To the bystanders, the fight was more of a violent light-show than a duel, a dance whose lows were higher than any mundane fistfight’s highs, and whose highs were visual overload to the vast majority of those watching.

Makhus caught pieces of it all and managed to even recognize individual moves, but his eyes were confused by the ribbons of Fog that obscured everything. Even with her Homunculus Eye Zefaris had to pay close attention, lest she lose track of what was happening. And Sigmund… He didn’t even try to keep track of the fight, entirely content to be just like the other bystanders. Even still, he had a good idea of the general course of the duel from beginning to end.

It was obvious the audience that had gathered expected some sort of flashy technique to end off the fight, much like it often happened in choreographed martial arts shows during festivals. Perhaps that subversion of their expectations was part of what made the simple right hook knockout so impactful, a sudden wave of silence spreading through the crowd as the young beast-hunter spun in place and fell to the ground.

The silence grew into a discordant choir when the bronze-skinned amazon took a step towards her unconscious opponent, her eyes gleaming like those of a predatory beast and her face contorted into the snarl of one. A few even called out to her to stop when she ducked down and reached for his face whilst Fog slowly poured from her half-open mouth, but none dared intervene, waiting with bated breath for what she would do.

Surely, she had been consumed by bloodlust over the boy’s insult of her honor.

Her body still coursing with adrenaline and who-knew-what else as she began the descent from the peak of that exhilarated battle-trance, Zelsys thought it would only be a good idea to make sure she hadn’t done something worse than knock Halxian out.

Standing over his crumpled form, she ducked and reached for his face. She turned his head, opened one of his eyes, even slapped him a couple times and made sure he was breathing. “He’ll be fine,” she remarked, standing back up as she looked to his companions. “All yours.”

A reluctant, stunned nod from the one with a mustache, and an equally reluctant step forward. He seemed… Afraid to approach her. Zelsys quickly noticed this, and turned away to return to her companions. The cold cobbles were beginning to dig into her feet.

Now, Makhus was just confused. Wouldn’t she boast to the crowd? Humiliate her opponent further to build herself up? And why was it that he saw not a single drop of sweat on her after that sort of exertion? In fact, thinking back, had he ever seen her sweat, even once?

After all that, she just casually slipped back into her boots and took the arm-harness from Zefaris, smiling and uttering thank-yous all along. When she stepped to him to take her cleaver’s holster, Makhus just absent-mindedly handed it over, his mind too preoccupied with sorting through what he knew about her, what he thought he knew about her, and what she had told him only minutes prior.

Sigmund couldn’t help but chuckle into his beard whilst he watched the strange, strange amazon just walk away from a won honor duel like that. Even the onlookers seemed confused, some having taken out their coin purses and readied a copper coin or two to give her. He knew this would be even more insulting to young Halxian’s pride than if she had reveled in her victory, and so chose to give her a bit of a nudge, walking up.

“Hey, snowtop,” he muttered just loudly enough to get her attention. “‘Least bow to the crowd. It’ll seem like you’re treating yer opponent as less than human otherwise.”

He saw her eyes widen, her satisfied grin turning to an almost apologetic, humble smile as she swiftly finished adjusting the position of her arm-harness and whipped around to face the still-waiting spectators.

An ostentatious, overblown inhalation, followed by a long exhalation of silver Fog when she bellowed her respect for her opponent to the crowd, even outright apologizing for getting swept up in the trance of battle. A small shower of copper coins mixed with silvers soared over the unconscious Halxian and the man kneeling by his side, landing at her feet. A couple hit her, a couple she caught, and in less than a minute, the crowd had dispersed, the social ritual completed.

Zelsys found the ordeal utterly bizarre, but she played along nonetheless. “It’s just a cultural thing,” she told herself. As much as she reveled in beating sense into the arrogant prick, she wasn’t willing to go as far as to deface him when he was beaten. In her mind, just the fact he had been beaten would be enough of a blow to his pride, without the need to rub it in even further.

That being said, the money was nice, and she did not hesitate at all to collect the “donations” - after the spectators and Halxian’s companions left, that is. Makhus, Sigmund, and Zefaris joined her in this endeavor, dexterously gathering the bulk of it into a pile whilst she gathered them into her coin pouch. It quickly became obvious that not even a fifth of the money would fit into the pouch, and so, she resorted to using the Tablet.

The vortex formed and, in barely more than a minute, she had poured the coinage into it handful by handful. She glossed over how many coins were stored in the device before she stowed it away as she stepped towards the inn’s front entrance, muttering “Guess I’ll cover a week’s rent.”

57x Copper Gelt 4x Silver Gelt

She received a strange look from each of the three as they entered and a question from Makhus, “Rent?”

“There’s an apothecary for rent,” she remarked offhandedly as she made her way towards their table. “Fifty gelt per week.”

The swordsman squinted as he visibly tried to remember something as he took hold of a mug and downed its contents. Zelsys drank some of the ale herself, and when she made her way towards the bar to continue her conversation with the barkeep, Makhus followed. She felt at least a dozen pairs of eyes from all across the inn, many of the patrons having been among the bystanders.

Whilst she leaned on the bar and waited for the barkeep to come out of the kitchen, Makhus made his way to the notice board and quickly found the rent listing. The contact address was none other than the mayor’s office, although the contact’s name was different.

“Governor Crovacus Estoras, huh…” he muttered to himself, rubbing his chin. The listed contact hours were rather generous, eight in the morning to three in the afternoon, Monday to Friday. He’d have to visit the place as soon as possible if he wanted to rent Riverside Remedies, and so approached Zelsys once more, as she was still waiting for the barkeep.

“‘Ey, Zel,” the familiar rugged voice sounded from behind, his hand on her shoulder. “I’m gonna try to get the place right now. Mind lendin’ me the cash? I’ll pay it back twice over.”

“Zel, huh?” she chuckled at the nickname, mundane as it was. Without speaking so much as a word, she took the coin-stuffed pouch off her belt, took four coins for herself, and handed it to him. He rumbled a thank-you and briskly walked off, though she clearly heard his boots clatter against the cobbles when he broke into a full-tilt sprint the moment he was out the door.

While she stood there, leaning against that bar, Zelsys felt at least thirteen eyes watching her. She was certain that more than half of them would’ve spared no more than a passing look had she not knocked that brat unconscious, and the thirteenth would not stop staring no matter what she did. In fact, she noticed an even further detail by focusing on her peripheral vision to sneakily get a glimpse of their table. Zefaris wasn’t just ogling her, she was using the Homunculus Eye to surpass a normal human’s ability to stare at another’s ass.

Zelsys found this endlessly entertaining for some reason, to the point where she went out of her way to lean on the bar in an exaggerated manner, propping herself up on her elbows whilst holding her head in her palms. She passed the minutes like this, taking on various vaguely suggestive poses for the sole purpose of making the deadeye’s snow-white face turn equally varied shades of light pink, ignoring the leery gazes of the other patrons.

After perhaps three or four minutes of this, while she was in the midst of genuinely stretching her left arm to loosen a stiff muscle, the barkeep emerged from the kitchen, his gaze darting back and forth until he locked onto her and shined with a smile so brilliant not even she could replicate it.

“There you are, my new favorite beast-hunter!” he exclaimed, approaching her. Confused, Zelsys returned to a normal, relaxed stance, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve not yet done-” she began, but he interrupted her with a laugh.

He broke into a rant, simultaneously deriding Halxian with a surprising amount of venom whilst smiling ear to ear at Zelsys all along. “I don’t care,” he began, “that arrogant little runt has been racking up a tab every goddamn day for months and getting his daddy to pay for it, and every goddamn time that stingy bastard just pays with imported goods from Grekuria. It’s good stuff, sure, but I could get the shit he pays with for half the market price from local suppliers. But enough bitchin’ from me, I take it y’want to know more info on your quarry, eh?”

Zelsys gave a nod, and the barkeep gestured for her to step behind the bar. He led her through the kitchen and into a secluded back-room containing no more than a table and chairs. They each took a seat, and the sunny man briefed her on the situation that led to

her contract down to the nitty-gritty details, including how many people the beast has wounded and what the wounds were like.

Halfway through the briefing she felt the Tablet thrumming in its holster. “Just a moment,” she excused herself, retrieving the device. It came alive with a simple message, her hand buzzing as it did so.

FUNCTIONALITY RESTORED: RECORDS

It flickered to that very readout, but it didn’t show any text as she had expected. In fact, it only stated the name of the page, the day, and the title of one entry.

RECORDS Beast-slayer Contract No. 1 - Briefing Record

Curious, she tapped the name of the entry, and with a brief pulse of warm buzzing, she suddenly remembered every minute detail of the briefing up until that point. Not wanting to hold up any more of the barkeep’s time, she placed the Tablet down and prompted him to continue.

“Always found these old handmade Tablets nicer than the mass-produced ones,” he remarked and continued on with the briefing as if nothing had happened. “So as I was saying, I don’t have much of a description of the beast beyond the fact it was humanoid, tall, and lanky. That really doesn’t say much. Could be an animal, a former human, a remnant of the war. However… There’s one thing the contract doesn’t tell you. How many beast-slayers have attempted it before.”

“How many?”

“You’ll be the seventh to try. You’ll also be the second Fog-breather to try.”

“Was the one before me…”

“Halxian? Oh no. Not for a lack of trying, but his father isn’t stupid enough to let him. The one that came before you did use the same breathing technique, though.”

She wasn’t sure how long it took, but when she stood from her seat at the end of the briefing, she couldn’t help but stretch again.

The barkeep only rolled his shoulders, querying, “You gonna head out now or in the morning? The sun’s getting pretty low.”

Now that the offer had been made, Zelsys suddenly became uncomfortably aware of how much filth she must’ve accumulated during the trek through the forest and the battle against the rot-beast.

“Sure, how much for a night’s stay?” she asked, assuming the price of a nice room would be higher than a day’s rent - six gelt, perhaps seven. “Preferably in a room with a bathtub.”

He chuckled, reassuring that, “All our rooms have their own bathrooms, I don’t run some roadside hostel. I have two free rooms, two beds each, eight gelt a night. Four gelt for you and your ah… Three friends.”

“Sounds good,” she agreed, retrieving her Tablet, opening Fog Storage, and retrieving a single silver gelt. She handed it over alongside three coppers, thinking who it would be easiest to sleep in the same room with. Sigmund, maybe? He seemed the most in control of his own urges, perhaps due to the deleterious effects Rubedo had on him.

“Poor guy’s entire body probably goes stiff before his dick can,” she inwardly chuckled to herself, filing that sentence away for later use. “Say, you don’t mind us splitting up by gender, do you?” she asked, driven by a mischievous spirit. She didn’t have any reasoning beyond wanting to see how things would play out, and whether anything would happen at all if she didn’t actively initiate.

The barkeep gave a nod and a smile, stowing the money into one of the many coin pouches that hanged on the underside of his apron. “I’ll give you your keys,” he responded, making his way towards the door and gesturing for her to follow.

The barkeep led her to a small alcove in the kitchen which held a small standing-height pedestal with a ledger and writing supplies, above which there was a rack of many keys with numbered tabs attached. He took two pairs of keys off the rack, two labeled with the number four, and two labeled with the number five. He handed her one, assuring her that, “I’ll make sure your lady friend gets the other key to number four. The rooms are just up the stairs and down the hall, can’t miss it. The bath has its own heating crystal and water transmuter, so all you’ve got to do is adjust the temperature dial. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got an inn to run.”

Zelsys smiled back at him and walked off, having just now realized something. There were no workers in the kitchen. In fact, as she walked out, she caught the rest of the kitchen out of the corner of her eye - it resembled a cross between a kitchen and an alchemy lab, she even saw a marble slate with a glyph in its center, raw fish arranged across it much like sacrifices.

The barkeep flitted past her as she left, and just when he thought she was out of earshot, she heard him pick up a knife and near-silently utter, “Culinary Arts: Fivefold Flash--fillet!”

The sound of steel cutting flesh rang out many times over, and by then, she was truly out of earshot. High-quality food, rooms with bathtubs, and an owner as skilled in the culinary arts as any warrior was in martial arts. This didn’t seem like an inn that belonged in a war-struck town on the edge of the Exclusion Zone.

In fact, Willowdale as a whole just didn’t fit that template. Even with the wounds of war marring the town and its population in equal measure, it just… Didn’t feel bleak, at all. Zelsys only hoped that there wasn’t some sordid underground hiding beneath the surface, that Willowdale truly was just a pleasant town recovering from the crossfire of the war.

Zelsys made her way through the tavern and up the stairs, taking a brief stop at their table to down a mug of ale and speak with the two deserters who were present. “I’ve handled accomodations for the night, barkeep should get you your room keys soon,” she said to them after she downed the remains of her ale in one go. They each gave a nod, Sigmund returning to his quiet rumination whilst Zefaris looked off into the middle-distance, rather unsubtly waiting for Zelsys to walk away. She took her time, filling the mug again and downing its contents in a long gulp. The hoppy sweetness of the ale hadn’t gotten old yet, and she wagered she wouldn’t get tired of it any time soon.

However, drink wasn’t the center of her attention. She wanted to bathe, and so made her way up the staircase, grinning as she tried not to exaggerate the swing in her hips to a degree that Zefaris would notice as intentional. The wood creaked beneath her weight, the staircase being relatively short. At its top was a long hallway, windows on its left side overlooking the roofs of the many single-floor buildings whilst its right was lined by robust wooden doors with equally robust solid brass locks.

She found number four and slid the key into the door, turning it to the satisfying click of a heavy locking mechanism. The door handle loosened after the second counter-clockwise revolution, swinging into a spacious room with two immaculately made beds with nightstands, two windows, even a writing desk and a closet. There were old brass candle holders on the nightstands, now holding milky-white, candlestick-sized quartz crystals. The words “Flick to set alight, flick to snuff out.” were etched into the metal.

As the barkeep had promised, the room did have a separate bathroom, past a door at the right side of the room opposite the first bed. It was rather small, but held all the necessities - a sink, a toilet, and a solid copper bathtub, copper piping winding from the appliances into the walls. It was lit by a single glowing crystal in a brass cage on the ceiling. There were three exposed pipes above the tub, a white towel hanging off the middle one. The bath had a simple valve to control the flow of water, above which was a brass dial with increments from zero to eighty degrees. Next to the bathtub at the same height as its rim there was a small ledge that extended out of the wall, upon which sat several large phials of salt, an oblong sea sponge with a thick cord threaded through its center, and… A wickless candlestick?

Upon closer inspection, and from its fragrant smell, it became clear it was, in fact, just a strangely shaped bar of soap. Even its shape soon made sense from the item that had sat just behind it - this being a solid brass implement, not unlike an oversized pencil sharpener. She saw no reason to wait any longer, and so simply closed the door, turning the dial to forty and opening the water valve. At first only cold water came out, but it quickly warmed to what she thought to be a reasonable temperature for bathing, and so she took to shedding her clothing.

First went the arm-harness and cleaver in its holster, which on second thought she placed just outside the door in case the steam caused any of the metal parts to take on rust. Next she peeled herself out of her trousers, small wisps of Fog escaping the fabric as it shrunk to its natural shape, after which she unwrapped the many meters of bandages that bound her chest. The makeshift underwear she had fashioned didn’t come off as much as it fell apart at the knots when she gave a light tug, fluttering to the floor as little more than scraps of fabric rendered threadbare by constant movement. “Should probably buy something proper,” a thought crossed her mind. Last of all, she undid the wrappings holding her braids together, shaking her head to loosen the hair somewhat.

Finally she stepped into the bath, her feet riding up onto the rim as she sank into the rising water as her hair swirled throughout it, braids unwinding. “Oh yeah…” she sighed, relaxing near every muscle she could. The filth and tension of gods knew how many miles walked and two fights were melting away, and before she knew it, the tub was nearly full.

She absent-mindedly closed the valve with her foot, and returned to soaking in the water. It reminded her of the liquid nothingness she woke from, as long ago as it felt, yet as recent as it really was.

Zefaris thought herself self-aware enough to accept her own lack of understanding for the world. She thought that she never had and never would know enough for knowledge to drive her to drink. Yet now, it was the lack of self-understanding that drove her to down mug after mug of that sweet, lightly-alcoholic ale. Mug after mug, and by the time Makhus returned, pitcher after pitcher, all in service of drowning the uncomfortable thoughts that the strange foreigner brought on.

It wasn’t just her immaculate, statuesque physique or her strange two-tone hair, or the fact she dressed in a somewhat provocative manner. No, in her life before the war she had encountered and even fancied both men and women bearing one or two of these traits, it was the way in which Zelsys acted that truly struck at something deep within Zefaris that she hadn’t known was there up until now.

Sigmund’s rugged calmness yanked her from the swirling abyss of inner conflict.

“She can tell when you stare,” he muttered through his beard.

Confusion washed over her, and she only managed to stutter out, “What?”

“Zelsys. You don’t notice ‘cause you’re too busy starin’, but I can tell,” he smugged, sipping ale in infuriatingly small increments. “Every time you look, she stretches or moves just enough to give you a better view. She’s playin’ with you.”

“And what’d you expect me to do about that?!” she blurted out in response.

The historian just grinned through his beard, “Just figured you should know that she knows.”

Half a mug of ale later, when the inn was becoming fuller and fuller with the evening influx of workers returning from the fields, the barkeep emerged from the kitchen bearing a pitcher in one hand and three keys in the other. Once he put the pitcher down on one of the nearby tables, he beelined to their table, holding out a key with the number four in front of Zefaris.

“Apologies for taking so long to get you your room keys,” he beamed, waiting for her to take it before he placed keys numbered five in front of Makhus and Sigmund each. The two men exchanged looks and nods, but she was too preoccupied with a wordless internal debate to take notice, staring at the number on her key for a few seconds before she looked up the stairs, then back to the number. She stood from her chair and made her way to the second floor, bearing no particular intentions in mind, spurned on by the swirling cocktail of flustered confusion that roiled in her head.

“I’d have gone into seizure if I got half that flustered,” Sigmund chuckled to Makhus just before she got out of earshot. Even still she didn’t take note of what he said, busy trying to fit the key into its slot. It took her a few attempts to realize she was trying to open the door numbered five and rectify her mistake. The key fit into number four’s lock on the first attempt, and with a single turn its mechanism clicked home.

The room she stepped into was nearly dark, but she had no issue finding and lighting the illumination crystals, as they emitted a constant, weak glow even when inactive. They rang out with quiet tones as they came alive, and from the other side of a door she hadn’t yet noticed, a familiar voice yelled.

“That you Zef?” Zelsys asked loudly. Zefaris whipped around to face the source of the sound. What was that room and what was she doing in there? The sound of splashing water answered that question.

“Y-yes, what is it?” she tripped over her own tongue. Zef? Where did that come from?

There was a brief delay before she got a reply, and even then it was just a rather amused-sounding remark of “Nothing, just making sure.”

She let out a frustrated sigh and began shedding the outer layers of her clothes, her heels having grown sore from walking for so long. Even after the war, she hadn’t become acclimated to long marches. Not with the abominations that were these half-assed self-molding boots, for they seemed to only adjust their shape partially.

The markswoman threw her jacket to the side, and stewing in the stench of her own sweat, melted into the immaculate covers of the bed that was closer to the window. She wasn’t exactly content with such smells, but what was she to do about it? A thought sparked as though a light in the Rubedo-fogged confusion of her mental state, eliciting a sigh of annoyance at herself.

“You gonna be done bathing anytime soon?” she asked, hoping that assumption was correct and trying not to dwell on what her words might be taken as.

The answer came after a couple seconds of continuous splashing, “Five minutes!”

And so, five minutes she waited, and surprisingly, it was indeed almost exactly five minutes before the bathroom door opened, and from the cloud of steam that spilled out Zelsys emerged wrapped in a towel, the brown portion of her hair hanging almost to the floor like a cape.

She stared without shame, tracing every curve that her eye could see. Not a single blemish, not a single scar, not a single hair. Only thin, silver lines in the shape of snaking electric arcs broke up the near-uniform bronze shade of her skin. Ridiculous. Impossible. An unrealistic standard of raw physical perfection. Yet there she was, radiating a palpable aura of smugness as she traced wet footprints across the hardwood floor, carrying a shapeless bundle of bandages and clothing in her arms. The towel nearly slipped off when she bent down to pick up the holster of her cleaver and the arm-harness of her gun, both of which she had previously discarded in front of the bathroom door.

“All yours,” Zelsys said as she sat on the other bed, shedding her towel to use it as little more than a sitting mat while she nonchalantly took to rolling up the bandages she had used to wrap her chest.

Zefaris just mumbled an absent-minded “Uh-huh…” as she continued to stare at her back, the muscles so clearly defined that even the rusty-brown cloak of hair clung to their contours. Her gaze wandered downward and she felt her heart pounding in her head, until she finally managed to snap her eye away, standing from the bed as she walked towards the wide-open bathroom. As she passed by she couldn’t help but look again, a brief moment of annoyance piercing the veil of red fog clouding her mind. The source of this annoyance was twofold - first was the insufferably smug smile that stared back at her, and the second was entirely based in one of her own insecurities.

“How are they the exact same size and shape?!” a frustrated, envious voice shouted in the back of her head, only to be silenced by her own annoyed vocalization of “Do you have to sit around stark naked?”

“It’s fine, we’re both women, no?” Zelsys smugged at her, continuing to roll up the bandages, obviously taking care to keep the glistening prize in plain view. She found herself entranced by the rhythmic motion for a few seconds, only for that goddamned smug grin to clear her head for long enough. “Fuck you,” she said before turning away and walking into the bathroom.

Before she could close the door, she heard amused laughter and an exclamation of “Fuck me yourself, coward!”

Zefaris stripped off the clothes she had been relying on for months, which had been collecting filth and which had only been washed sporadically and using only cold water, and still she had to wait for the remaining bathwater to drain away. She waited, stewing in hot steam that smelt nearly exactly like that smug muscle-woman, unable to distinguish whether her body was burning up from the heat of the room or some inner source.

The tub was finally empty. She set the heat dial to thirty-eight, opened the valve, and stepped in, allowing the hot water to wash away her building frustrations. The tub was more than big enough for her to comfortably sink her entire body up to the shoulders.

By the time it was half-full, her eye lazily floated over the many different bath salts on the ledge. One of the phials held fine, green-tinted grains. She reached for it and popped the cork, only for the powerful smell of concentrated Viriditas to hit her nose. It couldn’t be more than half a shot glass of essentia in the entire phial, but the salt and wet air amplified the smell to an intoxicating degree. Or was it intoxicating because of who it smelled like?

Zefaris didn’t pay it much mind as she dumped the entire phial into the bath. Alongside physical heat, a revitalizing warmth washed over her skin as the Viriditas-infused bath salts dissolved, causing dead skin to slough off and scars to fade. The Emerald Salts were an Ikesian specialty, one that reminded her of home, among other things. It didn’t surprise her that, outside of Ikesia, it never caught on due to the side effect of increased hair growth - regardless of whether this hair was above or below the neckline. As an Ikesian, Zefaris had no reason to worry about such things, as body hair was rare even among men beyond barely-visible peach fuzz.

This was part of the reason why she rarely found herself attracted to foreigners - they were all. So. Hairy. Those who went to the lengths of removing such barbaric growth were more often than not far out of her league in terms of social standing.

She managed to busy herself for a few minutes with thoughts like these, recalling utterly inane details for the sole purpose of distracting herself from those four jokingly-said words. But every time, her train of thought returned to that challenge. Zefaris took to meticulously scrubbing every inch of her body with the provided sea-sponge, shaving down half of the soap-stick in her attempt to cleanse the filth that had doubtlessly seeped into her skin over the months she had spent in the Exclusion Zone.

Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. Soap. Scrub. Scrub. Scrub… Chest, arms, shoulders, neck...

A bright-red flower petal floating on the water. The realization that she hadn’t untied her hair. A frustrated sigh, untying the piece of cord that held her hair in place, leaving the poppy flower in her hand, sans one petal. That half-joking challenge on her mind, she began to pluck the petals, one by one. At first glance she thought the poppy had five petals remaining, and subconsciously began with the outcome she wanted, as if to simultaneously place the responsibility of choice on an inanimate object while still getting the desired outcome.

“Don’t do it…” she thought when the first petal came off.

“Do it…” came the second petal.

“Don’t do it…” the third petal said.

“Do it…” said the fourth and final petal.

Her senses were misdirected by the roiling, herbal-smelling steam that filled the bathroom, and she had miscounted. Somehow, she didn’t mind this outcome. She thought herself clean enough, and looked around the bathroom for a towel.

No towel.

She didn’t mind this either.

Water still pouring from her, she forcefully opened the door, met with the sight of Zelsys lazily splayed out on the bed, Tablet in hand. Her gaze flicked up from whatever she was reading to meet hers, and even though the lower half of her face was obscured, Zefaris felt the grin spreading over her features.

Zelsys reached for the crumpled-up, damp towel that lay beside her as if asking if to toss it over. Her hand came to a stop when Zefaris approached, making no attempt to hide her intentions as she crawled onto the bed. “I’m no coward,” she uttered.

“Oh really?” came a laughing response. “Prove it, coward.”