MARIA

"Kayal hasn't changed?"

Her quill sat between her thumb and forefinger while she brushed an irritating gold strand off her brow. It slipped behind her ear, but she knew it'd come back to haunt her. Notes scrawled along her empty tome full of possible remedies or answers to the age-old question of a thousand turns. Anatomical drawings bound themselves into the spine of the book with her adjustments. On one page, all commonplace symptoms of the expulsion flashes. On another, varying herbs and alchemical formulae to create a soothing mixture for the deep, bloody coughs. Tickling her chin with the feather, she moved onto the next page, doubling back to keep everything consistent before her next trip to Tanaara's for some reagents.

"No," Kemal said from the door of her room within the treehouse. "We can get him to eat and drink when prompted but I'm afraid his condition will only get worse if we don't get him out of this if we don't figure out what's causing it. I may send him to Euros on the next round trip, I just need to get him to last that long."

Answers elude me, but they won't for long. It drove her through day, night, and sleepless time to find it. "You want me to look him over?" she asked with one last mark on her page, with her tried dosages and whatever Yuven reported to her before they fulfilled their duties across continents. I hope he's taking it... Temple resting against her knuckle, she left the tome open and waited for Kemal's response.

"I'd appreciate it, Maria. Any answer would be better than the nothing Julis is working with," Kemal replied and left the frame of her door and closed it behind him.

Numbness swept through her legs when she freed herself from the spindly chair. Arms over her head into a stretch, fire revitalized her heart, soul and mind while she shuffled over to the dresser. Lion-shaped pin in her palm, she weaved her locks into a braided crown, then slipped the pin between layers for a finishing touch when the braid sat on her forehead. It weighed on her shoulders, and she fingered the stray, tiny strands on her neck.

On top of her work coat, the necklace Yuven had given her before his departure to Dyrin.

"I want you to have it, Myl'la," he said in melodic Navei and placed it into her hands, cupping them in his warm, slender ones. "Let it remind you that you are not alone."

Maria lifted her gaze to the mirror in front of her and examined the metalwork which tied the necklace together, where an opalescent stone of fiery hues made itself the centerpiece and created a ripple effect through the rest of the necklace. Does this mean what I think it means? The question left her lips, and brought dreams.

Yuven scoffed and shook his head at her from the mirror world, but his smile softened. "No, but I do want you to remember me."

You're hard to forget, Ice Knight.

Continents apart.

Maria gazed into his smile and his deep violet eyes, full of both uncertainty and love. "I love it, Yuven. Help me put it on?"

His last memory sent an ice-hot jolt through her shoulders and straight through her stomach and heart as his breath tickled the back of her neck. The clasp gave a gentle snap when they connected the lock together, and she turned her back to the mirror ready to face the day. Her fingers clasped around the stone of fiery blues, no mere memory as his brow rested against hers through time and space.

I long to give you, and so many others, the hope they need to see through to the next day.

And she saw him off on a Warden galleon, sails to the wind and took him to his new posting, with hers in a different direction, but she held onto his gift and piled all his letters in one of the small drawers. Buttons clasped, she smoothed out the gray fabric of her longcoat. Kemal waited for her outside the treehouse. Birds chirped high in the canopy, which echoed with the ocean hum of the harbor and shielded them from rain. Branches tangled and roots wove through the Elvkin city she had grown accustomed to. Music escaped a marble building with high windows and mosaic glass solar. Flutes. Lutes. Drums. A mixture of the ground and the sky in harmony.

"Where's Neven?" she asked as she fixed her cuffs and checked her tools, and dodged a pair of children bounding along the tilestone.

"He's over there already."

I haven't had the chance to take a glance at Kayal... They reached the Warden Lodge, quiet and in a corner of the city, close to the alchemist shops. Roots wrapped around the infirmary in a protective cocoon, out of danger and kept back hazards. In the first half of the Infirmary, beds rested against the marble walls and sunlight sprinkled through the natural windows. Into the last section for the more focused healing, pools of magick essence glowed in large basins.

In a chair against the wall, the young Trainee sat without responding to the new stimulus. Julis got out of the chair in front with a bow to Kemal. "Captain," he said with a frown. "I haven't gotten much from his mind. It's still as empty as the day he got brought in."

In another corner, Neven, with his chin against his chest while he folded one leg over the other.

Maria ignored the two older Wardens to examine Kayal. Sunlight bounced off his pupils, but never revealed a thought or emotion. Glyph of fire pulsing through her palm, she rounded him to press her finger against the base of his neck, to feel the pulse of magick flow. Maria listened, waited, for a response, for a visceral reaction, but none came.

It was as if Kayal was an empty shell.

Maria thumbed her lips and rifled for her scope. Fire tore through the inner circuits, and she closed it before lifting it to point at Kayal's pupils. It responded, but bounced off the darkness of his irides. "It's definitely not something I've seen or read about," Maria admitted as she put the scope in one of the pouches. "My first guess would've been auric magick — but I don't know. I mean, there are some sicknesses that cause something similar but not to this extent." Maria returned to his back and pressed her hand against it, then closed her eyes and allowed her fire to dance. Warmth pushed through her ears and brought a heartbeat and a thousand streams. "He's alive, technically." Maria let the fire and blood go and frowned at the older Wardens. "Comatose, I don't think he's going to be waking up."

"Yeah... that's what I was afraid of," Kemal said with a deep sigh. "I wonder if Fenrer could break through."

Julis folded his arms. "Maybe, if you still think it's something auric. I'd be very surprised if he couldn't."

Maria indicated the essence basins. "I'd rest him in the healing bed for the time being. Try about an hour a day, it might stimulate his magick if nothing else," she instructed. "If he's eating and drinking when prompted, there might be a chance. If he stops though..." Tongue between her teeth, she folded her arms and resented her lack of an answer to the problem in front of her. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there. I think taking him to Euros is the best choice for him."

"I'll send a message to his family," Neven spoke from his corner. "We owe them that much to keep them posted on their child."

Neven... Maria frowned at the Naveeran Warden when he slid out of his chair and shambled out of the quiet ward.

Kemal shook his head. "He's been tearing himself apart since Kayal was found," he said, then headed closer to hook his hands underneath Kayal's arms, urging the Trainee to his feet with a gentle nudge. "Come on, Kayal. We'll get the answer to your questions. Thank you, Maria." He nodded to her while he guided Kayal to the edge of the dip, where the essence licked at the edges and left a glimmer on the stone.

"Once the supply boat comes around, I'll take him to Euros and explain the situation," Maria told Kemal when he urged Kayal to step into the basin of essence, where its cloudy texture gripped onto the young Warden when Kemal laid him flat on his back in the shallow part of the basin. "We'll figure this out."

I'll figure it out.

Maria left Kayal's guardians to race out after Neven, who took a seat on a bench of vines and rested his brow against his fingertips. His feathers of pale-spun wheat frayed at the ends and tucked against the sides of his head, frozen against the wind. He sucked in a breath when she approached and sat beside him. "I know they agree to the consequences of what life may lead them," he whispered in the same dialect of Yuven, his adoptive son. "And still it doesn't get any easier for me." He lowered his hands to his knees and a sense of age pressed against his nose.

Maria sat against the back of the vine bench. "You know, I don't think there's anything wrong with caring, Neven," she remarked. "Have you thought of taking a rest? Get away from this posting?" His eyebrow creased in a similar vein to Yuven at the thought of rest, so she added, "There's no shame in that. You've been here since I was a Trainee, I think it's starting to get to you."

Neven lifted his gaze to the same pair of children, who chased each other through the streets, and Maria grinned when they got a tongue lashing from an older Elvkin. Their sheepish grins echoed with a child's joy and mischief. Out of view of their elder, they snickered in the root alley and dove out of sight to cause whatever trouble they had on their minds. Neven pursed his lips and his feathers stretched out their tension. "Defend the innocent, from the mightiest wyvern to the smallest flower," he whispered their oath. "I have... thought about it, but it wouldn't feel right to leave things like they are here. Reports have gone quiet."

"Couldn't Kemal handle things?"

Neven blinked and faced away from her with his hands leaning against the bench.

"Or is this a Naveeran stubbornness thing?" she teased.

"I apologize," he said after a moment of silence.

"Why?"

"I know it was unwise for me to seek the truth in the Obscura texts," he admitted. "I knew the risks, as they do and did. I had to do something." He released a small laugh and shuddered into his knuckles. "It's like the blizzard never leaves. It sticks to you, reminding you of its presence in the smallest ways. Suffocation. Kah'mai d'lo estarm..." Neven sighed through his nose, a sharp hiss of an unseen wyvern. "You do not need to hear my woes." His gaze lowered to the necklace, and he smiled at her. "I hope for the future, for the best, but I must acknowledge the present. Nice day, Maria." He got off the bench.

"You mean good day?" Maria questioned.

Neven closed his eyes. "Yes."

Maria shrugged her shoulders, and they split from the bench of woe, where she headed to Tanaara's stand. Boxes piled high behind the counter, but she slipped her way inside to grab them with a wave to Tanaara through the window. Knees bent, she lifted with her legs and tucked it into her arms. Her next experiment. Hidden deep beneath the layered cloth, the truth to be found. Maria hauled her work back to the treehouse, avoiding crowds to make life easier.

An idea. A spark.

Back in her room, she set the boxes down and lifted the phials out and set them on the small racks, bubbling with varying regents and concoctions. On the last layer, she pulled out the small, wrapped bag. She set it on her tome of research, and unraveled it.

You will reveal your truth, and I will find a way to ease the burden. I do not believe that the Corruption is forever a death sentence — that our world will forever be plagued by you.

Maria lifted out the serrated core of a beast, using her magick to shield her finger tips from its teeth. Empty of the crimson power it once had, it bit into her flames all the same and reminded her of the husk it came from.

In the light, it glittered with golden stars.