Torment Behind The Window I

The estate was quiet. The usual ruffians in the city below, sure. A seagull cawed outside. None of that would have woken her, and the maid had long left. All of the staff had, none stayed over night. 

Yet somehow, she was sure there had been an irregular noise in the house. Must have been. Still drunk on sleep she sat up in bed, rubbing the sand out of her eyes. She cocked her head, listening, holding her breath. What the hells had that been?

There.

There it was again - a wretching sound from the room next door? 

MOTHER.

The thought pierced her mind like an icy knife and the sudden surge of adrenalin almost made her trip when Shelur sprinted towards the door, grabbing her sword along the way and bursting into her mother's room with a war cry.

Sword above her head she stood there, turned, scanned the room, but there was nothing here. Nobody. No demon assassin with an oversized scythe, no jagged crown shaped head, no evil red eyes. Only the sour stench of puke and a wet spot next to her mother's head. 

The sword clattered to the floor, and next thing Shelur knew she kneeled next to the bed, turning her mum into a more comfortable position. Her knees had bloodied from the little dash she had performed, but that was the least of Shelurs problems right now. 

She opened her mother's mouth, made sure the rest of what she'd thrown up had gotten out and she wasn't going to choke on it, then opened the top drawer of the night stand. 

The emergency scroll set was where she had left it, which was good. It was good. She was going to get through this. It was just reciting a bunch of spells. She'd done it before. 

Shelur forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths. Three, Four, Five.

With the panic pushed down for the moment, she began working through the scrolls, one by one, just like mother had told her. Had she gotten the sequence right? For a moment she doubted herself, but when she spoke the final word of the last spell, a shudder ran through her mother's body from head to toe and with a gasp she sat up.

Her eyes were wide, her mouth open, her chest heaving, but she was conscious. That was all that counted. "Shelur?" Bracca Elorn var Brecca's voice was timid, but just hearing her own name from her mother's lips took a mountain off Shelur's heart.

"Yes, mother. I-I'm right here." She tried to calm her voice, banish the trembling from it, but failed miserably. All she could do was support her mother's body with her arms. At least they were steady, and Shelur thanked the gods for it.

"It's alright, Shelly. I'm okay. I'm-" Shelur appreciated her mother's efforts to calm her, but her burning hot forehead on Shelurs chest and the cough that racked her body right in the middle of her sentence gave her lie away all too easily. 

"It's just the godforsaken rune. Last time it went away after a couple days. My stupid body treats it like a disease because it doesn't know better. It'll go away eventually, I promise."

Sure, Shelur thought. Just that it had been two weeks now, and while mother wasn't coughing up blood any more, she was only slowly getting better, if at all. Some days she even seemed to be getting worse again, but the next day she could even walk around the house without having to sit down every five steps, so what did she know. All she knew was that her mother was feeling seriously awful and it was her fault. If only she'd fought down that panic attack back at the restaurant, if she could have just stood up for herself against that monster-

"Don't blame yourself, sunshine."

Of course. The way her mother could guess her every thought even in this state, it was almost like she'd actually raised her. 

"I'm trying, mother."

"Listen, Shelly." It had been a few years since her mother had called her that, but Shelur certainly wasn't going to complain. "I will get better, I promise." 

Var Brecca withdrew from Shelurs chest and sat on her own at that, giving her a firm look. It was the kind of look that had sealed business deals worth tens of thousands, and even with bile all over her collar it reminded Shelur that her mother was a Mage more powerful than she could ever hope to know.

"I have survived much more dangerous things than this, and I'm even used to exactly that. It's harder this time, I do admit that much, but I won't die now. Not with how close we are. I have vanquished a mythical demon, and if a few weeks of fever are the price, then so be it. I'm still alive. And by my mother's grave, I swear I will not die before I get my hands on that research."

Var Brecca's voice grew more and more full during that monologue, and even the cough at the end didn't diminish its effect. She believed what she was saying, and so did Shelur. Her mother was a great woman and had never broken a promise to her. Not once. She would pull through.

Shelur just wished she could take some of the weight off her shoulders. 

"But what if they fail? They're just a bunch of misfits, after all." Shelur liked the crew her mother had assembled, she genuinely did. And the intel she had bought from Keraptis for it had never failed her before. But there was so much at stake-

"I know the risk is high." Ah, again. "But they have been carefully curated. They have what I need. Besides, I'm doing them a favor. The Mosaic Sea can be rough, but they've already befriended the fey. Their ship is the best I could find, and they are, or will be, impressive individuals. I trust them. Even that mess of a captain." She added with a scoff. 

"There are some risks to be eliminated still, but I believe we're safe for now. Keraptis said that if they keep the Orc alive, their chances of leaving the island alive are above 98 percent.." 

For a moment, the old wizard lost her focus, her eyes and mind suddenly far away. 

"It truly is a shame that we can't ask him about it any more and his predictions end at the mond avor agaeth."

Before Shelur was able to question her any further, var Brecca changed topic.

"At any rate, what do you say you brew us some tea and we play some Shogi before the stimulant wears off? It'd be a shame to let it go to waste, and I'd prefer to spend the approximately two hours that I'll be able to breathe without feeling like a nail is driven into my chest doing something fun." Despite it all, var Brecca smiled.

"Yes, mother."