The feast ended early.

A flier arrived in extreme urgency, bearing word of a new group of arrivals. The watch member mounted on the winged gheist dropped down on the other garden without so much as a proper greeting, signifying the importance of the news. He even dared to interrupt a feast attended by so many main house echelons.

A few minutes later, an urgent vissage’d chieftain charged Aunt Meredith with the task of bringing back the children to their residential courtyards.

But the heir and heiress would have none of it.

After more time wasted from their incessant begging and crying, the Grand Elder finally decided to bring them along, citing how they would have to “get used to it sooner or later”.

Of course, Vesiphis himself would be going accompanying his father. So would Olwina and Ariana.

It was their duty as the eldest three of the present cousins, excluding Cadfael, who was second, to take the helm of clan matters before all else. Especially when it meant evaluating the casualties within the newly arrived dhionne convoy.

In which, according to the watch, death numbered more than ten heads.

***

Vesiphis watched on with puffy eyes as the chieftainess carried away the bawling heiress. Just a few ten-minutes ago, it was Vesiphis who could not stop wailing at that soul-shattering revelation by the heir.

But now, it was the heir himself who had almost fainted as he witnessed the carnage wrought by the gheists. The tiny boy had vomited out all the food from the feast at the sight of blood and gore.

‘I suppose he is still a babe.’

Vesiphis found the dichotomy oddly acceptable.

The heir, Elrhain, was so curiously composed while articulating about complex matters as he did earlier that he gave the illusion of a sage in a boy’s body. One’s instinct versus one’s moral self, and what knowledge a dhionne could glean from the profound truths which rise in that inner clash.

The heir’s wisdom was eye-opening. As if it had dragged Vesiphis out from a swamp of murky deception to a world of clarity.

Yet the same Elrhain could not stand the sight of blood, a sight which would only become increasingly common in the coming future.

Vesiphis remembered the first time he had witnessed such. A hunter had his legs mutilated by a Panena— a mushroom-like gheist adept in stealth and deceit. He was 5 cycles old then, and had actually passed out.

So, a babe or not, the two clan heirs were certainly handling this experience better than he had.

“Wise,” Vesiphis muttered under his breath, “But inexperienced, as he should be.”

“Who is?” His father, Cadwell Endcloud Earthloch, asked from beside him with bewildered eyes, noticing that Vesiphis had streaks of water on his face. He was right to be surprised, as Vesiphis rarely ever cried since two cycles ago, and this time he actually wailed like a babe during a merry feast.

‘So embarrassing!’ Vesiphis could not help his face from heating up, which bewildered his father even more.

The chieftain’s aid was overseeing the site of the impromptu healers' huts as one injured dhionne after another was carried in.

Apparently, a new manna-riogh had sprouted in this group’s travel route. The Onthoakt, their leader, had bravely fought the gheists off with the other cultivators, hunters or not alike.

Yet the riogh had overflowed.

The resultant gheist stampede was too much, too fast.

Onthoakt Dey resisted admirably. Yet the mammoth of a man now watched on listless, his injured left arm bounded to his body with medicinal wraps. He could not save twenty-seven of his people, mostly elderly but five children too under ten cycles, and three young men.

The heir had caught one of the surviving children staring at her deceased father’s body with dull eyes, and had completely lost his bearing.

The same child was whom Vesiphis observed right now, standing beside her mourning mother.

“Lord Elrhain, father.” He replied, his eyes following a healer dragging the hysterical dhionne woman away from the decaying body.

Cadwell raised an eyebrow at his son’s answer.

“The heir could not keep his composure in the face of… this. Should most not consider that a show of disgrace?”

“Perhaps. But the heir will only grow strong from it. His reaction means he cares, and I am confident that he will be the one to lead our whole Siorrakty through the collapse to clinch victory.”

His father whistled in good humour, “Such high praise, my son. Since when do you think about things so deeply?”

Vesiphis blushed, scratching his head, “I’m just repeating what the heir himself told me a few hours ago.”

“Is that so, young Cadwell?” A gruff voice suddenly spoke out from behind, and Vesiphis turned around in a hurry. He had recognized the speaker, and bowed to show his reverence.

The Grand Elder stood there with the chieftain and the Grand Shamanka herself. All three supreme leaders had come to see the injured. They would presumably also examine each of the deceased with their own eyes as always.

Because some decisions they simply could not make without understanding the consequences of the collapse themselves.

“G-Grand Elder-”

Thundham interrupted him by waving a hand. The old man smiled, “Pray tell what that fish-gremlin grandson of mine put into your head? No doubt our Grand Shamanka here would also be interested.”

The much younger-looking, yet two full heads taller woman nodded in eagerness.

Vesiphis stood in the presence of the three most authoritative clan figures, and gulped, weighing if that conversation was something he should keep secret.

He judged no, since all the other younglings had also been there to bathe in the heir’s wisdom.

So, he cleared his throat and straightened his back, doing his best to re-convey what had been spoken during the feast as faithfully as he could. At the very end of his narrative, he finished up with his own comments on the matter.

“G-Grand Shamanka, if I may be so bold to offend, what lord Elrhain told me made so much more sense than what the storytellers speak of about similar subjects during our monthly sermons. They only praise the spirits or the disc and blame any inner turmoil a dhionne can face upon fate. Yet the heir explained cousin Cadfael’s, and all dhionne’s…umm, mentality, so precisely, with examples I could see with my eyes or hear with my ears. Like the runes of an array formation by a mage, in contrast to the runes of a ritual of the shamans and witches.

Until now, all I have heard over and over again could not even compare with the few words from the heir. Honestly, if I had only been taught as such from a younger age, I could have handled today’s matter to a better conclusion.”

“Certainly,” Lilian nodded enthusiastically, her demeanour more like a young shaman apprentice rather than an expert of high dignity, “Ego, instinct, superego. Such wondrous concepts. Thundham, did you teach such things to him? No, that can’t be it. And I cannot imagine Bromwyn or Cyra doing that either, much less his own parents.”

Thundham looked laughably offended at that, while the chief actually laughed.

“How peculiar indeed! Did he gather all that from the meagre dhionne interactions he observed in the past cycles? Or is there more?” Lilian muttered, her fingers that gripped the staff tapped against its surface.

She then turned towards Vesiphis again as the same staff lightly bonked on his head. Her eyes curved into crescents, seemingly finding amusement in Vesiphis’s reaction.

The playful chiding was by no means painful. But Vesiphis still squinted his eyes, shuffling uncomfortably in place.

Lilian laughed, “Whatever may be the case, you should keep those words in your heart. Since you are still young. You have all the time in the world to learn and cultivate yourself. Do not lament like an old geezer when you are not even ten. That should be our job!”

Lilian’s following words cheered him up, “Follow your father and learn. No matter how much the heir can spell out the ways of the world from his feathered bed in a closed and guarded room, he will nevertheless need companions to guide him through the hurdles of the real world. When that time comes, I am sure your role in his journey will be just as significant as his role in yours right now. Understood?”

“Y-Yes, Grand Shamanka!” Vesiphis stuttered out an excited reply with his fists clenched tight. This had probably been the best day of his life, to be praised as such by the Grand Shamanka herself! The motivation to strive for better was brimming within his tiny soul.

“Now go! See how your other two cousins are helping out and tending to the injured? I expected you to take the lead as the eldest.”

“I am on it, your holiness!” Saying that, he rushed off towards Olwina and Ariana. The former used her bloodline’s mortal spirit manifestation to help the healers remove poison from an elderly woman, while the latter acted as her helper with her mastery of lesser water spells.

Vesiphis didn’t know exactly how he could be of assistance with his sand aspected manifestation. But he knew, all he had to do was ask one of the healers or watches, and they would show him the proper steps.

That was enough.

Like the Grand Shamanka had said, he still had time.

And he would make excellent use of that time, and his current optimism.

When the heir had grown up, when Vesiphis himself too gained enough experience to be a good manager, he would be ready by Elrhain’s side.

He would absolutely not let Olwina, Ariana, or anyone else get a head start on that.

*******

“Exactly like you, Cadwell,” Thundham said to the winged man as Cadwell’s son sprinted away in newfound inspiration. “Though I still question exactly what you saw in my stone-headed son the first time you met him.”

“Me too, my lord, me too.” Cadwell watched his son fondly, “Though if what my son recounted is true, he will be in better hands.”

Thundham, and even Bromwyn, who stood to the side, guffawed at the statement.

“True indeed. If only the other houses could have the eyes to see. Especially our Grand Shamanka’s prideful nephew, ey?”

Lilian groaned, “Can you stop bringing that up? I’ve already beaten the spirits out of him twice. What more do you want?”

“Haha, my apologies. I speak with no offence. And as long as cousin Bevin doesn’t try to sell his grandson to me anymore, I am sure he will mean no offence either.” Thundham replied, not at all deterred by Lilian’s scowl.

His aged eyes kept watching his people come and go, their plight, and their resilience.

‘As long as we can tread past this initial stage, all will be well. All should have been well, but….’

Because he didn’t only see what was in front. He also saw the future and similar problems cropping up one after the other. His eyes flickered, only Lilian catching a glimpse of the flashing emotion.

This was precisely why she didn’t berate Thundham for incessantly bringing up Bevin Earthloch Sonora. Because she too could see the disharmony her nephew’s blind zeal for forcing his own ideals could bring about, and what it would mean for the clan's unity.

As it was, food, shelter, safety… and a good night’s sleep, everything was already a luxury.

They needed solutions, not more internal problems.

And they needed those solutions fast. Because in two cycles at most, both the internal and external complications of the clan would reach a tipping point, and ultimately, everything would start losing cohesiveness.