12.

The young boy never heard the answer to his question, for his attention was caught by some vines tightly coiled around his feet. His mind worked faster than ever before, and he realized that his mother had never meant to harm him, nor had she been mocking him. She had been guiding him toward the right path all along, even as fate rolled all its dice toward Quinihil’s death. Mother Earth had dared to try to prevent it, guiding him toward the cure—those plants were the cure.

Virindia ran as fast as his legs would carry him to retrieve a small bowl he had used since childhood, which was actually a piece of bark he used to carry water. He crushed several leaves inside it and added water. Upon returning to his father’s cabin, he encountered the strongest of his soldiers and asked to be let in, but they were reluctant.

“The leader must rest,” growled one of the great deer standing at the entrance.

“You don’t understand. Forgive my outburst, but I’ve found the cure to the poison afflicting the great Quinihil,” Virindia panted, waiting for a response as the two deer glanced at each other. Onlookers drew closer, intrigued by his raised voice. The guards eventually stepped aside, convinced enough, and accompanied him into the cabin, followed by other members of the group eager to witness a miracle.

Virindia knelt beside his father, who seemed to understand—using what little strength he had left—what was happening. Without doubting the hand holding the bowl, Quinihil used his remaining energy to drink the liquid he was offered. The tension was a force pressing down on the chests of all present; the silence in the room was absolute. Everyone waited for a reaction, a sound, a divine sign—anything to break the suffocating silence of that small space.

“You’ve done it…” Quinihil murmured in his usual voice, and the entire room erupted in celebration at the great news. It was as if the weight that had been crushing the tribe’s spirits had suddenly lifted, as if they could finally breathe easily again.

Until the blood poured from the leader’s throat.

The screams of terror burst from every direction, and everyone lost control.

Virindia stood frozen in the middle of the room, trying to understand what he had done wrong. He had followed all the signs, prepared the mixture as he did with every antidote—but it hadn’t turned out as he imagined. The truth became clear when a horn pierced through his throat, followed by screams of:

“Traitor! Murderer! Ungrateful wretch! Viper!”

He felt the blood gushing from his mouth in thick streams, what little didn’t escape through the new hole in his neck. The sharp, searing pain made the already chaotic scene blur, as if he were seeing it all from underwater.

Among the shouting and the blows, only one sound pierced through to him—a sharp, pained cry rising above the rest. Everything turned black, and all he could deduce was that he had failed in his mission upon the earth. His mother would be ashamed of his end—so tragic, so unheroic.
Who would have imagined it?
Perhaps Fate.