Recorded in the Year of the Third Reflection

  From The Chronicles of Mireth, Book II, page 47

  Loteri Lands Oral Histories, Steppe and Desert Accounts

  “The Elders said that in the first time the Loteri Lands were whole. There was no Steppe and no Desert, only endless green grasslands. Prey was plentiful, and life water ran freely through fertile fields. The Loteri lived without borders, sharing water and land, settling disputes in circles rather than behind walls. The land answered them because they listened first.

  In the far North lived one Loteri apart from the others. His name was left unkept. The Whisperer Spirit of the Lands tested him, and he failed. Greed took hold. He dammed the rivers, built a fortress around the deepest springs, and demanded payment for water. Gold came first, then leather and tools, and finally children. The land suffered with every bargain. Grass cracked, prey fled, and water withdrew beneath the ground. Some Loteri left, but many stayed, unwilling to abandon their homes.

  The Great Sun judged him with fire. The fortress burned, stone split, and gold melted into the soil. The greedy one was found later, his eyes burned out, the ruins ringing with children’s cries. Yet the land did not heal. Water hid itself deeper still, and thirst remained.

  The Loteri gathered in a great circle and smoked the sacred bud. They listened rather than pleaded. From their prayers, the smoke, and the reflection of missing water, the Mother was born. Vast and patient, plated in blue and old copper, she listened to the earth itself.

  The Steppe and Desert Loteri called her Drommala, She Who Finds Life Water. In older speech she was Morrawyn, She Who Walks the Buried Rivers.

  She found life water and turned the Loteri from dead water. She stood between them and storms, and did not move aside when war crossed the plains.

  When the Mother left, she gave the Loteri her daughter Drommala, so they might survive what the land had become. In return, she demanded care without possession, guarding without chains, and listening without command. This was the binding of the pact.

  A daughter Drommala lived close to a hundred years. When her end neared, the Loteri sought the Mother again. She judged them by stillness. If she agreed, another daughter was given. If she refused, nothing could move her. Long ago, the Loteri tried force, and every attempt failed. They learned the rites were invitations, not commands.

  In early generations, some Loteri carried the old reflective tongue in their blood and could commune with the Mother directly. Over time, wars scattered families and memory fractured, and the tongue fell silent among the Loteri.

  Then the Mirrorwalkers appeared. They carried the old tongue through reflection, altered yet intact. They did not command the Mother nor speak for the Loteri, but served as vessels, carrying truth between need and judgement.

  Thus the pact endured. The Lands were no longer whole and life was no longer easy, but it remained, changed by time, bound by care, and unbroken.”

  ***

  Liana had been gone from her commune for days, roaming the uneven border where the Steppe slowly gave up and turned into the Desert. Her braid was pulled tight to keep it out of her way, though it did nothing to stop the sand from finding every possible place to stick. She was hunting Feather-tail Cats, small colourful creatures with tails tipped in metallic feathers, the best kind for fletching Solbloom Bow arrows, durable and light enough to fly true.

  The cats only showed themselves during their short mating season. At dusk, the females rolled in the sand and called to the males with a click-clock sound that carried across the dunes. It would have been romantic if it were not so loud. During that time, their Stillness Veil, the magic that froze you stiff before you could blink, weakened just enough to make hunting possible.

  Liana heard the call, low and steady. She crouched, whispered her counter-spell, and felt the air snap back to normal. There it was, sleek and golden, tail glowing like metal in sunlight. She moved quickly. A clean snatch. A twist. She came away with a metallic feather. The cat dashed off, offended but very much alive.

  She stood for a moment, brushing sand from her knees, and glanced at the feathers in her hand.

  “Three days of chasing for nine feathers,” she muttered. “Perfect math.”

  There was a hint of pride in her voice. She carefully packed the feathers into her pouch and started back toward camp before the heat decided to argue again.

  A memory rose uninvited. Her father sat beside their leather tent, turning a broken feather between his fingers, examining it as if it mattered.

  “Not bad for my daughter, for the first time,” he had said. “Excellent for any other Steppe hunter.”

  He was a Steppe legend, though he never acted like one. A hunter and guide who could read the wind better than most could read a map. People said the Drommala trusted him, and maybe that was true. He did not talk much. He did not need to.

  Her mother had died when Liana was born, so it had been just the two of them. He raised her between hunts, between long rides and longer silences. No speeches. No soft words. He showed her things instead. How to track by shadow. How to hear water under stone. How to keep moving when the world did not care if you stopped. He was not gentle, but he was steady. His kind of love was not something you said. It was something you did. Liana learned every bit of it.

  She was still smiling when a silhouette cut the sunset clean open. Toren. Covered in dust, panting, hair a mess.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Such a nice surprise,” she thought, then said aloud, “Took the wrong turn, Toren?”

  It had taken him longer than expected to find her. His guiding magic, the one that let him sense other Steppe Loteri across distance, weakened the moment he crossed into the borderlands. The desert interfered with it. Sand scattered and reflected the magic, breaking its direction like light in a mirror. Every step sent his sense spinning the wrong way. By the time he caught Liana’s trail, he had lost nearly a day circling dunes and dry wind.

  When he saw her at last, crouched low with her bow and dust in her braid, relief hit harder than he wanted to admit. There was no time to rest. The Drommala was dying, and he had already spent too long finding her. He looked at Liana, confused, not understanding the joke. His expression was lost, almost boyish.

  “The Drommala is dying,” he said quietly.

  Liana’s eyes darkened. Her lower lip trembled before she caught it. The loss of the Drommala was not just sorrow. It was sacred. The Drommala was the heart of their life and balance.

  “The Elders sent me,” Toren said. “They are gathering the guides. It is down to hours. Maybe less.”

  They packed in silence, throwing her gear together without caring about order. When everything was ready, Liana whistled sharply. Ineya lifted her head from the steppe grass and galloped toward her.

  Liana swung into the saddle and nodded. “Come on.”

  He swung up behind her and locked one arm around her waist, anchoring them together. On any other day, he might have blushed at the closeness. Not today.

  He reached inward instead, sinking his awareness into the quiet, patient strength of the Steppe. The land answered. With his free hand, he drew the power up through himself and fed it forward into Ineya.

  The horse surged beneath them, hooves barely touching the ground. Dust rose in a tight spiral around their path as the Steppe pushed them on, relentless and swift. Ineya ran as if the wind itself had chosen her.

  It took only a couple of hours instead of half a day before the faint outline of the commune appeared on the horizon.

  Darkness had already spread across the land when they arrived. Smoke rose in the distance, first thin, then thick above the fire pits. Toren still hoped the healing rites were continuing. He had burned the herbs himself the day before, circling the Drommala with smoke, praying she would recover.

  The air changed as they neared the centre. The fires no longer smelled of herbs, but of farewell. Then they heard it, the funeral song, low and trembling, spreading through the night.

  They were too late. The Drommala was dead.

  Her body lay still at the centre. The once-brilliant hide had cooled into blue and burnished copper scales, fitted together like worked metal. Her long trunk curved downward, its segmented length resting against the ground, the tip half-coiled, as if movement had only just left it. Torches packed with healing herbs burned around the pyre, their smoke thick and bitter-sweet, returning brief colour to her body. In the flicker of firelight, the Drommala looked both tragic and majestic.

  The Loteri sat cross-legged, mirrors pressed to chests and brows, faces striped with ochre and grief. No one spoke. No chatter. Just the old funeral song, wrapping everyone in its rhythm. Liana and Toren joined the crowd, adding their quiet, uneven voices.

  When the song faded, the Steppe and Desert Elders formed the first circle around the pyre. Ritual masks marked with ancient runes were fitted with small pieces of mirror, tied with red thread, their hands woven together in the old gestures.

  Liana dropped to one knee, palms pressed into dust. Toren joined her, bowing his still-messy head. Words did not come. They had not for a long time.

  “Yesterday,” Toren whispered. “I thought maybe she would recover.”

  Liana did not answer.

  The chanting shifted. Desert Elders took over, voices deep and rolling like sandstorms. They lifted small brass mirrors tied with red string and called her Morrawyn, She Who Finds Life Water.

  Morrawyn vel, na shara ven.

  They asked the Great Sun for justice, not mercy. The smoke would carry her home.

  “Do you think she will be back?” Toren asked quietly.

  Liana said. “Only if we deserve it.”

  The Elders signalled. Children and Wise Mothers moved to the outer ring, lighting small fires and scattering steppe grass seeds. Smaller circles formed. Bone pipes were brought out, smooth and darkened with age, packed with sacred bud.

  The smell spread fast. Dry and green. Familiar. Sweet on the first breath, bitter underneath. Smoke mixed with the burning wood and settled heavy in the air. The pipes passed hand to hand. No one hurried. Each person drew, breathed toward the fire, passed it on. The smoke settled over faces, clothes, thoughts. Not to erase the pain. Just to make it bearable.

  Stories followed. Quiet ones. The first time she led them to water. Her shadow at sunset, long enough to cover a caravan. Toren spoke of getting lost as a child, of her turning them from dead water. Heads nodded. Everyone remembered something.

  Liana listened, pipe resting on her knee, saying nothing. The smell wrapped around her like an old memory. Every breath heavier. Slower. Easier.

  They spoke of fifty-three years of the Drommala sharing their lives. Of life water found and dead water avoided. Without her, there would be no communes. No trade. No life.

  When the pipes burned out, no one spoke. They watched the last sparks drift upward. It was no longer sadness. Just stillness. Acceptance.

  The Drommala was gone. The Steppe would have to find a new protector. Silence returned, heavy and absolute. Only the fire crackled. Liana exhaled. Toren did too.

  The ritual was over.

  Some Loteri remained seated on the ground. Others lay where they were. No one rushed. No one was moved along. Liana rose slowly, brushed the dust from her palms, and looked toward the faint glow of dawn behind the dunes.

  “Come on,” she said. “Tomorrow everything starts again.”

  They walked away in silence, not quite steady on their feet, smoke curling behind them. On the way to the communal tent they shared with few other young Loteri, Toren spoke.

  “Liana. I think someone or something helped the Drommala die.”

  Liana stopped mid-step, brow tightening. “What do you mean? How would that even be possible? The Caretaker’s job is to protect it no matter what. And the guardians wouldn’t just let it happen. Not with the Drommala’s power.”

  “When I was burning the herbs and walking the healing circle around her,” he said, “I saw markings on her scales. Near the belly. Runes, half-hidden by the plates. I have never seen that kind before.”

  “I hope you told the Elders.”

  “Of course. That is why they are calling me to the Elders’ tent tomorrow.”

  Dawn thinned the last of the smoke. The Steppe waited, silent, for whatever came next.