“They’ve retreated,” the blue-haired woman tells me.
I glance over at her, finding her watching me cautiously with a slight smile on her face, covered in blood splatter and with a headless corpse of the vamp creature at her feet.
I grin, “Nice work.”
“Thanks,” she says. “You too.”
I frown, “Well, my sword didn’t get to taste his blood, and I didn’t get to see the life drain from his eyes, so I didn’t do that great.”
She chuckles, “I like you.” She pauses, “And actually, taking a snake shifter's fang is absolute agony, and it’s the kind of pain that doesn’t just fade or get fixed. It will be a constant reminder of you and what you did to him.”
My smile widens, “Perfect. That makes me feel a little bit better.”
“Yealite won’t forget you know, he doesn’t forget anything. You have a target on your head,” she warns me, the worry in her eyes strangely heartwarming.
I shrug, “Don’t worry, it’s not the first, and it won’t be the last time that I have a target on my head. Hell, I’m pretty sure I’ve got four or five targets on my head as we speak. What’s one more at this point?”
She grins, and then her expression becomes serious again, “Who the fuck are you? I haven’t seen you around the settlement before, and everyone knows everyone here for safety.”
“Erm, I’m Neith,” I reply. “I’m not sure how to explain why or how I’m here.”
“Vague,” she replies, her eyebrow raised in halfhearted suspicion.
“Styx!” Someone yells from outside of the tent, obviously heading in our direction, “Please tell me that crazy fire woman is in there with you!”
“Should I be concerned?” I ask.
I expect her to joke, but she’s gone completely pale, looking terrified. She points at the dead vamp by her feet, all of her confidence and fierceness gone. She begs, “Please, you killed him.”
The sword in her hand disappears, and I realize with shock that she has an enchanted weapon, like Asael.
She is terrified, and I’m not sure why, but if she wants me to say I killed the fucker on the floor, then I killed the fucker on the floor.
I move over to where she is and say, “Quickly, wipe your face and then take this.” I hand her my shirt. I always wear a tank underneath on a job, just in case.
She looks so grateful but doesn’t say anything as she quickly does what I’ve told her, handing her blood splattered shirt to me.
Whoever is quickly approaching the tent is going to realize that there is something going on if I’m suddenly wearing clothing that matches whatthey’re all wearing, and I can’t risk it. Not with the amount of fear still on this fierce woman’s face.
So I burn her shirt until there’s nothing left, and I vaguely register my surprise that the fire that burns it is bright pearlescent white.
That’s odd.
I don’t have the time to wonder why it’s a different color from the usual fire that I use to burn stuff, or any of the ones that I have previously seen.
I’ll figure it out later.
I switch places with Styx, so that I’m by the body while she scoots under the bed with the other woman, and they huddle close together. They look so similar that I would be willing to say that they were sisters, or at least related in some sort of way.
“There you are,” a man says as he rushes through the tent entrance, his eyes landing on me, and moving to the body at my feet. “Nice work. Look, I don’t care who the fuck you are, or how you got here, you helped, and you kept my charges safe,” his eyes dart to the women under the bed. I do not like the way he said charges. He kind of sneered it. There was no warmth or caring in his tone at all. He doesn’t give me a chance to respond as he rushes on, “Please, for the love of the goddess, stop the screaming.”
“Huh? What screaming?” I ask, genuinely confused for a moment because I’m not screaming, and the women under the bed aren’t screaming. Then I hear it.
Apparently, I tuned out the screams of the guy that I set on fire when I first arrived. He’s still burning, which is pretty cool, and maybe slightly disturbing. At least it would be if it weren’t for the fact that he killed a child and definitely deserves it.
I don’t know how he’s still burning and yet still alive, but it’s certainly an effective torture method that I will definitely be utilizing in the future.
“The soldier you set on fire. None of us can get close enough to him to end his life,” the guy explains, his eyes narrowing slightly. His eyes fill with malicious greed, “That’s quite a gift you have. I haven’t seen any with magic like yours before.”
