“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 not 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.