That day, the daughter of the Tree of Lira had taken a turn for the worse. Her breathing grew labored, and she began a cycle of breaking and spiking fevers. She struggled to rise again and again, but she was too weak to walk. Jareen had to physically restrain her more than once. The vienu’s face was furrowed with grimaces, showing obvious pain as she fought against her own lungs, drowning slowly as the fluids built up.

  At one point, as Jareen tried to hold her down, one of the servants of the Tree of Lira came to the door, peeking in with evident fear.

  “What is happening?” she asked.

  “The Daughter of Lira draws close to her departure,” Jareen answered. “Bring me fresh towels.”

  The servant hurried away, but the towels did not come. Jareen wished she had tinctures. She had kept the lists that she had written with the help of Tieri, the Shéna herbalist. So far, Jareen had only witnessed two deaths caused by the Malady, but this was turning into the most gruesome yet. The vienu was clearly in far greater pain than the others had been, and the final agitation had come upon her. Her mind was mounting a last desperate struggle even as her strength faded. It was not uncommon among humans. Apparently, it occurred in the Vien as well.

  Jareen used silken pillows to prop her up, trying to ease her breathing, and she remained at her side, a hand on her shoulder in case she lurched forward again. She was standing thus with her back to the door when someone spoke behind her.

  “What is happening?”

  Thinking it was another servant, Jareen looked back over her shoulder, ready to demand towels again, but she stopped when she saw the figure. The vienu who stood at the door was marred by the Change, clearly well advanced. Much of her face was disfigured with yellow and green growths, and her hands were knobbed with the same rough pigmentation. She wore a gown so blue it was nearly black, and it rose at her shoulders, covering more spindly growths beneath the silk. Without needing to ask, Jareen knew it was the High Lielu of Lira, who had served as a member of the Synod for well over a hundred years.

  “What is happening?” she asked again.

  “The fire of life burns bright in her,” Jareen answered. “It fights to remain.”

  The maid groaned, trying to rise, muttering while Jareen gently but firmly held her back. Her gaze fixed on nothing, her eyelids wide, but Jareen suspected it was her mother’s voice that had brought on this fresh burst of restlessness.

  “Can anything be done to help her suffering?” the Lielu of Lira asked.

  “If I can be given the herbs I need, I can make a tincture. It may calm her and ease her pain. ”

  “You said she fights to remain.”

  “She does.”

  “Will easing her pain in this way. . . will it also. . . will she stop fighting?”

  Her hand still on the daughter’s shoulder, Jareen turned to look at the High Lielu again. Here was one of the most powerful vienu in all of Findeluvié, and she asked the same as many a human from pauper to court official back in Drennos. The language was different, but the meaning and fear was the same. The lielu clutched her knobbed hands before her in uncertainty.

  “Look at her,” Jareen said, motioning to the Departing. Violet-black veins stood out stark on the afflicted vienu’s forehead and slender neck, spreading their dusky discoloration like ink seeping into paper. “The Malady has her in its grip. If she dies, it will be the disease that kills her.”

  “If you can ease her pain, do so,” the lielu replied.

  “I will need the herbs and tools.”

  “I will command servants to aid you.”

  With that, the Lielu departed, leaving the door open.

  It took Jareen until the afternoon to receive the herbs and supplies she needed. The servants brought her what she needed, but they would still not aid her within the rooms of the afflicted, so Jareen was forced to prepare a tincture in the room of the daughter of Lira, trying to both attend her restlessness and manage the careful grinding and pulverizing necessary to the process. Since some of the herbs were only available fresh, she had to force-dry them over a lamp flame before grinding. She was not entirely sure it would produce the same results. It was also unclear to her if the mango liquor that she was provided would serve in place of the much different grain distillations used in Nosh. Though she had been taught the process and theory of the tinctures, it had been decades since she had learned to prepare a tincture from scratch. The Sisters were provided with powders and concentrates and equipment to use in the Wards.

  Because of her limited time and tools, she could not dissolve the solids so well as normally, and the liquid appeared cloudier. Nevertheless, she managed a tincture that she hoped would aid the vienu, but she would have to start with a tiny dose and administer at widely spaced intervals, for she was worried that the response of the Vien frame may not entirely mirror that humans.

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  By the time she was ready to administer the first dose, the High Lielu of Lira returned with a number of other members of the High Tree. They gathered around the doorway of the small room. The afflicted was still struggling, every breath a battle. Jareen did not need to lay her head on the vienu’s chest to hear the fluid in her lungs.

  Jareen had assured the High Lielu that she would not be responsible for the death of her daughter, but now she was not as confident as she had felt, then. Without the precise droppers used by the Voiceless Sisters, Jareen had to make do with a drop upon a spoon, carefully depositing the tiny bead beneath the vienu’s tongue, pulling back the skin of her cheek with a finger.

  It was good that Jareen had started small, for what would have barely affected a human had a dramatic effect on the vienu. Within half of an hour, the maid’s face relaxed, the grimacing passed, and her breathing eased. A bigger dose might have caused a collapse of her breathing altogether. Was it the different physiology of the Vien, or was it a greater efficacy of the herbs or preparation? Jareen was not sure. It would take much testing. For now, she would limit the doses carefully and monitor the effects.

  The hours stretched on, and still the afflicted vienu hung fast to life. Jareen sat by the head of her hammock-bed with a towel, wiping away the blood-tinged fluid that she coughed up from time to time. The blood was dark. Something may have ruptured. Still, the tincture had eased the deep lines on the Departing’s forehead, and calmed her struggle. The High Lielu and other members of the Tree sat in chairs or on the floor of the hallway, watching through the open door. They did not speak and hardly moved.

  As evening wore on, Jareen wondered if Tirlav would truly try to meet her again upon the path. She could not leave a Departing so close to death, and with the Tree gathered around. Wisdom would isolate them from this unknown disease, and Jareen felt a sense of guilt for not arguing with them about it, to keep them away. At least, they stayed in the hall.

  Jareen’s face flushed with embarrassment at the thought of Tirlav waiting upon the path, not knowing that Jareen could not meet him. She would feel better that he prove false to his own intent, than that he should come to the path and think Jareen held him in such low esteem as to neglect him.

  The Departure finally occurred a few hours before dawn. The vienu had fought a fierce battle against the Malady that clutched her, but at least her final breaths were calm. Jareen felt the hushed expectation from the gathered Tree as she laid her head upon the vienu’s chest and listened. At length, she straightened and spoke to the High Lielu.

  “She is gone.”

  The wails of the household broke loose and continued on after the rising of the sun. After preparing the body, Jareen checked on her other afflicted once more before going to sleep for a few meager hours on a bed of silk.

  ***

  Tirlav busied himself over the next few days with drilling the company. In the evenings, he attended Hormil’s dinners. On the third night, his preoccupation overwhelmed him. He walked the path where he had first met Jareen and even wandered past the house she had entered. He saw no sign of her and felt ashamed at himself for looking. No doubt, she had not enjoyed his company as he had hers. Perhaps he had not been direct enough. . . or he had been too direct. All he wanted was to discuss Nosh some more, that was all.

  The next evening as Tirlav walked toward Hormil’s house, Menlane, Plume of the High Tir contingent, caught up with him. They fell in side by side, helms beneath their arms. Some were jealous of Menlane since he was stationed in his own heartwood, but Tirlav did not care. He did not want to be back in Aelor. It would be too hard. There was no going back to that life. To life at all. He wondered if it was hard for Menlane.

  Menlane had been absent from the dinners. No one had commented on it, not even Hormil, so Tirlav had also held his tongue. Now, curiosity and opportunity met.

  “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “The High Lielu is my aunt,” Menlane answered.

  Tirlav squinted over at him.

  “I do not see how that answers?” he asked.

  “Have you not heard?”

  Why was he asked that so often? The answer was always the same.

  “No.”

  “The second heir of the Tree of Lira. . . was lost to the Malady four nights ago. The High Lielu commanded two days of weeping, and last night they feasted in her honor.”

  “And Hormil let you go?”

  “He did.”

  Tirlav walked quietly beside him for a time. He did not know what to say to someone whose relative had just died. There was no polite custom that he knew, nor funerary rituals. Coir had explained some human practices in letter, and Jareen had told him more during their walk. It was a practice in Drennos to stitch the dead in canvas, bind them with weights, and let them sink in the sea. The only Vien practice he knew was that carried out by the companies of the Mingling—burial beneath a mound. If the Malady continued, the Vien would need some custom. Might the Synod make decree? Something Jareen had mentioned sprang to mind.

  “How many have come down with the Malady now?” he asked.

  “I do not know. I’ve heard different tales. They say it affects close relatives of the High Trees, especially.” Menlane looked down toward the ground as he said this, avoiding Tirlav’s eyes.

  Tirlav pressed his lips together.

  “And there is still nothing that can be done?”

  “The Insensitive from Drennos created some kind of potion, but it does not cure,” Menlane answered.

  “An Insensitive was there?” Tirlav asked.

  “There is an Insensitive that the Synod brought from Drennos.”

  “Was she there when. . . when the second heir died?”

  “Yes. There are more from the High Trees laid low with the Malady, and she tends them at the House of Lira.”

  “Do any aid her?”

  “No. The Canaen sorcery cannot touch the Insensitive, but there is fear that the Malady may spread to others who come near.”

  “Is the House of Lira the great house at the western foot of the tir?”

  “It is.”

  Tirlav took a deep breath. She had told him that she was caring for the afflicted. Maybe Jareen had not been able to meet him. Fool that he was, he should have considered that. Expected it, even.

  Jareen had told him there was risk for him in her presence. If those of the High Trees were especially endangered, should he take such a risk? He felt the flutter of fear.

  Then again, he was already dead, wasn’t he?

  They reached the stairs rising up the eucalyptus to Hormil’s house and began their climb.

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