Chapter Four #2
My fingers rubbed soothing circles upon her hand, feeling the heat beneath her skin begin to rise.
I knew from the way her eyes roamed—twitching and hazy—that soon a bout of delirium would overtake her, as it always did when one’s temperature climbed too high.
So far, Kerlina had been able to break through each one, but I could never be sure which would take a patient to the point of no return.
She mumbled incoherently as I poured the bright amber potion down her throat, taking extra care to make sure she didn’t choke on it.
When I departed, three potions sat upon the counter of their little home. Two for the woman bedridden and sick beyond measure, and one for the ever faithful husband who would soon watch his world crumble. Both would need relief.
With a heavy heart, I began my journey to the next home. To the bed side of yet another dying person to ease whatever pain I could despite the inability to cure what ails them. And then came the next. And the next. And the next.
It was well into the night, when the stars were high in the sky and the freezing cold was biting through my woolen coat, that I finished my rounds.
Pulling tighter at the material, trying to trap the warmth of my body, I watched as my shadow cast a lilting dance upon the cobbled stone of the streets.
A twisting darkness was cast by the silvery light of the moon far above as I walked with heavy steps.
The night had always been my reprieve, my place of safety. A time where the world slept soundly and I was free to think and act in ways the daylight would scorn me for.
My breath was a mist in front of me, my toes frozen within my booted feet, the air still and stagnant—not even a breeze to rustle the frozen landscape. The only sound came from my own tired steps, my own soft breaths.
Listen.
The hiss was eerie within my mind, startling me as my steps slowed.
Listen.
It came again, my ears perking as the shadows writhed. A torment, always a torment. Always crying for release, a pressure of pent up energy, bursting at the seams—
But then I heard it.
The crunch of footsteps just barely out of time with my own. As if whoever followed had been matching my pace, attempting to mask their presence from me.
It wasn’t a mere moment later when I felt the shift, the snap of tension within the air, my head ducking not a second too late.
The man swung, stumbling forward, his feet slipping upon frozen stone before he was whirling back to face me with a sneer plastered upon his face. His crazed eyes clashed onto me, weapons in their own right, as malice dripped from his gaze.
His hair was dark, a Solerian man, yet his face was gaunt.
His clothing hung from the thin frame of his body, awkward and soiled.
It was his bare arms that caught my attention.
A rash covered them, spreading up and beneath the short sleeves.
He smelled of firemead and something sweeter, something deadlier.
He practically vibrated from where he stood, only a few feet away, whether from cold or rage or the high of whatever was laced through his veins, I couldn’t tell. Perhaps all three.
“It’s too cold to be out with neither coat nor cloak,” I said, my voice calm, unbothered.
Masking the torrent of emotions that raced through me.
Fear. Confusion. Anxiety. He shouldn’t even be in the streets with The Fever, the risk of infecting others too high.
Too careless. Had he been to one of the opium dens that lined these cobbled streets?
To the taverns containing other patrons unbeknownst to the danger they were in?
“Luanthian loving bitch,” he spat upon the ground, the words more a snarl than a sentence.
I froze, heart racing as he continued the vitriol.
“Giving out medicine to those that caused this—this darkness,” he gripped his own arm, nails digging in and leaving bloodied crescent moons upon his skin.
“When it should be going to those that truly worship our righteous Goddess Soli.”
My eyes never left his, even when I so desperately wished to drop my gaze.
My words came as still and quiet as the air that surrounded us.
“Illness knows no Goddess, light nor dark. I treat all citizens of Amori City, all citizens within the Old Quarter—be it a Convert or a Solerian born. Do you need help too?”
My voice was shaking, I knew it. I was unable to stop it. He knew it too as he paced back and forth before me, his eyes still wild and crazed.
My hand shifted, feeling the dagger strapped to my thigh before I let the one strapped to my arm drop down into my hand. The last thing I wanted to do was fight a man so clearly sick, his body robbed of strength, but I recognized the desperation that hid beneath his wrath.
I took a singular small step and said, “I can help you, just give me your name and address. We’ll visit and help ease your pain as we do with all that come to us. We don’t turn away any who are suffering.”
Perhaps, if the man hadn’t already been so far gone, my words would have reached him, but they only seemed to further aggravate him. Tension bunched in the man's shoulders as his fists clenched by his side. My hand tightened upon my blade.
“Is there a problem here?”
The voice was smooth, familiar. One that had haunted my thoughts.
Are you alright?
My eyes snapped to where he emerged from an alleyway, like the darkness clung to him, unable to tell where his black cloak began and the shadows ended. His face was still shrouded in mystery.
The bodyguard.
My shock heightened when a flash of gold came next, a mass of inky black waves and flashing white teeth.
And Kai.
What in the Nine Hells were they doing in the Old Quarter?
Yet when the cloaked man pushed back his hood, my stomach fell to the frozen stones at my feet.
White hair.
If Kai was the embodiment of the sun with his dark locks, browned skin, and golden searing gaze, this man was the moon.
His white hair tousled in a way that claimed they had seen trouble tonight already, the bruising along his cheekbone another indication.
His pale skin nearly glowed sliver in the waning moonlight, but it was his eyes that struck me like a sword through the chest. Panic rippled to the tips of my fingers.
His right eye was a glinting pool of silver.
The other, the left, a radiant deep green that left my head spinning.
If his eyes weren’t confirmation enough, the golden ink that was tattooed upon his skin sealed it.
His body was a writhing mess of them. I had once thought Kai had the most I had seen upon skin, but just looking at the ones that travelled up this man’s neck, nearly to his jawline, and down the back of his hands was enough to send my stomach rolling.
Kinslayer.
The shadows were insidious within me, writhing so violently I thought I would be sick upon the street.
Kinslayer. Kinslayer. Kinslayer.
Killer of brethren. Killer of sisters. Tear the treacherous eyes from his body, let us feast upon his blackened soul—
I slammed down upon them so quickly I nearly collapsed with vertigo, my vision swimming and my ears ringing.
I watched, as if from another body, as he moved towards the trembling Solerian man.
“Do you know my name?” Roan Delmar spoke, his voice low and soft, like sin incarnate.
It crawled over my skin, prickling its way along and leaving a flush in its wake.
The question was rhetorical, everyone knew The Kinslayers name.
Still, he waited for the man to give a shaky nod.
“Please, don’t stop on our account. What exactly were you saying about Solerian converts? ”
The shadows screamed within me, pushed down too far for their words to reach me, but I could still feel them. Raging and clawing to escape the constraints of my mind.
A rush of breath left me when that multicolored gaze swung to me, something akin to a smirk dancing upon his lips. “Would you like his hands or his tongue for his insolence?”
My words caught in my throat, my head shaking, too stupified in my own terror to truly make sense of his question.
It was when one of the blades upon his back sung from its scabbard, that my wits came crashing into me with a single word.
“No!”
I rushed forward, stepping between the two men, my unsteady feet slipping on the wet stones, my fingers reaching to clutch the edges of his cloak to keep myself upright.
My gaze caught his, hand snapping back to my side as if scalded–my breath quickened.
I turned, and every instinct within my body trembled for giving my back to him.
Kinslayer. Kinslayer. Kinslayer.
The shadows screamed.
Yet I kept my eyes firmly locked upon the sick man before me. His fear became greater than his pride as I eyed the wetness of his trousers and the stain that quickly bloomed there.
The story of Roan Delmar reached every corner of Tavari, from the thick icy forests of the north, to the deserts and tropical cities of the south. Perhaps even beyond our own borders. There was not a Tavarrian citizen who had not heard some version of his tale, this man clearly included.
“Go home,” I reasoned as I kept my voice soft, comforting, “rest and if you give me your name, I swear by the Goddess that someone will come tomorrow to help ease your suffering.”
Without wasting even a second, the man was running, legs trembling and feet slipping as he turned around a corner and disappeared from view. He hadn’t given me his name, but I could hardly blame him; I wouldn’t have wanted to stay and face the ire of the Kinslayer either.
“Now why would you do that?” His voice spoke from behind, his amusement ghosting over the hairs of my neck. My spine straightened, so aware of the man as he moved even closer, his chest nearly brushing my back. “That was the most fun I’ve had all night.”
My blade slipped fully into view as the first sharp flash of fury sliced through my terror. Moonlight glinted upon the sharpened steel, turning as I held tight to the hilt, fingers nearly white. Not entirely a threat, but enough to let him know that I would not go down easily if he tried anything.
“That man was sick,” my correction was veiled in wrath, as sharp as the weapon within my grasp.
“I was handling it perfectly well until the two of you showed up. Now he must run home with damp trousers, without a coat, in the freezing cold. He will inevitably get sicker and I couldn’t even get his name—”
“He attacked you.” I could practically see the confusion that rolled over him in waves, the disbelief smothering whatever amusement he’d previously felt.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I let out a long hiss of air.
“He was angry and scared. It’s not the first time something like this has happened, nor will it be the last. Desperation—the will to survive—can bring out the ugliest parts of humanity.
” My hand fell back to my side, and I knew the deadened expression I must carry reflected the exhaustion I felt so deep within my bones.
“He hadn’t hurt me and if he had tried I could have handled it.
At least after he would’ve been able to get some care. ”
Kai stepped forward then, his ever charming smile sheepish as he rubbed at the back of his neck, hinting at his regret. “Our apologies for interrupting, Potion Maker. We saw a woman cornered upon the street and acted how we saw fit, without truly understanding.”
I noticed how that golden searing gaze trailed over me. Searching, I realized, for any injury. My anger snuffed, like a candle blown out with the soft breath of sleepiness at that realization. The worry that clearly nagged at him.
Sniffing, nearly indignant, but lacking the heart of any true annoyance, I slid my blade back up my sleeve. Securing it within the straps of leather, I said, “Yes, well, next time perhaps you should try asking the woman if she’s a damsel in distress before running to play shining knights.”
My words had a snort coming from the Kinslayer, eyes narrowing upon him, before Kai clapped a hand upon his shoulder, his head dipping into a playful nod of acquiescence.
“Duly noted, though perhaps you’d at least allow us to accompany you home?
There’s been talk of trouble brewing within the Old Quarter and we’re heading back from patrolling the area.
Soli forgive me, but it would tarnish my reputation if a lady were harmed only minutes after encountering us. ”
A smooth talker, he was indeed. My teeth caught my lip as I raked my gaze over him.
He was unlike any soldier I had encountered before, whether it be in taverns or the streets of Amori City.
He was too finely spoken, his clothing too expensive.
There was an air of superiority that clung to him like a rich perfume, thick and overpowering. The air of nobility.
I glanced towards Roan Delmar then, taking in his gaze that was already upon me. Wrapping my arms tightly around myself, the chill of the night once more began to sneak into the edges of my coat. My adrenaline finally wearing down, my heart once more beat steady.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I finally replied, my attention sliding from the Kinslayer back to Kai. “I don’t prefer to associate with brutes that roam the Old Quarter.”
“Not brutes, little menace,” Delmar drawled, a lazy finger sliding open his cloak to show the tunic beneath where–crested in gold–was the sigil of the King. “We’re of the KingsGuard, Captain of the Guard, in fact.”
Teeth grinding at the name, I had half a mind to let my dagger slide free once more, but I merely retorted, “If a flametoad howls like a wolf or runs like a wolf, does that make it any less of a toad?”
I knew I should be scared. Too fearful of his notorious reputation, his power, to speak so carelessly, but frankly? I was too damn tired to care at the moment. My mind and body were so frayed that I feared a single tug upon the threads of my soul would unravel me completely.
Kai’s laugh had both of us startling, gazes breaking to turn our exasperated attention towards him. Eyes bright as the midday sun, he squeezed the Kinslayers’ shoulder and exclaimed, “She’s fiery, isn’t she? She’ll be perfect.”
His green and silver eyes rolled, full lips pulling into a frown as he made a rather unimpressed sound, but I was too caught up in what his companion had just said.
She’ll be perfect.
“We have a proposition for you, Potion Maker,” his words cheery, “perhaps we could discuss it over a pint of firemead somewhere much warmer?”
Curiosity was a dangerous temptress. One that had been enticing me my entire life and she would certainly be my downfall. For even as my shadows writhed and my mind screamed my denial, my mouth spoke my damnation.
“Fine, but you’re buying. I’ve had a shit day.”