Serai Zakail’s world had been small before the Malady, contained only to the village before him, his parents bakershop, the small shrine by the river they visited on their days off. His playground was the trees around them, his playthings old ribbons, and his days filled with work so joyous it scarcely felt like labour. His sister, Mimi attended the cows, and his younger brother Finch was just old enough to knead dough with his little hands. The bakery made steady money, and his parents remained satisfied in their conviction that it had not been ill advised for an Infernal couple to settle in the village of Brinshall at all.

He had been six when the first whispers of illness began to take root. It was covered up cleanly, imports from the city barred, and only spoken about in hushed tones amongst the shrinegoers gossips. The Goddess had favored the family greatly, or at least, that was what his mother had said when the Malady came upon little Finch, and his small body lay sweating and seizing upon a makeshift cot in the village hall. He had been spared, and that was that, for Serai’s quiet life.

The Sanctuary was not quiet. Tranquil, yes, but never quiet, always moving, gently, softly, in the night like a worrying mother, like a careful nurse. It took Finch beneath its stony arms, courtyards and gentle waters enveloping him like a second mother, and Asteria let him go quite quietly into the living arms of the order and ecclesiastical robes.

Mimi hated such tranquility wirh all her body. She had always been a child of the winds, and did not quite find sheep a sufficient replacement for her beloved cows.

For Serai, this was his making.

For Mimi, her undoing.