Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The naan blistered on the slate hearthstone as gold and orange coals danced beneath the flames. Eshara flipped the round breads with practiced ease, her fingertips darting through the heat. She hummed under her breath, clinging to the rhythm of cooking, pretending she didn’t feel her mother’s stare like a draft along her spine.
She risked a glance over her shoulder, her thick black plait falling down her back. Mithra’s deep brown eyes were vacant, fixed not on Eshara or the fire but on some distant point beyond both. Wisps of greying hair stuck out in all directions around her head, her thick black plait hanging limply over her shoulder. Wrapped in her faded paisley shawl, she sat rigid in the high‑backed chair, as if bracing against a storm only she could see. She hadn’t left the shabby croft all day, leaving Eshara to work the market, and fetch the spices and bread flour alone.
The silence pressed against Eshara’s ears, thick and wrong. Mithra hadn't said a word, hadn't moved a muscle for nearly half an hour.
The fits were growing longer and more frequent.
Eshara sucked in a deep breath, held it, and tried to force her shoulders to relax as she stirred the lentil and barley stew. It was bland, but edible and filling, and the apothecary in Varrahan insisted that cooling foods like this would help Mithra, along with the endless bottles of medicine. Eshara wasn't sure which was worse: the daily routine of soulless medicinal foods, or the pungent bottles of strange, bitter liquids that always calmed her mother from her rages but put her into a stupor after.
The coals popped further back in the hearth as Eshara reached for the iron poker and swept it from side to side, evening the layer out. “Mrs. Fields asked for you at the market today,” Eshara said at last, forcing a bright smile that didn’t reach her oak brown eyes. She leaned back on her heels, putting a little distance between herself and the fire. “She was very kind and gave me the flour and lentils, bless her. I had a good crowd, too.” Her smile wavered, then steadied. “Not as big as the garrisons used to be, but the tambourine dances still open purses. Maybe next market day you can come and drum for me again. Like you used to.”
The hope in her voice felt fragile, almost childish. It had been months since Mithra had been well enough to leave the croft for long. The last time she’d tried and come to the market, she’d forgotten where they were and accused the vendor beside them of trying to steal her away. Trying to sell her back to the orcs.
Swallowing down the bitter lump in her throat, Eshara pulled the steaming breads from the stone and onto a wooden plate. No garlic, no chili, no onions, per the doctors. Nothing too spicy or warming that might further agitate Mithra's delicate state. Plain food, and bottles of medicine, warm shawls, and leaving the windows open as much as possible to air out any miasma. As though madness could be driven away by dull food and drafts.
The sky was just beginning to slip into deeper shades of twilight as the late-autumn wind rattled at the croft’s shutters. Even pulled tight and latched, the biting air pushed between the slats and into the croft's single room. Eshara shivered, despite the fire. The windows had no glass, and the damp thatch above bled dark mold that was slowly spreading in the high corners of the walls, veining like cruel black spider webs. The cross beams visibly sagged and needed to be replaced before the roof came down. More water came through each time it rained, and Eshara wasn't sure how to repair it herself. Each day closer to winter was a day growing more concerned they might freeze to death. But she wouldn't dare bring those problems up to the landlord. She couldn't. Anything they had ever reported as needing attention to Count Edmonton had always swiftly resulted in their rent increasing.
A faint muttering caught Eshara's attention, the phrases mingling between Common and Anjari, and some words nonsense in either language. She looked away from the fire back at her mother as Mithra finally began to stir from her daze, her posture softening into an exhausted slump. Her trembling fingers immediately moved to her temples, rubbing them in slow, agitated circles. Eshara frowned, her shoulders tensing again. Another headache, so soon after the last?
Calm, Eshara reminded herself. Mama needs your voice low and soft and calm, and the fit will pass. It always does.
Rising from where she'd been kneeling by the fire, Eshara dusted the soot from her hands and knees on her faded brown dhoti pants and hurried across the room. The packed earth floor was uneven and cold under the woven rush rugs, and no matter how much she swept, it never felt clean in the croft. Always cold. Always damp. Always muddy. Eshara stood over the low table, quickly pouring another bottle of liquid onto a cloth, the blooming fragrances of lavender and rosemary mixing with the sharp bite of alcohol. Unlike the bitter and metallic elixirs and tonics Mithra drank almost daily, the softness of the herbs was a much gentler way to soothe the pain.
She stepped behind Mithra and placed the scented cloth around the back of her neck, shushing her softly. “They're watching us," Mithra muttered louder, her voice sharp and quick with fear. "Have to run, they're watching. Coming.” Her hands reached out to grasp at Eshara as her daughter moved in front. One trembling hand clutched at Eshara's arm as the other reached out to cup the girl's cheek. Eyes wild with growing terror, Mithra couldn't see the flinch Eshara forced herself to push down.
“Shh, hush Mama," Eshara soothed, gently leaning forward to press a soft kiss to Mithra's brow. She pulled away slowly, looking around the darkening room. "See? It's just us, Mama; we're safe.” Mithra tried to clutch tighter as Eshara wriggled free, then slumped harder in the chair, wincing in pain. Eshara's stomach knotted. She swallowed hard, unsure if talking to distract her mother would help. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it made things worse. “Just breathe in the extracts on the cold cloth," Eshara said, moving to pull down wooden bowls from the shelf. “You'll feel better, and some hot supper will—"
“Don’t lie to me!” Mithra snapped, the words cracking through the room like a whip. Her fingers dug harder into her temple, faster now, her breath coming in short, shallow bursts.
The silence that followed felt wrong; too sharp, too still, and was broken only by the low crackle of the fire and the wind clawing at the shutters. Not again. Please, not tonight, she quietly prayed. Eshara's breath caught, her whole body reflexively freezing. They lived on a long row of rented crofts along a narrow, winding lane at the forest’s edge. The very outskirts of Varrahan; even if she ran the whole way into town, fetching a doctor would take nearly an hour. And that was supposing there was one to call on.
Eshara glanced at the shelves uneasily, wondering if she should give her mother the medicine again so soon. She seemed fine this morning; almost better, even. Not her old self, but lucid, at least. “Mama?" Her voice was soft, trembling with her breath. Mithra didn't respond. Only sat there, rubbing at her temples with bruising force, even as she seemed in pain by her own touch. Rubbing, rubbing, rubbing.
“Mama, please, can you look at me?" She dropped down to her knees in front of her mother, trying to get her mother's distant gaze to find her from whatever darkness she entered in these fits. Trying to give her some kind of trail to find her way back with. Mithra was panting softly, muttering. About the men who took her from Anjar as a child with other girls from her village and brought her across the sea to Tomor. About the men, their cruel hands, their leering grins. About the orcs who raided the estate in Sakkin and burnt it down and took her away with them. The terrible, brutal orc who claimed her as a battle prize.
Mithra's left eyelid drooped slightly.
Eshara’s stomach dropped into a pit of ice. This wasn’t like the other fits. Her heart hammered so loudly she could hear it in her ears as the silence pressed in around them, swallowing the room like a rising tide of shadow. The fire popped. Mithra jerked violently, hands flying from her temples to clamp around the arms of the chair.
Eshara rose slowly, taking a careful step back as panic tightened her throat. Supper. If she could just get her to eat… maybe she’d come back. Maybe she’d remember herself. Her palm swept across her cheeks, wiping away tears before they could fall. Don’t cry. Don’t panic. Don’t make it worse. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
She quickly ladled the barley stew into a bowl.
A thin, strained noise slipped past Mithra’s lips as her body went very, very still. Her dark eyes went impossibly wide and unfocused. Eshara froze, clutching the bowl as Mithra’s hands slid down to dangle uselessly at her sides.
“Mama?” Eshara whispered, her throat tight.
Silence. Mithra’s breaths grew shallow and erratic. Eshara set the bowl down with shaking hands, torn between stepping closer or running for help. “Mama?” she tried again, tears welling.
Mithra’s head lolled, then jerked upward like a Punch and Judy puppet. She licked her lips, curling in on herself as she stared at Eshara with a face as blank as a misted morning.
“…Who are you?” she croaked in Anjari.
Eshara’s hands flew to her mouth, choking back a sob. No. Please no.
Mithra tried to sit straighter, but her body lagged behind her intent, limbs moving with a strange, delayed stiffness. “Who… are you, and w‑where have you… brought me?” Her words slurred thickly, as though her tongue were made of clay.
This wasn’t like the fits.
This wasn’t drink.
This was something else.
Something wrong.
“Mama, it’s me,” Eshara pleaded. “Your Eshara. Your little star.” Tears dribbled down her soft brown cheeks. “We’re home, in Varrahan. Please, Mama… don’t you know me?” Her mind raced. She was fine this morning. She walked outside. She talked to me before I left for the market. What did I do wrong?
Mithra’s knees buckled as she tried to stand. She cried out as she crumpled onto the filthy rush rugs. Eshara lunged forward, too late to catch her, hands scrambling to steady her shoulders.
But Mithra shoved back, rolling onto her thighs, terror twisting her features. “What have you done with Sita?” she demanded, eyes wild. “Where is my sister?! Help! Brother, Papa, help!”
Far too quickly, her hands snapped out, grasping for the long handle of the iron poker.
Eshara gasped and leapt to her feet, holding her palms out in a desperate, open gesture. Mithra's fingers gripped the poker until her knuckles went white, and somehow she found the strength to amble back to her feet. Heat shimmered off the poker’s tip as it hissed in the cold air. She took another step back, hands raised outward. “Mama, please, put the poker down," she said with as much calmness as she could manage. Mithra wrapped both hands around the handle, lunging forward at Eshara, swinging the poker through the air with a strength that didn't match the slackness of her limbs.
“Sita!" Mithra called out desperately. “Sita, Mother, where are you?!" They both looked toward the door, as though expecting someone to burst into the house, make things right, save them from each other. The voice of a terrible, repeated lesson echoed in Eshara's mind that she'd been told time and time again: no one is coming to save you. Eshara glanced between her mother's shoulders and the end of the poker, trying to guess her mother's next move, trying to think of a way to wrest the iron from her mother's hands without hurting her.
Eshara yelped as she stumbled backward, her heel catching on the uneven rug. Her arms flailed to catch herself, but she landed hard on her hip. “Aiyoo," she moaned softly, pain throbbing dully down her leg. Mithra swung wildly, her body wobbling with the effort as she fought against hands only she could see, reaching for her from decades ago. The iron scraped across the rushes with a hiss, wisps of smoke curling upward as the poker caught briefly in the weft. Eshara's eyes went wide. If she didn't take the poker from her mother, she could set the croft ablaze.
"You won't take me!” Mithra railed, her voice raw and shrill. Eshara's heart slammed against her ribs. She held out her open palms once more, legs shaking beneath her as she rose up to her feet. The poker. She had to get the poker safely away. Mithra raised it once more, high above her daughter.
"Mama, please,” she begged. "It's me, it's Eshara. Please, give me the poker.” But Mithra didn't hear her. Or couldn't. Or heard the ghost of someone else entirely. Eshara's vision narrowed to the still-steaming poker as it poised like a cobra, ready to deliver a killing strike. Her hands went up again defensively. "Mama, no—please!” Eshara lunged forward into her mother's space, crowding her, colliding with her as she snatched at Mithra's wrist too late.
Her mother's arms jerked again as her body seized. The poker slipped from her fingers as the point tipped downward.
The first thing that registered to Eshara was the scent of linen burning.
Then came the sound, a sharp hiss, and the unforgiving heat burning through her neck and shoulder like a falling star. But she was entirely focused on her mother as Mithra howled in pain, her hands squeezing against her temples. Mithra gasped for breaths between shrieks, her eyes rolling back in her head as she collapsed to her knees.
As the pain bloomed in Eshara's left shoulder, it spread like lightning. Every inch of her skin prickled, too sensitive. The marrow of her bones flared up with heat to match, pushing back against the screaming injury. Eshara gasped and cried out, her hands falling away from her mother, instinctively curling and clutching herself. The croft's walls tilted sideways.
The poker rolled across the rug and finally went still, tendrils of smoke thickening as they danced upward in lazy curls. The dried woven rushes slowly began to smolder as heat built up.
Eshara's body shook, pain flashing white behind her eyes as each shaking gasp in was exhaled as a cry. Heat unlike any broken bone she'd ever felt radiated in and out, up and down her arm and deep into her ribs. Another event caught her, cutting through the blinding fog of her pain—smoke. Panic wheeled in her chest, forcing her to open her eyes, to focus. The poker. Residual heat simmered around the iron as the woven rushes slowly began to catch. Pinpricks of red and gold flickered hungrily and licked upward.
Fire.
The rug was on fire.
She dropped to her knees, crying out as the sudden movement pulled at the blistering skin beneath her shirt. Her fingers trembled violently as she reached for the poker’s wooden handle, pulling it off of the rug and tossing it back toward the safety of the flagstone hearth.
Put it out, put it out, her mind begged, screamed, chanted like a desperate prayer. Eshara slapped at the puff of flame with her good arm’s bare hand, wincing from the motion and welcoming the sting as the embers bit her palm. The burning patch finally dimmed and winked out, leaving a cloud of smoke choking out the air. Eshara coughed and waved it away from her face, slumping slightly as she panted for breath.
Oh good, she thought, at least we won't burn to death.
Her vision swam as Eshara pushed herself to sit up higher, still coughing as the adrenaline receded, leaving her with only the raw, empty ache. “Mama?" she asked softly, her eyes screwing shut as she gripped her shoulder, trying to push back against the pain. "Are you alright?” Her voice was small, fragile, and exhausted. The lingering acrid smell of smoke and burnt grasses overpowered the softness of the lavender oil and the mild lentil and barley stew.
Mithra didn't answer.
Her mother was still on her knees, folded over as she cried and whimpered in pain. Her palms pressed against her temples as though she were trying to hold her skull together. Her breaths were shallow and uneven, her body rocking slightly with her gasping cries. Her eyes fluttered and rolled, unfocused and unseeing.
Eshara crawled toward her mother, the rippling pain sending waves of nausea through her middle. Her left arm curled protectively to her chest, she reached out with her right hand. Eshara almost recoiled as she touched her mother's shoulder, as though afraid the slightest wrong tick would somehow make this worse. “Mama, look at me," she whispered. “Please?"
Mithra's head raised only a fraction, her pupils blown wide. Her gaze drifted somewhere past Eshara and the moldy walls, searching for someone who wasn't there. “Sita…?” she breathed.
“No,” Eshara said, voice cracking. “It’s me. It’s Eshara. I’m right here.” But Mithra's eyes didn't find her. They slid away, glassy and distant, and closed as she whimpered again. A thin ribbon of drool stretched downward from the left corner of Mithra's mouth. A frozen dread clawed its way through Eshara's stomach. Something she knew from the shadows of her soul but couldn't bear to put a name to. Something very, very final.
“Mama?" she tried again, her voice softer now. Eshara pulled herself close, uncurling her left arm to wrap around her mother's shoulders. She could still smell where the lavender and rosemary oils had soaked in around the neck of Mithra's shirt and into her hair. Mithra swayed as a long, pained noise wheezed out like the final whines of a wheel-fiddle and slowly faded into quiet. Her body listed sideways against Eshara, heavy and boneless.
And so very, very still.
"Mama…?”
Her breath squeaked out, thin and breaking as Eshara gave her mother a shake, and then another, harder. "Mami, please,” she begged. "Please, don't go! Please don't leave me alone!" Tears slipped down, soaking into her mother's hair as Eshara shook Mithra again and again.
The croft fell painfully, terribly silent. There was no sound at all, except the low cracklings and pops of the coals in the hearth that were going low. The shrill wind weeping and banging at the shutters, begging to be let in. And the breaking sobs of a teenager in the growing dark as she was left bleeding and alone.