The cold grip of winter finally loosened its hold, giving way to a muddy, unforgiving spring. I was approaching my third year in this new form, my body now more cooperative, capable of confident, if still short, strides. I could manage simple tasks – fetching small objects, pointing to what I wanted, mimicking complex sounds with increasing accuracy. The facade of normalcy was a meticulously crafted mask, worn to perfection, but beneath it, my mind raced, hungry for knowledge, frustrated by the pace of my physical development.
My daily routine was a cycle of intense observation and simulated infancy. I spent hours listening, sifting through the common chatter for any nugget of information about the outer world. My understanding of the local dialect was now comprehensive, allowing me to fully grasp the despair that permeated every conversation. The Montala faith, I noticed, was not only a tool of control but a source of false hope. People clung to its promises of an afterlife free from suffering, even as its priests actively perpetuated their earthly misery. It was a cruel paradox, one I was determined to expose, should I ever gain the means.
Mara's condition had worsened. Her cough was now a constant, ragged hacking that often left her gasping for breath, her frail body wracked with tremors. The dark circles under her eyes seemed to grow deeper each day, and her skin, already pale, took on a waxen sheen. She spent less time at the loom, more time huddled under thin blankets, her strength failing. The other hovel dwellers, equally poor and burdened, offered what meager help they could, but their resources were as depleted as their spirits. I watched her decline with a detached, clinical eye. Her illness was a consequence of this brutal world, a natural extension of its cruelty. Her potential demise would change my immediate circumstances, and I needed to be prepared.
The hovel itself became a breeding ground for sickness. The dampness, the lack of clean water, the constant hunger – these were perfect conditions for disease to spread. First, old Man Borin, his cough growing harsh, then young Elara, her skin burning with fever. The quiet despair of the hovel transformed into a palpable fear. Traditional remedies, useless against the systemic failings, were tried and failed. The Montala priests, when called, offered only prayers and empty platitudes, demanding additional 'offerings' for divine intervention that never came.
One night, the fever took hold of a newborn in a neighboring family's section of the hovel. Its cries, weak at first, grew into a terrible, unending wail that tore through the pre-dawn darkness. The infant thrashed, its small body convulsing. Its mother, a young woman named Lena, was beside herself with grief, rocking the child frantically, murmuring desperate prayers to Montala. The helpless cries, the raw despair, filled the air.
My own infant body felt the physical vibrations of the wails, and a primitive part of my brain, perhaps a remnant of actual infancy, stirred with a faint, sympathetic ache. But my adult mind asserted control. Observation. Analyze. The Montala chants grew louder from Lena's lips, desperate, superstitious appeals for intervention. Yet the infant continued to convulse.
A guard, one of the lesser ones who sometimes patrolled the outskirts of the village, had been called by another hovel-dweller, perhaps hoping for aid, or simply because the noise was disturbing his rest. He stood in the doorway, a hulking silhouette against the faint moonlight, his face grim. He watched the scene with a mix of impatience and thinly veiled disgust.
"Cease that noise!" he barked, his voice rough. "It disturbs the village. If the child is weak, it is the Lord Montala's will."
Lena, consumed by her grief, paid him no mind, her desperate cries for her child continuing. The infant's convulsions worsened. Its breath hitched, then rattled. And then, abruptly, it ceased. The hovel fell into a terrifying silence, broken only by Lena's quiet, broken sobs.
I watched, my breath held. My mind, cold and calculating, registered the exact moment of death, the shift in the air, the collapse of Lena's body over her child. The guard merely grunted, turned, and walked away, leaving the hovel to its grief. The Montala priest offered no comfort, no miracle. The Crown offered no aid.
It was a grim, brutal lesson in the true nature of this reality. There was no divine intervention, no higher power looking out for these people. Only a rigid system, justified by a corrupt religion, designed to control and exploit, even unto death. My face remained expressionless, but inside, the cold resolve to dismantle such a system, to introduce a true path of reason and justice, solidified into an unbreakable vow. This was not a temporary stay. This was my war, and I was just beginning to understand
the enemy.