I shouldn’t be here…I pictured Ada’s lifeless body, my mind churning out a dozen fresh nightmares of what they’d do to me for eavesdropping. All of them involved me dying.

  I scoured the room for someplace to hide…something to explain my presence.

  Desperate, I fell to my knees near the altar, lowering my head and cupping my hands to make the prayer look more believable. It was then that I remembered the flower, still resting in my hand. Cursing to myself, I peeled the glove off, pulling it over the flower before shoving them in my pocket.

  Even with my eyes closed I could feel his gaze on me as he sauntered through the nave. I tried desperately to control the rhythm of my breathing as his feet dragged to a stop right next to where I knelt, still clutching my hands in prayer.

  I’d never been more afraid, yet something in me needed to see him. To see the face of the man…the god…who demanded the priest simply make more of us dead.

  Defying every urge, I opened my eyes, turning my head to look at him.

  I’m not sure what I expected, but he didn’t seem at all like the gods that descended all those years ago when they took my father.

  He had to be a god, judging by how he dressed, and spoke to the Sanctari. Other than that, it was as if I were regarding any other man from the village.

  Some black material, too dense looking to be simple fabric, covered his arms and legs. A silvery cloth hung from his shoulders like a cloak that only covered the right half of his body.

  He jerked his head as our eyes met. Not as if I’d done something I shouldn’t have, but as if I’d done something impossible just by staring back at him. He seemed to consider something for a moment before a whirring noise outside shook him from thought.

  He turned to leave, stepping outside and onto the ramp of a golden chariot, just as it descended to where his foot would be.

  Its dull whine grew more faint as I imagined it climbing through the clouds, to the place where gods lived.

  Instead of calm washing over me, I felt my anxiety creeping back in, as if my body had only now registered the threat after it had already passed.

  Why did I do that? I asked myself, realizing how close to death I’d been…how close I’d come to leaving my eight-year-old brother to care for our mother alone.

  It felt Insane to tell the Sanctari about the flower now. I hesitated a moment before finally leaving, fighting the urge to break into a run as I passed the outer gate. Fragments of the exchange embered in my mind, kindling my unease.

  If you don’t have enough bodies…

  They were talking about the flowers, nothing else needed corpses...but something else he said bothered me more. People dying without their treatments...as if the flowers made some kind of cure. I thought about my mother.

  Could the flowers save her?

  The thought followed me the whole way home. I barely noticed the passing streets until I stumbled over something, looking up to realize I’d arrived.

  It was visibly worn compared to the two that flanked either side. Moss crept along the stonework, the roof dipping in places where beams hadn’t been replaced in time. One of the shutters had fallen, hanging desperately from a single nail as it swayed and groaned with the wind. I felt a sort of kinship with it as I stepped inside, gently closing the door behind me.

  The room was small, one space trying to be many things. A table stood at its center, scarred and stained from years of use; four mismatched chairs huddled around it. The fireplace nearby crackled faintly, its heat barely reaching the cold edges of the room. Across from it sat the bed we all shared, though it looked more like a burden than a comfort these days.

  My father was where he always was, in the chair closest to the fire, turned toward the flames but never really looking at them. His lips moved, mumbling something to himself, words too soft and broken to make sense of. His hands rested on his knees, fingers twitching now and then like they remembered holding something, a weapon maybe.

  My brother, Rheinan, sat at the edge of the bed curled at our mother’s side. His small frame resting against the edge of the mattress, head nestled beside her hip like a watchful pup. He stirred as I entered, blinking sleep from his eyes.

  “Aine’s home,” he said, in hushed excitement.

  Our mother opened her eyes, smiling weakly as she saw me. She parted her lips to speak, only to lose her words in a fit of coughs. I rushed forward, not bothering to take off my boots. Rheinan sat up, already holding a cloth in his small hands. He offered it with quiet urgency, her arms shaking as she pressed it to her mouth.

  She crumpled it, meeting my eyes as she placed the ball of cloth in my hand. She was trying to hide the black-red stain that marked the fabric, but Rheinan had seen it.

  He looked at me with wide eyes, silently begging for reassurance I couldn’t give. She’d gotten worse. I already expected to lose her any day now but seeing her like this…we might lose her in hours.

  I moved to the basin and dipped a rag into the cool water, the clay bowl shivering faintly on the warped wood of the table as I wrung it out. The fabric dripped as I returned to her side, pressing it gently to her brow.

  She shot an embarrassed glance at her waist. I hated the shame in her eyes, as if she were doing something wrong by dying. I wanted to say something; tell her I didn’t mind cleaning her…joke about how she’d done the same when I was an infant…but all I could manage was a smile as I wiped her with the damp rag. Without letting the smile leave my face, I replaced makeshift bedpan under the mattress with a new one.

  “Love...you, Aine,” she rasped, the words scraping like broken glass from her throat.

  Her fingertips were cold as stone as she ran her hand against my cheek.

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  “I love you too,” I croaked, choking back a sob, knowing better than to cry in front of Rheinan.

  She was thirty-seven. Nearing the end, by most standards. Though the Sanctari and the gods seemed to live forever, commoners didn’t make it past forty. Not because of war or misfortune, but because the sickness always takes us by then.

  I paused my work to look at Rheinan, his eyes glossy with tears he was fighting back. Even at his age he knew that crying would only bring our mother more pain. She and father had given birth to him later in life than most. Eight years after me. Because of that, he’d have to grow up without a mother before turning 10 years old.

  I dipped the cloth again, wiping blood from the corners of her lips. She smiled faintly, still trying to make it easier for us. Even as her body was failing. When brushed, her hair came out in strands. Her gums bled when she spoke, and she’d lost some of her teeth...a few more each day, like roots from dry soil.

  That was all bad on its own, but what told me she was nearing the end was the blackened veins, pressing up against her skin.

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?” Rheinan asked, his eyes pleading as he looked up at me.

  Sanctari forbade medicine. To intervene in the natural course of the body was to defy the divine order of things.

  Or was it just that they needed us to die? I thought, clutching the flower through my dress.

  I seriously considered it before shaking the thought away. What if I'm wrong? What if it’s my bright idea that kills her? Or worse, kills us all.

  I thought of the god demanding more bodies. If the Sanctari found out they wouldn’t just punish me...they’d have us all killed.

  Instead, I motioned him to the shelves that hung along the wall opposite the bed.

  “Bring me those two,” I said, pointing at a section of the shelves where several jars sat, each containing different assortments of dried leaves and roots. The purple ones, and the grey root next to them.”

  Rheinan leapt to his feet, eager to help any way he could. I glanced at my father, annoyed, wishing he could do anything more than sit and stare. I stopped myself.

  It’s not his fault.

  My mother smiled again as she watched me working, carefully grinding the leaves and roots in a wooden mortar, just as she’d taught me.

  I crushed the brittle leaves in steady circles, mixing in the grey root until its sharp scent stung like bitter smoke. The mixture wouldn’t cure her, but it might ease her cough enough to help her rest.

  I poured the steeped mixture into a small clay cup, the steam curling upward like breath in cold air. Carefully, I slipped an arm beneath her shoulders and lifted her just enough to bring the cup to her lips. She was lighter than she should’ve been. Too light. Her bones pressed through her gown like twigs wrapped in linen.

  “Here,” I whispered, steadying the cup with both hands. “Just a little.”

  She drank slowly, her throat working with effort as though just swallowing was a task her body had forgotten how to do. It was hard to see her so helpless.

  “Thank…you…Aine,” she managed, sinking back into the pillow and leaving the cup empty in my hands. Her eyes fluttered closed as I brushed a few strands of hair from her brow. I could tell she was still in pain, but she was resting.

  That was something.

  Father mumbled something barely audible over the soft hiss of the fire, still staring at the dying coals, still lost somewhere far from here.

  We all sat in silence for a moment before Rheinan’s stomach let out a growl that brought me back to the present.

  I moved to the hearth, setting the used cup aside to prepare what little food we had left. I set aside the paltry ration pack Id gotten earlier, knowing we’d need to make it last. Instead, I scanned the shelves, noting anything edible we had left. I frowned at the chunk of stale bread and scrap of dried meat I’d been saving.

  I eyed my father as I worked, cursing him for being no help, then hating myself for thinking it. He hadn’t always been like this. I remembered a time, just after Rheinan was born, when he used to lift me in his arms, spinning me in the fields until I laughed so hard my ribs ached. That man was gone.

  Not long after Rheinan’s birth, the gods descended to our village, their golden chariots humming low above the soil. They didn’t bother with words. Only pointed at the men they wanted, like choosing animals for slaughter.

  I remembered the day he left, waving as he climbed aboard one of the floating carriages, the others pressed in around him, some weeping. I waved until my arm ached, refusing to cry. Hoping that somehow, he would be one of the few that managed to come back.

  Part of him did come back, but not the father I remember. Like the pieces that made him who he was were gone.

  There were moments when something would stir behind his eyes. Flashes of realization, like embers flaring up in dying ash. Once he even spoke my name, soft and broken, as if it hurt him to remember. Those moments never lasted. Just as quickly as they came, the light would drain from his eyes, and he would slip back into whatever cage held him prisoner in his mind.

  I stirred the thin broth, listening to the hollow pop of the firewood as it cracked and shifted. I pushed the thoughts away, buried them where Rheinan wouldn’t see. He didn’t need to know how much we had lost.

  I ladled the stew into three cracked bowls, setting one carefully by Father’s side, though he would hardly touch it. His eyes barely flickered at the smell as I motioned for Rheinan to come sit.

  He shuffled over, rubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand. When he reached the table, he paused, glancing at the sad portion in his bowl.

  “Is it supposed to smell like that?” he asked, wrinkling his nose, though there was no real complaint in his voice, just a tired attempt at teasing.

  I let out a breath of a laugh and ruffled his hair. “You cook if you don’t like it.”

  He grinned, a small thing, but real, and slid into his seat with a huff like he was already bearing the weight of the world. He picked up his spoon and stirred the broth, watching the bits swirl inside.

  “I like it when you cook,” he said after a moment, quieter now. “It’s just not as good as mom’s.”

  I just smiled and passed him the bread. He took it eagerly, dunking it into the broth with both hands.

  My father still sat in his chair by the fire, the untouched bowl cooling at his side.

  I watched him for a long moment, spoon in hand, the broth it held growing cold between my fingers.

  “I’ll help da eat today,” Rheinan said, noticing my stare.

  Our father was older than Mother by a few years, closer to forty than she was. By all rights, the sickness should’ve taken hold of him first. But it hadn’t. He hadn’t shown a single sign. Not a cough or sore.

  Maybe it wasn’t age.

  Maybe it was this place.

  He was gone for six years. Six years breathing different air, eating different food.

  The thought chilled me more than the wind slipping through the cracked shutters.

  Rheinan dunked another soggy piece of bread into his bowl, his face calm in a way that made my chest ache. I couldn’t let him see the thoughts turning behind my eyes. I didn't want him to be like me, always questioning everything, always making everyone uncomfortable.

  A loud scrape broke the silence as Rheinan pushed his bowl away and slumped back in his chair with a sigh.

  “I’m still hungry,” he grumbled, poking at the wood grain of the table with his spoon as if it might somehow yield more food if he pressed hard enough. He eyed the unopened ration pack I’d left on the shelf.

  I forced a smile onto my face and reached over to ruffle his hair.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get more rations tomorrow,” I promised.

  “But rations aren't for another month,” Rheinan said, doubt in his voice. His words caught me off-guard; he was getting far too smart for an eight-year-old. “You usually bring home three or four, they only gave you one?”

  “I—” I delayed, wondering if there was any point to lying, but I couldn’t stand the worry on his face. I’ll figure something out, I thought, drawing a determined breath. “I didn’t have time to wait for all of mine. They had to get more from storage, so I said I’d get the rest of mine tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry,” I added, seeing doubt. “Your sister happens to work in the garden, the Sanctari will make sure I get my rations.”

  He looked up at me, a glimmer of trust in his eyes that made my chest tighten.

  “Maybe they'll even give us something sweet,” I added, though the words tasted like ash in my mouth.

  I knew the stupid priest would only ask why I was sharing my rations, why Rheinan wasn’t working for his own. I swallowed the anger starting to rise as I thought of a frail, eight-year-old boy working in the mines. What stung most was doubt that anyone else would find it unusual.

  Rheinan smiled the kind of smile only a child could manage, turning his attention back to licking the last of the broth from his spoon.

  Mistbound

  by NeoRyu777

  When the world is ending, what do you do with your time?

  The surface of the world is shrouded in a deadly, mutative Mist—and it's spreading. Mana, the magical force keeping it at bay, is running dry. A decade of research has failed, and the two great nations—sky-dwelling Zephyria and subterranean Geova—are ready to go to war, each convinced the other is to blame.

  With only a year remaining before total collapse, Maeryn takes matters into her own hands. Joined by Dan, a gifted alchemist, and Frankie, a manic engineer, she sets off on a journey of a lifetime.

  They'll uncover the truth.

  They'll forge a solution.

  They’ll save their world.

  Or die trying.

  https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0FH9LHHQL

  https://www.patreon.com/c/Mistbound