74 miles south of Lyerateh, spring of year 874
Scypha stepped into the goblins' camp, trying to move with the innocent, frightened steps of a lost young woman explicitly not eager to kill anyone.
The short, green-skinned people turned to her, eyeing her with suspicion before noticing her ruffled, unkempt hair, her tattered clothing, and her … smell.
It was awful, she knew. It had been months since she had bathed – ever since the day before she'd left her mother's temple for her coming-of-age journey to Lyerateh.
"But by now, my mother must be worried sick," Scypha murmured to herself aloud, a recent habit she had picked up. "She must be going crazy, looking for me…"
The goblins started to say something.
Scypha's vision clouded until she saw nothing but thick, pink-red fog, then cleared up again.
She shook her head. She must have moved, because as soon as she blinked, she was no longer standing in the same place. She sat on a wooden log next to two younger goblins, both girls, in front of their campfire. More goblins stood around, stealing nervous glances at her. She held a splintery skewer of rat meat in her hands.
"What did you say?" the girl on her left asked, biting into her own skewered rat. She had a northern accent, probably from Gull's landing. She was staring straight at Scypha, expecting an answer.
Scypha hesitated, having no clue as to what she'd said. She noticed herself beginning to shake, so she shook her head and began humming a tune to try to cover up her rising anxiety. Her jaw began twitching. She knew full well the goblins would be quickly starting to think her insane, but that was the least of her concerns.
The girl to her left grimaced. "Those cursed slavers must have hurt you bad," she said. "Did they hit you in the head?"
Scypha nodded, though as far as she knew, they hadn't.
Suddenly, her fingers started to tingle and itch, hot and cold at the same time. Her gaze settled down on her skewer. The rat meat hung onto it untouched … She blinked, and it was half-eaten.
A thought occurred to her – if she stabbed the girls beside her in their mouths with it, would they taste the rat, or would they be in too much pain?
"Where are you headed, anyway?" Scypha heard the girl on her left ask. "Ryzayah? That's where we're going."
"Shush, fool. She's not going to join us," said the girl on the right.
Scypha noticed that she had begun tapping her foot. She felt the subtle vibrations travel up her leg ... she was growing more and more nervous.
"What's wrong with you, pink-skin?" the girl to her right asked. Her voice had a strange, shaky quality to it.
Scypha shook her head. "Where are you, my knight?" she thought. "I think I'm losing it!"
Her knight in shining armor was nowhere to be seen. He said he had gone to hunt … and she had been stupid, utterly stupid, thinking she could handle herself without him.
She shook her head again, trying to muddle up the evil thoughts swirling around in it. She just had to keep still until the knight came back and set her straight. Keep completely still.
A wave of unease roiled through her, causing her to wince, and her stomach to twist and turn. A blackness appeared at the edges of her vision.
She felt her mouth open without her say-so. "You should all be running," she said.
The two goblins on either side of her looked at her nervously. They were still eating the rat meat off their skewers, unnerved, but still blissfully ignorant, like sheep before a slaughter.
"Get away from me," Scypha said. "Run."
The girl on her left suddenly stood up, grimacing and pointing at her. "What's wrong with you?" she asked angrily. "Poxy pink-skin!"
"She's sick in the head," said the other girl, the one on Scypha's right. She slid a few feet away from her on the log. "But don't be mean, Tenna. It's not her fault, it's the slavers doing."
"You believe that idiocy? When has a pink-skin ever been put in a cage with us? I bet she just wants to eat our food. Just like all the rest of them, she feels she deserves it more than us!"
"That's not it!" Scypha shrieked. She looked down towards her hands and saw them trembling. Her whole body was beginning to vibrate, and her vision, too. Everything was turning blurry. The black corners at the edges of her vision were expanding, her grip on reality weakening with every heartbeat that shook her and pounded in her ears.
Suddenly, the ground beneath the log began to rumble and shake. The goblin girls panicked, jumping to their feet and running off, shouting obscenities at Scypha and quickly leaving her behind.
Then, a wave of relief flooded over Scypha, and the blackness retreated back to the very edges of her vision.
Peace. Utter peace…
She looked up towards the sky, finally allowing herself a deep sigh of relief. Her knight in shining armor was coming back. She didn't know where he'd gone, but he had returned, to save the day.
A sharp pain pierced her skull, and she winced. There was something horrible in there, scuttling and biting the meat of her brain.
A strong force pushed her backward, then, and she felt the wind blowing on her neck as she fell off the log she was sitting on. Then all went black.
An unknown amount of time later, she awoke to a headache.
She sat up on the cold ground and pressed her fingers against her forehead, trying to disperse the muddled flashes of light in the back of her eyes.
Something large and soft unfurled behind her, helping her remain upright. It felt like a giant, curving pillow, bigger than a boulder. She couldn't see it, for some reason, but it felt like it was invisibly wrapped all around her.
Even despite it, though, her body felt wrung out, like a piece of damp cloth twisted into knots with all the water squeezed out of it. She gritted her teeth, thinking up a prayer as another wave of dizziness washed over her.
After some time, she was able to slow the horrid drumming of her heart, and she calmed down enough to be able to look around.
She was still in the goblins' camp, in the same place she had been before. The log was a few feet behind her, and her skewer of rat meat was stuck into the ground, covered with ants.
Ants…?
She allowed herself a smile.
Not everything is dead, she thought. Spring was finally coming.
She heard footsteps approaching. After a few moments, a thick mist began to appear between the trees at the edge of the camp, and her knight in shining armor stepped out of it. He spotted Scypha and slowly approached her, then crouched down in front of her, his hands on his knees.
"I'm glad to finally see you smiling," he murmured. He took off one of his gauntlets, extended his arm, and softly placed a warm finger against her cheek. "In your sleep, you never stop frowning ... Are you still afraid?"
Eletha gently grasped his fingers with her hand and slowly shook her head. "No," she said. "Not now that you're here. Where did you go this time?"
The knight merely shook his head, then smiled. "Your fear runs deeper than conscious thought," he whispered. "Your body, at least, if not your heart … it thinks that you're sick. That you're dying. It must be so very confused."
"Maybe you just have that effect on people, my knight."
"It's not me … It's you. You're growing stronger with every passing moment. You're right on the cusp—just one more step forward, and you'll be out of my reach forever."
"What do you mean?" Scypha asked.
Suddenly, a sharp, searing agony ripped through Scypha's mind. Something slithered beneath her skull and stirred violently, scratching and biting down with vicious hunger, tearing into a piece of her. She gasped, her fingers clawing at the sides of her head.
The knight gazed at her softly, his expression unreadable. He said nothing, but scooted over beside her, his armor clinking softly with the movement. He leaned her trembling shoulders against his, letting her rest against the cool armor.
It barely helped. The scratching and biting only got worse, and it was excruciating. She winced in pain, her holy body shaking, the very blood in her veins recoiling like a wounded beast. Darkness began to envelop her vision. In the back of her mind, she saw the black stain on her soul chipping away the white.
"Lean back, Scypha," the knight whispered into her ear. "Focus on my voice. Relax, and don't fight it. I'm doing this to help you."
She tried to obey, but the darkness inside grew and grew until it spilled out into the world around her. The goblins' camp, even the knight in shining armor, all disappeared behind a sea of black. Breathing heavily, she lost all rational thought to an overwhelming urge for violence.
"My lord god," the knight said. "This will not serve. There is a better way."
Scypha tried to speak, but the overwhelming pain made her jaw clench so tightly that she almost bit off her own tongue. All the sights and sounds of the world became muddled and incoherent.
She felt the knight hold her tightly while she squirmed, but it hurt.