Viena curled up almost immediately when Randia touched her stomach again.
The pain was far worse than before. It felt as though something deep within her abdomen had split open and was being scraped apart from the inside. She tried to endure it for a few moments, but the attempt quickly collapsed into panicked resistance.
"Bear with it, Viena."
"N-No... I can't! It hurts so much!"
"You have to try."
"No! I don't want to! Stop...! You're hurting me!"
She pushed his hand away and retreated across the grass until a safe distance existed between them. There she remained, hunched over herself and clutching her stomach while she fought to steady her breathing.
Randia allowed her the space. The reaction was unfortunate, but not unexpected.
"If I tell you what happened to your body, will you promise me to be brave and do what I tell you?"
"I..."
"It's your choice, and your life depends on it. Yes or no?"
The answer did not come immediately. Fear was written plainly across Viena's face, and for a while she simply stared at the ground between them. Yet she knew he was right. Ever since her mother's death, nobody had concerned themselves with her future enough to have conversations like this. People avoided her, pitied her, tolerated her, or chased her away. None of those things required honesty.
Eventually she nodded.
"Good."
Randia settled himself beneath the oak tree and continued.
"Do you know why there are more women than men among wizards?"
Viena shook her head.
"It's because females, with their ability to create life, are magic themselves. Hence, they possess a greater natural aptitude for it as bearers of miracles. Men are often forced to compensate through study instead—through arcane formulae, magical theory, and the manipulation of Meta and Anima."
The explanation was only partly understood, but Viena listened all the same. By now she had learned that understanding usually arrived later with Randia.
"That is also why Yarna is especially dangerous when practiced carelessly."
With some effort, Viena sat upright again. Randia helped support her as she settled into place, careful not to aggravate the pain that still lingered in her abdomen.
"Do you know where babies come from?"
"...No."
"I thought as much."
His gaze lowered briefly.
"There's a room inside your body, beneath your belly button. One day, when you're older, that room will become the cradle of new life. It is closely tied to miracles, and Yarna has damaged it badly."
Viena blinked.
For a moment she did not understand.
Then she did.
"If you continue using that power recklessly, you may lose the ability to conceive a child altogether."
The words struck with surprising force.
Babies had never feared her. They never stared at her eyes. They never whispered behind her back. The possibility that she might never have one of her own brought tears welling up before she could stop them.
Randia said nothing while she cried. There was little comfort to be found in lies, and less still in pretending the danger did not exist.
"I'm sorry, Ran..."
"Don't be sorry. Be brave. It is not too late, and we can still fix this."
The certainty in his voice steadied her.
Afterward he handed her his waterskin, waited for her to drink, then reached into his pack and produced an apple.
"For me?"
"For your teeth."
Her hopeful expression immediately soured.
"I'll take that as gratitude."
"It isn't."
Randia moved closer and began preparing the treatment.
"I'll do it slowly. One section at a time. If it becomes too much, tap my leg and I'll stop."
That answer did not inspire much confidence. Nevertheless, she nodded.
What followed was perhaps the longest half hour of her life.
Randia's voice drifted across the hilltop in a language that Viena had never heard before. The words rose and fell with an almost musical cadence, weaving together with the rustling branches overhead and the distant sounds of the valley below. At first she tried to follow the incantations, hoping repeated exposure might reveal some hidden meaning, but before long the strange syllables blurred into a single continuous current.
To his eyes, the damage left behind by Yarna resembled tangled masses of black thread woven through the pathways of her Anima and anchored deep within her body. Untangling them required patience. Removing them required even greater care.
The first sensation was not pain but cold.
A faint chill spread across her skin and gradually sank deeper, carrying numbness with it. The lower half of her body grew distant, as though separated from her by several layers of thick cloth. Had the feeling stopped there, she might even have found it pleasant.
It did not.
Soon afterward came a twisting sensation deep within her abdomen. Something seemed to shift where no movement should have been possible. Then came pulling. Then pressure. Then a dull ache that slowly sharpened into something much harder to ignore.
Randia instructed her to think about pleasant things.
Viena tried.
She thought about spring flowers blooming along the hillsides after winter. She thought about star storms streaking across the night sky. She thought about the twentieth day of spring and all the small traditions her mother had insisted upon celebrating even when there was little food in the house. For brief moments those memories distracted her, but never for long. The treatment always found a way to drag her attention back toward itself.
Several times she tapped Randia's leg.
Each time the chanting stopped.
Each time the pain eased enough for her to catch her breath.
Each time she convinced herself she could endure a little more.
Randia never hurried her. Neither did he allow her to quit.
The sun had climbed noticeably higher by the time the treatment finally ended. Viena scarcely noticed the passing hours. Her face was damp with tears, her limbs felt hollow, and at some point she had reduced the apple to a mangled collection of bite marks without remembering when she had started chewing it.
"It is done."
For a while she remained where she was, staring up through the branches of the oak tree while the words slowly settled into place.
Only then did she lower the apple.
"Am I alive?"
"That you are."
A weak laugh escaped her.
For reasons she could not explain, the answer was deeply reassuring.
"Let's go have breakfast."
"I can't feel my legs, Ran."
Randia sighed.
The numbness was temporary, though he had admittedly forgotten to mention that.
He crouched in front of her.
"Come."
Viena climbed onto his back without argument.
The journey down the hill passed quietly. Randia had carried heavier packs, heavier armor, and heavier burdens, yet the weight of the girl on his back was almost nonexistent. She felt alarmingly light for someone her age. Before long her head was resting against his shoulder, her voice reduced to drowsy murmurs.
"What do you want to eat?"
"...Roasted duck."
"Anything else?"
A thoughtful silence followed.
"I want to sleep."
"That's not food."
"Maybe not."
Her voice was already fading.
"But I still want it."
Randia shook his head.
"...Can't I?"
"You can."
The answer arrived just before sleep claimed her completely.
The feast awaiting Viena at noon was considerably smaller than the one from the previous evening, largely because neither of them possessed the money to repeat such extravagance. Fortunately, Viena's standards became remarkably flexible whenever food was involved.
The innkeeper watched with increasing concern as a roasted duck steadily disappeared from existence.
Only after most of it was gone did Viena seem to remember that another person occupied the table.
She held up a half-stripped piece of meat.
"Leg? Wing? Or do you want the neck? It tastes good too."
"Mind your manners."
The offer immediately vanished.
"Ugh. Manners this, manners that."
"And don't make a mess of the table."
"What good do manners do? They don't fill your stomach."
"They do, on certain occasions." Randia poured himself a cup of water. "Besides, manners and morals are among the few things separating us from animals."
Viena appeared unconvinced by the argument and returned her attention to the duck.
The discussion ended there.
By the time the meal was finished, the remains of the bird had been reduced to a small pile of bones and a deeply satisfied child. Viena leaned back in her chair, emptied the last of her water, and immediately regretted the movement.
A dull ache stirred beneath her abdomen.
"Ouch."
Randia glanced up.
"What?"
"It still stings."
"Of course it does."
His answer came without hesitation.
"Your condition is severe. I can only lessen the damage, not to erase it."
The reminder was enough to sour her mood almost immediately.
"Oh."
Her gaze drifted toward the table. For a while she stared at the wood grain in silence.
"I can't have a baby after all, can I?"
"That is difficult for me to determine."
It was one of the few times he sounded genuinely uncertain.
"But for now, you are safe."
Some of the tension left her shoulders.
"When you reach adulthood, however, you may experience more pain every month than is usual."
Viena frowned.
"More pain every month? What are you talking about?"
Randia ignored the question entirely.
Instead of answering, he rose from his seat and began inspecting the contents of his pack.
Viena watched a strap disappear through a buckle.
Then another.
A waterskin was secured.
A pouch retied.
Several loose items vanished into their proper places.
The sight filled her with a sudden sense of unease.
"Ran?"
He continued packing.
The unease quickly became certainty.
"You're leaving?"
"I've stayed longer than planned."
The final buckle clicked into place.
"I need to continue my journey."
The chair scraped loudly against the floor as Viena jumped to her feet.
"Wait!"
She followed him outside.
"Wait, Ran! Where are you going?"
"You don't need to know."
The innkeeper barely looked up as the two of them disappeared outside.
The afternoon streets of Londerstead were busier than usual. Merchants called out prices from beneath shaded awnings while carts rattled across worn stone roads and townsfolk drifted between market stalls in search of bargains. Randia navigated the crowd without difficulty.
"What do you mean I don't need to know?"
"It means exactly what it sounds like."
Viena hurried after him, weaving through pedestrians with considerably less success. The fear in her chest had arrived before she fully understood it.
For two years she had become accustomed to people leaving. Some left because they disliked her. Some because they feared her. Others because they simply had their own lives to live. However, none of those departures had bothered her quite this much.
"Can't I come with you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because that's a terrible idea."
"That's not a real reason!"
"It is."
"No, it isn't!"
The argument continued all the way across the square.
Randia endured it with steadily diminishing patience while Viena experimented with increasingly desperate methods of persuasion. Complaints became bargaining. Bargaining became pleading. When neither produced results, she attempted shameless persistence instead.
Unfortunately, the effort required so much attention that neither of them paid much notice to the growing disturbance approaching from the eastern road.
The first sign was the sound of horses, after that, only silence.
Conversations began fading one by one as heads turned toward the town entrance. Merchants abandoned negotiations mid-sentence. Laborers paused their work. Even the usual noise of the market seemed to recede beneath the rhythmic thunder of approaching hooves.
A column of cavalry entered Londerstead beneath crimson vexilla bearing the image of a four-winged black Heyrim, the mythical bird that had vanished from the world sometime after the Second Age.
Their arrival drew attention immediately.
The lead rider guided his mount toward the center of the square before bringing it to a halt. Removing his helmet revealed a thick mustache and a ruined left eye clouded by phthisis bulbi.
Beside him, an adjutant raised a trumpet.
"By order of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor and Her Majesty the Queen, all citizens of Londerstead are hereby commanded to search for and report—"
Randia turned around and began walking away. Immediately.
Viena blinked before hurried after him.
"(For the sake of—! Go away, you stupid brat!)"
"(What's wrong? Are you a wanted man?)"
"(Yes! Yes, I am! And I'll kill you if you keep following me!)"
"(No, you won't.)"
Something about the confidence of that response irritated him far more than the question itself.
Their retreat might even have succeeded had Viena not collided with a fruit stall while attempting to keep pace. A support pole shifted sideways, a crate tipped over, and within moments apples, pears, and several unidentified fruits were rolling enthusiastically across the street while opportunistic bystanders assisted themselves to the merchant's misfortune.
The merchant's scream attracted immediate attention.
Unfortunately, so did the man in the black cloak trying very hard not to be associated with the disaster.
One of the knights turned toward the disturbance.
Then another.
Until the nearest rider pointed directly toward the man in the black cloak attempting to leave them behind.
"Hey!"
The knight pointed.
"You there! The one in the black cloak!"
Randia closed his eyes.
"Halt and turn around this instant!"