Crimson and Gold

The night patrol around the city was nearing its end. Most of it passed completely uneventfully, except for one instance when Saria and Eris helped a woman being harassed by a drunkard.

They escorted the woman home, where they had to refuse multiple times food and money that she tried to push into their hands.

After that, they decided to make one last sweep around the neighborhood and then call it at that.

The Fate, however, had different plans…

They were crossing the rooftops between the second and the third building in the area when suddenly they heard sounds of struggle coming from one of the houses nearby.

“Did you hear that?” Eris stopped in her tracks, turning her head towards the source of the noise.

“Sounded like some kind of scuffle,” Saria said, also scanning the area for danger. “We should check it out.”

The district they were in was the only place in the whole Aervelis that didn’t have even a single Husk incident. The houses here belonged mostly to artisans and the lowest-ranking officials of the city. Neither of the groups seemed interested in drugs of any sort, so the infestation didn’t spread there.

Nevertheless, that didn’t mean it was completely impossible. Not to mention that even if it was a simple case of marital squabble or an instance of domestic violence, they still felt obligated to intervene if necessary.

Saria moved first, skillfully crossing the distance towards the house and quietly landing on its roof. Eris followed after, with no less skill or grace.

She wasn’t as strong as Saria or as well-trained as her, but the girl didn’t lack anything when it came to movement. She was fast, agile, and incredibly quiet.

After working together for some time, Saria was pleased to admit that Eris was a very good partner.

Once they both reached the hatch on the roof of the house, Saria signaled to wait.

Closing her eyes for an easier focus, she used her blood magic to scan for people inside.

The house wasn’t big. It was a standard two-story limestone structure, with the first floor consisting of the kitchen, the dining area, and one room designated for bathing. The second floor had two bedrooms.

After a thorough scan, Saria didn’t find any signs of life, except for a few rats in the small cellar under the kitchen.

They were about to move when suddenly they heard the same noise once again. This time, it was much closer and was clearly coming from the workshop adjacent to the house.

Saria and Eris exchanged looks, then carefully entered the building through the hatch.

As expected, the second floor of the house was completely empty. From the looks of it, the place was lived in by a family of three, with one room belonging to the parents, while the second room clearly belonged to a child.

Both currently vacant.

Saria silently sighed in relief. It looked like the family had been away for some time now, which meant that—hopefully—they were safe somewhere else.

Listening for more noises and keeping her senses on a lookout for anything suspicious, Saria and Eris headed downstairs, where the second entrance to the workshop should be.

On the way to the house, they already noticed that the shop next to it was locked and appeared undisturbed from the outside. This could only mean that the intruder must have used the other entrance.

Standing in front of the worn-down wooden door, they once again checked in with one another and readied themselves to enter.

Saria did one more sweep with her blood magic, yet there were no signs of life. This made her a bit worried. The sounds were clearly coming from the workshop, so something must have caused it.

Even if it were simply rats, she should have felt them in there. Meanwhile, all the local rodents seemed to have gathered in the deepest part of the cellar below them as if trying to hide from something.

Instructing Eris to be on her guard, Saria pushed the door open and entered the workshop.

The cracks between ill-fitted boards in window shutters let in just enough light from the outside for the place to just narrowly avoid being encompassed in total darkness.

Saria waited a moment at the threshold for her eyes to adjust, then walked in deeper.

Eris initially planned to summon fire in her hand to light up the room, but then quickly realized that it would only make things worse for her companion. After waiting with her eyes closed for a moment, she also entered the workshop.

Judging by the tools and the supplies, the place belonged to a leatherworker and was quite skilled at it, too.

Saria looked at the leather bags placed in a row on the shelf and brushed her fingers against the intricately detailed patterns carved on their surfaces. Craftsmanship like this required years of meticulous training and steady hands.

A lot of mercenaries would pay good money to have their equipment crafted by someone of this skill.

Perhaps the business was so good that the craftsman was able to afford a few days of vacation with his family. At least that was the story Saria decided to tell herself.

A few minutes later, both women met at the center of the workshop.

“Did you find anything?” Eris asked, resting her arms on her hips.

When she first entered the room, she felt on edge, as if a Husk was going to jump on her any second. But after searching the entire place and finding nothing but dust and overgrown spiders, she felt confused more than anything.

“Nothing,” Saria shook her head. “It couldn’t be the wind, since today the air is especially still. It couldn’t be the rats, because I didn’t find any around either…”

Listening to her partner’s brainstorming, Eris was suddenly struck with a disturbing thought. “Wait…” she said, turning her wide eyes to Saria. “Do you think it was a ghost?”

A ghost?

In nearly thirty years of her life, Saria spent most of them very close to death—either her own or others. Supernatural encounters weren’t unfamiliar to her either.

She saw corpses rising from the dead. Monsters created with foul magic. Abominations born out of Darkness. Atrocities committed by simple humans with nothing more than their bare hands.

But ghosts?

Those were yet to make an appearance. Saria was even starting to believe that those weren’t actually real.

She turned to Eris, ready to comfort her.

That was when she saw it.

A black smoke condensed in the darkest corner of the workshop. Its form first shapeless, then twisted and seethed into a vague human-like apparition.

But it didn’t stop there.

It kept moving closer to them, much faster than even Saria’s heightened senses could register. When it was just an arm’s reach away from them, it finally completed its morph.

What was once the body of an old woman was now a grotesque monstrosity. A repulsive mockery of flesh and human form.

Blackened veins bulged under its ashen skin, the whites of its eyes turned completely black, while the irises radiated with red-shaded malice. Through the inhuman grimace on its disfigured face, an incomplete row of teeth peeked out. Some were missing, some took the shape of long, sharp needles.

Then, before her eyes flashed a hand armed with long, blade-like nails.

Saria couldn’t react in time.

She pushed Eris away only partially. The Husk’s talons still sliced through the girl’s neck, leaving two deep wounds in it.

Barely a split second later, it attacked again. This time, aiming at Saria.

It was too late to reach for the blade.

Her magic reacted on instinct. It rushed into the twisted body following the faint call of the host’s blood, then latched onto every single undistorted cell.

Once she had a grip on the last remains of the monster’s humanity, Saria ripped it out without hesitation, pouring all of her anger and grief into it.

The Husk was forced to a halt. Its body spasmed then erupted into a bloody mist.

The crimson particles lingered suspended in the air for a moment before pouring down like a gruesome rain.

Everything happened in a matter of seconds, yet Saria felt it still took too long.

Paying no more attention to the puddle of gore that used to be a Husk, she rushed to Eris’ side.

She was still alive, but barely. The blood was pouring in waves through the deep cuts in her neck, while the girl was gasping for air.

“Eris! Eris, hold on. Stay with me. I’ll get you to a healer. Just stay with me,” Saria kept repeating while desperately pressing on the wounds, trying to stop the blood.

No matter how hard she tried, however, it simply wouldn’t stop.

Eris raised her hand and grasped the sleeve of her partner’s armor. “T-Take… car… care… of… A-Aid-Aide…” she managed to stammer out, despite the blood flooding her throat and pouring into her lungs.

“Shut up!” Saria snapped. Her normally composed voice was shaken and even carried a vague sense of panic in it. “You’re not going to die. You’re not allowed to die!”

Seeing Eris’ life slipping, Saria’s heart ached with so much pain it made her nauseous.

She had to do something, and she had to do it fast.

The pupil of her right eye stretched into a slit. The crimson of her iris lit up with a red glow, while a single bloodied tear, once again that night, fell from her eye, following the slightly dry trail on her cheek.

At first, Saria tried to close Eris’ wounds just like she did for Lysandra, but the girl’s blood refused to obey.

Unwilling to give up, she changed the approach.

She focused her strength on Eris, then directed her blood away from the opening in her neck and into the vein. Every beat of her heart had to be monitored, so in the next step, Saria purposefully slowed it down, putting the girl into a coma.

Once that was set, she picked her up and, holding her tightly in her arms, she ran out of the house and headed straight to the nearest healer clinic.

It took her less than five minutes to get there, infusing her muscles with more power and simultaneously keeping the steady rhythm on Eris’ heart, which in the meantime stopped beating on its own.

When she reached the clinic, she didn’t even bother knocking. In one swift kick, she slammed the door open and dashed inside.

“What the—” the old lanky man dozing off in the chair nearly jumped out of his skin.

“She got stabbed in the neck. You have to help her.” Saria didn’t wait for an invitation, putting Eris on the operation table.

Seeing that the man was still in the same spot, looking all dazed and confused, she turned her bloodshot eyes, burning with fury, to him. “If she dies, I’ll skin you alive.”

The low growl sent a chill down his spine as he understood that it wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. One he was unwilling to see fulfilled.

Snapping out of the daze, the healer got to work.

He pressed his hands to the horrifying gashes in the girl’s neck and closed his eyes. The moment he did, bright warm light erupted from his palms, encompassing her entire body.

It was pulsing slowly, leisurely, utterly against the situation they were in. The light’s pleasant hum followed the same rhythm.

Throughout this whole process, Saria kept Eris’ heartbeat running, steadily pumping her blood and waiting for the moment the girl’s body got strong enough to take over.

Finally, after fifteen minutes—or perhaps an hour—Eris’ heart started beating on its own again.

As the light slowly dissipated, Saria saw her chest slowly rising and falling, and the wounds on her neck had now turned into two pink scars.

“Phew! I didn’t think it would work, but it looks like she’ll be fine.” The healer wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “Thankfully, her heart was still beating when you brought her. Otherwise, there would be nothing I could do.”

Hearing the man’s words, Saria looked tenderly at the girl sleeping peacefully on the table. A big, wide smile bloomed on her face. “She’ll be fine. I’m so glad…” she repeated weakly.

Saria felt tears falling from her eyes, but when she raised her hand to wipe them, she realized those weren’t tears at all.

Blood started seeping out of her eyes, her nose, her mouth, even her ears. Her vision blurred, the sounds became muffled and distant.

As if through a mist, she saw the healer running towards her, while yelling something, but she couldn’t make out his words.

She felt so tired. So terribly tired.

By the time her body slammed to the floor, she had already lost consciousness.

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