Eridessa
I make it back from the supply run just before nightfall.
My muscles ache from the long journey, dust still clinging to my boots and cloak, but no rest waits for me. There never is. I unload what I’ve brought back first—supplies stacked neatly where they belong—then move through the house on autopilot, tending to the creatures who depend on me before doing anything else.
Water refreshed. Feed measured. Enclosures checked.
Only then do I allow myself to turn toward the living.
I cook despite the fatigue, forcing myself to assemble something warm and filling for Lila and Orán. In the kitchen, I sort through what I scavenged: dried lentils, a small sack of rice, smoked rabbit I traded for at a roadside outpost, and—miraculously—a bundle of wild onions and a sprig of rosemary I found growing near a burned orchard. I take my time with the meal despite the fatigue, chopping and simmering, letting the broth deepen while the rice softens. It isn’t elaborate, but it’s warm, filling, and real.
There’s comfort in the ritual. In the small acts of care that still exist in a world coming undone.
When I open the last door and enter the hallway where the cells are, Orán immediately comes to the bars and peers through. I go to Lila first. Even from several cells away, I feel his attention settle on me. His gaze follows my every movement as I let Lila out and tell her to go ahead and head into the house. She doesn’t leave right away. Instead, she drifts down the corridor toward Orán’s bars.
They speak softly, too quietly for me to hear from where I stand. Whatever passes between them is brief but weighted. At the end of it, Orán gives a single, solemn nod and watches as she finally turns and walks away.
Curiosity tugs at me.
But I’m also comforted by the knowledge that Lila will likely tell me most of what was said. Or at least, I believe she will.
I stop in front of Orán’s cell and pass him the covered plate.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell him. “And we can finally have that talk.”
Something shifts in his expression—hope, maybe, threaded with worry. His mouth pulls into something that resembles a half smile, half frown, as if he can’t quite decide which emotion deserves more space.
I leave him and spend the next hour moving between tasks—cleaning equipment, sorting new supplies, resetting the workshop for tomorrow.
Despite the exhaustion dragging at my bones, sleep doesn’t come easily because I take my next dose of the elixir before bed, and as it often does now, it stirs up fevered dreams I can’t escape. This time, it carries me backward—to the memory that still haunts me.
The day that may be absent from my skin, but has been branded into my memory with utter clarity.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Revisiting Old Wounds
Eridessa
The Monastery — 2224
“Grand Minister Judiah?”
I knock again and wait.
When no answer comes, I turn to leave, but hesitate. I’ve already searched the entire monastery and haven’t been able to find him anywhere. Worry coils tighter in my chest. It’s not like him to be absent from his duties this long, and the elders I questioned about his whereabouts offered only vague reassurances and polite deflections.
This time, after knocking once, I test the doorknob.
Locked.
That should be the end of it.
But two hours later, while seated on the edge of my bed, I find myself rereading the same passages that had sent me searching for him in the first place. The words refuse to make sense no matter how many times I read them, and sleep feels impossible with these questions plaguing me.
I know this was referenced somewhere else.
Not in the Good Book.
