"Whew." Amira wiped her brow with a cloth. "Three days later and we finally finished."
She stood next to Lucian with her hands on her hips. Radiating the satisfaction of a job well done.
Lucian, who had done every part of it that involved lifting anything, was covered in dirt and had sweat cut in streaks down both cheeks.
"Only took me three days," he mumbled.
Amira rolled her eyes and smiled. "You were the one who wouldn't let me lift anything heavy, remember." She tossed Lucian her sweat rag. "I'll make mushroom porridge tonight to help with the soreness. In the meantime, now that we finally have the guest room all cleared out, why don't you set it up however you like? The bed we ordered from the cotton shop should be ready today as well."
"Try not to burn the kitchen down this time," Lucian responded, wiping his face off but holding the handkerchief over his nose a second too long.
Amira's face melted to a blank stare as she walked away. "It was one time and it was a small oven fire, you ass."
Lucian watched her walk away, his eyes went to her hips and exposed lower back. They were outlined by the tighter linen pants she'd "stitched" herself. The white button up shirt that was covered with dirt and dust, was tied into a knot across her chest. Her long silver hair was tied into a bun, and across her forehead and the top half of her head was another handkerchief that she used to keep her hair clean.
"Suppose I'll go clean up," Lucian said, tucking the rag she threw at him into his pocket.
He went out and hauled a pail from the well, which had been freshly remodeled and no longer had anyone falling into it. He splashed his face, poured the rest of the bucket over his head, and drank what was left.
He gazed up at the clouds that passed over him slowly as the afternoon breeze tugged at his arm hairs. He smiled to himself.
'Maybe this was the retired life my father always complained about not getting. It's quite nice. I could see myself getting used to this, even though I feel it's a little early.'
"Lucian," Amira called as she opened the door to the house. "We don't have any mushrooms, so I'm gonna go up the mountain and grab some. Wanna come?"
Lucian let out a little sigh. "I suppose."
***
They zigzagged up a dirt path that had been worn in by years of people walking up and down it.
"Let's not take too long." Amira was half out of breath as they neared the top, and stopped with her hands on her knees. "I heard the soulbeasts around here get pretty wild after sundown."
Lucian handed her the water. "Okay. It would probably be best if we split up."
"I'll go this way. You stick to the trail so you don't get lost," he said as he pushed his way through some shrubbery.
"Stick to the trail. DonT Get LoSt." She did his voice and stuck out her tongue at the retreating bushes and carried on down the path.
"He's been treating me like a helpless child ever since I set the oven on fire and fell down the well. Both of which were accidents, by the way." She threw her hands up at the trees. "Accidents."
Her rambling was met with a windy breeze that gave her goosebumps.
"Jeez, whatever. Let's just get some mushrooms and head back.-"
She stopped.
"Oh, wow, look at this!"
She bent down and saw four or five of the ones she was looking for, all in a colony next to each other. She grabbed her basket and began harvesting.
"There's more the further I go in. With this much we won't have to come back for a while." She hummed to herself and gently plucked them from the ground.
Behind her the bush rustled.
She spun around. "Lucian?"
No answer.
Another gust came through and shook the leaves of the trees around her.
"It's the middle of the spring. Where is this chilly breeze coming from?"
She shrugged it off and continued picking mushrooms, getting further and further away from the trail.
A clicking sound started up somewhere. Then somewhere else. Then all around her.
"Lucian, that isn't funny." She stood up and turned in a slow circle.
"Wait. Where's the trail?" she said, slightly panicking.
"Oh, he's really gonna be mad now." She looked down at her basket, which was almost full. "I have plenty. Let's just try and find a way out of here."
She went back the way she thought she had come, and came to a tree with a deer skeleton laid out at the base of it.
Its head had been completely crushed and the bones had scratch marks on them.
The clicking noise got louder and closer.
"Lucian!" she yelled out.
The tree above her shook violently and she looked up.
GRAH!
A giant black cat with purple eyes jumped from its branch. Its mouth was wide open and drool dripped from its two long, snakelike teeth. Its claws were fully extended and both its paws were aimed right at Amira's face.
Amira's eyes lit up. The veins around them glowed crimson, and in a flash her entire body covered itself with a crimson flame.
Unlike Lucian's, whose flame was more akin to an aura, Amira's bright crimson flames danced elegantly along her shoulders and her fingertips as if she was bending the soulflame itself. Gathering where she wanted it to.
She dropped the basket and raised her hands, creating two orbs of fire, one in each.
The giant cat's mouth was inches away from Amira's fireball before a hand came out of nowhere, grabbing it by the neck and tossing it aside.
"I told you to stay by the trail," Lucian said. He glanced her over for a brief moment and his eyes hardened, his brow crinkling with annoyance.
Behind him the cat released its own soulflame. A purple aura wrapped its paws and its teeth, and it worked its jaw as though it were chewing on the flame.
It came at Amira again, and Lucian was already there. He released his soulflame and put a fist into its stomach.
His flames enveloped everything in a three foot radius around him, that was as far as he would let it reach.
Amira's mouth came slowly apart. "Woah." Her mouth moved but no words came out.
The cat went back on its haunches, winded, and recalculated. It understood now that the man had to go first.
It dashed toward him and its sharp claws cut across his chest and through his soulflame like it wasnt there. They ripped open his shirt and blood dripped down to the cloth belt that held up his pants, staining it red. Lucian swung. The cat was already gone, backing off, putting distance between them.
They circled each other counterclockwise, each one trying to calculate their next move.
Finally Lucian kicked up some dirt and charged through the smoke screen. The cat reacted quicker than Lucian anticipated and bit down on his forearm hard enough to sink both of its teeth into the muscle right below his elbow.
Lucian grunted, took it to the ground, got it in a headlock, and hammered the back of its skull over and over. The cat hissed, got its back legs under him, and threw him clean off.
Knocking Lucian to his back, the cat mauled him over and over where he lay, trying to bite his neck and continuing to claw at his chest, tearing his skin apart so deep you could almost see bone.
Swoosh!
A flash of red shot in between Lucian's chest and underneath the cat's neck.
The cat's bite went limp and a second later blood dripped from its neck onto Lucian's cut open chest. Followed by the rest of the cat collapsing on top of Lucian.
The bite went slack.
A second later blood came down off its throat onto Lucian's open chest, and then the rest of the animal collapsed on top of him.
Lucian grunted and rolled it off.
He got to his feet, and he looked straight at her, and his eyes were full of hate.
"Who are you?"
A hate that Amira had never seen before, and it shook her to the very core. She tried to redirect the question. "You're bleeding really badly. We should get you treated first," she said, walking over to him, trying to tie a mock tourniquet to his arm where the cat had sunk its teeth in.
Lucian snatched her wrist and pulled her gaze to his.
"Don't make me ask again." He said it with a deep growl that made Amira's eyes tear up.
"I—"
Amira tried to say something, but the way Lucian was looking at her made her freeze up completely.
Lucian stagered to the ground flat on his back.
Above him the trees and the sky circled his vision. He lifted his arm up, and where the two teeth had sunk into him now oozed green.
"Damn," was all he could manage.
Amira came into his vision next, tears streaming down her face.
Her mouth was moving but Lucian couldn't hear her. He couldn't hear anything at all.
His vision came and went. At some point he was on Amira's back being carried down a mountain, and her soulflame was roaring off her, and he watched it move against the clouds and the blue sky as though the two of them were having a conversation.
Then it faded again.
He slowly faded back awake to a strange looking old man with brown eyes stitching up his chest and rubbing some weird slime all over it. And just as quickly as it came, it went.
The next time, some of his hearing had come back, though it was mostly a buzz with shouting somewhere behind it. He turned his head and found Amira and Layla going at each other at full volume while Layla pointed at the black cat, which was now lying dead on what appeared to be their kitchen table.
Amira caught him looking.
She came over and said something he couldn't hear with a soft smile, and closed his eyes with her fingers.
***
"Oryx!" a man with scaled skin and fish gills on his neck called out.
Oryx was in the process of hanging another man whose face had been disfigured up onto a post. His mouth was cut open in the shape of a smile and his eyes had been stitched shut. His scalp was completely shaved off, and what were presumably his horns had been cut off and stabbed into his arms where his hands used to be.
Above him hung a sign.
Lustful
"What is it? Can't you see I'm busy?" Oryx barked back.
"I found that-" The fish beastman stopped midway, examining the poor soul Oryx was hoisting up onto the post. "Woah, isn't that Johnesh? What'd he do?"
Oryx finished nailing the victim's hands into the post and looked down at the beastman with his pitch black eyes. "Touched that bunny girl the boss has become fond of. Now finish what you were saying before I bash your head in."
"Yesh, I told that guy the boss wouldn't be happy about that, but I guess he didn't—"
Oryx reached for the two sided axe resting on his back.
The beastman's gills shuddered. "Right!" He swallowed hard. "That guy you wanted me to find, remember? I found him. He's holed up in Roka, and some woman was carrying him down Terror Mountain. He looked pretty tore up. I guess he had a run in with one of the soulbeasts up there." He chuckled and rubbed his hands together. "Boss'll love that, eh? Considering he'll probably be dead by the end of the week."
Oryx punched him in the face so hard he threw him to the ground and knocked a few teeth out.
"You idiot!" He stood over him "The boss wanted him alive. You know how he is about his toys." He crouched down. "If that man dies, I'll be giving him you instead. Do you hear me, you stupid fish?"
The fish beastman swallowed a mouthful of blood and looked up at Oryx with watery eyes.
"I. I'm sorry. I'll make sure he survives. The boss can have him." He got up and ran off, mumbling something to himself, shaking with fear.
"Idiots. All of them." Oryx shook his head and gazed up at the man on the post. "I guess I'd better go and tell him." He sighed.
***
Two weeks later
"Agh."
Lucian's eyes came open slowly and his head pounded. He tried to lift it, decided against it, and put it back down on the pillow.
He raised his right arm. The fingers were faintly purple, and the whole forearm was wrapped from wrist to elbow.
His left arm was completely numb and his chest felt heavy.
He looked over.
Amira was sleeping on his chest. Her eyes were puffy red and there were dark circles under them. A little bit of drool oozed from her mouth and soaked into the bandages wrapping his chest.
He stared at her sleeping face, looking at the tiny freckles that sat at the top of her cheeks, and listened to her soft little snore. For a moment all the pain simply washed away.
"Cute," he whispered.
He tried shifting his left arm slightly to regain its feeling, but the movement caused Amira to rise up slowly.
She rubbed her eyes and yawned with a stretch. When she opened them she looked at the wall in front of her for a moment, and then looked down at Lucian.
Their eyes met and a white sparkle danced in her crimson eyes for a moment. A smile so big it stretched ear to ear spread across her face rapidly.
"You're awake!" she shouted, wrapping him up in a giant hug.
Lucian groaned as she pressed down on his injured chest. "Ow," he said, flatly.
"Right! Right!" she said, letting go and springing back up.
"How do you feel? Can you move your fingers?" she said, examining him over and over.
"Thirsty," Lucian responded, and lifted his hand, wiggling his fingers where she could see.
She sighed with relief. "Good. I was so worried about you. I thought that maybe you too would—" She stopped herself. "Anyways, I'm glad you're okay now."
"Yeah. So…" he looked around. "where am I?" he asked.
"Oh, you're in my bed. You were asleep for two whole weeks and I couldn't just let you sleep on the floor, so Layla and I tossed you up in the bed so I could watch over you and change your bandages every other day," she said casually.
"Mhmm. And, uh." He motioned down. "Where are the rest of my clothes?"
"Your clothes?" Amira said gleefully, looking down at his waist.
"OH RIGHT! Your clothes!"
Her face went red and she jumped out of bed and ran out of the room, shutting the door. "I, uh, had to throw your old ones out. They were ripped to shreds and covered in blood. I hope you don't mind." Her voice was slightly muffled from the other side of the door. "I bought you some new ones though, and laid them out on the dresser next to you. I think I got the right size, but if not, just let me know."
'How'd she know my size?'
"Anyways, I'll fetch you some water. So get dressed and meet me out in the dining room whenever you're ready," she called. The sound of her feet padding against the wooden floor and the creeking of the floorboards grew further and further away.
Lucian shook the numb arm, rotated his right shoulder, and looked down at a chest wrapped from collarbone to navel.
He got dressed and stretched his back. A sharp pain in his chest shot from side to side. He rubbed it gently and finished buttoning up his linen shirt.
'Green. Really?' he thought to himself as he rolled up the sleeves.
He stepped out into the hallway and walked toward the living room. It was early morning and the smell of dew settling on the grass filled the whole house. Amira greeted him with water as he rounded the corner.
"So, you wanna see what took you down?" she asked, perky.
Lucian took a long sip and nodded his head.
She motioned for him to follow her and the two went outside and walked around to the shed. She opened the door and pulled back a rough cotton blanket. Flies went everywhere and a rotting smell filled the air.
"Yuck." She covered her nose. "You've been out for two weeks so we just left it here, unsure of what to do with it."
Lucian didn't appear to notice the smell at all. He crouched down.
The purple eyes had gone white and mold had come in at the edges. The pearl white teeth were yellowed now, and maggots were working at the tongue where it hung out of the side of its mouth.
"Apparently it's called a Night Prowler. They're a rare species of puma that are empowered by a soulcore. The villagers had no idea one even lived up there. They think maybe it was passing by and decided to stay due to the large fawn population. Plenty of food." she shruged.
"The local beastologist came to take a look at it and would not shut up about how remarkable it was. Said its soulcore could be broken down into at least a hundred soulstones, maybe more, and that its soulcore was at the peak of grandmaster. That it must've been around eighty years old." She giggled. "You should've seen his face when I told him you killed it. He went ghostly white and said it was impossible."
"Did you get its soulcore?" Lucian asked.
"Yeah, that guy got his grimy hands on it and wouldn't let go. Said he was gonna take it to Wildkin to get it processed and that he'd give us the pay once he did."
"Hmm." Lucian examined the cut on its stomach where the beastologist had ripped its soulcore out.
"He also said these things carry a venom so painful that most people die of the pain long before it ever reaches the heart. But they only use it in a life or death situation, because they've only got enough for once. Twice, maybe."
She was not looking at the cat anymore.
"He took one look at your arm and said the thing had given you every last drop it had. Then he declared you dead. Standing right there in my front room." Her jaw set. "Obviously that pissed me off, so I told him he was a small village beastologist who had no idea what he was talking about."
"And then the doctor came and said the same thing."
She said that part quietly.
"He stitched you up and told me it was pointless without the antidote. Which isn't hard to come by, apparently, unless you happen to live in the middle of nowhere. And then he said even if we had it, it would only stop the venom. Not the pain. And the pain is what actually kills people."
She picked at a thread on her sleeve.
"But he must have found one. Because after he left, a vial of it showed up on our doorstep. Just sitting there."
Lucian looked over at her.
"You yelled in your sleep a few times," she went on. "Other than that, you didn't seem to feel any of the pain those two kept going on about. And your wounds just healed. Naturally."
They both looked at the cat for a while.
"Sooo. What do you want to do with it? I kept it in case you wanted to see what brought down that big brooding face of yours."
She giggled. She was plainly, enormously glad he was alive.
Her voice had wavered twice in that whole account, and she had carried on both times as though it hadn't.
"I suppose I'll keep the fur and make it into a cloak or something. The teeth might be useful as well if they're not already rotted through. Wanna help me skin it?" He stood up and turned to Amira, who was still pinching her nose.
"Um, no thanks. Sounds like a job for you, buddy." She slapped the side of his arm playfully and turned to leave. "Have fun though. I'll grab a knife for you."
She left Lucian alone in the shed.
The morning light peered through the gap in the wooden boards and flies buzzed around the mouth of the beast as Lucian sprawled it out so it would be easier to skin.
He ran his fingers through its surprisingly soft black fur. The coat was so dark that it barely reflected the sunlight.
"I'm sorry, little one." He said quietly to himslef "But you came at someone important to me. You fought well, though."
"Lucian, I brought the knife, though it's a bit exiguous," Amira said, coming through the door.
Lucian took it. "Thanks."
"Yeah." She waved the flies away from her face. "Well, I'll be inside. Yell if you need me."
"Amira," Lucian called softly.
"Yes?"
"We need to talk about what happened up there. I know I said I'd wait until you told me you were ready, but I saw the painting. I know who your father is." He tightened his hand so hard that his knuckles turned white.
Amira froze. "I—"
She pinched the side of her pant leg. "I can't," she said, looking downat the floor.
"Not yet."
Her eyes met his. "Finish up here and then come inside and we can talk."
"Alright." Lucian relaxed his hand. He noticed she was very nervous. "Don't be frightened. I'm not mad, nor do I plan on going anywhere. I just want to know the truth."
Amira let out a long breath.
"Okay."
She looked at Lucian for a second longer and then left, and Lucian stared down at the knife before starting to work on the beast.