The last rays of the setting sun reflected from three blood-red gems inserted into the eye sockets of the rudely hewn statue. The jackal head almost seemed alive with their light, looking down on a huge pregnant belly framed by a pair of wings. A rough stone slab lay in front of the statue, stained brown with sacrificial blood.

  Crouching in the cover of a rock, Guelder couldn't help but ask herself what in the nine hells she was doing here.

  Her research project had been successful. The vivisection of a volunteering patient had revealed the pathogen: seeds of an unknown plant spread by the river water, which matured inside the victims' stomachs, bloomed into portals and gave passage to monsters into this world, destroying the hosts in the process. The brave woman had been healed up, commended for her selfless endeavour, and rewarded generously.

  And so, the frantic struggle against the plague finally started to take the shape of an organised and viable effort. It suddenly became possible to actually save lives. Jhod Kavken, Tristian and Harrim worked overtime to perform the vivisection on as many people as possible. They repurposed the prison as a sort of reinforced hospital and the torture chamber as an operation theatre, as the bars came in handy to contain any monster that would hatch before its host could be operated on. The real hospital was reserved for recovering patients and those suffering from other conditions. Whenever Guelder found the time between rulership duties and speedgrowing soothbark and nightmoss for the surgeries, she visited the prison to keep up the patients' spirits, sometimes even lending a hand to the cleric in charge, and if necessary, taking part in the elimination of a hatching monster.

  With the neighbourhood of the Gudrin evacuated and the cure found, the next step was to identify the murderous plant and destroy it. Sable's druids couldn't link the seed to any known plant species of the Stolen Lands, the vast majority of which were dormant in winter anyway. That left them with invasive plants, with special regard to the unnaturally colourful, iridescent vegetation present in several spots of the barony, including the Temple of the Elk and the Old Sycamore. Guelder had set up a team to search for such plants in the catchment area of the Gudrin, collect any seed they might be producing at this unusual time of the year, and mobilise volunteers to cull the foreign flora. The baroness hoped very much that the culprit would be found among the terrestrial vegetation. The mere idea of having to search through the bed of the Gudrin or even Lake Silverstep in search of an aquatic plant gave her worse nightmares than any illegal miners ever could.

  The Gudrin's banks had been furnished with warning signage, just in case, fishing was suspended all along the river, including Lake Silverstep and Lake Tuskwater, and the capital's lakeside part had been declared a no-go zone. A warning message had been sent to Mivon on the off-chance that some seeds would get there by the waterways. Also, the baroness had shared her results with Varnhold, asking the baron to have his druids scour the area of the Gudrin's source, and requesting some Varnling troops for deployment against the monsters as per the treaty. Setting up rookeries in both capitals for faster communication had been one of her best ideas ever. The reinforcements had arrived in three days, wearing black armbands in remembrance of their general gone missing in action. Guelder had deployed them around Lake Silverstep, and sent a short but heartfelt letter of condolence to Baron Varn. These were cruel times, for Nightvale as well as for Varnhold. But maybe, just maybe, 'missing' did not equal 'dead.'

  All in all, Guelder had her job cut out for her. Then why was she even here, down in the south, near the border of Mivon, lying in ambush at a shrine of Lamashtu with her team and Kesten's militiamen?

  Paradoxically, it was to prevent unnecessary bloodshed.

  The High Priest's mention of the cult of Lamashtu in front of Kesten had its repercussions. Some of the simple folk were already convinced that the goddess behind the plague was Lamashtu, a primal, twisted, demonic force of fertility. Kesten, who was supposed to nudge the people's anger into an acceptable direction, was probably instrumental in spreading this belief, and also represented it in his stubborn and hotheaded way. For Guelder, though, it felt all wrong. It seemed obvious to her that the plague was linked to the Kingdom of the Cleansed, which was definitely not a Lamashtu religion – even though Guelder was still not sure what else it was exactly. If only Tristian was a bit less tight-lipped about his experiences within the cult. If only Linzi didn't keep suggesting a very efficient (and allegedly also pleasant) way to make him more cooperative. If only Guelder's personal boundaries were not under ceaseless attack.

  Although the last thing Guelder needed was demon worship spreading in her barony, she abhorred using the cult of Lamashtu as a scapegoat, and in order to avoid this, she had to dedicate precious time to refuting Kesten's suspicion and squelching the people's misguided anger. Still, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that they were wasting their time instead of getting to the source of the problem… which Jhod instinctively referred to as 'the Bloom,' giving her the creeps. It made her think of the Guardian of the Bloom, the treacherous nymph whose gift she was still wearing around her neck for protection against ranged attacks, even though she should have crushed it under the heel of her boot the moment she’d left the Verdant Chambers. Could that nymph have this much power to hurt her people? Had her trap for Guelder been but a little foreplay to her malicious intentions? Was there a link between the nymph and the Green Mother, Guelder's number one suspect of causing the plague? Or was the baroness toying with fallacies because the wound of betrayal was still festering in her heart?

  Darkness came sooner than expected. As Guelder watched the first cultists trickle in, a strange feeling was creeping up on her. As if a busy anthill sprang to life inside her abdomen. Also, her lower back started to ache, and shifting position didn't help, either. Was she getting old, like a human? Or had she been neglecting her liquid intake so badly that she'd developed kidney stones?

  "Tristian," she mouthed to the cleric crouching to her right. "Can you sense anything abnormal about me? Curse, disease, anything?"

  Tristian's eyes widened in horror.

  "Are you feeling unwell?" he asked softly.

  "I am not sure," she whispered. "Maybe it is just my nerves acting out."

  He reached out and touched her forehead for signs of fever, then took her wrist, feeling for her pulse and, of course, blushing. Guelder guided his hand to the small of her back.

  He shook his head, his brow smoothing out in relief.

  "Nothing," he whispered.

  He was in no hurry to remove his hand from Guelder's back, though, relishing the contact as much as she did. She wondered when he would work up the courage to slip his hand a little downwards and grab her butt, and she secretly rooted for him to do so.

  Wait... what?

  The baroness gently returned Tristian's hand where it belonged, and moved a little further from him as she mulled over the implications. Increased blood flow in her belly, the feeling of two blunt arrows around her kidneys, a strange craving for touch... That could only mean one thing. Something that should have happened decades ago, not above the age of forty.

  Her reproductive system was waking from its hibernation.

  From the outside, Guelder looked like a normal female elf with some feline quirks around her eyes and hands, sufficiently equipped with everything a female was supposed to have. However, her reproductive cycle hadn't started working in the years of her adolescence, neither in the elven nor in the leopard way. Whether this was the cause or the result of her indifference towards romance and sex, or perhaps another side effect of the early wolfsbane treatment, she couldn't tell, and there had been no other wereleopard around for her to pester with questions about her body. Decades went by without the cycle showing any vital signs, and Guelder was thankful to fate that she had one less thing to worry about. Until tonight, when her ovaries suddenly decided to make up for many years spent in blissful inertia, at the worst moment imaginable.

  Was it perhaps the effect of the shrine? But people did not walk into a temple of Shelyn and suddenly become great painters, or approach a shrine of Pharasma and drop dead on the spot. Then why was Lamashtu doing this to her?

  As the darkness deepened, the pain intensified. Guelder remained alone with it, losing track of her surroundings. She felt the urge of asking Tristian for a Cure Light Wounds spell. A silly idea. She had no wounds to cure. She only wanted his touch, some soft massage at her lower back, and then...

  Thorns and brambles, where do these thoughts even come from?

  Something jabbed at her ribs. First gently, then hard. It was Kesten's elbow. Sluggishly, Guelder's mind returned to the task ahead, and realised that the ritual was already in full swing.

  "Now," mouthed Kesten.

  "Remember," whispered Guelder. "Slay only those who attack. Let those who flee go. Capture the priestess alive. All clear?"

  Kesten nodded with apparent reluctance. The baroness sighed inside. The militia came for blood, for an enemy that could be punished, even if it didn't solve their problems. And now she and Kesten had to keep them in line.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She failed, and Kesten didn't even try. They left a lot of dead cultists in their wake, more than they had in their encounter with the Cleansed. Then they set out on a long and tedious chase to round up the priestess, through dangerous ravines and unnatural clouds of darkness. Guelder had to leash Pangur to avoid getting separated from him. The beast's sense of smell led them infallibly towards their target. No wonder. The priestess left behind a sharp smell of pus, so strong that Guelder didn't even have to take her leopard form to stay on her trail. She hoped the cramps would decrease once she put some distance between herself and the shrine, but her hope remained unfulfilled. Every step she took sent a jolt into her lower back, and she was scared to think of what was yet to come.

  The trail led them to a hunting lodge in the side of a hill, where the forest met the deep grass of the meadow. Guelder let Kesten go ahead with the militia, instructing him not to start a fight until she would say so, and fell behind to talk to Hazel.

  "Is something wrong, Guel?"

  Guelder nodded. She forced herself to shove down her embarrassment and look at her friend. She'd never realised how deep and beautiful their eyes were, like the darkest recesses of the forest, with so many stars sparkling inside. Tonight she perceived Hazel as male without any gender ambiguity, and this, too, frightened her. Still, she needed someone she trusted, and Hazel was the closest to that.

  "Hazel, this will sound silly, but can you please help me? I need you to keep men away from me. Or the other way around. Does that make sense?"

  "No. I think you keep men away from yourself just fine. Even Reg has learnt his lesson."

  "You do not understand, Hazel. I think I am in heat. My lower back hurts, and a cartload of aphrodisiacs is circulating in my blood. I fear I am giving off signals that men around me might misunderstand. Especially Tristian. So... please."

  Hazel, bless their heart, was grinning like an idiot.

  "What? You wrought a bloodbath at the shrine of Lamashtu, and as a result, you got healed? You are a normal person now? This is fantastic, Guel! I am so happy for you!"

  Guelder found it hard to believe that a normal person was continually high on sex hormones. If that was normalcy, she was not sure she wanted to partake. How could such people even function?

  "Hazel, I—"

  "If I were you, I would act on it without hesitation. Seriously. This is an opportunity like never before. I will help you create the proper circumstances. Even if you choose Tristian, and not... someone more mature and experienced." They lowered their eyes, blushing.

  "Enough!" snapped Guelder. "You deliberately misunderstand me. I am hurting, frightened, vulnerable. I need help. I need to be kept safe, not set up for a ride I do not want."

  "Are you sure? Listen to your body, Guel, just this once. A druid should know better than refuse to acknowledge her instincts."

  "You leashed me during the moon frenzy to stop me from harming innocents. This is the very same situation, but now you do not take me seriously. Why?"

  "Because now you have been given an awesome new ability to connect with others, something you have been missing out on, and instead of embracing it, you back away like a coward! This is not you, Guel. You are all about leaving your comfort zone and improving yourself. This would be a great way to do just that."

  The baroness groaned in frustration.

  "You know what, Hazel? Forget it. I will manage on my own. And mark my words: if you try to exploit my situation, you are in for a claw swipe and a charge of treason."

  Hazel took a step backwards, as if slapped across the face.

  "I am sorry, Guel. Just... calm down, please. If you need a hug, just say the word."

  Guelder didn't answer. She gritted her teeth, fighting back the tears of anger, then turned around and hurried after the others.

  Once inside the hunting lodge, the baroness eased herself onto a bench near the fireplace, laid her hands on her belly, closed her eyes, and listened to Kesten doing the interrogation. Instead of dangerous cultists, they seemed to have found a couple desperately trying to conceive in spite of some divine grudge, a lone mother worried for the survival of her unborn offspring, and the priestess herself, by the name Tsanna, who was trying to help them all in her own dark and twisted way. As much as Guelder could determine through the veil of her agony, the worship of Lamashtu deserved to flourish in the shadows, because, however revolting it seemed from the outside, it fulfilled all too real and pressing human needs. Even though Kesten (whose voice now sounded strangely arousing, and even his hair didn't look so terrible) was consistently asking the wrong questions, it became clear for Guelder that she had been right all along. The origin of the Bloom was not to be found here.

  She took a deep breath and braced up to take over.

  "That will be enough, Kesten," she said, rising from the bench. "We are wasting our time here. Let the priestess help those who came to her for support, and then she will leave my lands for good. Next time, I will not be so lenient."

  The priestess squinted to take a better look at Guelder.

  "So you haven't completely forgotten your roots, after all," she said.

  "What do you mean?" demanded Guelder, careful not to betray how her stomach twisted into knots.

  "You and your thugs followed me here to ask questions, and I answered them. Now it's your turn. Answer your own question. I'm sure you asked it many, many times, growing up and seeing that you were not like other children of your race. You were an outcast, rejected, bullied. Or you were kept hidden from the world, to spare you from being hurt... or to spare others from being hurt by you. Did you ever ask your parents why you were different? What did they say?"

  Guelder pressed her lips together. The sour, earthy taste of edelcup root filled her mouth. She felt numb and stupid, fumbling to get ahold of even the most trivial thoughts. This was how she used to wake up in that dark little cavern in her home grove after her regular blackout once every four weeks.

  "I had no parents to ask," she said softly.

  A part of her wondered why she was even discussing her childhood in front of her team and subjects with a foreign woman who had reeking, festering sores all over her leg and was proud of them. However, that didn't really matter at the moment. The priestess held her gaze, probing the depths of her subconscious for buried secrets.

  "Perhaps they were not there to answer your questions, but they live on in your heart. A mother who refused to be prey and chose to join the pack instead. A father who imparted his seed and his blessing to her, making their cub stronger than either of them. Your kind often finds their way to my goddess. Perhaps you will never work up the courage to discover your origins. But one thing is sure: you belong with the pack. Sooner or later you will hear the call and return. Your womb is strong and, at long last, alive. You can give birth to another cub like yourself, and you might even survive, for the glory of the Mother of Monsters."

  "Enough," spat Guelder. It was a lie. Hell, how she craved for more. This stranger could hold the answers to a host of questions she had. Perhaps she could perform some ritual to remove the blocks in Guelder's mind and let her access her memories buried deep beneath the forest soil, where no mycelium could ever reach them, let alone the light of day.

  "Take your time. Open your soul to the Mother's call. You've been taken from her embrace at a young age, and your potential was severely impaired by those who wanted to cure you." The priestess pronounced this word with as much disdain as she could squeeze in. "But the Mother can heal you. Return to her with a sacrifice, someone close to your heart, a thing of beauty as you outsiders see it. Then she might grant you her mercy and restore the raw, untamed power you were born to wield."

  The world turned with Guelder. It took all her self-discipline to stay upright and unmoved. How could this woman know about Master Thalion's experiment of treating a natural werecreature with wolfsbane at an early age? It had almost cost little Guelder's life, but the old druid had been extremely proud of his accomplishment, a partially healed wereleopard, without hybrid form or damage reduction, who could easily pass for an average druid with a special knack for one shapeshift. He'd created an almost perfect persona for her that would help her fit into society, as long as she was properly drugged and restrained at full moon. All she had to do was avoid silver jewellery and wear gloves. Master Thalion had been convinced he was doing a good thing, and Guelder, too, had been thankful to him, up until this day. It had never occurred to her that she had been, in fact, not partially healed but maimed and stunted. The idea of a ticking fertility bomb in her abdomen didn't improve her mood, either.

  "Enough!" she exploded. She grabbed the robe on the priestess's chest and screamed into her face from up close. "When I say enough, you shut your mouth!"

  A cheeky smile spread over Tsanna's face as Guelder's claws ripped holes into her shirt. She knew a desperate person when she saw one.

  "Come to the shrine tomorrow," she whispered. "I might have something for you, if you are willing to pay the price."