Heartworm

“I am a hateful queen, disgraced by the anger I sought to avoid. I took the throne with the scars of that night, and let it color my every decree.” Kyrsta tensed both her jaw and her fists at the same time. It was unclear to me what kind of emotion clenched her body as she tensed. “...I do not want to be that queen, but I find myself walking this path at every turn. To deviate from the path would be to forget the pain that shaped me. I can’t afford to forget, Ester. I do not want my mother to bleed out of my memories.”

“Is she even in the memories, Kyrsta? Do you even remember her face anymore? Or just the blood that stained it?”

“I…I do not know. But I wish to remember the Cyndri that believed in me. The one who believed I could change Uroro for the better.” I noted her lack of correction this time as I spoke her name. Had it slipped her mind to remind me of her Drulama title? Or did she feel it was irrelevant at this point in our talk?

“...there is a way.” Nessyndra spoke up sheepishly from the seat next to mine. She had been quiet for some time in the trial.

“Nessyndra? Earlier you mentioned the soulstone’s location. Embedded in the cre- in Ester’s skull. It would be inaccessible for us to take it to a seer.”

“But you might not have to. The uh… math that I did to come up with my plan. The reason I thought the soulstone would activate inside of Ester is due to her magic. Dryling research speaks of Deathless as creatures of immense innate magic that flows through their bodies. With the soulstone inside of one, the use of a seer would be irrelevant. They could power the stone with the magic of their own bodies.”

“So it could still be used?” The hopeful lilt of Kyrsta’s words felt nostalgic to me. It sounded closer to the hopeful voice of a younger Kyrsta that I had become adjusted to through Cyndri’s memories.

“You’d only have to touch it.” Nessyndra replied, giving a hopeful smile towards her mother.

“I would love to see her again, without the shame that kept me from seeking out the stone. If only to remind myself of her face.”

“Of course… I hope you have a pleasant memory.” Nessyndra encouraged, talking to her mother with the most amount of warmth I had yet to see between the two of them.

“Not to ruin the sweet moment or anything, but I think you two are forgetting where the soulstone is currently located.”

“I have not forgotten, Ester. I need only to touch it for a moment. An immortal creature should have nothing to fear.” Kyrsta reassured me as she stood up from her seat across the room. She slowly walked towards me and Nessyndra as I began to panic.

“Uhhh, immortality does not come with analgesia. I’d rather not have you try to stab your way into my skull.”

“I will make it quick, Ester. Compared to the hateful machinations I had planned for you until now, this will be mercifully short.” Kyrsta said, stopping when she finally reached me. I had no interest in discovering exactly what she had planned for me before her subtle change of heart. Knowing I could have had it worse did not help my nerves.

“Are you going to be okay, Ester?” Nessyndra asked, politely. Despite her question being asked with sincerity, I saw no real help coming from it. What was the alternative? I told the grieving woman that she wouldn’t be allowed to see her mother one last time through her memories? If someone had told me I could relive a moment with Vyra, I’d have done almost anything for it. Harming another person was a small price to pay.

Besides, I’d been through worse. If I didn’t let this happen, there was no telling where the conversation would go. If I allowed it, I’d be one step closer to leaving Uroro. I needed to leave. I had to make it back to Cecelia, no matter the cost. If a headache got me closer to saving her, I’d jump at the opportunity.

“I’ll be fine. Just do it.”

I stood up from my seat as Kyrsta further closed the distance between the two of us. I felt something snag onto the seat as I stood. A momentary spark of panic panged through my chest before I remembered the presence of a certain leathery appendage attached to me. A tail. One that I had barely begun to process before being thrown into a prison cell and sent crashing through the memories of a late mother. There was so much about it I didn’t know, and while the sensations it provided whilst brushing against objects felt ostensibly real, my brain had yet to fully acknowledge it as real. Something to ask Lilith about when she woke up, I suppose.

With a flick of her wrist, a small bit of water was absorbed from the nearby gnush to form a claw made up of water along her index finger. She waited, very politely, until I turned around. I held my fists tight in preparation of the pain that I knew would follow. My only hope was that it would be brief. I felt a sharp pain shoot through my entire body, blossoming from the back of my head where I knew that her magically coated finger had entered. The thin pierce had thankfully hurt much less than the soulstone that shattered bone and killed me nearly instantly.

It was a severely uncomfortable few seconds as I stood, body tensed and flaring with panic, until the sensation finally left me as quickly as it had started. I had been holding my breath the entire time her water coated finger made contact with the soulstone. I let out a sigh of relief that mixed with the choked winces as I fell to my knees. It wasn’t a shock to me that tears collected in the bottom of my vision. The natural reaction to this level of pain had yet to cease despite how much pain I had grown used to dealing with on a nearly daily basis.

“Ester! Are you okay? Can I get you something?” Nessyndra immediately reached out towards me as I collapsed to my knees. I felt her hands rest on my back as she asked to help.

“Just give me a moment. I’ll be fine shortly.” It wasn’t a lie. This level of damage would most likely heal in a moment. I focused on biting back the pain until the wound healed.

A sniffle was to be expected, all things considered. Although… that sniffle wasn’t mine. Nessyndra and I looked towards Kyrsta, who was standing with her hands at her sides, eyes wide and locked to the space in front of her.

“Mother, are you okay?! What did you see?”

“Enough… I saw enough…” Her sorrowful gaze started to meld into a subtle smile. The subtle smile quickly shifted into a quivering, but full, smile. Whatever memory she had briefly experienced had clearly had a strong impact on her. Envy wasn’t a good look, but I certainly wore it as I saw her relish in happy memories. What I wouldn’t give in order to live through another makeup session with Vyra, or another lakeside conversation with Cecelia.

“You may leave.” Kyrsta spoke softly, the weight of her tone not matching the important words that she spoke.

“We can go?” Nessyndra asked, her face immediately lighting up.

“I was talking to Ester.” Kyrsta replied, furrowing her brow at Nessyndra.

“I’m going with Ester, mother. We’ve had this conversation countless times. You know that I will not stay in Uroro any longer. I think we can both agree that leaving Uroro with the company of an immortal being is the safest way I can do so.”

It seemed Nessyndra made such a good point that even Kyrsta couldn’t find a way to refute it. Kyrsta simply let out a short sigh through her scaled nostrils.

“You will promise to keep my daughter safe. You do not wish to know the things I will do if you fail that promise.” Kyrsta said, looking directly into my eyes as she did so. Deciding what was a joke and what wasn’t was an impossible task with Crutia. I would just have to hope that she meant the threat in a joking manner. Not that I’d have much reason to be worried, it wasn’t like I’d let any harm come to Nessyndra regardless.

“I’ll keep her safe, Kyrsta. I know this might be weird to say, but I’m proud of you for being willing to brave your past. Though… this pride might be a bit of Cyndri’s feelings bleeding through.”

Kyrsta didn’t respond to my words with her own. But I watched a very genuine smile flash across her face for a moment before she turned away to walk out of the courtroom. It was enough to make me smile as well.

‘Fledgling… why does it smell so strongly of fish?’

Lilith?!

‘Do not act surprised, morsel, we could not be separated so easily.’

It might have been nice to have some assistance while on trial. Were you too busy dreaming about heinous crimes?

‘Trial? I leave you for a few minutes and you’ve already managed to get yourself persecuted in a soggy courtroom?’

It’s not my fault people love me wherever I go, Lilith. Besides, it took a lot more than ‘a few minutes’ to get myself into this mess. You missed all of the fun stuff.

‘Who did you kill?’

Not that kind of fun, Lilith.

“I will give you the evening to collect yourself. In the morning I will provide you with some supplies and have guards escort you close to the surface of the lake.” Kyrsta raised her voice in order to communicate with me from across the room. It seemed that before relaying her plan to me, she had been conversing with the other Drula in the room. Each of whom had remained eerily quiet during the proceedings of the trial. I suspected the trial was anything but usual for Uroro, with the queen taking the position of Drulama, and the Drula being largely pushed to the sidelines.

‘These creatures speak like strangled snakes. What are they saying? In all my years I’ve never heard such a mystifying dialect.’

You can’t understand them?

‘You can?’

Long story. I will explain all of this later.

“You won’t need to grab supplies for me, mother. I’ve already packed a bag for this occasion.” Nessyndra pulled the bag that was strapped across her back to show it to her mother. Kyrsta was less than enthused to see that her daughter had already prepared to leave Uroro today. After letting a frustrated sigh slip between her lips, she turned her focus to me, as if to ask if I was also going to deny her gesture of good will.

Unfortunately, I was.

“Tomorrow isn’t gonna cut it. I need to get to the other side of Uroro as fast as possible. No delays.” I understood how it came across. I was still on my hands and knees on the floor of the courtroom, waiting for the aching wound in the back of my head to stitch itself closed. It was nearly done, but that didn’t change how concerning it looked to be knelt in a small puddle of my own blood.

“Am I meant to take this in jest, Ester? Dryling humor is fittingly dry and indecipherable to me.”

“In your daughter’s own words, ‘no jokes abound’. I have someone on the surface that I need to find. She’s dying as we speak, and I’m not wasting another moment down here. No offense.”

“No defense.” Kyrsta replied. I fought back a smile at her strange response. It seemed that she was attempting to answer correctly to my own turn of phrase by approximating its meaning. It was a strange display of humanity for someone who was hellbent on having me indefinitely detained. She reminded me more and more of the Kyrsta within Cyndri’s memories. I could only hope that this experience truly was an epiphany for the woman. A part of me couldn’t move past the dread that she would slip back into her bad habits, as people often did. Maybe a positive experience with a Deathless would serve to overwrite the bloodsoaked encounter of the past.

‘There was a Deathless down here?’

Right… my thoughts were no longer solely my own. I was already beginning to miss the privacy of my own considerations.

‘Your thoughts are meandering and drenched in anxieties, little morsel. I do not enjoy listening to them anymore than you enjoy me commenting on them.’

My anxious meanderings got me out of a life sentence, Lilith. They can’t be that bad.

‘Your thoughts feel like my own life sentence. I am more concerned with the Deathless you mentioned. Why would one of our kind venture into the lake? I wasn’t even aware of civilization here.’

Not now, Lilith.

‘Do not speak to me that way.’

“I don’t mean to be rude in denying your offer, but unless you’ve got something for us immediately, I’m passing on it.” I said, shakily lifting myself off of the floor, taking the extra time required to make sure I didn’t slip on my own blood while pushing off of the floor.

I could handle cranial impacts until the day I died, but I drew the line at embarrassing myself in front of a foreign court.

“I’ll make it work. Follow me. I’ll take you to the plenda barrier on the first whorl. That will make your journey to the surface more manageable than if you departed from here.” Kyrsta made a hand motion towards two of the Drula that sat nearby. Whatever the motion indicated, they seemed to understand it immediately. The two of them stood up and left the room in a hurry. Nessyndra rushed towards Kyrsta. I attempted to follow as quickly as possible without tripping. The throbbing in my head was beginning to shift from sharp pulses to dull throbs, a good sign that I was nearly done with the pain.

Nessyndra’s mother led us up the different whorls of Uroro without pausing for any distractions. While I greatly appreciated the brevity, I couldn’t help but lament the fact that I couldn’t explore any of this culture for myself while deep beneath the lake. The place looked different from Cyndri’s recollections. Some small changes, like differently colored walkways, and some large changes that no doubt came from the need to rebuild parts of Uroro. Despite how hostile my brief stay had been, I couldn’t help but yearn for a chance to return. I would relish the opportunity to spend an evening in the market with Cecelia. Just the two of us, a few danuit cakes, and the gentle motions of a living, breathing city. I needed to see her again. The desperation gripped at my heart with a calloused hand.

It took only twenty minutes to arrive at the first whorl. Kyrsta had led us directly up to a large plenda barrier before she stopped us. “This is it, Ester.” Kyrsta spoke to me even as she kept her face turned towards the barrier. Soon after we stopped to wait, a Crutia guard walked into the room with a bag. He fell to a knee and presented it forward in a form of prostration. “Thank you for your expedited arrival. I will reward you later.” Kyrsta lifted the bag from the guard’s hands. He nodded curtly and left the room just as quickly as he had entered it.

“This is what my people managed to gather in such a short time. I hope it will allow you to keep Nessyndra safe. As for you, my darling, I expect you to return before the gasthro opens.”

Gasthro… the word felt familiar, no doubt due to Cyndri’s memories, but I was unable to gather a meaning for the word. I would need to ask Nessyndra what she meant.

“Thank you, mother. You won’t regret this.” Nessyndra leaned her head forwards to press her forehead against her mother’s. The gesture meant enough that Kyrsta opted not to respond with words.

“Ester. I hope you find the woman you seek before she succumbs to her fate.”

“Thank you. I will.” I left no space for doubt. If I allowed my fears to invade my language, it would only be a matter of time before I expected to find a corpse rather than my love.

With no reason to stay, and every reason to leave, Nessyndra and I moved towards the barriers. Nessyndra placed a hand on the barrier as if to signal that she was ready when I was. I moved my own hand towards the flexile, slimy material. “There’s no way I can swim to the surface in one breath, right?” I asked, expecting the worst answer as soon as the words left my mouth.

“No. You will certainly run out of breath on the way. As long as I carry you, we will arrive just fine. You will simply drown repeatedly until our arrival.”

“Not too keen on the drowning thing, but it’s all we’ve got.”

There had to be a better way. What do you think, Lilith? You said that you’re experienced with this, did you not?

‘Accursed little fledgling. You know that I’ve been unable to parse together this conversation, yet you ask for my input? What, pray tell, are you asking me about?’

Lilith’s admonishment reminded me that I was still speaking Crutian with Kyrsta and Nessyndra. It was habitual in the strangest way. Something I had grown accustomed to doing as if by a lifetime of repetition. In reality, I’d been speaking and understanding it for only a couple of hours.

‘Yes, yes, little morsel. Very impressive. I’m sure you feel very pleased to be in a position of enlightenment. Now would you please clarify your concerns?’

How does drowning even work for a Deathless?

‘Depends on the Deathless and the experience they have with it. An inexperienced fledgling like yourself would likely perish, only to reawaken minutes later once you regenerate. That process would repeat indefinitely until you find a way to surface. A truly horrifying fate. It is why Deathless are taught at a young age to deal with such a circumstance. If you accelerate your regeneration through a steady stream of mana, you can regenerate at the same rate the oxygen deprivation kills your brain cells. It will be an excruciating sensation to experience the constant lack of oxygen, but you will remain conscious. With enough training the level of pain can become trivial.’

You seem to think any pain can become trivial with training.

‘All physical pain is trivial, with enough time.’

I took note of Lilith’s specification of physical pain. I doubted even Lilith would make the argument that emotional devastation could be trivialized.

“How long will it take to get to the surface?” I asked Nessyndra. I wanted to avoid what Lilith described as ‘excruciating’ pain.

“Hmm… let’s see. If we ascend swiftly through the water like I usually do, we could reach the surface in a few minutes.”

“If you were carrying me? How much would that change?”

“Most likely doubled. Perhaps ten minutes?”

Ten minutes. Perfect. That was around the amount of time it took me to regenerate from dying.

‘Please tell me you are not considering what I think you are considering.’

I’d rather not spend ten minutes in excruciating pain, Lilith.

‘Pain is a natural part of a Deathless’ life, little morsel.’

I’d rather avoid pain when possible, Lilith. What is so hard to understand about that?

‘You will not adjust. You will not develop the resistance you need to survive.’

Then I will adjust. Later. I think it’s natural for humans to want to avoid pain.

‘You are not human.’

My thoughts were thrown into an entropic spiral with Lilith’s response. She wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t change how I planned to confront this problem.

“I have a plan, Nessyndra.”