40.2 Almost Too Much

General Summary

Day 632

The details of Trillium’s Bestowal are, at no point, clearly communicated. With Rainbow’s involvement, I wonder at some points if I ought to just ask the questions burning in my mind and get the answers out of them, but blood is something sacred and I’ll learn it how Magdalena wants to teach it.   First, I assist Wraith in extracting her origin blood. This blood is a concentration of a person’s inherent magicality - most mortal races would only have a few drops if they were to concentrate all of their blood into what’s necessary to create origin blood. No Moon’s legacy, I think, is also origin blood although there is clearly more to it than just a vial of blood. As Magdalena explains the extraction to me, I can see the parallels between this and what she has previously sent me about realigning human bloodlines, and what Lyssa has told me about Ventarri who steal legacies from more talented dwarves. Anyone could pass on a legacy using origin blood but it is only a cultural tradition amongst dragons because of how it has been used to strengthen clan bloodlines.   To provide a foundation for Trillium’s bloodline, a single drop of draconic origin blood would be enough. Three drops would be sufficient to make her over 50% dragon and thus make it even easier for her to establish a bloodline. Wraith insists on simply telling me when to stop the process of extraction.   At four drops, Cedriel begs her to stop and consider the risk of harming herself.  

How could I hold back from my god daughter?

  Even as I hold the magic steady, I think there is something charming about this notion. Trillium, of course, does not yet share blood or legacy with Wraith. We are in the process of creating the bond that will link them forevermore, but Wraith is already there and Trillium is already her family. I see why elves and dragons have long felt drawn to one another - what elf would take an oath unless there was something deeper than the oath itself to bind them? Something that humans don’t seem to understand is that it’s not the oath alone that’s sacred - it is what’s beneath it.   Nevertheless, Cedriel gets her to promise she won’t go past seven drops, In the end, she offers five. It is about half of what she is capable of at all, and it will take her a couple centuries to recover while she stays and teaches Trillium about things fitting of a bloodline of Darkness. Naturally these are things that Rainbow, a dragon of light and crystal, cannot teach her.   When it comes time for the ceremony itself, Magdalena takes the lead and Kaide and I attend her as obediently as an apprentice ever is. Despite the freedom and autonomy she has given us, she makes it quite clear that now is the time to listen and follow.   Over six hours, she manages the bloodline while Wraith acts as a spiritual anchor for the new relationship and Rainbow handles the seven furious dragon spirits. At time the magic threatens to tear Trillium apart entirely, for she needs to nearly die in order to be rebuilt. For nearly half an hour her heartbeat fades away and it takes an enormous force of will to focus on my task and resist the urge to flood her with the healing light of my magic. I can sense Magdalena’s sharp anxiety even through the metallic feeling of the blood magic and it’s all I can do to cling to Trillium’s own river philosophy: There is nothing any of us are holding back from this process, no additional strength or desperation we could impart to make success assured. It is all her.   Finally, the first soft heartbeat flutters in her chest and grows until it is a dragon’s heart beating within her. Her eyes shock open and she roars with voice I’ve never heard before passing out abruptly.   I’m sure that all of us are ready to collapse where we stand, but Cedriel and Liliales ferry us back to the villa where Trillium will rest for the next while. In preparing the room we had placed a rocking chair and sofa for guests, and Wraith takes up a position on the chair, sagging against the armrest. It is precisely where I would have placed myself, but I settle onto the sofa instead and let sleep claim me.

Day 633

When I wake, Wraith is quietly knitting as she rocks in the chair and I have to smile at the sight. She is speaking in a calm, soothing voice about the era of five dragons - speaking to Trillium ‘in the shell’ as it were. I stay for several hours, but when Kaide comes to find me I feel safe leaving Trillium in Wraith’s care.   In the garden, Liliales is entertaining Zehi with stories and illusions of the places we’ve been. She’s hardly left her home and Blood Mist Forest, and she’s clearly enraptured by the vistas Liliales paints for her. Part of me expects that she will ask to come along with us when we leave, but to my surprise she actually asks for my blessing to stay here with Trillium. Neither of them has had something as simple and lovely as a friend in a long while and I’m very pleased at the prospect of them growing closer. It will also mean that Liliales will be constructing his own letter box, as I think I have to draw the line somewhere in what sort of letters I am willing to forward. Politics is one thing…   I take the opportunity to ask her a bit more about the spirit folk of the area, thinking of Yneir.  

The Vermillion Bird Clan are one of the Great Clans! Each branch of spirit folk has a collection of Grand Clans, sort of like the highest strata of dwarves society. We are not necessarily ruled by the Grand Clans but they are very influential. My Three-Eyed Black Crane clan is quite average, and the two Grand Clans are the Vermillion Bird Clan and the Phoenix Clan.

  I try my best to tell her about Yneir without telling secrets that aren’t mine to tell. Zehi tells me that for the most part, her Crow Clan is not very powerful as many crows are nothing special at all. If they were all golden crows, they would likely be a Grand Clan.   More practically, she tells me that the Vermillion Bird Clan lives atop a mountain that the Great River passes beside. Many of them are healers with great skill in eradicating disease and soothing the spirit (whereas the Phoenix Clan is more about rebirth from death). Because of this, they’re somewhat sacred. They use the natural dangers of the mountain filter those who make it to their doors for help, under the assumption that those who really need them will find a way.   This particular philosophy is so…cruel. Of course I think Yneir needs their help, but her ability to reach them will have nothing to do with her need and everything to do with the enormously experienced family she has entangled herself with. A person’s capacity to do the unthinkable is less defined by their need and more by their ability to imagine what is possible in the first place. How could an old man in a tiny village even begin to imagine that there is some power that could save his grandchild from a cough that will steal his life before it has even begun? Someone like that certainly doesn’t love their family any less than I love Thalien or Shadows Dancing.

Day 639

The next time I find Mistress in the Dreaming, she is in Dreamfall, looking very at home in my little cottage. Uncle Red has said she can stay for a week while Trillium recovers.   Seeing her amongst my trees makes me feel…something. It’s a new feeling, since she has already seen and known every home I’ve had up until now. It is somewhat reminiscent of showing my mother and father around my villa in the Capital for the first time - the mugs I’d set aside for them, the first saplings Doraal had planted with me. It’s the happiness and hope that she, too, will see it as a home.  

Do you hear the trees sing too?

  I need not have worried. If she hears the trees, of course any Grove could feel like home for her. And here, with the tea cup I’ve saved for her and the overflowing cabinet of Camellia’s tea, I can’t imagine any of my family ever feeling out of place. I show her Lyssa’s dwarven cooking supplies and conversation drifts to my own Hand and how I’m looking forward to eventually naming Tira as well. How strange it is, to speak with Mistress as a free agent after so long in the direct service of the Empress. For the first time in centuries, she has the freedom she once craved as a young Dread Lord. And in a few years, I’ll be back up North and we’ll be together again. Our collective heart aches for Doraal, who is surely regaining memories of Trillium just as we are, but without being able to connect with either of us. At least he has the company of the family I sent to him, many of whom have spent time with Trillium.  

You’ll be coming to me every night.

I have to smile. Long days and nights of homework and Imperator work aside, how could I say no?

Day 674

With the motivation of staying in touch with Zehi, Liliales works tirelessly on his letter box and it comes together much faster than mine did. He creates a beautiful, painted box with butterflies to carry his letters and I’m almost envious to compare his with my utilitarian starlings. As an ongoing project, he asks me to help him enchant the butterflies so that they can carry private illusions from someone even if the sender is not an illusionist.   It seems he is growing up so quickly. He is already thinking about his life’s work and how he might serve the Empire…unfortunately he has questions about the Shadow and by nature, I cannot answer them. Not because I’m not willing to trust him, but because I simply don’t know.  

Day 676

When Liliales finally meets Mistress in the Dreaming, she immediately scoops him up to hug him.  

You got a son without doing the hard parts!

  They fit together just as easily as I expected. And the prospect of our ever-expanding family (including the various children) is wonderful.