“This one is... something else,” he said when he uncovered the third corpse.
“Describe it to me.” Seraphina stepped to the edge of the grave.
“It’s a woman. Her head is separated from her body and wrapped in a towel. The rest of her body is wrapped in a sheet, like the others, and it doesn’t seem like it’s rotten.” He leaned over and tore some of the fabric away. “Her skin is intact. Rosy. Not even that cold to the touch. It’s like she’s still alive, which I know is not true, because she’s not breathing, and her head is definitely detached.”
“Is her head intact as well?”
“No, that one has absolutely gone bad.”
That explained the persistent smell.
“The relic is inside her body,” Seraphina said. “Tear away the sheet and search her. She would’ve implanted the bone somewhere hidden, like on her ribs, under her breasts, or between her legs.”
Rune straightened his back and wiped his hands on his trousers.
“I... I can’t do that. I’m sorry, Seraphina, but she’s a woman, and I can’t just...”
“No, you’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” She held her hand out to him. “If you’ll help me into the grave, I’ll do it.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want you touching–”
“It’s all right. You said it’s like she’s still alive. That’s the relic preventing natural decomposition. It could be an apex relic or a greater relic, but I’m guessing apex. It has to be powerful, and if we find it, it’s ours.”
Rune grabbed her by the waist and lowered her into the grave. It was as if she weighed nothing. He pulled himself out and sat on the edge, watching her as he used snow to clean his dirt-stained hands and face.
Seraphina fumbled with the woman’s dress. It was a huge thing, all silk and lace, with an enormous skirt that made her feel like she was swimming in fabric, and a corset so tight that she had trouble removing it to check under it. Her fingers pressed into every inch of skin, between ribs and around joints, but a thorough search of her torso yielded nothing. With a sigh, she moved downward.
She pushed the skirt up, rolling it at her waist. Seraphina really didn’t want to do this. She didn’t like it, it felt unnatural and invasive, and as she started running her hands up and down the woman’s legs, she apologized to her over and over under her breath. She was wearing a silk shift and silk stockings secured with garters, and Seraphina tried to check every spot, from her toes to the joint of her hip, without removing them. She did this twice, pressing between her toes in case the relic was very small and could’ve fit there. She moved back up her shapely legs and stopped at the joint of her hip once more.
“Oh God,” she sighed. “I’m so, so sorry. You don’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, they took your possessions, your life, and here I am, taking more from you.”
Her fingers inched closer to the woman’s intimate parts under the silk shift. She pressed on her pubic bone, then moved lower, over the folds. She felt something under the skin of the right labia, a protrusion that shouldn’t have been there, and relief flooded Seraphina when she realized she had been right. All thisnasty adventure hadn’t been for nothing. She took one of the daggers that were secured to her lower back and pressed the tip of the blade to the woman’s flesh.
“You found something?” asked Rune, bewildered.
“I think so. We’ll see soon enough.”
She tried not to do more damage than was necessary. The skin broke easily, and Seraphina used two fingers to extract the tiny bone. Then she pulled the woman’s skirt down, adjusted her corset, and wrapped her back in the sheet as best as she could.
Rune stood and helped Seraphina out of the grave. She crouched on the ground, gathered some snow, and started scrubbing the bone of blood.
“Should I cover the grave now?”
“Yes. I know neither you, nor I will forget this night easily, it might haunt our nightmares for a while, but it was worth it. Trust me, this is an apex relic for sure, otherwise she wouldn’t have hidden it in such a place. She wanted to be certain that only she and her husband knew about it.”
She heard Rune starting to fill the grave with earth and snow. Once spring came, the body would begin to decompose. She tried not to think about it. A relic was better used than buried and forgotten, especially when it was a member of the Sarumite Order who would be using it. Seraphina was part of the resistance, and she would always be against the High Harvester. She knew she would only use this apex relic to do good.
“What does it do?” Rune asked.
And that was how he effectively brought her back to reality.
“I don’t know,” she said. She turned it between her fingers and traced its edges. “It’s a vomer bone, coming from a young saint judging by its size. It’s part of the nasal septum. It divides the nasal cavity. Since it was never recorded anywhere, I can’t know what it does and what saint it came from. Its origin is probablyforever lost. But hopefully, we’ll find out what power it yields soon enough.”
Rune finished filling in the grave and smoothed the freshly disturbed earth with the shovel. He stepped closer to Seraphina, who got up and craned her neck to see the dark shadow of his face.
“Don’t feel bad about what we did,” he said.
“I don’t think I can help it.” She smiled. “You feel bad about it.”
