Morning dragged itself across the Steppe. Smoke from the funeral clung low to the ground. Liana and Toren walked in silence. No one greeted them. No one looked up. The commune moved carefully, not from grief now but from worry.

  They passed the Drommala’s body. Herbal smoke still lingered, thinning as the sun rose. By firelight she had looked asleep. In daylight she looked final. The spirit was gone, though her vast body remained, heavy and unmoving, as if the land had not yet let her go.

  Ahead, the Circle of Elders waited. A ring of stone seats carved with sun-lines and wave-marks, Steppe and Desert set side by side. The stones were old, heavy enough to feel permanent, rooted deep into the earth. Behind the Elders, a few mirrors hung on wooden frames, tied with red string, shivering faintly in the morning wind.

  Liana inhaled slowly.

  Toren muttered, “Feels like we’re about to be judged.”

  “We are,” Liana said. Her voice stayed flat. She had faced Elders in worse moods than this.

  People gathered in tight rows around the Circle, sitting, kneeling, or standing with stiff backs. The First Elder rose last, looked around the circle, and struck her staff against stone. Every whisper stopped.

  When she spoke, her voice carried clearly, scraped clean of softness.

  “We stand after a night of loss. Our Drommala has entered the smoke, on the path the Mother set for her.”

  The crowd bowed. Even the wind fell silent.

  She waited for the quiet to hold.

  “We must find the Mother Drommala as soon as possible, and ask her to gift us her child. Only our voice matters to her. Only truth.”

  Silence deepened.

  Liana felt Toren tense beside her.

  “Thirty years ago,” the Elder said, “the Forest Loteri marked her last known resting place. They keep the enchanted maps. They released them to us at dawn. The Mother was seen near the roots of the forests of Ashen Valley. That is where the search begins.”

  People shifted uneasily. Ashen Valley was far from safe.

  “We have asked the Great Council to send us a Mirrorwalker, and we pray the Great Sun does not turn them aside. They see reflection where we see only dust. They know the Drommala’s old tongue. Through them, we will find her and be heard.”

  She looked across the gathered faces.

  “Steppe and Desert Loteri. Our community needs you to guide the Mirrorwalker across the Loteri Lands. To stand before the Mother. To ask for her child.”

  She let the words settle.

  “Who will volunteer?”

  No one stepped forward quickly. Not because the Mother harmed anyone. She did not. The fear was in failing her. Failing everyone. Or losing your way in lands you barely knew.

  Nothing moved.

  At last a dark-skinned Desert woman stepped forward. Her braids rattled with bone charms. A tall Steppe hunter followed. A rune-reader joined.

  Then Liana.

  She stepped forward with steady calm. She felt Toren watching her but kept her spine straight.

  Toren’s feet moved before he thought. He stepped forward too, pale but steady.

  Five more came. Ten in total.

  “Speak your reason,” the First Elder said. “Say only truth.”

  The Desert woman started. “I know signs in the sand. I saw the Mother’s shadow once, and I can read the marks she leaves behind.”

  The hunter said, “I offer endurance. I can cross dunes for days, and I do not break when the heat rises or the wind turns.”

  The rune-reader said, “My knowledge of stone paths is strong. I can read and understand old magic.”

  Then Liana. “I know the Steppe and Desert,” she said. “I travelled far with my father. I learned parts of the Forest paths and the River routes. I can guide the Mirrorwalker across all lands.”

  Toren spoke next. “My father is Forest Loteri,” he said. “I know Forest ground. I sense shifts in Steppe magic. I can protect and heal the Mirrorwalker if the journey turns dangerous.” His voice shook only once.

  The remaining five volunteers spoke in turn. The Elders listened in silence to the best crossbow hunter, a skilled Steppe herbalist, a Desert protector with deep knowledge of magic, a quiet scholar, and a young but strong shaman.

  The Elders conferred briefly.

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  “Ten will remain,” the First Elder said.

  The chosen stepped aside. The rest returned to their work, relieved but guilty.

  Liana glanced at Toren. “You volunteered faster than I expected.”

  “I panicked,” he said.

  “Good panic.”

  Before she could say more, an Elder with sharp cheekbones put a hand on Toren’s shoulder.

  “You,” she said. “Come.”

  “Try not to collapse,” Liana murmured.

  Toren managed a thin twitch of a smile and followed Elder Mother Elasya to a tent near the inner circle.

  Inside, two other Elders sat cross-legged on woven mats. Between them knelt the Caretaker of the dead Drommala, a man bent low, shoulders shaking, breath breaking as he struggled to contain himself. One of the Elders lifted a hand toward Toren.

  “Tell it.”

  Toren hesitated. “Tell what?”

  “The runes.”

  He swallowed.

  “When I was burning the herbs and walking the healing circle,” he said, voice steady despite himself, “I saw markings on her scales. Near the belly. Strange ones. Not part of her plating. Runes, half-hidden beneath the scales.”

  Silence followed. Even the Caretaker’s breathing slowed, rough but restrained.

  Elder Mother Elasya rose. “Come.”

  Only the two of them went to the Drommala’s body.

  The morning sun had burned away most of the smoke. Toren led her to the place he remembered, kneeling and running his fingers lightly along the scales.

  The markings began to fade.

  The lines thinned as he watched, sinking back into the natural pattern of the hide, as if the skin itself were swallowing them.

  Toren froze, hand hovering uselessly.

  Elder Mother Elasya acted at once. She pressed her palm flat against the scale and spoke a binding phrase under her breath. The air tightened. Light caught sharply along a single remaining line.

  Only one rune held.

  “We are fortunate to have preserved even one,” she said.

  Elder Mother Elasya stood before the Drommala for a long moment in silence. The morning light caught on the great body, dull now, emptied of movement. She placed both hands against the hide, forehead bowed.

  Toren heard her murmur softly, not to the Elders, not to him, but to the Drommala herself. An apology. A request for forgiveness for what had to be done.

  Only then did she turn to Toren. “Help.”

  With deliberate care, they loosened a single scale. No force. No haste. It came free cleanly, lifted as if it had been waiting, wrapped at once in clean cloth.

  Then Elder Mother Elasya did something Toren had not expected. She moved to the Drommala’s trunk and drew a short, precise cut. Thick navy-blue blood welled slowly, heavy and luminous, dripping drop by drop from the incision. She deepened the cut just enough and produced a small glass jar from her leather bag, catching the blood with steady hands.

  When the jar was sealed, she made one final cut and removed a substantial section of the trunk. It was wrapped carefully, the same cloth, the same respect.

  Toren did not ask.

  She spoke anyway, as if answering his thoughts. “We must try to understand how she died, Toren. We cannot place her daughter at risk.”

  The scale, the blood, and the piece of trunk were carried back to the tent together, each treated as evidence, each handled with the care given to a relic.

  Inside, the Elders examined the rune in silence. One of them tilted his head.

  “It could be a natural pattern,” he said. “A coincidence of growth.”

  Elder Mother Elasya’s reply was immediate. “No. I know the Drommala’s pattern well. This was placed.”

  The Elder did not answer at once. At last, he looked to Toren. “You will not speak of this.”

  Toren inclined his head. “I will not.”

  “You are dismissed.”

  Toren stepped out into the light, the tent closing behind him. Whatever had marked the Drommala had not wanted to remain.

  Toren found Liana among the other volunteers, seated in a rough half-circle before the First Elder. She stood with her staff planted in the ground, posture unyielding, voice level.

  “A Mother Drommala does not hear noise,” she said. “She hears weight. Stillness. Intention. Do not perform. Do not beg. Speak only what is true, and speak it once.”

  No one interrupted.

  When the words of guidance ended, small cloth pouches were passed into volunteers’ hands. Magic powder, fine and pale, faintly luminous even in daylight. The First Elder bowed her head once.

  “She has already gone,” she said. “Now we help the body follow.”

  The Elders moved first, touching flame from their torches to the dry grass circling the Drommala. As the fire took, they began the old chant, low and steady.

  Morrawyn vel, na shara ven. Gone with the smoke.

  The volunteers formed a wide open circle. One by one, they stepped forward and cast the powder into the fire. Each offering bloomed upward in colour. Blue, red, gold. Smoke thickened, rose, folded in on itself. The Drommala’s great form broke apart with unnatural efficiency, scales dissolving into light and ash as if they had never been solid at all.

  By the time the last pouch was emptied, the body was gone. Only white ash remained. Magic had brought her into the world. Magic carried her out.

  When the fires died down, the First Elder gathered them again. Pipes packed with sacred bud were passed out, along with parchment slips, feathers, and ink.

  “You will write,” she said. “Not poetry. Not persuasion. You will write what you would say to the Mother, if she stands before you. Prepare yourselves.”

  The circle loosened. Smoke drifted. Flatbread and honey were shared in silence, broken only by short, practical exchanges. Words were tested, discarded, reshaped.

  Liana rose and moved away from the group. Toren followed. She sat heavily and dropped her head into her hands. “I hate speeches.”

  Toren lowered himself beside her. He sat close enough to catch the scent of smoke tangled in her red hair, warm and herbal. Freckles dusted her nose and cheeks, familiar as something he had learned without trying.

  “You can track anything,” he said. “Words just refuse to behave for you.”

  “Tracking makes sense,” she muttered. “Words do not.”

  He took the paper from her fingers and smoothed it flat. “Start simple. Say who you are. Why you came. What you offer. No flourishes. Just truth.” He handed it back. “The rest can wait.”

  She grunted and bent over the page again. Toren stayed still. His fingers twitched. His breath caught on the way out. The sacred bud softened the edges of his thoughts, loosened the care he usually kept wrapped tight.

  “Liana. There is something I need to say.”

  She looked up. “What now?”

  He hesitated, then lifted his eyes. When he spoke, it was stripped bare.

  “I have feelings for you. I want you safe. We grew up together. You know me better than anyone. I do not know what waits for us out there, but I want to stand with you. I needed you to know that.” He swallowed. “Would you marry me?”

  Liana blinked once. Her shoulders tightened, then eased.

  “Toren. Now is not the time.”

  The words landed hard, but not cruel.

  She added, quieter, “It is not wrong to feel. Or to protect. But we help our people first. Then we think about the rest.”

  He nodded. “All right.”

  She looked back to the paper. “Now help me write, or go panic somewhere quietly.”

  “I am not panicking.”

  “You might,” she said, unimpressed.

  They sat side by side, scratching words onto paper as the sun sank low, painting the Steppe red-gold. Behind them, the Elders spoke in low voices about runes, and the enchanted Forest map glowed faintly with the Mother’s old trail.

  Everything was moving.

  Whether the Loteri were ready or not.