Chapter Twenty.

My blood looks like someone dumped a pile of gold glitter into used motor oil. It is annoyingly sparkly even in daylight, and in the dark it actually glows a little. There’s also a lot of it currently staining just about everything in the infirmary aboard the Duchess.

Welp. Guess that secret’s out.

Not that it was much of a secret at this point, to be honest. I just really hope there isn’t some kind of stigma against [Outer Kindred] like me. People tend to get uncomfortable about things that are "near-human", and I'm pretty sure I fit the bill.

The thought is just a distraction though, because while my whole body has been aching since I woke up, I keep having flashbacks of Tibbs with his skull impaled on the griffon's beak. I didn't even know him that well, just some sparring yesterday and a few conversations in between, but he'd been the first guy on the crew who'd actually been nice. And I failed him.

It felt like I should have known him better, somehow. Like the fact that I barely knew him is doing his death a disservice. He'd made the effort to be friendly, and if I'd paid more attention to my instincts then maybe he'd still be alive. But this only served to really highlight the big issue haunting me the last week.

They’re all going to die.

I hadn’t actually witnessed people dying up close except for… once, before and I’m still messed up about that. Now my brain is confronting me with my own mortality, or rather it's trying to, but running face-first into the wall of my actual immortality. Which brought home the fact that no matter what, I'm going to see all these people die. Maybe not violently like Tibbs, but eventually they're all going to kick it, and I'm not. I have it on good authority that I'm going to live past the heat death of this universe in one form or another. It's terrifying, but I can't help remembering the Void Leviathan's words:

“Our instincts betray us, in the beginning. Demanding we fight, struggle, live."

And it was right, because despite the fear of looming eternity and knowing intellectually that this is the wrong decision… I want to live. It somehow feels cowardly to admit that, which is frustrating as hell but I guess emotions aren’t terribly concerned with logical consistency.

A rap on the wall interrupts my brooding and announces a visitor to my bed. The curtain giving me some privacy is pulled back by an assistant that I didn't recognize (seriously, how many people are on this ship?) and Leigh promptly sauntered in. He closed the curtain again— because nothing says privacy like a thin curtain— and looked me up and down with a frown.

“You know, if we’re going to make this a regular thing then I'm going to need more potions.”

I shrugged, wincing as the motion aggravated the binding currently holding together most of my shoulder— at least on the outside. They’d tried to stitch me up at first (which is how I’d first woken up back on the ship, fun) but they couldn’t penetrate my skin with the needle, so they’d resorted to just pulling the skin as close together as they could and applying “ magic medical glue”. The ship’s doctor had practically noped right the hell out when he’d first seen the… underneath part of my skin. Lots of moving parts, so to speak.

Ok, it was gross and freaky as hell. There are tentacles visibly moving around under my skin and the hole is a trypophobe’s worst nightmare come to life. It made me feel like a human-shaped bag covering a swarm of eels or something. I couldn't help an involuntary shudder— which also hurt.

"You alright, kid?" Leigh asked with concern as he sat down next to me.

Taking a deep breath, I thought about how I was feeling right now.

"No, I'm not." I hissed.

In my rush to have a "real" adventure— even one just on the way to find Veris— I'd forgotten an important lesson: adventures suck. The fun part of adventuring is telling stories years later with friends, and I couldn't help but feel that being friendly to me was hazardous.

“I’m tired, Leigh. Tired and angry. I don’t know what I’m doing here. There was this big plan I had where I’d get my revenge and save my friends but… I’ve only been here a week and I’m already faltering. I look forward and all I can see is this nebulous, overwhelming task that I have no idea how to begin. And people are dying while I try to figure this out.”

“Ray, take a deep breath.” Leigh said, calmly. “The caravan was leaving on this route with or without you. The surge would still have hit, the away party would still have been sent out to trade, and the only difference is that without you there they all would have died and not just two. The only things responsible for the deaths yesterday are the monster, and whatever is causing the surge in the first place. This is not your fault.”

He was trying to help me with that speech, but unfortunately he picked the wrong words.

“I think it is.” I whispered.

Leigh frowned.

"What—"

“Pardon sir, you have a… visitor?”

The assistant had returned, drawing back the curtain slightly to speak. That was all he got out before the oldest man I’d ever seen shouldered past him impatiently. He was stick-thin, with pale, wrinkly skin that was stretched too tight on his bones. His face had the same vaguely asiatic cast as my own, and even a similar amber shade to his eyes. A cloak of large, black feathers draped over his shoulders and made him seem like a hunched crow as he stalked forwards aggressively.

“You’n tha God-Slayer?” he rasped.

The interruption was jarring, and I struggled to shift gears mentally from my impending breakdown to this… whatever this was. Leigh just shrugged when I glanced at him, so I grit my teeth and tried to figure out what the intruder needed.

“I’m sorry, the what now?”

“Ah, you speak the true tongue. Much better. Are you the God-Slayer?” The old man’s voice picked up and the accent vanished as he changed languages.

I’m never gonna get used to that. Also…

“I’m sorry, the what now?”

He glared at me while I just smiled sarcastically back.

If you're gonna just barge in and not even be polite, then I'm sure as hell not gonna be helpful.

Eventually the man was unable to contain himself and burst out shouting.

"Kurkulakoa! The Windstalker! The Great Hunter of the Mists, did you kill him??"

I let the silence drag out for a minute after the old man's outburst— realizing he was probably talking about the griffon monster I'd just killed— before deciding to give my best owl impression.

"Who?"

For a moment it looked like he was about to blow a gasket before he abruptly calmed himself. Then he climbed up on my infirmary bed and sat cross-legged at my feet. Which was weird. He poked at my leg annoyingly with a single boney digit.

"Keep that up and I'm kicking you." I said, frustration building at the weirdo and fully intending to punt him across the room if he didn't quit.

The old man stopped, giving his finger a brief dissatisfied look before giving me an even more dissatisfied look.

"You're a cheeky one, aren't ya?"

I gestured broadly (well, as broadly as I could with all the injuries) at my bandaged form.

"Sorry, as you can see I've been having a bit of a rough time lately and I'm not in the best mood. If you could kindly piss off then I can get back to healing and you can get back to harassing birds or something. Win-win."

The strange man looked only slightly offended and leaned back with a sigh.

"The signs do not lie. You are on the Path. I am shaman Nezzick, and I bring you a message from the Great Telm'Urka!" He paused expectantly, and was nonplussed at my complete lack of reaction. "Er…You have slain the Windstalker in challenge and partaken of his essence, the Great One has witnessed this and recognized your claim. Great Telm’Urka, in his wisdom, has granted you a tribute to honor your conquest.”

I’m too tired for this.

“That’s lovely. You should go tell him I say ‘thanks’ and leave whatever he sent over there.” I gestured vaguely towards the corner of the room. "Right now, I'm busy. Please leave."

Nezzick cackled abrasively, and the noise of it grated on my ears.

"Don't think it'll fit there."

I sighed with exasperation.

"Fine. What is it?"

"As Kurkulakoa challenged to change his fate, you have been given what he sought. You are granted a tribute of thralls, to serve as needed in your domain.” He nodded gravely, as if that would somehow make his words make sense.

Leigh’s eyes widened and he sat bolt upright.

"Is that why you're all here?"

"All…? What's going on, Leigh?" I asked.

"A fleet showed up this morning, that's what all the alarms were. Ships from dozens of villages came pouring out of the fog, everyone was wondering why they're here and… uh, why they have your coat." He said quickly.

"Well thanks for telling me about this beforehand." I bit out sarcastically.

"Hey, you were kind of occupied with the whole 'enormous bleeding hole in your shoulder' thing. Figured it could wait."

The shaman got tired of being ignored and butted into our conversation.

"Yes, yes. Three and a half thousand souls, all newly godless and ready to serve."

My mind blanked.The thought that this could be a sick joke flitted through my head by was quickly crushed by the lead weight of reality.

“No.”

“No?” Leigh and Nezzick both echo with varying levels of surprise.

“Take your ‘tribute’ and go back. I don’t have a domain and I don’t need… thralls. Send whoever is here back to their homes. Just, just go away.” I plead while my vision starts to cloud over with angry blackness. My chest constricts painfully while my fists clenched hard enough to tear my sheets. I’m losing it, but the old man doesn’t seem to notice.

“You cannot deny a tribute from the Great One. We are that which remains from those destroyed by this rampage of the spirits, and are all godless now— they have no home to return to. Fate decides the victor of a challenge, and with your victory our fate lies with you.”

“Fate doesn’t decide shit!” I practically screamed out. “Not for me. Not ever again. I made sure of that.”

It’s too much, my aura is leaking violently through the room now. My cuts are reopening and bleeding through my bandages. Nezzick tries to speak again, but I cut him off with an angry growl.

“Get out.”

He resists stubbornly, still trying to speak over me for some reason until something in me just snaps.

“GET. OUT!”

My roar shakes the bulkheads and the old shaman is sent tumbling through the curtains by a tempest of my aura, streamers of wrathful starlight crackling dangerously across the walls. He lies in the hallway while I struggle to contain my heaving breaths. The silence afterwards is eerie enough that a flicker of concern worms through me that I might have just killed him, but then the silence is broken by a dark chuckle. Nezzick springs to his feet, eyes locked onto me with an unpleasant gleam.

“As you wish… Great One.”

He vanishes down the hallway like a shadow, leaving me alone with Leigh and one very freaked out assistant.

“Well, that answers my next question then.” Leigh muttered.

“What?” I snap.

“Was going to ask if you wanted to try and keep things at least a little hushed about your nature but… yeah, think that ship has sailed.”

I look around at the infirmary, where a series of scorch marks almost like a magnetic field diagram now radiate out from my bed. The curtains are torn, and I’m very lucky to notice there aren’t any other people here who could have been hurt by all the surgical tools that just got flung around violently.

Damnit, and I just resolved to try and make things better with Teadran.

The incongruous thought is enough to startle a laugh out of me, and once it starts I can’t stop. I curled up on the bed, laughing to myself and covering my face so nobody can see the tears.