragments.” Dorian closed his eyes.
Toren found no other wounds and exhaled with relief. “She will give her answer tomorrow.”
Dorian tried to nod, with little success. Fresh blood slipped from his ear and vanished beneath his collar. Toren wiped it away.
“Do not move.”
“I had no immediate plans.”
Liana returned with their gear and Lucky’s storage capsule secured across her back.
“Nothing missing,” she said. “Including his machine.”
“Lucky,” Dorian corrected faintly.
“Your machine is safe. Can you stand?”
They pulled him upright. His legs failed at once. Toren caught most of his weight. Liana stepped beneath Dorian’s other arm and braced her shoulder against his ribs.
“I can walk.” He attempted a step and nearly folded.
They carried him more than guided him down the slope. Every movement sent another pulse through Dorian’s skull, and more of his weight settled against Toren with every step.
The lake waited beneath broad trees, blue and harmless again. Liana chose a sheltered place beneath the largest tree, where thick roots lifted the ground above the wet grass.
“Here.”
They lowered Dorian against the trunk. He closed his eyes.
“No,” Toren said. “Stay awake.”
“A cruel request.”
Liana cleared the ground, shook the water from the tent and pitched it between the roots. Toren knelt before Dorian and carefully removed the brass arm, then the soaked coat, dark with blood around the collar.
As Toren unfastened the corset beneath it, Dorian opened one eye. “You appear worryingly experienced.”
“I have removed clothing from injured people before.”
“How disappointing.” Dorian’s reply lacked its usual force.
Toren eased the corset away, leaving Dorian in the damp shirt that clung coldly to his skin. Then Toren cleaned the blood from Dorian’s face, neck and hair with a cloth soaked in the lake. The sharp copper smell remained on Toren’s fingers.
When the cloth touched the skin behind Dorian’s ear, he flinched.
“Sorry.”
“You are becoming dangerously considerate.”
“Be quiet.”
Dorian obeyed for nearly half a minute.
Sunlight warmed the clearing. A lively wind carried the scent of flowers, wet bark and clean water. Their clothes dried with surprising speed. Steam curled faintly from Liana’s damp fur cloak as she secured the last tent rope.
Dorian lifted his left hand. The bloodbound ring’s crystal was colourless and dull. He turned the wheel. Nothing happened. He tried again.
“Empty,” he murmured.
Toren placed one palm against the ground and the other over Dorian’s chest. He reached for healing magic. Power rose, but the reflective field scattered it through the wet grass and across the lake. Only a thin thread reached Dorian, too weak to heal him. As before, reflection broke the direction of Toren’s magic like light on water. He withdrew his hand with a quiet curse and reached for his herbs.
Movement stirred beyond the clearing.
Animals had gathered between the trees. Tiny golden birds watched from the branches. White rabbits sat among the flowers, and bright-coated creatures stood farther back among the silver-leaved shrubs. None showed fear.
Liana stopped moving. “Their eyes.”
Toren followed her gaze. His hand tightened around the pouch of herbs.
Every animal watched them through flawless mirrored eyes. No pupils. No whites. Only smooth reflection, catching the lake, the trees and the three travellers in miniature. The same eyes Dorian had worn while the Mother spoke through him.
A small deer stepped forward. Its horns divided into curling branches covered with tiny silver leaves. Its mirrored gaze shifted towards the empty hill where the Mother had vanished, then settled on Dorian.
Liana’s fingers closed around her spear.
The deer continued across the grass.
“It is not afraid,” Toren said.
“An obvious failure of judgement.” Dorian tried to smile and failed.
The deer stopped beside him and sniffed his shoulder, his hair and the blood beneath his collar. Its nose was cool against his skin. It smelled of warm grass and rain. Up close, Dorian saw his own exhausted face reflected in its eyes.
A soft reflective glow moved beneath the deer’s skin, warm and familiar to Dorian’s blood. His thumb rested against the wheel of his ring. A small amount of that energy would be enough.
He raised his hand slowly. “Would you object terribly?”
The deer did not move away. Dorian placed his palm against the side of its neck. Its hide felt unexpectedly warm and fine beneath his hand.
Warmth struck him. Not through the ring. Directly.
The energy spread along his arm into his chest, spine and the damaged places behind his eyes. Dorian inhaled sharply and pressed his shoulders against the tree.
Toren abandoned the herbs. “What is happening?”
“I do not know.” The deer remained still beneath Dorian’s hand.
Reflective energy moved through Dorian in slow waves, filling what the Mother had emptied. The pressure behind his eyes weakened first. He closed them. The headache loosened fraction by fraction. The pulse at his temples faded. The ringing in his ears lowered until he could hear water touching the reeds and leaves shifting above him.
Toren saw the blood beneath Dorian’s ear stop flowing. “The bleeding has stopped.”
Colour returned to Dorian’s face as the grey left his lips. Liana’s attention kept returning to the deer’s eyes.
The ring remained dull for several more breaths. Only when the hollow weakness inside Dorian had filled did the excess energy find it. The crystal warmed against his finger and filled from the centre outward until it held a steady dark-blue glow.
For the first time since they had crossed into the world of rain, Dorian’s head was clear. He exhaled, long and unsteady, carrying more relief than he would have preferred anyone to hear.
The deer’s ear flicked. Dorian opened his eyes. Silver met silver.
“Thank you.”
Only then did the animal step away.
It bounded towards the others. They scattered with it, slipping between the trees or rising into the air, dozens of mirrored eyes flashing once before the clearing belonged to the travellers again.
“How do you feel?” Toren asked.
Dorian checked the ring, then touched one ear. “Restored.”
He tried to sit straighter. His body began to shake. One tremor passed through his shoulders, then another. He folded his arms around himself, but the shivering continued despite the warm sun.
Toren placed a hand against Dorian’s chest. “Your body is exhausted.”
“My body has always been needlessly dramatic.”
“You bled through your eyes.” Toren gently held him in place.
“And ears,” Liana added.
“Thank you, Liana.” Some of Dorian’s usual sarcasm had returned. Not enough to hide the shaking.
Liana unfolded the thickest blanket over a travel mat beneath the tree. Toren slipped one arm behind Dorian’s back and the other beneath his knees.
“I remain capable of lying down independently,” Dorian said.
“I have seen your walking.” Toren lowered him onto the mat.
“That was temporary.”
“So is my patience.”
Liana covered Dorian with the blanket and placed his folded coat beneath his head. He opened his mouth for one final complaint. Nothing came. His eyes closed. Within several breaths, he was asleep. Toren remained beside him, his fingers resting over the steady pulse in Dorian’s wrist.
Liana watched his sleeping face. “His eyes became mirrors. Like the animals here.”
Toren nodded. “As if this world recognised him as one of its own.”
“He did not merely translate her words. She passed them through him.”
“And her anger.”
Liana looked at the bloodstained cloth beside Toren. “Walkers really are cursed creatures.”
Toren drew the blanket higher over Dorian’s shoulders. “Some call it a blessing.”
“A blessing should not bleed this much.”
They looked towards the empty hill where the Mother had vanished.
Tomorrow, she would speak through him again.