Wicked Thieves

Chapter 1

Blood was the soil of man. The rooted currency between life and death, sovereignty, and beggary.

A constitution as much as it was a contradiction.

It was a truly wondrous, curious notion not many seemed to understand, the weight it held as it coursed through one’s veins.

A preordained establishment of power so easily taken away with a single drop spilled.

And somewhere in the port district of Elvir, beyond the bustling market square and down narrow, winding streets covered in snow, tucked between two half-timbered homes, was a peculiar apothecary shop. Where the blood of a man currently coated Anelize Yarrow’s hands.

Morning light poured in from the arching window, dousing the walls of the small room in the back of the shop a pale gray.

Only serving to amplify the frigid, unforgiving season outside as the apothecary eased a needle through the opened wound across the blacksmith’s head.

She recognized him, though they’d never spoken before, just as she recognized so many of those residing within the impoverished district.

From the moment Mihai had been brought to her, he hadn’t stirred.

Had not screamed, despite the blood running down his face like an endless river, its current as crimson and deep as the petals of a blooming rose.

The injury to his head was the last of the many cuts running along his body.

Hands, arms, neck—it was as if he’d been used as a canvas painted in bloodied strokes.

Despite knowing she would get no response, she murmured to him, “Just a few more stitches and we’ll be done.” Her voice was a trained calm reassurance. Easing one’s pain or their sorrows had always proved a challenge for Anelize ever since she’d been a child, though she tried her best.

Anelize kept her focus on the wound as she pierced the sharp end of the needle through swollen, sloughing flesh once more before connecting it with the other end.

Slowly putting him back together, like a child’s poppet tattered and in desperate need of mending.

Had the cut been any deeper, she was sure she would have seen the frontal bone.

It was deep enough, however, that she was sure no number of tinctures she’d given him before commencing could have eased the pulsing, unending pain he had felt.

It was all conjecture, of course.

There was no way of knowing if one struck with the malady could feel anything at all.

None who fell prey to it had the opportunity to utter another word, making it impossible to truly understand what they did or did not feel.

Logic typically led her to deduce that those with the rare ailment which plagued Elvir did, in fact, feel pain.

Only they were trapped within themselves, forced to remain silent.

She had never once met a patient with the malady who could speak, tell all that they had seen when it first struck.

What they felt before their final moments of frozen solitude. How it came to pass in the first place.

There were rumors, of course, but then again, they were practically all rumors in this city. Rarely were they ever true.

Anelize worked on the stitches carefully as her father would have, as he’d taught her from a young age many years ago when she’d been but his apprentice.

She silently recited his words as if he were standing over her shoulder, a gentle guidance spoken through a thick cadence as he overlooked her work.

Careful to ensure she did not do more harm than good.

Blood dripped over the edge of the worktable, the steady drip, drip, drip pricking her ears. A small pool gathering beneath her worn boots, staining the floorboards.

The sound of sniffling behind her made Anelize stifle a sigh. Without tearing her gaze away from Mihai, she said over her shoulder, “You found him just in time. He’ll be all right soon.”

The blacksmith’s son had barged into the shop’s front door, practically dragging Mihai in his arms. He’d been in such hysterics while she tried to assess the damage done to the man, that she’d forced him into a chair and shoved dried rhizome to chew on when his face had grown deathly pale.

It was an effective remedy to quickly staunch the nausea caused by the shock of it all.

The last thing she’d wanted was for him to purge what contents he had in his stomach all over the floor.

Still, there was nothing she could do to stop the boy, who appeared no older than fifteen name days, from crying his heart out.

He stammered, “I don’t know how this could have happened.

He was fine a few days ago, and then he disappeared without a word and…

he came back like this” He seemed to choke on his words, taking a deep breath before the sound of more nervous chewing reached her ears.

“I don’t understand. Why would he want to become like those monsters? ”

Anelize finished the first set of stitches, before moving onto Mihai’s next wound along his neck stretching just over his collarbone.

The incisions had been thin yet precise, curving and spiraling in patterns she recognized.

They were the same ones she’d seen on countless others before.

His life could have been so easily forfeited if it had been but an inch higher, a little deeper, slicing clean through the carotid artery.

She had to wonder if it would be considered a mercy, compared to all that he must have endured.

Anelize had known exactly why Mihai, like the others, had been brought to her and not to a more qualified physician in the city.

While it was true that she was the only apothecary in the port of Elvir—the closest thing there was to a doctor that the poverty-stricken folk could afford—it did not mean one could not venture off to find better prospects.

Although, like blood, coin was a highly revered currency, and there was nothing man valued more than both.

It was like the air one breathed to survive and the water used to cleanse that which sullied one’s hands.

At least that much was true for the impoverished souls slowly withering away day by day.

“There was nothing you could have done,” she murmured, looking to the windows where she spotted the tall black oaks looming over them all from atop the hills.

The barren branches encased in thick crystalline frost spread up toward the graying skies like ink spilled over parchment.

Its endless labyrinth that spanned across the city reminded her of that of the curved edge of a scythe, spanning miles where once there had been roads that led farther into the north.

To the mountains and neighboring villages.

Not that Anelize knew how many there were, for she—like many born in the city of Elvir, the very heart of Madic—had never stepped foot elsewhere.

The forest serving as an ever-present reminder for any who happened to forget about the many dangers that lurked within.

The proof of a price paid, all for the sake of power that would not come.

On the table, Mihai’s eyes were nothing more than two slits, irises a milky white, as he stared up at the ceiling, or perhaps—more than likely—he saw nothing at all.

Anelize observed that the blacksmith’s face held dark shades of blue and black that had taken over his complexion.

The frostbite had invaded nearly all of his body.

Had it not been for the way his chest rose and fell, she would have thought him succumbing to the afterlife.

He would, but not today. The malady would claim him soon enough.

Glancing down at the stitching she’d left upon his upturned hand, she eyed the intricate cut that ran from the length of his middle finger to the base of his palm. Lines intersecting and interconnecting in swirling patterns. All of them wrong. Unnecessary even.

A knock sounded at the door, interrupting her thoughts.

“Come in.”

The door eased open, and Enid peered into the room.

Her gaze lingered for half a second on the blood coating her sister’s hands before quickly focusing her attention on Anelize’s face.

The youngest of the Yarrow sisters hadn’t been entirely comfortable being near patients, ill or not.

Enid never took an interest in learning about herbalism or the study of medicine.

Not that Anelize had minded. She’d much rather spare Enid the burden of witnessing such horrific sights like the one before her.

In their father’s absence, she’d been doing it all of fifteen years now to change her mind.

“Yes, Enid?”

“Magda requested you finish here quickly. Old man Avos’s wife says he won’t be leaving his home today due to the cold, and his bones are aching terribly.

I tried to tell her you weren’t finished here, but she insisted that you make haste,” Enid said softly, though it wasn’t hard to detect the irritation laced between her words.

The mere mention of their aunt made her grit her teeth, but she chose her words carefully, fully aware of the boy watching them.

“Yes, I’m aware of his condition.”

Enid gave her a sad, apologetic smile. Anelize knew that it was hardly her fault, she was merely the messenger to their aunt’s many demands. Mainly because she knew that the only person she’d deem to grace with an answer would be Enid.

Anelize said, “I’ll see that it gets done. Don’t worry.”

With a nod, Enid left the room but not before glancing at the teary-eyed boy sitting on the chair. A ghost of a shadow passed over her face before she slipped out of the door, silently closing it behind her.

“Is there truly nothing you can do for him?” the boy asked, his voice wavering. An inkling of hope spilling through his words. Words that weighed heavily within the room. As they so often did when the inevitable question was asked.

After a moment of silence stretched between them, Anelize finally said, “Nothing beyond what I’ve already done.

” She could not make false promises to the boy any more than she could make them to herself, as she once had in the past. Fooling herself into believing that a few simple remedies could solve the unsolvable.

At least, beyond where her talents laid.

That had been a long time ago and she’d been nothing more than a child herself back then, still capable of feeding into the absurdity of dreams. Hope. Now she knew better. Therefore, she would not encourage such foolishness by lacing her words with delicacy.

Remedies and stitches were nothing to the inner workings of magic and the corruption it sowed after all.

The boy hadn’t said another word as she finished tending to his father.

When all was said and done, Anelize rose from her perch upon the stool.

She made quick work of washing her hands in the porcelain basin set atop the table while the boy wandered over to his father, watching him with sorrowful eyes.

Before she left the room, she granted him one last piece of advice. The only one that could not only help the man laying upon the table but also provide an ounce of peace to the boy. It was the only thing she could do.

“Best you can do is make him comfortable until the end.” Until he withered and disappeared into the darkness, as they all do. Leaving only hollow shells behind to haunt the very streets they walk.