Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Infection at the Heart

The dark season had fallen hard and heavy on the fertile belt, about a week earlier than it usually did, though that was not entirely unheard of. Sometimes the fiery mother below them ran a little hotter usual and so needed to let of a little steam earlier than was expected.

The first ashfall of the season had not been a surprise.

They had seen the increased activity in the quieting of nearby hot springs. For many years their ancestors had always kept close watch on those hot springs as a gage to determine the fanciful moods of the fiery mountain chain. The livelier the springs the quieter the mountains. And usually, the quieting of the springs meant greater activity in the mountains, and so by the time the ash began to fall in delicate little flakes from the sky, Hijan had tidied up her little hut on the outer edge of the village, and had more than a month's worth of coiltree berries dried and stored in the little catch in the dirt under her house.

Of course a month was hardly enough food to get her through the dark season, but that's where the communal cathedral stores would come in.

She wasn't worried.

As the oldest Drev in the clan, she held a certain place of honor that Even the Magnate and the Sentinel were wary of questioning.

She would be fed.

Hijan sat on the moss of her bed and listened to the quiet rustle f ash against the stone that made up the outer wall of her house. Moss curtains had been hung over any ventilation that might have been used during the light season. It was quiet, and in these moments she couldn't help but miss the company of her long dead battle partner, bless his spirit, and the path before him in the afterlife. A more beautiful warrior there had never been, and a more beautiful warrior there would never be.

He had died when she was uncommonly young, though, then she had had Kits to take care of.

And with them grown and gone, some of them with their own families and some of them to the spirits like there father, she was left alone.

And had been for a long time.

Thinking on her loneliness, she missed the strange little alien she had adopted into her home, the predatory creature with forward facing eyes, squishy skin, and a heart like any Drev warrior, a creature that she had named gift in their own tongue as he had been a gift to her during a time of greater loneliness.

It wasn't so bad these days, only an occasional pang here and there.

Hijan had lived a long life, and planned to live an even longer one if the spirits permitted, so the occasional melancholy was to be expected.

What she didn't expect, of course, was to be roused from her sleep.

She jolted upright some time after dark, her heart pounding and her body gone cold.

For a moment she thought that maybe the end had finally come and the spirits were here to take her, but even as she sat, her heart continued to beat and her breath came easy.

No

She wasn't dying.

But something still felt off.

It was a feeling on the air, chilled and..... cold and infused with a sense of meline unease that made her sure that something was lurking behind her in the shadows, but when she turned there was nothing there.

As her brain adjusted to the dark, she squinted.

Drev vision was not as good as human vision in the dark, but her color receptors were far more sensitive.

She saw the red glow through the crack under her door. It was so faint that, at first, she thought she was seeing things, but could hardly dismiss it, and it wasn't the fire of the mountains either, she knew that color: A flickering red orange, and this.... This was different.