“Cristabel, may I ask you something?” Kyembe dragged his gaze from his wine cup.

“At any time, Kyembe.” The saint looked up from shuffling a set of hand-inked wooden cards.

He glanced about. The Sengezian and Traemean were seated at a small table on the edge of the wine room. They were nearly out of reach of the firelight; distant chatter drowned their low tones. Good. Kyembe had sought the seclusion.

He took a deep breath.

“Did you hear anything of note on the night we slept beneath the table?”

The saint paused. “…why, pray tell?”

Kyembe leaned forward. “Did you?”

St. Cristabel’s brow furrowed and her large eyes narrowed. For several heartbeats, her companion looked on in anticipation. Eventually, she shook her head. “I cannot recall the foggiest.”

“Hrm.” The Sengezian circled the rim of his wine cup with the tip of a finger, examining his memory for the hundredth time that night.

The young noble - that Jeva had chastened - sparked a dim memory: plotting, nebulous words so depraved that he was unsure if they were vile truth or drunken delusion worthy of dismissal. Yet the more he thought on them, the more clarity they gained. Clarity was breeding obsession.

The boy had seemed so proud as he cast his silver over the snow.

So satisfied.

So free from grief.

Kyembe’s mood darkened. “Are you sure? You were the first to wake among us.”

St. Cristabel studied his countenance while carefully placing the cards down. “I heard not a thing. Though, unless I miss my guess, you heard something that has you most unsettled.”

“I may have heard something.” He shrugged. “Or I may be ruminating on a bad dream as a child would.”

“Perhaps. Did you inquire the same of Wurhi?”

“She heard nothing as well.”

“Aye, but she was last awake among us, and you-” She tapped her ear. “By far have the sharpest hearing. Clearly, disturbance lies upon your spirit. A rare thing for you.” She cocked her head, chestnut curls falling over her shoulder. “Confide in me. What confounds you so?”

Kyembe chewed his lip. “…you must hold this in confidence.”

St. Cristabel brought her fist over her heart. “I swear it: I shall not utter a word to another without your leave.”

The Sengezian sighed. “Alright.” Glancing about, he leaned across the table. “Do you remember that boy from earlier?”

“Which boy?”

“The one casting silver at us like grain to hens.”

“Oh.” Her expression soured. “Him. Uncouth, boorish and godless.”

“And perhaps worse. I might have heard him speaking to his friend that night.”

Slowly, Kyembe relayed what he thought he remembered of their conversation. With each word recounting a son’s plot to murder his mother, the saint’s expression turned somber. Her lips formed a grim line. Her face grew red beneath her freckles.

Bang.

She shot up from her seat. The table quivered from the impact of her hands.

Kyembe recoiled. “What are you doing?”

Blue balefire burned in her eyes. “I shall have Jeva release my blade to me.” Her voice was low and calm: like an executioner’s reading the name of a condemned person. “Then, I shall search out this murdering blackguard and cleave him in twain.”

“Wait wait wait wait wait!” Kyembe scrambled to his feet. “The memory is shrouded! It could be false!”

Without breaking gaze, she brought up an empty hand.

Hsssss.

The scent of vitriol stained the air.

Droplets formed in her palm, shining in a golden witch-light that gave her face a demonic cast. “I shall anoint him with the Tears of Amitiyah. Should my god’s tears burn his flesh, then I shall execute him post-haste. If they instead turn sweet, then I know his innocence.”

Kyembe grimaced. This ‘Amitiyah’ had not caused evil that he had witnessed, but - in his grim experience - little good birthed from the fickle whims of demons and gods.

His own village of boyhood had learned such a lesson. Fatally.

“Please.” He wrapped her hand in both of his. The scent of vitriol turned sweet. Callouses on their fingers touched. “I beg you: do not crash through someone’s gate because of my drunken dreams. You may destroy two reputations in one stroke: his, and your own. I owe you my life.” His grip tightened. “I would not forgive myself.”

The two warriors stood. Crimson eyes held blue ones.

At last, the saint sighed and withdrew her hand. “You have the right of it,” she declared. “Wisdom must cool zeal. And your words are wise, Kyembe.”

He sank back into his seat, relief washing over him. “Thank you. Though had you confirmed what I thought, you would need a centaur’s speed to reach him before I did. I have stolen from tyrants, slain men and women who have sought my life, quarrelled and caroused. There are many that would say I fall quite short of a ‘good man’.” He shook his head. “But to commit a deed so…so…”

His eyes hardened, growing distant. He had never known his mother. A thousand fantasies of meeting her had accompanied him through boyhood. The very thought of ruthlessly slaying one’s own…

His belly twisted.

“So vile?” St. Cristabel offered, sinking back into her seat. “Indeed…there are few acts fouler in this world. Though if such evil stains his hands, doubtless it will come to light in haste.”

He gave her a curious look. “Are those the words of your weeping god?”

She chuckled. “Those are the words of St. Cristabel Esclanore. Mark them well: one who murders then flings about silver scant days later is an imbecile.” Her mirth hardened until her laughter was flint. “A murderous imbecile is soon a discovered one. And a discovered one is soon a dead one.”

“Kyembe!” Wurhi’s voice cut in.

Wurhi and Ippolyte approached the table, their dark hair wet from the baths. The Zabyallan had a bounce in her step. Kyembe and Cristabel made room for the two women.

As Cristabel greeted Ippolyte, Wurhi whirled on Kyembe with manic speed. “How’s your stash doing?” The words tumbled from her mouth.

He smiled with curiosity, pushing his dark thoughts away. “Better than it has in all my years. I have never had quite so much.”

Her beady green eyes shone in the low light. “How about more?”

“Hm?” He cocked his head.

She leaned in. “I say we rob ‘master silver snow’.”

Kyembe froze. Several bloody thoughts flashed through his mind. “…No. I think not.” Fighting a grimace, he took a long sip of wine.

If he went to that boy’s manor, the urge to search out the truth would be overwhelming. Were he wrong, they would be left with an angry, powerful young patriarch. In a land that was not their own.

Wurhi snorted. “Come on, come on! You saw that smug bastard! Don’t you want to wipe that sneer off his face?”

He winced. “A little.”

“And did you see that pretty shiny hanging from his neck?” She nearly vibrated in excitement. “I’ve never seen a ruby like that! If I could get my hands on it-”

“It would be the doom of you.” Another woman’s voice cut in.

Thesiliea had arrived while they were occupied. Her look was grim. “That gem is cursed.” She glanced at the small table, before glaring at Ippolyte. “I told you to save me a seat.”

Scrrrp.

Before her spear-sister could defend herself, Kyembe slid his chair back and patted his lap. “And so, she did.” He gave the new arrival a broad smile. “I will be the most comfortable seat at the table.”

Thesiliea raised a dark eyebrow, quirking her lips. “I will hold you to that.”

He chuckled. “I would hope so.”

Her red eyes twinkling, the Vestulai warrior slid into the Sengezian’s lap. He placed an arm around her waist to steady her. She made no motion to move it. His smile deepened. He did not catch the look of accord that passed between the spear-sisters.

Wurhi snorted. “Hey. Lechers. What’s this about a cursed jewel?”

The table grew quiet. Ippolyte grimaced. “That’s a story.”

Cristabel finished another jar of wine and stacked the empty vessel on her others. The tower rose as high as her head. “I am fond of stories.” She wiped her mouth with a kerchief.

“As am I,” Kyembe added. He looked between the two women of Vestulon, giving a little bounce of his legs to the one on his lap. “Come now, tell us a story.”

Ippolyte groaned. “She tells it better than I do.”

Thesiliea gave her a look. “That is because I listened to our village matron.”

“True...and I did not.”

Her comrade sighed. “Your mother would be sad.”

“With all the coin I send back to her, she had better not be.” Ippolyte drew dice from her pouch, throwing Wurhi a glance of mistrust before re-examining them.

“Fine,” Thesiliea threw up her hands. When they fell, one came to rest on Kyembe’s thigh. He made no motion to move it. She took a deep breath, drawing on words she had first heard from a grizzled voice in a seaside temple lit in lavender.

“Before the Vestulai were Vestulai,” she began. “We were of the peoples near the Sea of Gods: Hebans, Illians, Olphoenians, Olubrians and more. We were of all their blood.”

Her look grew dark. “But all changed when the Tigrisians attacked. In those times, their empire was young and strong; they could run from sea to steppe with hardly a breath. They came for the villages. The village men met them in the mountain passes…and fell in the mountain passes. So, the women took up the spear and shield.”

Three sets of eyes watched Thesiliea.

Even Ippolyte had her ear cocked in her direction.

“And then?” Kyembe asked, enraptured as a child.

The storyteller barely resisted a smile. She patted his leg. “They fought the legions on every road, in every forest, and every bog. Each battle gifted them the wisdoms of war. So ferocious did they become that even the legionnaires of mighty Tigrisia came to fear their war-cries.”

She sighed, her cheer abating. “Yet, the empire pushed on: young, hungry and strong - razing all who opposed them until every daughter, mother and young son fell. Their high priestess despaired, kneeling in the temple: her supplications rose high to their war-god while the conquerors smoke choked the skies.”

Thesiliea’s lips tightened. “A spear pierced her back where she knelt. A bloodied Tigrisian hand dragged the crown jewel - The Eye of Radiin - from her headdress. Her dying words, whether curse or prayer, bubbled in her blood. And so, those people were wiped from the world. But, when they found the afterlife and sought their just reward, their war-god called only the men to enter his barracks. The women were left - told to find joy in other realms of the after-world.”

She gave a dark laugh. “But they had been made warriors as few can be called. Their eyes burned red from their god’s slight and they turned their backs on him. Their ire smouldered like hot coals and they clashed with the souls and demons of the afterworld. They gave no quarter, fighting in darkness and light. They trampled all until, once again, they reached the world of the living.”

She looked to Ippolyte. “And so, they emerged: warriors through the crucible of death. They emerged as the ‘Vestulai’.”

A moment of silence hung in the air.

“Yeah, yeeeeah that’s very nice.” Wurhi eyed Thesiliea impatiently. “But what about the jewel?”

“Were you not listening?” Ippolyte grunted. “It is a stone pulled from a murdered priestess during a massacre so awful it birthed a new people! A people birthed from the rage of the dead, Wurhi - is that not cursed enough for you?!”

The Zabyallan blinked. “Wait, wait, that’s all true? Coming back from the dead?”

Some time ago, she would have laughed at the very thought. Yet, she had witnessed strange things since joining Kyembe’s company. Awful things. Nightmarish things.

“I was slain and returned by Amitiyah’s grace,” St. Cristabel offered. “Such occurrences are not impossible.”

Wurhi looked at the saint as though she were rabid. She chose to ignore the madwoman. “So why don’t you go get it back?” she asked the Vestulai.

“Gods, I wish you gambled as badly as you listened,” Ippolyte moaned. “Cursed as cursed gets? We want no part of it: let it twist the fortune of whatever fool holds it. We Vestulai move on.”

“Didn’t look like you were moving on earlier,” the thief countered. “I thought you were gonna take the head of that shit-spewing piss monger.”

“We do not want it back,” Thesiliea pronounced grimly. “But to see it paraded before us…how could one not react with wrath?”

“Exactly!” Wurhi gestured. “It got ‘paraded’ back to his house! I say ‘react with wrath’ by stealing it! …and everything else we can carry!”

The Vestulai’s red eyes narrowed. “There’s no honour in that. And if he wishes to flaunt a curse, let him. Do not go and bring it upon yourself.”

“Oh, hells to that,” Wurhi snorted, turning to the Sengezian. “Kyembe, we robbed a dead Wizard King’s tomb and nothing bad happened to us! You’re not caught up in all this, are you?”

Kyembe thought back on his earlier suspicions. A mother murdered by her own son. A mother that possessed this ‘cursed jewel’. He shook his head. “…there is evil to this thing. I say we do not touch it.”

Wurhi snorted in disgust, throwing her hands up. “Fine time for you to turn coward!” Grumbling, she turned to Ippolyte. “I’m in a bad mood. Prepare to be poor.”

The Vestulai groaned.

Kyembe laughed, directing his attention to the warrior woman on his lap.

He did not catch the gleam of greed awaking in Wurhi’s eyes.

Haldrych paced the master bedchamber in agitation. A goblet of wine trembled in his hand.

“That thing knew something.” He took a long sip of the steaming liquor.

“You don’t know that.” Adelmar gripped the arms of his chair. His voice was tight.

“I do! They know.” Haldrych guzzled the wine, his eyes growing distant. “You should’ve seen the way that red eyed creature stared at me! He knew something!”

The merchant’s son leaned forward, tenting his fingers before a troubled brow. “Red eyes…must have Vestulai blood. That’d explain the glare.”

Haldrych snorted. “Vestulai men are thick-bodied like oxen and much lighter of skin. He was something else. And he was under that damn table with that big woman and the little one. Damn all the gods, they might’ve heard everything!”

“They weren’t conscious,” Adelmar pushed, though his voice shed confidence with every word. “You shouted loud enough for half the room to hear and no one said a word about it.”

“…not all dogs with closed eyes are sleeping, Adelmar.”

The merchant’s son grumbled. “…we’d already have the Duke’s Battalion on us if they knew.”

“Or.” The poet held up a finger. “Maybe they’re waiting to inform the Battalion. Or blackmail us. Or some other trick. Perhaps they even mean to kill us themselves-”

“Alright, alright! You’ve made your point!” Adelmar tugged on the end of his beard. “Here’s what we do. I’ve arranged for us to meet with two men after your mother’s funeral. We’re going to go somewhere with them and, if things go as I hope, this will no longer be a problem.”

Haldrych eyed him. “Where?”

“I can’t say. But, once we’re there, they’re going to do something-”

“Do what? Who are these they?”

“Haldrych!” the merchant’s son snapped. “You. Must. See.”

The young poet’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

“…good man.” Adelmar continued. “Once it’s done and if things go well…you may ask them a favour: have them take care of this.”

“More shadowy talk!” Haldrych grimaced. “Who are these people of yours that you have so much confidence in them?

Adelmar’s answering smile was positively wolfish. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”