Julian sat silently by the river, listening to the current babble by her. She tried to stick her toes in, but the water was too cold to enjoy and the air around her was not yet warm enough to offset the iciness of the river. She slipped her feet back into her tan shoes and shut her eyes. It was moments like these when she was alone that she swore she could hear a soft voice whispering in her ear telling her to follow the breeze. Or was it a bridge? Julian did not know, nor would she listen. Her parents told her not to listen to what she could not see as the truth can be vastly different from the images conjured within her head.
It was almost time to head home as the sun was starting to rise and her family would miss her soon. Part of her wished she could stay outside with nature every day and every night and ignore the stress of the cottage and their small number of animals. Most of all, Julian wanted to pretend that her brother was not sick. That he was not unconscious and dying.
She could not. She had to get back.
With a sigh, she stood up and walked through the woods across the leaves and sticks that had fallen from the trees above. The light was barely reaching her from the branches as she moved along. Birds were chirping cheery tunes as if they did not know that her life was falling apart but was, in fact, a wonderful spring morning. Any other week she would have whistled back to them.
She could smell wood burning before she could see the house. She knew there would be a kettle brewing tea and the fireplace would have hot red coals and a small pan cooking eggs. She knew her mother would be up and worrying about her only son and her father would be sitting solemnly in the corner of the room. Her little sister Edyleise would remain silent, probably petting the cat. Julian's brother, Roane would be where he had been for days, laying on a makeshift bed that was once their dining table, only he would not be opening his eyes and cracking wise jokes with a smile. He would be in a fitful sleep with sweat dripping from his face and down his neck. His cheeks would be puffing and red. He was only five years younger than her twenty years, only the age of fifteen, but battling for his life. Sometimes she wished it were her.
Julian did not think she was ready to face the room as she approached the wooden door. Could she hold herself together? That seemed to be the only question she asked herself for the past three suns and moons but came no closer to an answer. Without another moment of hesitation, she allowed the old door to open slowly, the hinges squeaking in protest to a room of people who were already in mourning for someone not yet dead. Julian's only brother, Roane, laid like a stone at the bottom of a river grey, cold, and still. It seemed that he was barely breathing.
Many had fallen in a single wave, like usual, to the Grey Death, and illness that could not be passed on to the healthy and the sick but solely picked a soul to take. It appeared that this was the only magic left in the entire land of Baya containing the three ruined kingdoms and it was not like the magic that once healed and fed the people of the land. It was a curse or the worst kind, the curse of death and destruction. The curse had found a weakness in her brother's soul and latched on like a leach and draining him dry of his life force.
There had been a total of five this time. Julian noted that five was more than the usual one or two a year. Whispers were everywhere that it was getting worse and rapidly with no cure to combat it. There were five people in her village and the surrounding villages this month. The thought of that across all of Baya in every town and city was more people than she could bare to think about.
Within the small front room, her mother sat in a chair pressing a washcloth to Roane's forehead and cheeks as if she could wash his illness away. She would hear her Mother mumbling prayers to herself, Roane, and to the Gods for help, specifically to Dyelus The God of Health and Prosperity. Her younger sister Edyleise cooked eggs quietly in a pan above the fire and the tea had already been poured as Julian had been later than she intended but the tea was left untouched in old green mugs. Julian's father sat in the corner of the room, his arms resting on his thighs, hands bald into fists with his eyes staring at them as if he could not unclench them or else lose all control. His only son was on the verge of perishing, looking through the veil of death into the land beyond before him and there was nothing he could do. Julian's father was not one to worry about a lack of control, but he was a kind soul always ready to offer help. His help would mean nothing for his son, and he had nothing left to offer but silence. Julian was on the brink of feeling nothing but emptiness, void of hope, grabbed one of the green cups filled with tea, and sat in a chair far enough away from all the others in the room. Edyleise eventually offered eggs to which everyone in the room accepted but barely touched.
"There is a group heading across The Glass," Julian's father muttered at a barely auditable level. Her mother looked up from her task with the washcloth with widened brown eyes.
Across the Glass, Julian felt as though the words were rattling around in her mind. There would be a group heading across The Glass Bridge, across Blackened Bay, and into the Kingdom of Secil. Only the desperate were pushed to cross The Glass feeling hopeless enough that they would risk their lives to get to the other side only to face more danger at every turn to be granted one request. Even then, after the difficult journey, there was always a price to pay at the end. Julian shivered.
"And what of it, Jonan." Her mother whispered harshly back as if all of her children had not already heard what Julian's father said. It was not common to speak freely of The Glass especially not about heading across it.
"They informed me after I told them or Roane's condition-"
"No, it is not an option." Her mother was shaking now. She wrung her hands as if her palms were made of soaking wet cloth. "It's not."
"Gwynn, there is no other option unless we sit here and watch our son die." Everyone glanced at Roane, still unconscious laid out on their dining table. If one were to pull open his eyelids, they would find that he was close to reaching the last stages of the Grey Death with bloodshot eyes and pupils dilated large enough that it would nearly cover the normal brown color.
"We should take him to the Temple of the Gods. Only a day or two ride away-"
"The Gods have not been listening to you so far, Gwynn. Why should they listen to you in their home if they do not listen to you in ours?" Julian's father's dark brown eyes narrowed, similar to her own and to Roane's. "Do you think they have listened to anyone praying for The Grey Death to leave the body of a loved one? No, they have not. But they do listen to Him across The Glass."
"I heard that those in Secil call Him a God," Julian whispered towards her hands clasped tightly in her lap, startling herself. To say something like that out loud was dangerous.
"May the Gods smite Him for allowing them to," Julian's mother spat. "He is nothing more than a Conjurer-"
"Which were once considered vessels for the Gods powers and wills." Julian's father reminded her.
"Tales! That man is nothing but a powerful King using black magic." Her mother was nearly in tears of both anger and sadness.
"That's what they thought his father was too and somehow he lived almost two hundred years." Julian's father sighed.
"And they say his son is even more powerful," Julian muttered. She should not talk about such things and she knew it, but she could not help herself. This was a topic only discussed in secret and barely.
"We cannot take Roane to – to that thing, Jonan." Her mother, Gwynn, looked at Julian sharply. "Stop your muttering in my home. He is not. He will not be and to speak it is to wish it. You should not even know of such things. Please guide us, Xarona."
Julian's mother's last words for the Queen of the Gods, Xarona the all-knowing, before she turned back to her little brother and began washing his face again while muttering continuous prayer. Edyleise stayed silent, an entirely different behavior than her normal laughing and smiling self normally exhibited. Her face no longer looked seventeen as she sat there eating. Her dark brown hair fell in waves around her face and down her back.
The family all looked keenly similar to their father and his features. All of them had dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and full lips. Almost none of their mother's features showed through of Gwynn's red hair or ivory skin save for her children's eye shape. It would be a difficult reminder for her if Roane parished. She would see him everywhere in her husband and her daughters. Still, she did not want to offer any more of her family up for sacrifice than the claim of the Grey Death had already made.
Many of the family members felt her fear including Julian.
Julian stood up from her seat and placed her bowl on the small counter for washing. She could not stand to be in the room any longer and would wash it later. Edyleise followed Julian in silence outside. Both of them took deep breaths as the wooden door to the cottage closed behind them and the breeze pushed their hair around lightly.
"What do you think they will decide?" Edyleise questioned as they began walking into the trees.
"About what," Julian said absentmindedly.
"Crossing The Glass-"
"We should not talk about it."
"But we are," Edyleise said. "Because Roane is dying and there is nothing that we can do. But He can."
"He is dangerous," Julian reminded her. "He is not a savior. He kills, and lets others kill, for more power."
They walked in silence for several minutes before approaching the second cottage on their land belonging to their grandfather.
"Do you intend to talk to him about this?" Edyleise looked puzzled. "He is much too old to be thinking about these things."
"He told us storied from a time that we were never part of. Papa might have something, an insight, about this that we could never understand."
"Fine, but you're going to be stuck in there forever. I am going for a walk," and with that, her little sister was off into the trees.
Julian approached her grandfather's wooden door. Her grandfather did not know the desperation that the family had received as no one wanted to stress him until they knew for sure that it was The Grey Death at their doorstep. Edyleise had been right, he was old, much older than the average person lived to be without help and they found him fragile though none dared to say that to him. Julian hoped the conversation she was bringing to him did not stop his heart. She prayed, "Xarona, give me guidance."