The last groan of stressed timber echoed in the humid air, a final mournful sound swallowed by the churning, acidic mire. Mokhwa turned away from the drop, smoothing lime-ash over her palms. The upper tiers would rot like the rest, but not before she purged their fattened occupants. Olor-Ban, his face a mask of panicked authority, barked orders at his guards. “Secure all connections! Double the patrols! No one enters or leaves these levels!” Mokhwa stepped forward, her voice a low, steady current against the patriarch’s bluster. “Patriarch. The brood’s hunger grows with the tides. Our conventional remedies will not suffice. We must initiate the cleansing ritual of the Mire-Stork’s ancient ways, as outlined in the texts of the first mud-divers.” She kept her gaze fixed, unwavering. “It demands specific conditions.” Olor-Ban paused, his eyes, usually sharp with calculation, now clouded with fear. “Cleansing ritual? What conditions?” “Complete isolation. Extreme heat. And the application of specialized unguents, drawn from the deepest, most potent black muds, to draw the affliction to the surface.” Mokhwa pointed toward the eastern corridor, where heat plumed through slatted floor vents. “The spiritual midwife must guide the expulsion.” “Expulsion?” Jagat-Ban, propped against a velvet cushion, coughed, a thin, rattling sound. His abdomen pulsed beneath his tunic, a living nest of unseen beaks. “You mean cure us, undertaker. Not… expulsion.” His voice was a weak snarl. “Only the bog-mother knows her path to balance,” Mokhwa replied, ignoring the heir. Her gaze swept over the Ban family retainers, landing on a man huddled by a tall, brass brazier. Kaman-Ban, Olor-Ban’s younger brother, was a fleshy, sweating man, his face a pale grey. He had been a particularly enthusiastic participant in the feasting of the Nang-Tuk. Even from across the room, Mokhwa could see the faint, dark bruises blooming under his skin, a map of the nascent fledglings within. “Kaman-Ban,” Mokhwa stated, her voice cutting through the hushed tension. “He exhibits the most advanced signs after Jagat-Ban. His frame is… volatile. He must be first for the vapor cure. Delay will only hasten the hatching.” Kaman-Ban flinched, but Olor-Ban, desperate, saw only a glimmer of hope. “Volatile? Will it work? Kaman, you heard the undertaker. Go with her. Immediately.” Reluctantly, Kaman-Ban shuffled to his feet, a whine escaping his lips. “But the steam… it aggravates my humours…” “It will draw out the poisons,” Mokhwa said, her voice devoid of comfort. “All of them.” She led Kaman-Ban through winding corridors, the air growing thick with the scent of stagnant water and damp stone. The steam room was a circular enclosure, its walls lined with slick, black tiles, a central basin steaming with infused water. Visibility was poor, the air an oppressive, suffocating blanket. Iron grates covered the windows, sealing them completely. It was perfect. “Strip,” Mokhwa commanded, her voice muffled by the vapour. “Completely.” Kaman-Ban grumbled, but complied, his corpulent form a pale silhouette in the mist. “This had better work, undertaker. My brother promised… he promised I’d be spared if I followed his lead.” Mokhwa didn’t respond. She instead knelt by a low stone shelf, mixing a thick, viscous paste in a rough clay bowl. It wasn’t the fragrant herbs she had promised Olor-Ban. This was a concoction of river-delta mud, rich with caustic minerals, fermented marsh grasses, and a few drops of a certain, highly corrosive, iridescent fungal extract she’d found clinging to the submerged roots of the village. The mixture smelled like brine and rot, burning the inside of Mokhwa’s nostrils. “Lie on the slab,” she instructed, indicating a cold, black stone surface in the centre of the room. Kaman-Ban hesitated, then settled, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Mokhwa began to apply the salve. It was cold at first, then a spreading warmth, then a sharp, searing discomfort. Kaman-Ban cried out, his voice thick with the steam. “It burns! What is this? This is no cure!” “It opens the flesh,” Mokhwa said, her hand moving with swift, practiced strokes, coating his chest, his back, his belly. “To let the brood pass through. Do not resist. Resistance will only prolong the agony.” The mud-salve worked aggressively. Kaman-Ban’s skin reddened, then blistered, the surface turning a mottled grey-green beneath the black paste. He writhed, muffled screams tearing from his throat, each sound a choked gasp in the dense steam. Mokhwa could hear the distinct, sickening *snick* and *scrape* of nascent beaks within him, now agitated, responding to the forced thinning of their living shell. The spectral fledglings were growing impatient, sensing their release. The pain intensified. Kaman-Ban’s body spasmed, arching off the slab. A guttural shriek tore through the steam. Mokhwa watched, impassive, as a series of violent tremors seized his ribcage. His chest began to distend, a macabre ballooning, then, with a sound like ancient, waterlogged timber snapping, his ribs cracked. The sound was wet, shattering, sickeningly final. Kaman-Ban’s eyes, wide and unseeing, fixed on the ceiling. A fountain of black ichor, thick and viscous, erupted from the gaping wound in his chest, followed by a burst of spectral feathers. Then, a shriek, sharper and more piercing than Kaman-Ban’s own, tore through the enclosure. A translucent form, small and predatory, unfurled itself from the ruined chest cavity, its golden eyes glinting in the faint light filtering through the steam. With a frantic beat of shimmering wings, the first spectral fledgling of the Mire-Stork’s brood launched itself upward, piercing through the grates of the ceiling vent and vanishing into the fog-shrouded sky. Mokhwa stood for a moment, listening to the echoes of the shriek, then moved. She stripped the slab of the mud-soaked rags, stuffing them into her satchel. The steaming water in the basin, now tinged black, was swiftly drained down a floor grate. Kaman-Ban’s hollowed corpse was surprisingly light. With a heave, Mokhwa dragged him through a concealed panel at the back of the steam room, a rarely used refuse chute that led directly to the monsoon-swollen river below. She listened for the distant splash, then pulled the panel shut, wiping the oily black residue from the stone. Back inside, she meticulously scrubbed the blood and ichor from the tiles, leaving no trace. The only evidence was the lingering scent of corrosive mud and something else, something primal and cold, that seemed to cling to the very air. She opened the heavy door and stepped back into the relative quiet of the family’s bathing suite. As Mokhwa walked down the corridor, her boots made faint, sucking sounds on the polished floorboards. She paused, running her hand along a wall, checking for any tell-tale smears. The corridor was empty, save for a single, flickering lantern further down. No one. Her work was clean. But as she turned a corner towards the common areas, she saw him. Jagat-Ban. He was slumped against a grand pillar, clutching his abdomen, his face glistening with sweat. His feverish eyes were fixed on the floorboards, not at Mokhwa, but at a dark, almost imperceptible smudge near his foot. A single, iridescent feather, no bigger than her thumbnail, lay trapped in a thin line of drying, black-red slime. Jagat-Ban slowly, agonizingly, lifted his gaze, his pupils narrowing as they met Mokhwa’s, a dawning, terrible suspicion beginning to bloom in their depths.

First Harvest