Despite the numerous holes in the wall left of Tercius, the cavernous room lingered in semi-darkness. Plumes of smoke trailed between the empty beds and half-drawn curtains of leather and fur, a strong smell of incense almost masking something wet and stale. Somewhere past the curtains and beds, deeper into the farther and darker part of the room, there were whispers, but Tercius had no ears for those. From the instant he saw the familiar face, he took tentative, near-silent steps towards one of the only two occupied beds in sight.

Tercius crouched close to the bed and grimaced. Swaddled in fur from the neck down, Rona, his grandmother, was visibly sweating, her face locked in a grimace even in her sleep. The golden light from the center of his chest illuminated parts of her neck and face that were unevenly bloated, strange dark veins snaking over what was visible of her dark brown skin. He swallowed a growing lump in his throat and reached with two fingers to remove strands of black and gray hair from her wet face.

“I am so sorry…” he leaned in closer and whispered gently, afraid that he would wake her.

She was so hot that he could feel the heat on his skin even without touching her. He glanced at the fur covers on her—

He heard movement behind him and Tercius looked back.

Septimus was there, dressed in furs, with a long black beard and even longer black hair, both of them woven into a single braid, a picture-perfect image of some mountain tribesman. His father's eyes were glued to the glowing star on Tercius' chest.

A young woman stood behind him, and for a moment Tercius was even more taken aback than seeing Septimus unshaved. The resemblance this woman had to Petra was striking. Same green eyes, same long black hair— braided into a single long piece and worn over her chest, just like Petra sometimes wore it— same nose shape. A closely related cousin, most likely.

“Step away from her and leave,” Septimus whispered something in the language of the mountains, with clearly practiced ease, his voice firm and commanding, his hands balled into fists.

“Who are you?” the woman asked, squinting at him and his glowing chest with questions in her eyes.

Tercius slowly eased the leather saddlebags off of his shoulder and stood up, directly facing his father.

“Hello father,” Tercius whispered, looking the man in the eyes. Before he left home, a year and a half ago, he had been a head shorter than Septimus, but now Tercius lacked only a little height to overtake him.

Hearing the words of Empire’s Common spoken by a vaguely familiar voice, Septimus’ brown eyes jumped upwards, blinking in apparent confusion. He opened his mouth only for barely articulated sounds to emerge.

“... T—Tercius?” Septimus finally spoke, still rooted in place, but no longer with his fists balled.

“Why the uncertainty?” Tercius whispered as the corners of his mouth lifted. “I’m a bit too tall to be Leo… Unless you have sired children before you met my mother, hmm? Do I have some older siblings I have to watch out for?”

Septimus laughed a little and white teeth split the dark beard from the mustache. “You little bastard—” Light glinted in two emerging pools in the corners of his eyes as Septimus suddenly rushed forward, but Tercius raised his arms and stopped him before the man could attempt a crushing hug.

“You do see that I have a glowing thing right on my chest, right?” Tercius said with a smile on his face, firmly holding Septimus at bay by his shoulders.

Septimus looked down at Tercius' chest for a moment. "How are you here? Weren't you at… you know…"

“A long story,” Tercius said. “And I’ll tell you everything, but first tell me what’s going on here,” Tercius nodded towards the sleeping Rona.

“Oh—”

“You know him?” the young woman sweetly, placing a hand on Septimus’ biceps.

Septimus glanced at Tercius then slowly shrugged off her hand. “Yes,” he said in a strange voice. “I know him,”

As the woman asked something else and Septimus replied, Tercius’ unblinking eyes stared at the spot where the hand was pressed against the fur jacket, then at the woman who so looked like his mother that she might have been her younger sister, then at Septimus whose eyes were darting from person to person. That brief exchange was seared into his mind, the images repeating themselves over and over again, details highlighted and expressions stilled in time, all of them exposed at his perusal and investigation.

A cool dread climbed from Tercius’ feet as a hot wave rushed down from his head, and they met in the center, right in his stomach, turning everything he had inside into blood-letting gravel. Two voices, one rational and cool the other vehemently in denial, battled in his head.

He did it, he didn’t do it, he did it, he didn’t do it…

Petra— NO! It’s not your place to tell anything!

Tercius quickly turned around and his wide eyes looked at the grimace on Rona’s sleeping face. Taking a deep breath, he told himself that he really didn’t need this distraction clouding his mind right now and taking away from his focus. He started actively pushing the overclocked Skills away— {Memorization}, {Pattern Insight}, {Visualization}, even {Spirit Pact}.

That hand and the exchange that followed— whatever it all meant— was a story for another day. Preferably a day that would never come or come as later as it can.

A hand settled on his shoulder and Tercius almost jerked away.

“What are they giving her for the pain?” Tercius asked in a deep, purposefully even voice without turning around. “Was anything rubbed on her skin for it to swell like that? What do they give her to drink, to eat?”

“Tercius… I… I—”

“This incense does not smell like the usual kinds I know. Does it have some purpose in her healing?”

“I… I have no idea. I do as they tell me. It helps her enough that she can sometimes grab a few hours of sleep,”

“I see… And why is she covered in so much fur? Look at her, she’s sweating bucketfuls…”

Septimus approached the bed and started taking off layers of fur. “She is sometimes too cold, at other times too hot.”

Strange. Tercius could not recall ever being cold, back when his Well was developing.

Tercius heard the young woman move past them and approach the other occupied bed. Throwing a quick look, Tercius saw a middle-aged man, a priest by the look of the tattoo between his brows, who was also sleeping with a grimace on his face. Tercius saw no dark veins nor any kind of swelling on him. The woman suddenly glanced at Tercius, but quickly lowered her gaze to the man she was tending to when she saw Tercius looking in her direction.

“To whom can I talk about grandmother’s medicine intake?” Tercius asked Septimus.

Septimus looked at him for a moment. “Why?”

“I have something that should help grandmother deal with the pain,” he said, gently nudging the saddlebags with a boot, “but I can’t give it to her if I don’t know what she’s been taking so far. I’ve been warned that the potions I have won’t work as they should if they come in combination with some popular herbal remedies, so I need to check,”

“And… you’re sure it can help her?”

Tercius tapped his chest, right below the glowing star. “Completely,”

Septimus’ eyes slowly went wide. “Tercius… and you came here… you fool…” Septimus hissed in a low voice, his fists clenched again. It was only now that Tercius noticed that something was wrong with Septimus’ sword-hand. At the bottom of a clenched fist was no pinky finger… but a stub of some kind.

Tercius swallowed deeply, as his own hands clenched in reflex, if only to check that everything was still there. His father’s pinky finger was shorter by what looked like at least half. Glancing away from that fist and focusing on the other, he saw the same situation there.

“I… uh… I… What… what happened to your hands?”

Septimus stared at him for what seemed like ages, his face going through various grimaces and colors, but then took a deep breath and inclined his head towards the young woman. “Andria is the one who brings the medicine and everything else for both of them, but what Common she knows is limited to some phrases she learned from me. I learned more of their tongue from her than she did of ours from me, so… just tell me what to ask her.”

“Who did that to you?”

“No one…”

“So they just fell off?” Tercius asked, regretting the question even as it passed his lips.

"Tercius…" With two embers of rage burning in his eyes, Septimus looked at him then down at his hands, where he kept opening and closing his fists. Finally, Septimus sighed. "Leave it be. There's nothing that can be done. Not when so much time has passed…"

Gritting his teeth into each other, Tercius stopped the next question from coming out. A third of the grip strength came from that one small finger and with that gone… effectively using a sword and shield had become much harder for Septimus, if not impossible. Someone… had deliberately crippled Septimus' abilities and Skills, Tercius concluded. A missing finger on one hand might have been an accident, but the same finger missing on two hands?

As a hot wave passed over him in a flash, Tercius called for that cool calculating calm and clung to it with all he had.

“If there’s one thing the last year taught me, it’s that there are always things that can be done, if you know how to do it,” Tercius said and Septimus looked up. “And we will get to it, as soon as we are back home.”

Septimus smiled a little.

“Now, ask that woman if she will speak of the medicines and everything else they use on grandmother,” Tercius said, his eyes suddenly narrowing. He had no idea if it would work, but the woman looked young and this was a religious organization, and since he had a visible seal of approval from her superiors and it was Septimus who was asking, it might just be enough to grease her tongue, so he better use his cards now, while his arrival was fresh. Later might be too late. “Oh, and tell her I am on a speaking basis with their Honored Speaker. This is her personal spirit glowing on my chest, Denerim. Let’s see what should be done, what can be done, and then set the order of priorities for everything.”

*** *** ***

The three of them retreated into the back of the room, where they all sat around a low wooden table and Tercius followed the whispered conversation between Andria and Septimus the best he could. Rona was doing well enough, at least for her age. She was fifty-six this year, which was about a decade above the average age where most priests and priestesses "ascended" to become the high versions of their title, but so far she was pushing through it all.

Two to three more months was Andria’s guess as to when Rona would “ascend”.

Tercius didn't reveal that he could understand parts of their exchange, nor that he was focused on memorizing it all. He just took it all in with wide-open eyes and ears.

{Memorization} [8] is now {Memorization} [9]

From the questions he provided to Septimus to translate, he got far more answers in return than he asked for. Andria and Septimus definitely kissed, the word definitely mentioned in the exchange. Unless the meaning of kornabos changed too much in the centuries since Perdinar learned the language, in which case it could be something else… He memorized the entire sentence as it sounded and intended to get a translation of it all, just in case, from an uninvolved and up-to-date with language party.

Leawarra came to mind for that.

He learned that the medicine for pain management was given to the “ascending ones” through the liquid food they were given. The special food— which deliberately required no chewing because for many of the “ascending ones” the use of jaws and teeth was often extremely painful— was made up of meshed vegetables and finely chopped meat, and soaked in herbal concoctions which had all three herbs Mistress Kalina warned him of. The pain-inhibiting potions he brought were off the table.

That left {Distant Mind} as the sole option.

A loud groaning made them all stand up. Andria and Septimus rushed to Rona's bed, where the woman had started moving and twisting. A deluge of emotions pushed away over the past weeks now came over him and for a while he could not move.

As Septimus and Andria rushed to give Rona the prepared liquid meal and made her swallow it all just before she let out her first scream, Tercius somehow managed to take one step at a time to move forward.

“No… No… Septimus… Septimus, please…” Rona twisted on the bed and screamed after almost every word. “Please… I cannot… do this anymore… Just let me… go… Please…”

From Rona’s next scream, the man on the nearby bed woke up. The duo moved away from Rona and rushed once more, Septimus holding the man still, while Andria grabbed another bowl of the liquid meal to feed him. It was not long after he finished the meal that he too started screaming.

Tercius was trembling as he neared Rona’s bed, where she writhed like a captured snake, her eyes firmly shut and her groans and diminishing screams mixed with names of Petra, Ciron, Tercius—

"I'm so sorry," he whispered as he fell on his knees near her bed, his hands gently cupping a clenched fist. She was cold to the touch now, like a stone just taken from the rushing waters of Hippotion. "I am so, so sorry."

As two salty tears fell on Rona’s fist, she opened her bloodshot green eyes and through a corner of an eye looked at him. Recognition came slowly, her head turning more and more until her eyes focused on his face. In his hands, he felt her fist relax a little.

“Ter… Tercius…”

He nodded, inhaling back the snot.