Sleep 10, 846
Kavir loved the moment when wood split. It didn’t matter if a branch snapped in a storm, or two halves of a mighty log rocked apart on the far side of the head saw — the sounds always satisfied him to his core. He loved tromping around with Kyro, trailing their grandfather as he explained his work in the lumbermill to them. His first day working at the mill himself had been the proudest day of his life, though he wondered if that would still be true in a few more hours.
Anaya’s divine hand had shown itself the moment his brother had met Vela. Within a week, Vela broke off her engagement to her then-fiancé to court with Kyro. Their love was so strong that Kavir and Kyro’s grandfather would say leaving milk in the same room as the couple would turn it into sweet cream. The wedding itself had been a joyous, whirling affair with everyone from Red Birch in attendance. Even Vela’s scorned love had come, fuming and lurking in the corner, unable to bring down the mood no matter how hard he sulked.
It had been the last bright day before their grandfather sickened, his age finally catching up to the mighty man. He died in his bed, content and stoic, having never learned that his first great-grandchild would arrive in the world that very year. Kavir was determined to love the child extra on his grandfather’s behalf.
Kyro announced Vela’s pregnancy at church, the community on their feet and cheering. Births always brought celebrations in Red Birch. Only Vela’s ex-lover remained seated, elbows on his knees as he bent double in some prayer or other. Kavir remembered seeing him brooding, but dismissed it. He shouldn’t have.
Moons later, when Vela gripped her stomach in pain, Kavir ran to get Fira, the closest person Red Birch had to a midwife. He’d whooped and hollered his way through the village, calling to neighbours.
“It’s happening! I’m going to be an uncle!”
Cheers flew in his wake and calls for luck and blessings followed him on the return trip as he led Fira to his brother’s home. Following her inside, he carefully averted his eyes from the single bedroom, keeping his excitement firmly bottled in the main living area. It didn’t take long for him to begin to fidget — at one-and-twenty winters he still had the energy and vigour of youth. When the labour stretched into hours, he let his brother know he would go for a short walk, making Kyro promise to call for him if the baby decided to come in his absence.
Snow piled thickly around the village, fat flakes tumbling from the night. Kavir pulled himself through the highest banks, joining existing pathways with the few outbuildings that had not yet been visited since the last storm. The exercise warmed his blood, and it felt good to do something useful.
Kavir grinned as he thought about watching his new little niece or nephew walk across snow for the first time. They would make their first snowballs together, Kavir decided, and ambush Vela and Kyro. Gentle chaos was an uncle’s duty, after all.
Fira’s voice cut through the wind as he marched back towards his brother’s home. He couldn’t catch the words, but her tone, normally so measured and authoritative, was ragged with panic. She shouted again, and he heard his name. He broke into a run, hauling his body as fast as it would go over the wintery terrain, heedless of ice or hidden dangers.
Please let the baby be okay. The baby’s got to be okay!
By the time he climbed the front steps, Fira had stopped calling, the door to the house closed tight against the weather. Images of a baby, still and blue, or too small, or swollen and red as a cherry swirled in his mind. He had never been present at a birth, but his neighbours always whispered about the things that could go wrong and his imagination had no trouble filling in the gaps.
Anaya’s light — what if it’s Vela?
Sweet, shy Vela, who never had a mean word to say about anyone. His brother would be devastated if anything happened to her, and the village would be less for her loss. Kavir prayed that he had imagined the fear in Fira’s cry. Please let them be okay. Let my family be okay.
As his hand closed around the door handle, Kavir hesitated, his eye caught on the window closest to the door. His brain didn’t process what he saw for a long moment, blank denial pushing aside all other thoughts. Bright red spray painted the glass in an arc, droplets running slowly towards the sill. Swallowing deeply, Kavir pushed open the door, letting it swing wide before him, not daring to step through the threshold.
Kyro lay on the ground, twisted at an unlikely angle. Blood pooled around his head, soaking into a russet cloak Kavir didn’t recognize. His fingers still clutched a silver knife, wet with red to the hilt.
Kavir couldn’t breathe. Everything inside of him froze solid in a moment, tears stinging his eyes as he stared down at the blood. He could not possibly be alive with that much blood.
“Kavir? Is that you?” Fira shouted from the other room. “They’re in here! I need your help!”
It took him a long moment to start moving, eyes glued to the body. As he stepped around it, the man’s face came into clear view. Not his brother. Not Kyro. Vela’s ex-lover stared blankly into the room, a wound like a ribbon crossing his throat and still dripping his lifeblood.
The realization pushed a new sense of urgency into Kavir’s stride and he flew into the bedroom, needing to see Kyro whole and okay. The smell of blood and shit reached him first, so thick on the air it sat like cotton on his tongue. Cold prickled up his body, robbing his limbs of feeling as he half-ran, half-fell to his brother’s side.
“Kyro, no! No, no, no.” Kavir hovered one hand just above the brown-red slits on his brother’s stomach, eyes travelling from them, to the larger gash caving in Kyro’s shoulder. “What happened. Kyro?”
Kyro lay slumped against the dresser that had once been their grandfather’s, a blood-tipped axe laying in a limp grip beside him. His head bobbed like a drunkard, eyes flickering in and out of focus, gaze drifting toward the bed where Fira worked feverishly over an alarmingly pale Vela.
He didn’t register Kavir’s presence for a long moment, blinking slowly when he finally focused on his younger brother. When he realized Kavir had arrived, he moved quicker than Kavir would have thought possible, given his state. Kyro snatched up Kavir’s hands, dropping the axe with a clatter to grip his brother tight enough to turn both of their hands white.
“Kavir! Kavir, be careful… he’s… he’s got a knife.” Kyro’s breath bubbled between the words. “You must protect Vela…” another pained gasp, “and the baby.”
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” Kavir gripped his brother back, heat overtaking his eyes as hot tears spilled down his face. His head felt full of lightening — too hot and blinding to think around. “He’s dead. He can’t do any more harm.”
Kyro’s grip relaxed as a drop of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“Good… good… that’s good.” His eyes went distant for a moment, shifting from Kavir to somewhere further before flickering back to the present, and his wife, still and quiet on the bed beneath Fira’s swirling activity. “You must protect them, Kavir… promise me you will protect them… love them.” He tried to cough, blood welling from the stinking wounds in his stomach.
“Of course… I promise… just don’t… just stay…” Kavir begged in sobs. Later, he would wish that he could have remained calm to give his brother a more peaceful exit to the world. He hated the thought of his brother’s last moments filled with tears and weeping, but he could not contain the grief that overflowed him.
When his brother’s tortured breathing stopped, the stillness came as a shock. Kavir had never watched someone die before. The transition from his brother to a corpse made him want to vomit. Suddenly, he couldn’t bear to look at that terrible stillness.
He didn’t want to know what had happened to Vela and the baby. No sound came from the bed now, Fira’s attempts having come to a slow halt as Kyro left the world. The older woman sat on the side of the bed, cradling a tiny, naked form.
Kavir wanted to run. He wanted to throw himself into the snow and let the pure white cleanse the blood from the night. If he left now, he would never need to know what happened to the rest of his family. He could walk to another village and convince himself that Vela raised the child alone in Red Birch, somewhere out of sight that he’d always mean to visit.
But that way lay a different sort of madness. Better to face the insanity before him, like his grandfather would have, and try to come out the other side, rather than running and having it overtake him slowly. With a deep breath, he placed his brother’s hands across his stomach and crossed the room to stand beside the bed. His steps weighed like lead.
Vela lay still and pale, the sheets pulled up to her chin. Drops of blood speckled her face, but Kavir could not spot a wound. Red soaked the sheets around her birthing place, spreading from her like a halo, even through the sheet. Kavir didn’t want to look at the baby, but he remembered his promise to his brother. He had failed to protect them, but he could still show Vela and the child love.
He shouldn’t have looked. The tiny body broke him in two. Any scrap of composure he might have held onto through his brother’s death shattered at the sight of the infant, deathly still and pale as a foreigner. He fell to his knees, racked by sobs. Gently, Fira pressed the little body into his hands, moving beside Kavir and stroking his back.
“I’m so sorry,” Fira offered. “They’re both gone.” But Kavir barely heard her.
He couldn’t lose them all. Life already felt surreal and empty without his grandfather, he couldn’t lose the rest of his family in one night. He bundled the baby close to his chest, wrapping his cloak around the chill body. He knew it was dead with the certainty of a stone, but he couldn’t help himself as he began rocking and shushing it, tears and sobs still escaping him.
He prayed then, more fervently than he had ever prayed for anything. He needed someone to live — to keep at least one piece of family after this nightmarish night. He begged, unsure if he did so out loud or if Fira had left to get help. Unsure of anything.
“Lady in Light… Anaya… please. Please. Bring them back.” He shuddered, bent double over the baby’s body as he pleaded with the goddess he had worshipped all his life. “Pluck them from the wind and renew their lives. I cannot lose them.”
The room remained as still as a tomb, the blood around Kyro and Vela catching the lanternlight, highlighting the futility of his efforts. Fira had left, the wind beyond the cottage’s walls masking any sounds from the village. Kavir shifted to sit with his back against the bed, still cradling and bouncing the dead baby. When he leaned his head back, he felt the wet of Vela’s blood in his hair, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Anaya, I have prayed to you all my life. I have been good and devout. If you ever loved me, please let this baby live.”
He could almost hear his grandfather telling him to let it go. He wouldn’t have approved of this display, keeping himself strong and stoic as an oak. But he was dead, and Kavir could not find whatever well of strength the old man had pulled from.
“Please… anyone. Anybody, please save him. He’s not even had a chance to live yet. I’ll raise him the best I can. I’ll love him forever, just… please… save him.”
The sun peeked through the shutters, rising to paint the bruised clouds briefly pink. It blinded Kavir, but he didn’t move, just screwing his eyes closed and hanging his head over his precious charge. The sliver of sunlight warmed him, and he breathed a little easier for its touch. Not wanting the baby to leave this world without ever knowing sunshine, he held the little body up to the light, a high, mad giggle escaping him as he watched himself.
The bright light allowed Kavir to see more of the boy than the lanterns had. He had Kyro’s nose and a hint of his grandfather in the mouth. He would have Vela’s eyes, Kavir decided, though they remained firmly closed. In this light, he didn’t look so pale. The gray tinge to his skin could be ignored in the sunlight, and Kavir could imagine him alive and sleeping.
Kavir almost dropped the baby when it squirmed. He yelped in surprise, pulling the infant close as it coughed and fussed, face scrunched in dissatisfaction. Still tiny and pale, but the boy lived.
Fira returned with their neighbours as the baby began to wail. She stared at the child for a long moment, blinking in disbelief before locking eyes with Kavir. As their neighbours began covering and moving Kyro’s and Vela’s bodies, Fira helped Kavir stand on shaking legs, and stumble towards her own house where she could better treat the baby. She didn’t ask any questions, moving instead in tight-lipped silence.
As they stepped into the snow, Kavir tilted his head back, soaking in the sunlight. It lacked the warmth and comfort he had felt inside, doing little to ward off the icy morning chill, but he revelled in it anyway. As he followed Fira to her home, doing his best to warm the child in his arms, he glanced towards the East where the rising sun disappeared into a layer of clouds.
“Thank you,” he whispered, unsure of exactly who he spoke to, but somehow knowing they had heard.