Miradey

Immanen

"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.