It'd taken most of their funds to afford the Medallion of Cured Flesh. Curie had unwrapped his hand and started the bleeding again, pouring iodine in a messy, near approximation of a surgical procedure. "Moulder slowly," she advised, crouching beside the bed and taking Jerico's hand in hers.
Jerico placed the medallion on top of the wound, and concentrated on it. The cylinder wobbled, a faint iridescence, a fishlike smell reminiscent of dried or smoked eel. They'd gone for the best… Axolotl, hopefully.
The medallion puffed and sunk into Jerico's hand, black waves of smoke pouring down the sides into Curie's in a miniature water fountain.
Tiny pale bones appeared in the lump, the last to disappear into smoke, and Jerico paused the process, wafting the smoke away and lifting what was left. The hole was gone, a small pink dot in the middle of faint scar tissue was all that remained. "Woah… I've never healed a gash that big before, only paper cuts." Curie smiled and nodded, "It's truly a miracle animal. You left a bit, I'll just wrap that up".
They spent the rest of the morning in a quiet, warm inertia. Black out curtains and incense took care of most of the smell from the dyeing vats, and after the endless days of running, always fearful, always alert, it felt good to shrug off the protective layer of casual paranoia they had each nurtured. Laying in the bed, Jerico drifted half asleep, Curie's head felt as a welcome weight on his arm. While Curie stared out of the window, the red terracotta roofs shifted into a blurry mosaic as she felt Jerico brush his fingers through her hair.
'It's good to finally be safe again,' she thought, 'But how much longer will this last?' She found herself blinking back tears. Her home… The last remnants of the town she'd lived in for almost thirty years. Completely burned down, now empty, the faces of people she'd known, children she'd taken care of, the children of those she'd grown up with, all of it scorched to the crust.And yet, she could still see the shape the smoke had made as they'd rode away.
Jerico's voice snapped her out of the dark tunnel her thoughts had warped into. "Curie? What's wrong?" She wiped her tears, shaking her head, "I-I can't help but remember. It just keeps coming back. The fire, the sound of yelling men, the religious chan-" Her voice dried on her lips as she spotted something out the window. A dark shape was moving across the roofs, trailing an almost indistinguishable dark trail of smoke that reminded her too much of what she'd been thinking of. It moved in a beeline towards them, distinctly inhuman grace was readable in every twist of muscle and turn of the head as it, no, they came closer. Jumping the immense gap between the roofs as if they were hopping on rocks that led across a stream.
"Someone's coming…" She said, staring at the figure "What?" Jerico said sleepily, Curie's shoulder going tense under his fingers "Someone's coming. A figure. A witch." she replied, growing more alarmed as she watched them drifting closer. "Jerico get up!" She said, urgently scrambling back and pointing to the figure.
They both rushed about in a panic, Jerico grabbing a knife from the kitchen drawer, dropping it, swearing and reaching for his armour instead Curie grabbed their bundle of partially cast off clothing, glancing at her armour she grabbed the chest piece. Jericho threw her their string of coins and she ran across the room, slamming open the door and buckling her breastplate on as she jogged down the stairs, the partially mouldered chunk of axolotl meat in one hand the string of Vennam in the other. Jericho followed closely behind, pulling on his vambrace pair and anything else he could get on without assistance, a dead silence stopped them each on the last step. Curie, her hand paused over the wood beam that lined the stairs, fingernails pressed too far into the grain, a pain she didn't notice in an attempt to hear what was happening. The sound from upstairs had completely ceased.
The sound of footsteps slid into their room, they both continued down the stairs as they heard this. Jerico shared a glance with the roomkeeper, "We'll be right back, need's cleaning." He shouldered the bundle of armour and clothing and flashed an uneasy smile.
Curie waited for him by the stairs to the ground floor, pulling a cape from the bundle of clothes she wrapped it around herself, "Let's go to a bathhouse, get dressed, and then see if anything's been stolen"
"You're right, lucky you grabbed the 'nam," Jerico snorted, his eyes tracked towards the ceiling as he followed her. "Go on, I'll be right behind you." Opening the door, Curie turned from Jerico to meet a pair of glassy grey eyes, pupiless segmented and empty. It took all of Curie's self control to not immediately shriek and slam the door at the sight. She turned away from those eyes, and began to edge past the owner, "Sorry, w-we're just leaving." She said, pausing as she caught a fleck of black smoke misting out from under the stranger's coat.
"Go back inside…" They said, the glassy grey sheen winked against the light as they blinked, placing a thin arm on the door, they towered over the couple, hunched as they were to fit into the door frame oily grey strands of hair fell as they pushed forward thankfully blocking out those unnatural eyes.
Curie backed up, shuddering 'how? Did they jump down 6 storeys?'
"we need to talk" the figure said. within the confines of the building they unfurled to their full height of almost 7 feet tall, brushing the oily strands of hair back behind her ears she shrugged off the coat she'd been wearing and bared her arms,
"No weapons, just a conversation between mutuals" she said, folding the coat and tucking it under one arm.
"Not a very friendly way to start a conversation" Jerico said, placing a hand on Curie's shoulder
"you're lucky" the stranger said, her voice reminding Curie of broken pottery, ashen eyes scanned the top of the stairs, she paused then said quietly "You've attracted attention of the Thousand Hands with your entrance to the city"
"What?" Curie and Jerico said in unison.
The stranger stood quietly in the middle of their room, Curie and Jerio shuffled in nervously, smoke pooled around the Witches feet as she waited for them to close the door, Curie avoided her stare leaning on the bedpost, Jerico joined her wrapping an arm around her comfortingly.
"who, are the Thousand Hands" he said, eyeing the pool of smoke collecting around the Witches ankles, she was dressed in a mottled combat grey, black combat boots led into dark grey riding trousers, and a lighter almost blue satin shirt that topped off at a frilled collar.
"You must have been very sheltered to not have at least heard mention of them by now, well… they're the Kings private force of little ruiners" She looked out of the window, her eyes sending reflective light flecks across the room "anyway, I've done as much as I can for now, I had to blanket half of the city to keep you safe" the pool of smoke dissipated as she spoke.
"Who are you?" Curie asked
"a fellow Witch" came the reply
"and we're just supposed to trust a stranger? How do we know you're not one of these Thousand Hands?" her teeth gritted as she said so, it was a stupid question Curie knew that, the stranger did too.
"You've got two choices now… Come with me, or get on the nearest ship, somewhere far away from Bellemarque" she pursed her lips, as if considering something "it's only a matter of time before the scent of my magic dissipates" Jerico glanced at Curie, he suddenly looked haggard, and they both felt that familiar blanket of paranoia wrapping around them once more, Jerico rubbed his face, his fingers pinched on the bridge of his nose, their room was a mess, but they didn't have enough to make packing again a struggle. Curie watched as Jerico squatted, scooping together any clothing they'd missed, grabbing the knife he'd dropped
"GIve us a little time to make a decision please" Curie said, crossing her arms.
A shadow of a frown flickered across the stranger's face, it was the most emotion she'd displayed since they'd met. "twenty minutes, I'll be outside… if you don't come by then you'll have made your decision" she bowed under the door frame as she left,
" what do we do?'' Curie asked, helping him slot on the rest of his armour,
"go with her, she's the first friendly face we've seen since Merdu" he said "I would hardly say friendly" Curie protested "what else are we going to do? We can't get a ship we spent the last of our funds fixing me" Jerico said, he rubbed the scar-spot reflexively as he said so "And I'm glad we did that darling, but I don't think we should just hop in bed with someone neither of us know" Curie was fiddling with her own armour as she spoke, finally giving up and letting Jerico tighten the last few straps that sat across her waist.
"What do you suggest?" Jerico asked, placing the last of their unused food wrapped up at the top of his satchel bag and checking around the room for anything they'd missed. "I- don't know just, she scares me, let's please be careful" she wrung her hands as she thought, "of course, we got this far didn't we?" Jerico said gently.