Loreign gasped, eyes wide as she looked down at the bloody knife in her chest. Her brow creased as she turned her gaze up to meet her son’s eyes. I do not think she truly believed that her son would take this final step.

Life drained from her, and she staggered backwards.

Dorian screamed in anger as his mother’s body fell to the ground. Blood coated his hands, dripping on the tile floor. “Mother! It didn’t have to be like this! Why did you have to be like this?” Dorian sobbed.

He stood, staring down at Loreign’s body, watching her blood pool beneath her, draining away through grouted tile joints. A tear dripped down Dorian’s face. He wiped it from his cheek, unknowingly replacing it with a smudge of her blood.

“Why couldn’t you all listen to me?” he asked, but the dead did not answer him. “Why do you make me kill, kill, kill. So much unnecessary death. I invite you to share in my victory, but you repay me with sorrow.”

----------------------------------------

“Your mother?” Elion leaned back, eyes wide, eyebrows raised as he looked at Keyla in shock. He recalled the image of the smiling woman he’d seen on Keyla’s dresser, and tried comparing it to the memory of the snarling infected scavenger who’d shot him in the side.

Both of them had a blue and yellow bandana. But the scavenger woman had seemed so much wilder and thinner. And dirtier.

His fingers strayed to the place on his side where the bullet had struck him, a tender spot under his shirt.

“She was my mother,” Keyla said. “She must have been.”

“How do you know? What was she doing with the infected scavengers?”

“I wasn’t sure at first,” Keyla said. “She looked so different, so strange but somehow still the same. Then I noticed her wearing her blue head scarf. And she had the scar on her neck, the same one. She got it when she was cooking with hot oil and it splashed onto her.”

“You’re sure,” Elion said, more a statement than a question.

“Wouldn’t you recognize your own mother?”

Elion stared at the ground. Would I recognize her? It’s been a long time. “I think I would,” he said.

“I know it was her,” Keyla said. “And she’s still in there. The infection did something to her, but she’s still in there, I know it. My mom was the best shot with a rifle in all of Aterfel. She could have shot me, but she missed on purpose.”

“How did she… catch the infection?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since she left. With Prator.”

“Gorman warned me about that,” Elion said. “He told me a lot of people were suspicious of Aurelians, because of that guy. He said a lot of people followed him.”

“He was really nice at first. My mom talked to him a lot about her old life in New Kairn Tol. Told him about how it used to be. How they used to extract Thrandicite from the ruins.”

“What’s Thrandicite?” Elion asked.

“It’s a mineral or something,” Keyla said. “Apparently they used it a lot pre-Cataclysm. It dissolves in water, so they would collect and refine it, then sell the Thrandicite. New Kairn Tol was wealthy because of it.”

“And Prator wanted to go back and rebuild New Kairn Tol?”

“He was really interested in mom’s stories about it,” Keyla said. “But going back was her idea. Most people in town thought it would be too dangerous, but with an Aurelian on her side, she thought she could do it.”

“So he took half of Aterfel with him,” Elion said.

“He didn’t seem like he wanted to at first,” Keyla said. “But then they were married, and Mom talked him into it. He caught the vision, and started talking about it to everyone. He made plans for reclaiming the city, establishing peace among the scavengers, and setting up trading networks. And he wasn’t like you. He was powerful.”

“Hey.”

“I mean he was competent. Highly leveled. I couldn’t imagine a world where he failed. Thought he’d be a king or something. Maybe even establish a new nation. People were talking about reconstructing the Celestial Sphere.”

“Mom trusted him. Believed in him. We all thought he wanted to help us. A lot of people went with him when he left, then something must have happened, and now…”

Tears dripped down Keyla’s face, and she sniffled, dabbing at her eyes with the sleeve of Elion’s hoodie. Tree canopies rustled softly overhead, and the sound of the river flowing added to the soothing calmness of the alcove.

“Why didn’t you go?” Elion asked.

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“Gorman was suspicious of him. But he couldn’t stop him. And I’m Gorman’s apprentice, so I had to stay and learn to follow the Thread of Creation. But in the end, my mother left. Nearly half the town went with him.”

“What happened to them?”

“We don’t know,” Keyla said. “Everything seemed to be going well, and then… we stopped hearing from them. All communication just cut off.” Keyla crossed her arms. “Then we received a call. Several weeks after communication stopped. It was garbled and impossible to decipher. It sounded like there was fighting going on in the background. But it was my mother’s voice. Everyone who heard it agrees on two words.”

Keyla closed her eyes, remembering. “Prator lied.”

They sat in silence together, watching the river coursing past, speeding through the canyon.

“Gorman didn’t tell me that part,” Elion said.

“He thinks we were all making it up. He says the message was too garbled to distinguish anything. But I know what I heard.”

No wonder everyone is suspicious of me.

He could see it from their perspective, now. It didn’t mean they were right, and he’d been unfairly judged, but at least he could understand it. Water lapped at the shore nearby. Elion wondered what happened to all the scavengers who had been swept down the river. Would Keyla’s mother be among them?

“The infection is curable,” Elion said, searching for something hopeful to say. “Kasm was healed.”

“Somehow,” Keyla agreed. “Herana has the power to heal. We need to find a Cultivator, one following the Way of the Seed to help us.”

“Someone in the town must be a Cultivator, right? Someone healed Kasm.”

“I don’t know,” Keyla said. “I don’t know much about Cultivators. Maybe Kasm’s attempts to summon one opened a channel for his healing from a distance.”

“Okay, but you know it’s possible,” Elion said. “We just have to hope that your mother landed on the island, and—”

“No!” Keyla exclaimed. “If she made it to the island, they’ll find and shoot her. I hope she drifts down the river. I need to find her. I need to help her.”

They sat in silence together. Elion stared at the ground between his feet, his boots scuffed and muddy. Keyla’s brightly painted toenails stood out against the dark dirt.

“Why do you paint your toes?” he asked.

Keyla laughed. “They’re usually protected by my boots,” she said. “I tried painting my fingernails once but I kept chipping the paint off.”

Elion felt silly for asking, but… something had changed between them today. The coldness had melted away, replaced by something softer, warmer. Here, in this cool, sheltered alcove, a bond had been forged. Elion reveled in the moment.

He closed his eyes, trying to take in the moment, but was greeted by a message.

<< Your bravery in battle has been noted. Aurelian Tear Awarded. >>

Air swirled and pulsed, a glittering vortex appearing just above Elion’s head. It spun, condensed into a solid blue mass, and then popped gently. A sparkling blue gem dropped to the ground at Elion’s feet.

Elion flinched back, nearly knocking Keyla over. The gem lay on the ground, motionless. Elion had seen one before, in the basin at the Altar, when he had joined the Knights of Dawn and tried to save Kasm.

Keyla glanced from the gem to the startled look on Elion’s face. She grinned at him, then bent and picked the gem out of the dirt. Small in her hand, the stone glittered with a ferocious internal fire. Its teardrop shape suggested its name.

“A Tear,” Keyla said. “An Aurelian Tear. These are valuable.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Aurelia,” Keyla said. “I think you earn them for fighting and doing quests or something. You can do a ton of stuff with them, like leveling up your abilities. Sometimes when I’m really focused on my craft I find an Artefin Skillstone lying on the table beside me.”

“You use these to level up?” Elion asked, taking the Tear from Keyla and turning it over in his hand. If he could become more powerful and develop new abilities, then maybe it was possible for him to save Liora.

“Yeah,” Keyla said. “You can.”

“Faster than normal experience grinding?”

“They give you experience, if that’s what you mean. Different amounts, depending on your level.”

“I saw one before,” Elion said. “At the Altar. Another one popped up in the basin.”

“Do you still have it?”

“I was a little preoccupied at the time. I don’t know what happened to it.”

“Maybe it’s still there somewhere,” Keyla said, a sparkle in her eye. “We should go back and look for it. Did I mention that they’re really valuable? Ascendency stones can be used to buy things.”

The sound of engines on the road above interrupted their conversation. Elion slipped the tear into his pocket.

Keyla sprang to her feet. “They’re coming!”

“What if they don’t see us?”

“Wave, they’ll see us. They’re looking for infected, to make sure none of them made it onto the island!”

Elion started waving, then stopped suddenly. “What if they think we’re infected, and shoot us?”

“Wave, silly,” Keyla said, flailing her hands over her head. “Infected don’t wave!”