"You seemed to be having a nightmare."
Ben was on his knees beside her, looking as though she'd suddenly fainted or worse rather than falling asleep under the stars near him. Miradey rose, crossing her legs under her. Nywo remained in the same perpetual state of nightfall as when they'd lay down, of course. All serene, dark sacred night.
"Apologies. I didn't mean to disturb your rest."
"No," he was saying, brow still furrowed in concern, but she laughed lightly and spoke again.
"You are my omen. The nightmare didn't stay tonight. It fled."
But Miradey didn't for a second lull herself into thinking her fate was changed.
"Omen?"
"Yes. A good one."
Ben tilted his head curiously but she wasn't sure she could explain it without dredging everything else to the surface.
"What did you dream of? If you don't mind my asking."
"The past," she said. The torturous burning was glowing in her chest and lungs, having started as she slept, so she plucked one of her medicinals from her satchel. A few small pinches of blue herb wrapped in pale blue paper made of the same thing. She lit one end on the torch, then put the other end to her lips and smoked cool, robin's egg blue smoke. Her voice was a little hoarse and croaky when she spoke again. "Of how my sword got it's name. The day I came down from the mountain." And the days that followed.
It was two days before she was fully conscious again. The witch the Burchs feared visited her again. But she wasn't so scary after all as she sat at her bedside and talked to her.
"My name is Doria, dear darling curls. May I know your name?"
She nodded solemnly. "Miradey." So many new people saying her name in one day. This important lady in the fancy dress and robes wearing the pretty glasses framing her golden eyes even knew it now. The lady's long hair was the whitest thing Miradey had ever seen, whiter even than Miss Ironhart's skin. She had never seen snow before but she'd heard of it and she thought this must be it's color.
Nearby, two knots of witches stood around sniping at each other, Miradey's blade lying on the table between them.
"It only answers to the girl. It flies to her hand."
"Then it is hers as it should be."
"It is too powerful to leave in the hands of an untrained child.
"What do you suppose it is?"
"A powerful jab."
"A jab carries a curse or spell to inflict," said one adviser dismissively. "It doesn't break them—"
"That is not precisely true. Not all the time—"
"Then the sword is a curse breaker. Very rare, that is. Extremely difficult to forge. But a handful in all of existence."
"A breaker of powerful curses. Like the one having to do with Ironhart Manor."
Sitting at Miradey's bedside, Doria rolled her eyes. Let them bicker over the thing. What mattered was that Miradey's relapses were growing shorter and shorter and the amount of time between them increasing with the consistent and intensive treatments of the cooling herb.
She retrieved the sword without argument from those who continued to discuss it. "This is yours, isn't it?" She held the spine's blade wrapped in a treated cloth. No one could hold it properly without it vanishing from their hand and right back to Miradey's side, much to their supreme annoyance and bewilderment.
"Yes." Her fingers flexed, her scarred hand feeling empty without.
They put a cloth on the tang and long pretty shiny ribbons on it and called it a sword now. Fancy that. They even gave it a name. As she had for long stretches, when it wasn't being examined or discussed by Lady Doria's advisers, when it was at her side, Miradey stared at the christened sword. Knew it was hers.
"Immanen," she murmured reverently.
"Yes, it is," said Doria. "You did a very brave thing, Miradey. You saved the Burchs and and slew a beast not unlike a dragon by all accounts. Not very many grown witches can boast such a feat, you know. But wherever did you learn the enchantment cast upon this blade? It is very powerful. I and my Knights are very curious."
Miradey touched her head and the place over her heart.
"It just came to you?"
She nodded.
"You found it in the mines?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Ma'am?"
Miradey blushed and called her what she heard some of the other witches calling her.
"Yes, my Lady."
"Better, but someday you shall call me Doria. There are other questions I must ask quite urgently, Miradey. Is that alright?"
"Yes, my Lady."
"The flying beast came down from the mountain?"
"Yes, my Lady."
"Are there more than the one you dispatched?"
She nodded, eyes wide and fearful.
"More than a dozen?"
Miradey nodded again. Emphatically, densely curly puffs bobbing around her face.
"Go to Ironhart mansion," Doria commanded over her shoulder. "Take the most skilled in sealing magic. Close down those mines and any paths to and from the mansion. Advise the iron barons to leave. If they wish to remain, very well, but I will not risk the lives of Nyte Village for their sake. No doubt they're responsible somehow I'd wager. We'll be overrun before nightfall. Go."
The wizards promptly vanished.
"Have you ever known anything else to slay the creatures?"
"No, my Lady," she whispered. "Only my spike."
"The blade that came with you," Doria murmured. "Yes, it is special." Again, speaking to the remaining witches nearby, she ordered, "Send knights into the mines immediately. She escaped from a tunnel somewhere up there. That's our way in." This rescue was decades in the making. Doria wouldn't let the chance slip through her fingers.
Alarm pounded in Miradey's chest. Were they going there? They couldn't go there. That way lay death.
She reached out a small, scarred hand gripped Doria's sleeve desperately. Doria looked down at the child. Miradey shook her head desperately, tears filling her eyes.
"You don't want them to go?"
She shook her head again.
"Why?"
She took two big shaky breathes but could not speak. The burning was starting again. Tightening her lungs drying out her throat and mouth. Stealing her voice. It brought panic with it, robbing her of breath.
Comprehension dawned and Doria was suddenly so sick with the knowledge it brought she felt she nearly listed against the bed though she stood perfectly steady.
"There's no one left to save anymore." It wasn't a question.
Big tears streaked down Miradey's cheeks. She shook her head, sobbing dry breaths.
Ever guarding The Third, Tihone saw something in his master's eyes that he had never seen before.
Despair.
"I didn't know you smoked. It doesn't smell at all odious," said Ben, deeply inhaling the blue fumes.
"Miradey," she explained. "My namesake. It grows inside the mountains. Even in the heat from the mountain's cauldron. Grows and glows in the dark. Most potent there though too dangerous to retrieve ordinarily." She had never thought much of it as a girl, only thought that the flowers were pretty.
"Can we go there?"
Miradey took a swig of cooling water from an earthen jug roughly the size of a grapefruit tied to her belt. The plant's smoke and the water washed down her throat in an icy chill that relieved her greatly.
Stoppering the jug once more, she swept a bow. "As you like." Miradey tucked Ben's ice crystal inside her satchel then lead the way.