Chapter 4. Broken String
6 months later…
Theodren sprinted the last stretch of the journey into town, Pieter was far in his dust, the middle aged farmer unable to keep up with the mid 20s priest fueled by anticipation, fear, and desperation. He finally came to a stop before the door Evan was pacing in front of.
He looked up at Theodren. Expressions of hope and dread waged war for control of Evan’s face. Every passing moan from within the house he guarded pitched the battles in one direction or the other.
“Theo! Thank the Weaver!” He grabbed onto the priest’s robe. “She just started shaking and she fell over! Polly said it would be fine but… she’s never… she had these headaches and…” Evan was rambling.
Theodren steeled his nerves and pushed past the man spiraling into despair. The dimly lit room was a flurry of activity, Polly was ordering around other younger women carrying rags or a basin of water. Orchestrating the chaos as best she could while holding the hand of her daughter who witnessed none of this.
Her breathing was ragged and shallow. Sweat beaded on her face as she clung to life. Theodren rushed to the opposite side of the bed weaving between the women laden with sweat soaked bedding that they were clearing away. “What happened?” Polly took a pause between barked orders.
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“It wasn’t supposed to happen yet.” Theodren looked down at her confused. “What?” She visibly deflated under his gaze. “She’s blood sick Theodren. The headaches the swelling, I knew what it was I just thought…” tears started to well in her eyes.
“I was wrong, Theodren! It wasn’t supposed to happen yet! I thought I had more time!”
She looked up at him. She had done everything she could to ease Eleina’s seizing. But by the time she had, her water had already broken, and Eleina could not be roused. “It’s my fault!” Her last sentence came out a whisper with the force of a wail.
Theodren turned to look down at Eleina. Gone was the fiery wit. Gone was the bombastic confidence. What remained was the pale and ragged ghost of his friend. He reached deep for his divine thread.
“Holy Weaver. Father of all that is ordered, I beseech thee.” The priest reached out for Eleina’s brow. “If ever I have earned your favor. Bestow it now upon this woman and her child.”
Theodren’s thread soaked deep into her mind, questing for something, anything to grab hold of. But her mind was a maelstrom of broken thoughts and instincts, too scattered and fast moving for his meager thread.
He grit his teeth, he would not fail here. Odrain must be testing him, willing him to find a solution, to beat the odds. He dug deep, his thread searching… THERE!
his thread latched on to a single grain of thought. A memory of no significance but present enough to grab hold of. He wrestled the grain before his mind's eye, ordering it into motion. A memory, if given enough emphasis became a thought, a thought could become consciousness and a conscious Eleina could be saved.
He poured the very fiber of his being into his work. He commanded his divine thread masterfully, rolling, coaxing, forming the memory until he felt a strand of Eleina’s mind reach for it. He pulled. With all his might he pulled. Eleina’s mind was but a fingers breadth away, so close her salvation was practically in hand, until his thread, snapped.
