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I checked on the serum components in the small cooling station at the infirmary. Once I verified everything was good, I locked the door on the device again.
"You’re making good use of that old thing," Maagda observed. "If the medicine works to stop Javorians from going feral, it will change everything."
"Let’s hope so."
We looked out the window to see the soldiers training further down in the field today. "Their morale seems to have improved since Varus brought Dremos onboard," I noted.
Maagda sucked her teeth. "I should clock my cousin upside the head for staying in the settlement for so long. If I had known he ran a store, I would’ve asked for a discount a long time ago."
My gaze shot to her. "Did you say General Dremos is your cousin?"
"Yes. What about it?"
"He said you liked to pick moth heart flowers when you were little. Do you still remember where you used to pick them?"
"It’s been so long. I know I don’t look my age, but, ah." She snapped her fingers. "As a matter of fact, I can recall the spot."
"Let’s go."
"You want to pick flowers now?"
"Absolutely."
"Wait. Isath's patrol could be out there. You don't come equipped with fangs." She opened a drawer and presented me with a small, old stun pistol. "Should be a cartridge somewhere around here."
"I have one." I produced one from my knapsack. "Never thought I'd need this to go pick flowers but here we are." I loaded the cartridge.
"You know, moth heart isn’t even a pretty flower. I just liked to blow the petals off it and smear the pollen everywhere as a child. You might prefer the red ivy that grows on the southern end of the cavern."
"No, I want moth heart. Besides, they aren’t for me. They’re for Varus."
"Hmm, I never knew His Majesty liked flowers. That’s a thoughtful gift."
I turned off lights in the infirmary and ushered her out of the door. "I’ll be just as happy to give it to him as he will be to receive it. Lead the way."
Maagda and I finally left the infirmary. The soldiers were on break for lunch. I figured it meant we'd have close to an hour before someone might need medical attention.
I followed my fellow medic out from the safety of the camp and further into the canyon. The sky was overcast today. Clouds moved over in the direction of the cliffs settlement. They hovered over the mountains far in the distance. It was too far and cloudy for me to see the citadel. I thought of Varus and what it may have been like for him to look out every morning and see how far the kingdom spread.
Wind whipped past the rock walls of the gorge and pushed through the narrow spaces of outlying ledges. The constant, keening sound it made produced low eerie whistles.
Maagda shivered. "Dremos was so mean to me growing up. He used to tell me that sound came from the ghosts of ancient Racopians who weren’t given a proper funeral."
"We have stories like that on my planet, too."
"What do you think it means?"
"That kids can act bratty anywhere in the universe."
She laughed at my joke, but I saw she stayed tense as we crossed over a small stream.
We walked for another mile. A few times, Maagda went down one trail, stopped, turned, and resumed moving down another path. "Is everything alright, Maagda?"
"I’m trying to remember exactly where that field of flowers was." She scanned the area around a shrub that looked like a Joshua tree. "It may have grown over since the last time I came by this way."
I raised my face to view the vast span of sky. We didn’t have any cover this far from the caverns. Anyone with an aerial view could’ve spotted us. "My old camo ACUs would come in handy right about now."
Maagda made a beeline a hundred feet ahead, turned right, and stopped. I caught up with her. She pointed to an outcropping of dry moss-covered rock seven paces ahead. "Up there."
