Chapter 2 - Tethered Twin Stars (Patreon)

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Chapter 2 - Tethered Twin Stars

“Waaaa!”

A baby cried mournfully as bright waves of light gushed out from its tiny berth for the fourth time that day.

“Oh dear, not again. The heiress is leaking manna!”

“Alwyan, call the Grand Shamanka immediately! This cannot continue, or else I won’t be able to guarantee the heiress’s health!”

“U-understood, Elder Croneira.”

Inside the left residence of the main house of the Earthloch clan, an elderly woman fretted about ordering around a group of frantic servants. Even though these servants were charges of the main house itself, with abilities far better than a general serf’s, a look of deep worry still constantly plagued her aged face. She simply could conceive how she and her adherents were supposed to turn this tragedy into a blessing.

Her eyes overlooked a hearty berth of wood, stone, and glowing runes as if the answer would magically appear there.

It didn’t.

A tiny Dhionne baby lay within the berth. Not the solution of her problems, but the very cause.

Azure leaf-like hair topped her fair pinkish face, and the small lilac eyes reminded her of the twinkles of far away amethyst discs in the moonless night skies.

Yet her heart-rendering cries were akin to a Dying Blue Banshee. Her body glowed a deep azure and crimson, with manna raging out with the force of a tornado. Even for someone of the Elder’s power, it stung to push her hands through the storm.

A little older, and the Elder would have praised the baby for being a genius in the arts of manna seldom seen even in a hundred millennium.
Yet the heiress had just been born a little over an hour ago. She had been releasing manna in quantities that would leave most babies her size and weight dead eighteen times over, every quarter-hour. The skin felt icy cold on one side and scorching hot on the other on Elder Croneira’s wrinkly hands.

Most worrying of all, even with all that manna gushing out, the petite babe showed no signs of stopping. As if something was missing to plug in the life continuously leaking away.

Croneira Gellen Earthloch had seen miscarriages and childbirth ending up in other forms of tragedies. But she had never come across a similar scenario to this in her one hundred ninety-five cycles of life as far as she remembered.

“E-Elder Croneira, what is wrong with her? My daughter…” A feeble voice asked.

On the other end of the large room, a woman with hair resembling the newborn, yet without legs, rested inside a floating ball of neon blue water.

The mother’s bare body was being tended by a few servants injecting various herbs and remedies into the water sphere. But the medicine did nothing to soothe the mother’s heart.

“Please! I beg you, save her.”

The Elder turned around at the mother’s voice; the worried expression was already gone from her aged face. She made a slight hand gesture towards one of the servants in a green chiton.

“I will, Chieftainess. That is my job, after all. There is nothing wrong with the heiress; she is especially gifted by the disc, is all.”

“I-is that so. Then I.. am glad.” A new cloudy substance swirled into the water, the mother quickly falling asleep under its hypnotic embrace.

Elder Croneira sighed.

She instructed the same servant who had administered to sleeping remedy, “Keep her soothed, Feylis. It would do us no good to lose both mother and child if the worst comes to pass. Has the Grand Elder also been notified? What of the chief?”

“The Grand Elder just concluded his talk with the chieftain in the cloistered hall. The chieftain gave us full use of all oceanic-grade treasures and above as necessary. After that, he immediately headed out with four delver teams and many more hunters. The watches said he was heading to the Elkvine Manna-riogh.” Feylis paused to catch her breath.

“A-And, I have something else to report to the Elder!” The servant continued, with both conviction and fear painting her voice.

The Elder nodded in approval at the chieftain’s bold move, despite how she would think it was a preposterous idea in regular times.

The Elkvines were the primary producer of all healing herbs and treasures in the Earthloch dominion. But for them to procure an elixir potent enough of mend fractured inner cores— a condition that showed similar symptoms to the heiress’s— they would have to delve deep enough to a stratum where mid, or even high-oceanic-grade Geistrums spawned.

It was a risky venture even with the most faultless of preparations.

Not to mentions this time, it was without any long-term plans or contingencies. The heiress’s father must have decided on the course of action the moment he heard about the girl’s plight.

Yet, Elder Croneira was adamant about attributing the ailment to a fractured inner core just yet. Her years of experience painfully kept yelling at her ears everything about the situation that differed from inner core fractures.

For one, she thought, ‘The manna channels inside the heiress are fine. It’s just that they are leading to somewhere… outside her body?’

The very thought went against most of her life’s studies. She shook her head and motioned for Feylis to continue her report.

“It’s about Eluned, my lady! H-Her, the son is also-”

“Eluned? She was a herb-tender of the painweeds and blade-hunter Dofnald’s wife, no? I was wondering why she was missing today. She was supposed to supply you all with a steady stream of carved clams and weaved painweeds. And, her expected date was supposed to be a nine-day away if I recall correctly.” The Elder interrupted the young maid.

She was already in a foul mood with the disastrous day today had summed up to be. No matter how insignificant Eluned’s role was, the absence of one of the expected servants had made her none the happier.

Feylis could read the Elder’s displeasure with all the time she spent in her master’s company. So she hurried to her absent friend’s defence, “I-It was not her fault, master. This morning when she was on the way here bringing the batch of painweeds, her body acted up. She was in extreme pain, so she had to be carried into one of the rooms at the end of the main residence.”

“Did her manna gush? Why was I not notified of this?” The Elder figured out what had happened.

“Her water too, master. She finished giving birth a quarter-hour before her grace. We didn’t design to disturb you since the respected Elder was busy here. The babe and mother looked well at first, too, so we were joyous.”

“B-But, the son. He is not faring well now. Eluned, she-“The servant stammered, trying to find the right words, with her sister servants trying to help her along.

Yet the Elder interrupted her again, “Servant Feylis! Are you implying I should abandon the Earthloch main house heiress’s safety for a servant’s child?”

The servant, noticing her err, immediately bowed down and knocked her head to the stone floor, “I meant no disrespect, Elder! I was just worried about our sister. I ask the Elder for punishment.”

Seeing that, Elder gestured to Feylis with an understanding sigh, “Get up, my child. I know what you meant. But there are my direct disciples to take care of your needs; you should know that. The clan Earthloch takes care of their servants like no other on the disc.”

Sometimes clan decorum forced her to be strict with words when servants went out of line. Yet, for one such as an Earthloch, they had hardly settled into the whole blue-blooded traditions. A subject of much laughter in the other noble dominions of the disc.

“Y-Yes, Elder.” Feylis obliged. A streak of redness surfaced on her forehead. She looked pained under the Elder’s gaze, yet after a few breaths, the young servant resolved her mind to her folly.

She articulated carefully, “I-I think the condition of Eluned’s babe might be related to the heiress’s.”

Croneira’s eyes turned razor-sharp. She ignored the servant’s repeated offence and asked with the force of a tigress, “Explain! And you better be right, or else….”

Feylis nodded repeatedly; cold sweat and blood streaked down her forehead, “The babe, he... He is also leaking manna, my lady! And it started a quarter-hour after he was born! About the same time as when—“

“What!” The Elder interrupted the servant for the third time. She practically grabbed the young maiden with a claw-like grip, “What are the symptoms? The colours? Is the boy cold or hot?”

If the servant’s words were to be trusted, then a quarter-hour was precisely the interval between Eluned’s babe and the heiress’s birth.

‘It might be a coincidence. But if it isn’t, then….’

If Feylis was hurt from the vice-grip, she didn’t show. “There are no colours. Just white. The manna is gushing out too, but the flow hovers in the air for a few breaths, then returns inside him with ten times the amount and force. A-And his cries, they are dying! His whole body keeps changing from cold like winter to hot like a fire over and over.”

‘Similar, but not quite. Yet enough so!’

The Elder immediately barked some orders to the surrounding maids and got someone else to take charge of Feylis’s duties.

A short few minutes later, after ensuring her absence would not lead to problems, she ordered Feylis, “Lead me to Eluned. I will judge for myself.”

She paused for a while, then continued with approval. “You have done well reporting this to me despite my status. Anything regarding the heiress should take more priority than my measly self. Whatever happens today, go to Elder Meredith of the servant’s depository after and withdraw two months of Oceanic Geistmeat, blood, and bones.”

She paused, “And ten Earthen manna cores.”

The young maid who cheered up at the sudden windfall hurried to follow the order. “I-It is but my duty, Elder Croneira.”

The Elder, however, was no longer listening. Her body followed the servant like an automaton golem. Yet, her mind wandered back to something her now deceased master had disclosed to her right at the beginning of her own apprenticeship.

‘Two babies born on the same day… Manna anomalies and weakening health… One leaving and one receiving… It must be like the Yuriel founders! If not that, then what?!’

Her conclusion brought her endless joy that if her guess was correct, then both newborns might just yet live. The tragedy would be overcome. However,

‘A servant’s son….’

She hoped that whatever the Clan chieftain and Grand elder were to do after she confirmed her conjecture, they would not let rank of blood cloud their judgment. Otherwise, it might just be a mercy to end the lives of the heiress and servant’s boy then and there.

After all, sometimes living in emptiness with fate long forgotten was far more painful than simply dying.

************************

Bromwyn Thundham Earthloch sat impatiently on a tree stump on the peak of a small grassy hillock. The giant Dhionne looked back at his people with eyes full of both pride and apology.

He had done it. They had done it.

He made them risk their lives, almost a quarter of both oceanic hunters and delvers left at the shire outside the Lochuir township, for what most would consider a fool's errand.

Any misjudgement on their part throughout the ordeal would have cost them much more than just their lives.

But here they were, returning home proudly after barely three-quarters of a day, with rich bounty and, more importantly, medicinal herbs which could hopefully heal his newborn daughter's inner core.

No lives were lost, and the limbs could be re-attached if treated soon. It was a fortune on a rainy day that the Geistrums native to thatstratum of the Elkvines preferred bladed offence rather than the other nastier kinds.

"Chieftain, the watches are in sight!" A terse winged man, shorter by a head than most other men present, quickly ran over to report to him. "Runner Iau should be there by now."

"Good," Bromwyn said while remaining seated. He gestured at part of their haul, "Tell Talfryn to take three hunting parties with all the carcasses. Cadwell, you take the rest of the haul to the alchemy pavilion."

As he set out tasks for two of the four delve leaders, his hands subconsciously reached out to a pouch tied to his belt. The smooth texture of the sack betrayed its leathery look.

Even now, he could taste the blood in his mouth and the scent of the rot when he had removed the contents of the sack from the eye-sockets of the 4th stratum guardian. He had almost lost his own eyes, if not for his companions' rescuing him on the brink of time.

Many drops of blood, tear, and sweat had been shed in the process just to get these mulberry-red seeds.

'It was all worth it….' He tried to reassure himself. 'Because if not-'

Bromwyn calmed his breath, unclenching his fists from the pouch. All the pride he felt from the successful delve could not overcome the deep-rooted terror he tried so hard to hide in the depths of his soul.

His newborn daughter, the culmination of his love with the woman of his dreams, was dying.

It would do no good to show his men the sight of a weak Chieftain; he knew that. But maintaining his façade even now was hard.

Cadwell had, of course, noticed. They had been sworn brothers for too long, while by blood, they were cousins.

Yet, the winged man tactfully ignored Bromwyn's inner turmoil before leaving for his task.

Bromwyn wasn't sure about the rest of his men, but he prayed that they hadn't gleaned of his weakness. Every cycle, these people lost those dear to them to one fateless cause or another.

He had been the lucky one all his life, pardoned from losing anyone of significance in an untimely manner. So he took a deeper breath, his chest rising and falling with the mantra in his heart.

Whatever may happen, will.

He, no, they had tried their best in the short window of time they had. The uncertainty of the situation didn't lessen the pain and worry, of course, haunting him of visions if the worst comes to pass.

Not to mention his wife, who was already weak from a past injury and went through a difficult childbirth.

Collecting his thoughts through the short respite, Bromwyn looked up at the dark skies covering the disc as if to search for answers to his plight among the stars.

It was then that Runner Iau sprinted into the temporary camp with all the huffing and puffing of a farm beast.

"Chieftain!" He shouted, gasping for breath, almost falling over, "G-Good news!"

Bromwyn held the young boy up by his arms, "Steady lad."

He then ordered one of the hunters to get the runner a skin of manna infused freshwater.

"Drink, and calm yourself. Whatever news you have, it won't do us any good if you faint before you can tell us." The Chieftain asked with a little bit of hope and unease, "Whatever made you run back seventeen miles in less than a quarter-hour should be significant enough that you are steady when you speak it."

The lad thanked the Chieftain, slowly gulping down the offered water. A few breaths later, he spoke, "The Grand Elder is waiting for you at the watches, your grace."

"What!" Bromwyn shouted. His father was just as worried about the newborn as he was, if not more. So why was he a hundred miles away from the clan township at such a time?

"There is more," Iau exclaimed, this time a well-intentioned grin forming on his face. "Uncle, Elder Croneira is with him too! They say the princess is well!"

Bromwyn waited no more. The words had barely left Iau Tudur Earthloch's lips when the other man practically bolted off the disc towards the nearby watchtower with the speed of the north wind, leaving a bewildered trail of hunters and a tornado of grass and leaves in his wake.

***

"Father!" Bromwyn shouted as he slammed open the door to the sentry house; the whole tower below seemed to rock at the force.

Of course, that was just an illusion playing tricks on his unsettled mind. The towers were built too sturdy to be rocked by the feelings of a distressed father.

There were four people in the room.

An old man was looking out of the northern window towards a vast lake beyond; the lake itself could only partially be seen with its more significant part hidden behind the lush mountains.

It was his father, the grand elder. He had grizzled white hair and a short yet flowy beard. The reed hat on his head gave off a rustic scent, giving other's the impression he was but a fisher or farmhand servant. Yet the sharp glint in his aged lilac eyes told a different story.

Elder Croneira was seated by the table, drinking aged fruit pulp out of a shell cup. She looked worse for wear, with fatigue visible on her already decrepit face. Yet the signs of worry were long gone, Bromwyn noticed, replaced by something else.

The last two were servants, with one being Feylis, whom he recognized as one of the maids tending to his wife during the labour. She was standing to the side with a dazzling younger man wearing a hunter's garb, the servants' sigil visible on his exposed arms with a bone blade hung to his back.

His posture was steady, yet the clenching fists did nothing to hide the young man's inner turmoil.

Feylis was alternating her gaze between these three people until Bromwyn's loud boom jolted her straight.

"Bromwyn, you've come." The old man spoke, but his gaze was not removed from the glistening lake water.

"Father, I've heard the news from Iau. Is it true?" Bromwyn impatiently asked. "Is my daughter's ailments really cured?"

The grand elder didn't respond; the old man simply stroked his silky beard.

It was Elder Croneira who spoke up, "Chieftain, if I may interject. It wasn't an ailment. There was nothing to cure."

"Then what was it that almost took her life?" Bromwyn was taken aback.

He wondered if they had made a big fuss for nothing. That would indeed be embarrassing. But it was better than his daughter catching an untreatable fatal curse, worse yet than her inner core born cracked.

"It is hard to explain, my lord. To put it bluntly, it was our lack of immediate judgement that-"

"What! Are you telling me you almost messed up the childbirth!" Bromwyn uncharacteristically raged, slamming the table with his giant palms.

"Silence!" His father yelled, warning the burly chieftain sternly with a raspy voice. "The elder has explained to me the details. No one should be held responsible for what was but fate's fickle design."

Bromwyn calmed, pulling himself apart from the darker thoughts. He immediately apologized to Elder Croneira for his slight.

The old woman didn't seem to be offended as she continued her explanation, "Your daughter has been born with a unique condition, my lord. Whether it is advantageous or detrimental, I do not know yet."

"And that condition caused her to almost die?"

"No, it was the place where the lady gave birth that is to be blamed. And please don't interrupt; let me finish." The old lady said exasperatedly, seeing Bromwyn acting up again.

"Your daughter, or rather, her soul, didn't come into this world alone. It was tethered to another's even before the light of the disc saw her. It was because the tether was stretched so thin that manna was continuously leaking from her body to repair it."

Bromwyn was confused, "I don't understand."

Elder Croneira thought for a while, then asked. "Do you know of those high-level slave sigils used on other discs?"

"Yes. They say it is a much stricter form of the servants' sigil we use here. It comes with many heartless restrictions. Though, what does it have to do with my daughter?" Bromwyn asked back.

"Your daughter was born with something similar to the slaves' sigil imprinted in her soul. Closer to Geist or spirit contracting sigils than slaves actually, if I were to be accurate. But the functions are similar without the restrictions for forceful obedience.

Yet one of those restrictions must've been about distance. She and her contracted were too far apart when she was birthed. We have moved them closer together now. Hence, she was cured."

Realization finally dawned on Bronwyn's face. But it didn't give him the peace of mind he wished for. "So my daughter is a slave now? No, A beast of burden for this other person, this soul witch?"

The elderly woman denied with vexation, "I doubt both of those, my lord. From what I have seen, this sigil-like-tether—not any sort of soul manipulating magic, goes both ways. I reckon it occurred naturally. Past cases testify to this, at least.

Before the two were brought closer together, the other party was also at death's door. However, we might need to do some more auguries to better our knowledge of the situation."

"Truly? Then, her well-being?"

"Is assured, my lord. Both the princess's and your wife's health has been improving. It may be belated, but please accept my heartfelt congratulations." Elder Croneira smiled at last. As if with that statement, she had officially declared the crisis mitigated.

Bromwyn shared her sentiment. His shoulders slumped down in relief; the fatigue he had hidden behind a stone exterior burst out on his face before quickly morphing into unbridled joy.

He almost slumped on the floor as he roared a cry in relief. "Thanks to the manna, oh spirits of the hundred thousand lakes, custodian of our lives. Allow me my gratitude, for my daughter is well!"

A few more breaths of happy outbursts later, Bromwyn noticed an important detail he had forgotten to ask.

With the gait of a Clan Chieftain that finally returned, he asked through a grim voice, "And what of this other party? Who should I blame for almost taking her away from me?!"

Elder Croneira looked troubled at that. But she still firmly spoke out her thoughts, "No one, my lord. It was a naturally occurring phenomenon, as I have mentioned. A talent of sort for both parties, similar to the martial spirits or soulbound armaments used on other discs, yet in this case, they are both dhionne. Though what results this tether ultimately brings remains to be seen. As for the other parties' identity…."

Elder Croneira sighed, then turned her gaze to the other two participants in the room. Specifically, the young man who had been listening to their conversation with a confused face. Before Bromwyn could punch the poor man's face in, she continued.

"Stay your hands, my lord. It is not him." She paused, confirming that the Chieftain didn't go through his actions towards the man who somehow managed to look positively incensed rather than fearful at the clan Chieftain's actions.

But her following words simply shifted Bromwyn's rage down a generation, "It's his newborn son. Born a quarter-hour before the princess."