Mara - The Lady Grief (Completed)

47 Who Do I Trust?

2650 B.C.E., City of Tmari-on-the-Euphrates

Early Spring, Month of Adaru, Two Years after Mara's Rebirth

Mara

Who can I trust?

Who won't betray me?

The war rages on over our heads. I can hear shouts, screams of pain, the thick pounding of battering rams against the gates and walls...

I feel so much grief that the burden of it has become natural. My hunger is back, gnawing straight through my stomach to my backbone. I fear I am starting to resemble a wraith of the Underworld, skeletal and pale.

I haven't seen Lier in over a week. He strode out of the mausoleum with purpose after I gave my blood to the little male to drink. He never returned.

The Recondites guarding the mausoleum won't speak to me. Something has changed in the air. I showed Lier the truth of War, but what if he doesn't believe me?

Worse, what if he does believe me, but has turned traitor and wants War to win?

He is Basru

"I know," I whisper to my father. Lier is sworn to me, but then why isn't he here?

A sudden scramble catches my attention. Alnue and the little male are fighting over the vial of my blood.

My blood. I haven't had the chance to administer my blood to any of the Recondites and Lier has not brought an enemy undead to me. My blood in the vial has turned dark purple with age, congealing on the bottom of the vial, with streaks of pink floating at the top as the liquid separates.

The little male doesn't win the battle with Alnue. They are hissing at each other, glaring, but Alnue has the vial secure in his stone grasp.

The little male is growing. Just yesterday he was smaller by half-a-hand. His balance is better. He is walking and running with more grace. His arms and legs have thinned out. He is losing the last of his baby chubbiness. Already he the size of Poppy, and she must be at least three years older than he is. He isn't starving, either. It seems that my blood sustains him for a long while.

"Alnue," I croak out, my voice weary from disuse, "give it to him. He's probably hungry."

"He's not hungry, mama," Poppy says softly. She walks to me and strokes my forehead. My heart hurts for her. She watched her real mother die in the cellar and now she is forced to watch me slowly wither away. Erra hisses something that sounds profane at Alnue. I think the gargoyles are teaching him to swear in their scraping-stone voices.

"Erra that's naughty," Poppy scolds. She takes the vial from the male.

"Erra?" I ask her, only then realizing that this is the little male's name. I look at him. Erra. It is an odd name. It literally means 'destruction.' Gods.

"What are you doing?" Tafia takes the vial from Poppy's hands. "What is this?" Her voice is raspy from crying and under-use.

"It is Mara's blood," Patriarch Salbin says calmly, although he is eyeing the little male, Erra, with distaste.

"Why is he drinking your blood, Mara?" she asks, sounding bewildered and not just a little disgusted.

I take a deep breath. "It heals and protects, but it also makes the drinker obedient to me. We are thinking of using it on the enemy undead."

"And the Recondites," Patriarch Salbin speaks up.

I toss him a glance. I don't particularly want Tafia to know that. After Sera... I just can't trust her.