Iron grinding against stone interlaced with the rhythmic snoring of swine. They worked in tandem to fill the void of an abandoned village that, except for interspersed hoots, lay silent. Faint green moonlight and cold air filtered through the barn’s cracked wooden walls. In the center, an oil lamp struggled to brighten the silhouettes of a sleepy horse, a mother pig and her snoozing babies, and three weary travelers. Or would criminals be a more appropriate term?

Dimitry, hands around a cozy flame, watched Saphiria sharpen the tip of a foot-long dagger with a flat rock. Her practiced hands moved with precision—every stroke identical to the dozens before it.

“Is that another skill you learned in Malten?” he asked.

“No…” Her voice was grim. “Estoria.”

Lying on a fire-warmed towel, Precious yawned. “Judging by the self-hatred, I’m guessing that’s something you’re not very proud of.”

The dagger flew out of Saphiria’s hand and stuck into a support column. Staring at the faerie, she walked to retrieve her weapon. “Still not sharp enough.”

Dimitry sighed. Maybe he gave Precious too much credit. “You really should think twice before provoking her, or else we might end up having faerie fillet for dinner.”

“Ooh, scary. Besides, I don’t think I’d make for a filling meal.”

Saphiria sat back down and picked the grinding stone off the floor. “You may not be aware, but faeries are demonic creatures. Don’t trust it.”

He glanced at Precious, who lazily polished her wings with a tiny fistful of cloth. Although the critter riled up everyone around her, from stupidity or instinct, she didn’t look particularly demonic. “Why would you say that?”

“Faeries are known for killing travelers and farm animals.”

“Ironic how a murderer calls me a killer,” Precious said.

“Is what she said true?” Dimitry asked.

“The Church refers to everyone who disagrees with them as corrupted or demonic. When you slaughter a cow out of hunger, does that make you a demon?”

“Maybe if we lived in a society ruled by cows,” he said, “but that’s not the point. Saphiria and I don’t want to get stabbed in the back.”

“If you’re that worried,” Precious muttered, “tell me to leave and I will.”

Between her and a Church that marketed their slave trade as salvation, the choice of who to trust was easy. Dimitry smiled. “I already told you I won’t. Besides, I still owe you for your help back in Ravenfall.”

The faerie’s face brightened. “A-anyway, we’ve got some planning to do.” She struggled to lift a small branch and dragged it across the barn’s dirt floor to draw a cross. “Let’s say we’re here.”

Saphiria’s gaze shifted away from her knife and towards the beginnings of a makeshift map.

“To get to Malten, we have two choices.” Precious drew two arrows.

Saphiria pointed to the arrow facing northwest. “We can’t go that way.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Dumitry, that one goes through The Holy Kingdom of Zera. I don’t think any of us would be welcome there.”

That made sense. Dimitry assaulted a bishop, Saphiria was an escaped servant, and Precious was a so-called demonic creature. Finding a less pious group would prove difficult.

“So our only option is to go west?” he asked.

Saphiria’s raven black hair poured from her hood when she leaned forward. “To Estoria.”

“Yep. The Church will be there too, but they have less authority in Amalthea than in their own borders.” Precious drew an arc opening upward to the left of ‘Estoria’. “Then we have to cross the gulf.”

“You’re knowledgeable for something that shouldn’t be able to speak,” Saphiria said.

“Live as long as I have, and that sort of thing comes naturally.”

Based on facial structure, the faerie looked no older than a girl in her late teens. Dimitry leaned back against a wooden column. “And how long is that?”

“Don’t ask a lady her age.”

“Then don’t bring it up.”

Saphiria dragged her dagger’s hilt to draw a long landmass extending upwards to the west of the gulf. “We’ll have to find a ship to take us from Estoria to Coldust. Has anyone been there before?”

“Nope,” Precious said. “I heard there’s only sand wherever you look, and it’s always freezing.” She snuggled into Dimitry’s cloak. “But something tells me that staying warm won’t be a problem anymore. Maybe Coldust will make a good vacation spot.”

“Do you speak any Melvum?”

“Barely.”

Saphiria glanced at Dimitry. “How about you?”

He stroked his chin. Ever since arriving in this world, every language sounded and read like English. Dimitry couldn’t name individual characters, nor did he know the dialect, but as far as he knew, he encountered only two languages: the one written on Ravenfall’s sparse signs, and the other in the dark hall’s magic tomes.

“I’m not sure,” he said, “but I might.”

Precious’s face scrunched up. “You don’t even know what languages you speak?”

Wondering if it was best to keep his mouth shut, Dimitry spoke the truth to avoid excess suspicion. “After some weird stuff happened, I’m not sure what’s what anymore.”

“What kinda stuff happened?”

“As I said, I’m not sure.”

Saphiria brushed her hair back behind her ear to reveal a glint in her indigo eyes. “Do you know where you’re from?”

“Somewhere really far away from here. Really, really far.”

“Well…” Precious said, “he’s not lying, at least. Probably hit his head on a low ceiling somewhere. Doesn’t know truth from fiction anymore.”

Saphiria’s eyes narrowed. “With a dozen mugs of ale a day, any blacksmith would slave away.”

Dimitry blinked at the sudden poetry recital. “Blacksmiths sure sound like a demanding bunch.”

Her slender hand lifted to cover an open mouth.

“What’s so impressive?” Precious waved her tiny arm. “I can speak Whorlfahst too, you know.”

Whorlfahst was a language, and apparently, Dimitry spoke it.

Saphiria leaned forward, studying his face. “I never saw anyone with your features. Do you remember which region of the Gestalt Empire you lived in? I’m guessing you’re from Einheart with Zeran roots. Am I right?”

“Sorry, it’s as Precious said: I don’t know much about anything.”

“Leave it to me.” She flashed a stunning smile. “If you come with me to Malten, I’ll introduce you to my father. Someone at the castle will definitely help you remember. I promise.”

“C-castle?”

She nodded.

Although the girl mentioned her father’s fiefdom before, Saphiria left out the part about having a castle. Was it similar to the one in Ravenfall? If so, her family was wealthy. Maintaining a private army and garrison alongside a separate set of walls required vast fortunes. Fortunes that could hire Dimitry. That would keep him and his patients safe. “I’d love to take you up on your offer.”

Precious raised her hand. “How about me? Can I—”

The sound of crunching grass drew nearer.

Saphiria’s smile vanished. She held a finger to her lips and extinguished the lamp.

Footsteps—they trailed around the barn and stopped at the front door.

Precious dived into Dimitry’s cloak and whispered. “Three people. They’re hunting for something, and I don’t think it’s those pigs.”

Dimitry tugged on Saphiria’s hand and held up three fingers. “Hostile.”

She nodded before picking up her dagger and the sharpening stone. Her crouched figure was almost imperceptible in sparse green moonlight.

Unlike her, Dimitry was useless. Ever since the escape, pulsating aches consumed his arms. Both Saphiria and the man in the dark hall advised him to avoid using magic to prevent aggravating his overloaded palms. Dimitry agreed with their advice but held a vol pellet just in case.

It was better to live in pain than die in regret.

Straw rustled as he stepped away from Saphiria; her dispelia scarf would nullify invisall.

The barn’s door burst open.

Three intruders shuffled in: a man with a sword and leather armor, another with a dagger, and a portly one carrying a bow in the back. Green light lit the sides of their faces.

Dimitry’s heart beat faster. As he crouched past composting straw and wood chunks, something round jabbed into his boot’s sole. Although darkness hid the object’s identity, its rusted iron texture made it a good weapon.

He picked it up.

The purple vasculature bulging from his palm pulsed in agony.

“Come out ye fuckers,” the man with a dagger said, “we saw yer lot extinguish the light!”

The mother pig and her piglets emitted ear-piercing squeals.

A green glint ejected from the shadows. When it reached the man with the sword, he collapsed with a thud softened by dirt.

“John, get up ye cunt!” The dagger-wielding man kicked his downed compatriot in the hip. “John, are ye—”

Another projectile flew across the room, disarming the portly bowman.

“Bon!” The dagger-wielding man shouted. “What the fuck’s up with both of ye!”

Their inattention presented a chance.

Dimitry dashed forward, tightening his grip around the metal object. All of its weight smashed into the third man’s temple.

They fell to the barn floor.

In his opponent’s moment of weakness, Dimitry retrieved a dagger from an unresisting hand. “Precious, is that all of them?”

“I don’t sense anyone else.”

The portly one tried to back out, but it was too late.

Saphiria slammed her knee into his groin, threw his quiver and arrows across the room, and locked the doors with a rotating plank. There was no escape.

A half-conscious Julia arose from her slumber. The black horse’s wide-open eyes scanned the room, examining all three downed men. She approached Saphiria and nibbled her cloak.

“I know you’re scared, sweetheart. I know you’re scared. Give me a moment.” After briefly stroking the animal’s neck, Saphiria fished the lamp from its burial spot and hovered her palm over the wick. “Ignia.”

Feeble flames illuminated the barn once more.

Dimitry knelt beside a man with a dagger buried in the left side of their chest. In the operating room, he would have performed a sternotomy to open the chest and identify the damage. However, given the blade’s length, the weapon had breached the chest wall and lodged into the heart. Distended jugular veins hinted that the blood seeping into the victim’s tunic also pooled in the pericardium—the chamber encasing the heart—reducing the muscular organ’s stroke volume and therefore its ability to pump blood.

Pressing two shaky fingers against the victim’s wrist, Dimitry discovered what he feared most—a pulse that grew rapid. The man presented with the symptoms of cardiac tamponade. At this rate, shock and death would occur within the next few minutes. Attempting a resuscitation was pointless.

Like a virulent disease in a nursing home, Dimitry left dead bodies wherever he went. “Saphiria, you can come get your dagger. This one’s basically dead.”

“Understood.” Saphiria placed her foot against the man’s chest and, after some difficulty, retrieved her dagger.

“W-wait.” The bowman scurried into a barn corner. “Don’t hurt me.”

Precious flew out from under Dimitry’s cloak and grinned. “Still think I’m a backstabbing demonic creature?”

“I… I appreciate the help,” Saphiria said.

“Sp-speaking f-faerie?” The bowman blurted. “Who… who are you people?”

“Shut up a moment.” Dimitry examined the unconscious man he assaulted with a horseshoe to discover a regular heart rate. He heaved a relieved breath. “This one might live.”

“Understood.” Saphiria pressed her bloody dagger to the man’s throat.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dimitry said.

“We have no need for him.”

“No need for him? Who the fuck says something like that? Look at him! He’s in his twenties. What if he has a wife and kid waiting for him back home? They’ll die without him.”

Saphiria bared murderous eyes. “You’re naïve to think we should let him live. We must consider only ourselves if we’re to ever reach Malten. Pity is a fool’s errand.”

“What if there’s a better way? There has to be a better way.”

“For people like I, there isn’t.” Her words crude and her movements jagged, she watched Dimitry as if awaiting a better solution.

He didn’t have one.

Whether he put the man to sleep or tied them up, leaving witnesses would only bite them in the ass. He didn’t want to kill. He didn’t want to see Saphiria kill. And yet…

No.

They weren’t killing. They were putting someone out of their misery. Dimitry couldn’t watch someone suffer in their final moments.

Severe blunt head trauma from a horseshoe impact left the man with a bump on their temple. Although there wasn’t evidence of a skull fracture, the victim’s pupils were bilaterally dilated, neither shrinking or expanding in response to the lamp’s light. In an unconscious patient, the cause was often intracranial hemorrhage—a death sentence unless surgically treated in a modern facility.

If anything, they would be rescuing the man from around ten agonizing final days. A simple administration of medieval euthanasia.

That was what Dimitry told himself.

Feeling something dark and festering and clawing into the deepest pits of his gut, he massaged his eyelids—perhaps so he couldn’t see himself. “Please. Make it painless.”

“I will.” Saphiria tightened her grip around the dagger and plunged it into the man’s heart. She retrieved it, wiped the bloodied iron against the lifeless victim’s cloak, and slid the weapon back into the sheath strapped to her leg.

“You two get along like an old couple,” Precious mused. “Except, you know, the murdering people part.”

Dimitry buried his self-disgust and turned his attention to the bowman. “Why’d you make us do this?”

“A-are you going to k-kill me?”

"Answer me!"

“I’m s-so sorry—”

Seething rage from being forced into murder erupted within Dimitry. He slammed his boot into a dilapidated barn wall, whose fragile wooden plank shattered on impact. “We don’t give a fuck about your excuses! Why did you attack us?!”

“T-the town crier. Just this evening. He… he said a man with p-pale green eyes, a companion, and a b-black horse… I didn’t know anything about a faerie.” The bowman held an arm towards the roof. “Zera, save me from the corruption.”

Precious burst into laughter. “Oh, Zera can’t save you now. Us demonic creatures will eat your soul.”

“Celeste guide me!”

“Ha! I love this guy.”

Did word of their crimes spread this far already?

“How did you know we were here?” Saphiria asked.

“My neighbor’s d-daughter was p-playing by the river. She said something about a b-beautiful black stallion following a man. My wife… my wife saw a woman go the same way later. We thought you were the ones the town crier spoke about, s-so—”

“Julia isn’t a stallion.” Saphiria frowned. “She’s a lady.”

“W-what?” the bowman muttered.

Really? Correcting the horse’s sex was what concerned Saphiria most? Dimitry stepped forward. “Is anyone else coming?”

“N-no, sir. I swear.”

“Did the town crier mention anything about a Zeran servant, a holy cleric, or a surgeon?”

“I… I don’t think so, sir.”

“Does anyone else know we’re here?”

The bowman shook his head. “W-we just tracked your f-footprints, s-sir.”

“You’re poachers?” Saphiria asked.

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

Dimitry glanced at the faerie on his shoulder. “Did he lie at any point?”

Precious wiped joyful tears from her eyes with the edge of her tattered gown. “No, but I think he might’ve soiled his braies.”

Dagger drawn, Saphiria approached the man.

Knowing her intentions, all anger drained from Dimitry. “Wait. This one doesn’t have to die. Please, let’s just use the snoozia canister. We’ll be long gone before he wakes up.”

“Even if he sleeps throughout the night, he will alert the shire-reeve by noon, messengers will alert every surrounding settlement, and we will be killed or captured halfway to Estoria.”

“I-I won’t tell anyone,” the man uttered. “I swear I won’t tell anyone!”

“Nice try, lying guy!”

“Precious, are you sure he’s lying now?” Dimitry asked. “You’re not misleading us?”

“Look, I may be a 'corrupted creature', but I still hold myself to a standard, okay?”

Dimitry’s heart dropped. Would he rather harm Saphiria and Precious or the man who tried to kill them? The answer was obvious. Hounding guilt forced him to avert his gaze. “Forgive me.”

Saphiria continued her approach.

“P-please. I’m s-so so sorr—”

That night, an agonized scream lodged itself into Dimitry's mind.