The Broken Vessel

“Mom, I know you’re angry at me. I’m sorry… it’s just that…”

Raina couldn’t finish her sentence.

When it came to tasting emotions, anger was the most difficult for her to process. Her mouth tasted like a sewer—sour, metallic, rancid. She wanted to spit it out, to vomit, but couldn’t. Worse, she had to swallow the lava-like saliva that built up in her mouth. Every cell in her body recoiled from the taste. Her whole system reacted violently to her mother's storm of emotions.

And still, Raina couldn’t blame her. Not entirely.

Cassie, with her big mouth and good intentions, had outed her plan. Raina had hoped to break it gently—to explain that her desire to move to Manila was not about running away, but about dreaming bigger. About studying, building a future. And she had planned to take Luna with her.

But now, her mother stood silent in the corner of their makeshift kitchen, furiously scrubbing the newly patched-up clay vessel, over and over again. Raina watched her intently, tasting the waves of emotion that flooded the room. Anger, of course. Hurt. But then something else.

Fear.

That stopped Raina cold. Her mom’s fear didn’t taste like the usual shaky citrus of nervousness. No, this was thick, metallic—rusted iron. It coated her tongue like blood. It wasn’t fear of her daughter—it was deeper, older. A fear rooted in something unspoken. Something beyond the present argument. What are you so afraid of, Mom? You’re saying so much… but telling me nothing at all,” Raina thought silently.

She let out a slow, heavy sigh and waited—for the tide of emotions to ebb, for silence to soften the air between them.

Her friends had taken the hint and left, sensing the storm brewing in Luna’s silence. Cassie had promised they’d talk about her new boyfriend another time, and Luke had muttered something about not letting her turn out like Cassie. “You know me better than that,” Raina had said, a little too sharply. But deep down, she wasn’t sure he did.

A clattering sound drew her attention back to the room. Luna had placed the patched vessel in front of her on the small table they often shared for meals, studying, even dreaming. She gestured sharply.

“&dd 52shd…!”

Raina frowned, but understood. Her mother’s half-burnt face made speaking difficult. “Drink this,” the command translated through experience and emotion.

“Eww, Mom…” Raina protested, looking at the vessel. It was still cracked, chipped on the rim. If she drank from that side, her lips might get cut.

“&*32! &)#HDHD!” Luna’s broken voice raised in volume and fury. Raina didn’t need to decipher the exact words. The meaning was clear: Drink. If you want me not to be angry, drink.

This wasn’t the first time Luna had insisted. That vessel, once shattered and discarded, had been reconstructed by her own hands from random shards she scavenged from the garbage she collected each day. Luna had boiled and scrubbed it endlessly, convinced it was the precious key that would take them back to her version of paradise -- Malacaz.

To Raina, it was just dirty. Contaminated. Gross.

But her mouth still burned with the sewage taste of her mother’s rage. Her lips were dry from avoidance. Against her better judgment—and for the sake of peace—she picked up the vessel and took a sip.

Her eyes widened.

It was cold. Icy cold. And sweet.

She paused, staring at the water. She had seen Luna fill it earlier—just regular tap water. How could it taste like this?

She took another sip. Same result. Sweet, pure. Clean.

Her eyes drifted to her mother, who stood quietly now, waiting. And smiling. It was a rare, soft smile, as if she had been expecting her daughter’s surprise all along.

Then something else happened.

The flavors in her mouth began to shift. The leftover tastes of the people she had encountered that day—Cassie’s nervous excitement, Luke’s blend of judgment and worry, the sour guilt that clung to herself—all of it... dissipated. Even Luna’s thick cocktail of anger and fear began to melt into something warmer. Softer.

Love.

Relief.

Raina nearly drank the entire vessel in one sitting, leaving only a small drop. Luna picked it up, drank the rest, and quietly refilled it with tap water before placing it back down between them.

For the first time that day, there was silence—not awkward, not angry. Just peace. They sat together at the dinner table, passing the vessel back and forth, sipping from it like it was communion. Their own sacred ritual.

Raina no longer tasted bitterness. Just calm. Just warmth. Just her mother’s presence.

When Luna’s eyes welled up, a single tear slipping down her marred cheek, Raina leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her.

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” she whispered.

Whether it was Malacaz, Manila, or anywhere in between, she didn’t know what the gods—what Vathala—had written in their stars. But for tonight, her heart was anchored here, beside her mother. That was enough.

Meanwhile…

A private jet hummed across the dark clouds over the Philippines, cutting through the night with ghostlike elegance.

Inside, Kein—the immortal once known by another name—sat alone.

The fruit in his hand vibrated slightly.

“Abba…” he whispered.

A soft cracking sound followed. A tiny hole opened at the surface of the ancient fruit, and from it emerged the pale head of a worm. It blinked, or twitched. Or perhaps it smiled—it was hard to tell with worms.

“You are remembering again, my son,” it hissed, its voice like smoke and silk. “Take me there. Take me back. To the time you first met Maghanda…”

Kein didn’t answer right away. He only stared out the window, at the lights below—Manila, glowing like a bed of embers under the veil of night.

The worm wriggled deeper into the fruit, but the hiss remained in Kein’s mind, alive with memory. He tightened his grip, not enough to crush it, but just enough to feel the weight of the centuries between then and now.

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. A memory stirred. Not just of Maghanda, but of the moment everything changed. The garden. The promise. The fall.

His journey to the veering-gan city would continue tomorrow. But tonight, memory was its own destination.

And somewhere far from him, in a forgotten river town, a mother and daughter sipped from a vessel that had once been broken—and now, was whole again.