Chương 389: 10.9

The body had been killed painlessly after Leonard confirmed that there was no spirit of the woman that was Muriel left within. Now, Jewel stared at the pyre that burned the corpse of her friend. There had been the proper words. The rites of Valasect and Muriel's own birth star. But even as she spoke them the hollowness of it all simply, could not keep the memories in her head. What was she doing here? Muriel was dead. The woman, whose strength had been indomitable her entire life was gone.

She had said farewell to an empty pile of bones and meat that had breathed that afternoon at her command and yet had failed to actually live in any way that mattered. Muriel was dead and Jewel was standing here as if it didn't matter. She was poised, graceful and stoic, a pillar of power. A foundation to keep her men strong, to hold them together in the risk of desertion. They were almost home. Days away from the Vahstrehgin. They could have been secure and safe in fine warm rooms in a few days.

But instead Muriel was dead. Jewel was standing here in silence, having said the words, simply staring at the bonfire. Smelling the far too porcine scent of cooking meat. Her friend was dead and her body smelled of charring pigflesh. Not entirely, man was different from pig after all. But far closer than she was comfortable with now. The smell dragging back the stark memories of the war, her only war. And they were not many seasons distant from her second. She would have to find a new captain for her Valasect.

For her guard. Jewel was sitting here before the burning corpse of Muriel and planning for her replacement. How could she be doing this? Muriel could not be replaced, Muriel had always been there! How could Muriel be dead? How could she be gone? Her thoughts drifted to the Vampyre, to the possibility that she could have saved Muriel via Asherah's 'blessing'. But the thought of doing that to a loved one made her insides twist and revolt against them.

It would not have been her life long confidant, teacher and captain then the empty thing she had found that afternoon. She would have been just as absent. A thing that felt utterly impossible. Muriel had always been there! For as long as Jewel remembered. Raising her alongside Mother and Father. Muriel was dead and Jewel had to stand here and be strong, not curling up and wailing as she wanted too. As she could not even allow Gem too. Jewel didn't dare!

She lacked the strength, if either of her lost their composure now? She knew it would drag the other into shameful weeping! It was impossible! This was all inconceivable! Muriel was dead! How was this the proper thing for her to do?! Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. How could this ever be the proper thing to do!? Muriel was dead, and it was Jewel's fault! They were traveling north out of season because Jewel had failed to preserve the peace!

Because she had failed to stop an interfering mongrel of a cat and a foolish child from destroying the work of her entire reign! Because she had failed to see through the treachery of Murad and his schemes! There was nothing proper about that. And yet she had to stand tall, had to remain strong for her entourage. They were still in Magarskan lands and she was the greatest defense available for her people. For Adelyne and Havel, for Dariusz and his staff.

For all her footmen, the children and family of her vassals and fellow nobles under Mathias that had been entrusted to her. Jewel could not allow herself to break even as it felt her ribs and heart were cracking apart over and over again the longer she stood before this fire with its blackening corpse. She had to stay here until- A crack echoed through her skull. But not Jewel's or Gems. Then another, but a different skull from the first.

Instinctively she flexed, but Jewel was still, Gem was as stoic as her larger self. And yet she gave one full bodied flinch followed by another. Two sets of arms trying to splay against confining shells. Two necks tensing up in the agony of her inner turmoil. Two snouts with sharp egg teeth slamming forward and breaking the confines of the shells that had sheltered them for more than a year.

And then with her faces stinging in the icy chill of the evening, the watery yolk of her eggs cleared from nostrils and spat from lips. In the dark of her panniers Jewel took the first breaths of two sets of lungs and then she screamed with all the might two tiny hearts could muster. She cried in a shrill, whistling manner unlike any sound she had ever heard. And it was coming from her own throats! She screamed her anguish and as the noise finally broke free Gem and then Jewel herself felt the tears overwhelm her.

The incontinence and shame tearing loose despite all her efforts. Her failure to compose herself toppled Jewel like a mortal blow. Knees and elbows hitting the ground before the fire in a confusion, which of her knees? Which throat was screaming? Which of her voices? It all ran together like the waters of the Vah. All she knew was she was screaming, three of her throats turning raw under the strain, and one burning with white hot fire spewing into the sky.

She felt fresh yolk and eggs on her brow and cheeks, she felt tears burning in eight different eyes. Three sets of lungs choked and sobbed at a thundering, tearing pain in her heart. The world around her trembled, shook, the air rattled, her call of grief echoed back. And then at last she felt feint, weak, exhausted, three heads slumping forward, one almost dry, two sticky and confined. And then a hand on her shoulder. Jewel's skin trembled at the touch? No she was already shivering, all of her was shivering.

From cold, from life, from air and overwhelming, all consuming grief. It was shameful. It was wrong. Muriel was dead and not only was it Jewel's fault. But she had failed to stand strong for her people. She had failed to be the pillar of strength a Countess and a Martial Lady was supposed to be. It was all wrong and improper, but Jewel could not muster the will to stop her tears or the thick choking sobs breaking intermittently from all four of her throats. Not with Smithson stroking her shoulder.

Not when Paul embraced her in a way that was unseemly under the open evening sky and stars. Not even when her panniers were opened and her newest and smallest selves were carefully extracted from the effluvient mess of their hatchings. Not when she was divested of the leather bags which might very have been ruined for the afterbirth from her eggs. Jewel could not stop any of herselves from weeping and sobbing like an incontinent coward for the loss of Muriel.

For the torn void that seemed to suck at all four of her chests. She'd done everything right, she'd been proper, she was a countess, she was powerful, she was a wyrm who could call upon the world itself to change and become as she commanded! Yet Muriel was dead, and Jewel was powerless.