Eleventh Cycle (Mistland Book 1) by Kian N. Ardalan

Author:Kian N. Ardalan [Ardalan, Kian N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kian N. Ardalan
Published: 2023-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

For several more hours, I treated the dying. The night light made the walk through the abandoned folk an eerie act.

The darkness had swallowed this place. The differing shades of pallid grey all the way to inky black provided a camouflage to the afflicted as they groaned and mumbled from the ground. A lantern’s soft light was what provided me passage through here. I drifted among the dying as an uninvited guest: a white smear cutting through a canvas of black.

I stopped from person to person, my hands cleaning them, wiping away the turbid sweat with its sickly smell.

“Breshna, is that you?” asked one old lady as I approached her. The dark curtains retreated, releasing their closed fingers of night from the frail woman as I brought her into the light.

“I’m afraid not; my name is Mother Dalila,” I said.

I looked at the woman and noticed the rot had already claimed her eyes. Milky white stared out and was tainted by black specks that distorted her pupils.

“Ah, I see.” She sounded disappointed.

“What is your name?” I asked, trying to find common ground between our great chasm.

“Ingrid,” she said.

“That’s a beautiful name.”

She scoffed, wet phlegm turning it into a raspy sound. “‘Beautiful,’ that’s a word I hadn’t heard in a long time,” she said rather sadly.

“Well, I think you ought to hear it more often,” I countered cheerfully.

“You’re a sweet girl.”

I pressed one of the rags to her forehead. “That feels good,” she said, her lost eyes closed shut and she appeared at peace for just a moment.

“There is more where that came from.”

Her eyes opened, and despite being blind she looked at me, her skin a darkening grey, the rot spreading black, veiny roots across her cracked skin.

“I am not much longer for this world, child,” she confided. I didn’t know how to respond. “Just once. I wish I could see my Breshna again.”

“Who is she?”

“My daughter.”

“Perhaps I can find her for you?”

Ingrid shook her head. “That is sweet of you, but there is no need. She doesn’t want to visit me. Too scared she will contract the rot.”

“I am afraid visitors aren’t allowed because of the risk involved.”

She sighed. “I simply wish I could have felt her touch again, one last time,” she admitted, the barest of cracks to her voice. Ingrid sounded like she let go of her final piece of misguided hope, a last selfish desire. A single pitch black tear trailed down her shut eye.

I removed my glove. “I hope this will suffice.” I took the bare and unprotected skin of my palm to the old woman’s cheek.

She was comforted by the act, letting out a pleased sigh. It took only a moment for her to realise what was happening as shut lids burst open.

“What are you doing?” she demanded with surprised and horrified whispers.

“It’s okay,” I said. The momentary act of human contact was worth seeing her face light up.

But Ingrid wanted none of it. She grabbed my hand and forced it away, black tar

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