Not the spreading cold of the curse; that was gone, or at least dormant. This was different. The pain she felt was sharp and fresh and very much alive, centered on her side where the black handprint had been eating her from the inside out. She sat up too fast and immediately regretted it.
"Don't move yet. The cure needs time to settle properly."
She looked around, taking in her surroundings with the quick efficiency of someone who'd woken up in unfamiliar places before. Not the apothecary. Some kind of warehouse, by the smell of old dust and mana-fuel residue.
"Welcome to the Safe house," I said. "Sort of. The roof doesn't leak, which puts it ahead of most places in the Sump."
She touched her side through the bandages. The black handprint was gone but the skin underneath felt wrong; numb in a way that healthy flesh shouldn't be numb.
"What happened?"
"Vekros cured you."
"With what money? Did you spend my money on me?"
"He and I made a contract."
She waited for me to elaborate. When I didn't, she just kept waiting. Patient. The silence stretched out between us until it became clear she could do this all day if necessary.
"I will steal something for him," I said finally. "So he cures you and gives us information about the conspiracy."
"What... how does he know about.... what are you stealing?"
"The Tear of the First Emperor."
She stared at me for a long moment. Then she laughed, and it wasn't a happy sound. "Shut up. You're joking."
"No."
"That's suicide. Like, nothing but suicide. Like walking into a fire and hoping you come out the other side."
"Probably."
"Why would you..." She stopped herself. Studied my face with those grey eyes that had seen through better liars than me. "You need the money. The rest of my payment."
"That's part of it."
"What's the other part?"
I shrugged. "You die, I don't get paid. Simple math."
She actually wanted to believe me. I could see it in her face; the way she wanted to accept that explanation because it made sense, because it fit with everything she thought she knew about mercenaries and criminals and people who sold their services to the highest bidder. But then her eyes dropped to my side. To the bloodstain on my shirt.
"You cut yourself." She pointed. "Same spot as my wound. I can see where the bandage is."
"You noticed that."
"I notice everything. It's what kept me alive for fifteen years of hunting things that didn't want to be hunted." She pushed herself up onto her elbows, wincing but not stopping. "Why did you do it?"
"Seemed fair. You got cursed finding information. I'm profiting from that information. Now we both carry marks from it."
Nyssara stared at the blood seeping through my bandage, her hand instinctively drifting to where her sword would be if she were armed. The air in the room grew heavy, cold, and sharp.
"That isn't solidarity," she said, her voice dropping to a dangerous register. "That is a ritual. I know how pact-bearers think. You don't give blood unless you're buying something."
She stepped back, putting the table between us, her grey eyes scanning me not as a savior, but as a potential threat. "Did you bind me? Is this some sympathetic magic to ensure I can't leave? Because if you think a matching scar makes us allies, you have vastly underestimated how much I hate being owned."
She didn't say anything for a moment. Just looked at me like she was trying to solve a puzzle that was missing the corner pieces. Most people would have left her to die. Or demanded payment up front. Or taken advantage of her unconscious state in any of a dozen ways that didn't involve signing away their soul to save someone they'd met a few hours ago.
"That's insane," she said finally.
"You've mentioned that before."
"No, I mean actually insane. Not practical. Not transactional. Just..." She shook her head. "Stupid. Reckless, naive and stupid. Those are the words I'm looking for."
"I am consistent. You hired me. The contract isn't complete yet. I finish what I start."
"Even if it kills you?"
"Especially then. Dead men don't have to worry about their reputation."
"He's lying," Malgrin whispered in my head. "Well, half-lying. He doesn't actually know why he did it either. It's fascinating to watch him try to rationalize it."
Nyssara swung her legs off the makeshift bed and tested her weight on the floor. The world swayed around her; I could see it in the way her eyes unfocused for a second. I moved to steady her, then stopped with my hand hovering uselessly in the air between us.
"I'm fine," she said.
"You're not."
"I'm better than dead. That's the bar we're working with right now."
"Low bar."
"Sooooo.....Sixty-eight hours to steal the most heavily guarded artifact in the empire?"
"Yes."
"With no plan."
"I didn't say I don't have a plan."
She looked at me properly then. Really looked, the way she had in the catacombs before everything went sideways. Her eyes traced over my face, my arms, the black veins visible at my wrists where my sleeves had ridden up.
"The veins," she said quietly. "They're spreading. They're further up than they were before."
"Yes."
"What happens when they reach your heart?"
"I will change, probably. Into something that isn't me anymore."
"How long do you have?"
"Don't know for certain. Weeks. Maybe months if I'm careful about using the power."
"And you still took my contract. Knowing all of that."
"Everyone needs money."
She shook her head slowly. "You're either the most pragmatic person I've ever met, or a really bad liar."
We sat in silence for a moment. The warehouse creaked around us; old joints settling, wind finding its way through gaps in the walls.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Then Nyssara's head snapped toward the door.
"Someone's coming," she said. Her voice had changed completely; all the weakness and pain stripped away, replaced by something cold and focused. "Two people. They're trying to be sneaky about it."
I activated Blood-Sense and found she was right. Two heartbeats approaching from the east side of the building. Elevated pulse on both of them; nervous or excited. Neither one was calm.
"How did you..." I started.
"I have been a Witch hunter for more than a week. You learn to feel when something's wrong in the air." She was already on her feet, curse or no curse, moving toward a support pillar where she'd have cover and a clear line of sight to the door. "The one on the left is heavier; probably muscle. The other one moves like someone used to giving orders."
I hadn't told her which direction they were coming from. She'd known anyway.
"Bounty hunters?" I asked.
"Most likely. The arena's price on your head would attract attention." She pulled a knife from somewhere; I hadn't even seen her armed. "Can you fight?"
"Can you? You were dying an hour ago."
"I've fought in worse condition than this." She wasn't bragging. Just stating a fact. "Stay behind me until we know what we're dealing with."
The door creaked. A shadow moved in the gap. I smelled Ozone.
Nyssara's hand came up and she whispered something under her breath; words in a language I didn't recognize, harsh and angular. The air around her fingers shimmered for just a moment.The first man through the door froze mid-step. Literally froze; his body locked in place like someone had turned him to stone, one foot still raised off the ground.
"Binding ward," she said calmly. "Won't last long on someone this size, but it doesn't need to."
The second figure came through fast, trying to use the confusion. Nyssara was faster. She moved like water around his first swing, caught his wrist, twisted, and suddenly he was on the ground with her knee on his spine and his arm bent at an angle that made me wince just looking at it.
"Who sent you?" she asked. Her voice was pleasant. Conversational. The contrast with what she was doing to his arm was deeply unsettling.
"Nobody! We just heard there was a pact-bearer in the area; wanted to see for ourselves-"
She twisted slightly. He screamed.
"I'm going to ask one more time. After that, I stop asking and start breaking things in order of how much you'll miss them."
Still pleasant in her tone. Still conversational.
"Who sent you?"
"Margrave! Margrave told us where to look! Said there'd be a reward if we brought back proof!"
Nyssara looked at me. I nodded; that tracked with what I knew about the information broker. He'd sell his own mother if the price was right.
"Is anyone else coming?" she asked.
"No! Just us! I swear!"
She held him there for another moment, reading something in his voice or his body that I couldn't see. Then she released the pressure on his arm and stood up in one smooth motion.
"Leave. Tell Margrave that if he sends anyone else, I'll return the favor personally. And I won't be as sweet as I was today."
The man scrambled to his feet and ran. His frozen companion had started to move again; he grabbed him by the arm and they both disappeared into the Sump's maze of alleys.
Nyssara watched them go, then turned back to me. She was breathing a little harder now, and I could see the strain around her eyes, but she was still standing. Still dangerous.
"Binding ward is strong," I said. "You didn't mention you could do magic."
"You didn't ask." She walked back to the bed and sat down heavily. The effort had cost her more than she wanted to show. "Witch hunters learn more than just how to swing a sword. You can't hunt things that use magic if you don't understand how magic works."
"That's how you knew about pact costs. The sensory trade-off."
"I've studied every type of demonic contract documented by the Inquisition. Yours is... unusual. The sensory dampening combined with physical enhancement suggests a Gluttony-class entity, but the spreading corruption looks more like Pride-class manifestation." She tilted her head, studying me. "Your demon doesn't fit neatly into any category I know."
"He's special," Malgrin said smugly. "Tell her I'm special."
"He says he's special."
"I am sure he is." But there was something in her voice; curiosity rather than judgment. "What's his name?"
"Malgrin."
"I don't recognize it. Either he's very old or very new; nothing in between would have escaped the Inquisition's records." She leaned back against the wall, some of the tension finally leaving her shoulders. "You're full of surprises, Yozi."
"So are you. That binding ward... I've seen Inquisition mages who couldn't cast that cleanly."
"I had good teachers. And a lot of practice." Something flickered across her face; memory, maybe regret. "The things I've hunted didn't go down easy. You learn to be effective or you learn to be dead."
Silence settled between us again. More comfortable this time.
"Thank you," she said in a quiet tone.
"For what?"
"The cut. Matching your wound to mine." She touched her side absently. "You didn't have to do that."
"I know."
"But you did it anyway."
I pulled out the cursed blade and showed it to her. The steel was black now, shot through with dark veins that mirrored the ones crawling up my arms.
"I took something from your wound first. Weaponized the curse. Anyone I cut with this will rot from the inside out. Practical, right?"
She studied me for a long moment. "You don't talk like someone who grew up in the Sump."
"I don't?"
"Too educated. Your grammar's too clean, and you use words like 'practical' and 'transactional' like they mean something to you."
"I read a lot. Books are cheap if you steal them."
"Most thieves don't bother with reading."
"Most thieves die young. I figured there might be a connection."
She laughed at that; sharp and surprised, like it had escaped before she could stop it. "You're strange, Yozi. You know that?"
"You decided to hire a demon-pact criminal to investigate a conspiracy. Which one of us is really strange here?"
"Fair point." She was almost smiling again. It made her look like someone who might have been happy once, in a different life.
"I really like her," Malgrin said. "She's pragmatic and she can do magic and crippled two bounty hunters while recovering from a curse. Can we keep her?"
"That's not how partnerships work."
"What?" Nyssara asked.
"Nothing. Talking to the demon."
"Does he have.... opinions about me?"
"He thinks you're pragmatic."
"Coming from a demon, I'll take that as a compliment." She pushed herself up from the bed again, steadier this time. "Alright. Sixty-eight hours to commit suicide while stealing something kind of valuable to the entire empire. Where do we start?"
"Reconnaissance. We need to see the palace, map the guard rotations, understand what we're actually dealing with."
"I have contacts who might be able to help with that. Old Inquisition connections who owe me favors." She found her sword belt and started buckling it on, wincing only slightly as the movement pulled at her healing wound. "But first, I need food. Real food. Dying takes a lot out of you."
"There's a place two blocks from here. Not good, but edible."
"Edible is all I'm asking for right now." She finished with her belt and looked at me. Really looked, the way she kept doing; like she was trying to memorize something important. "Partners, then?"
"Employer and contractor."
"Is there a difference at this point?"
"Technically."
"Yozi." Her grey eyes were steady on mine. "You signed away your soul to save someone you'd known for an hour. We're past 'employer and contractor.' We're past a lot of things."
"Then what are we?"
She considered the question. "Allies. With matching scars and terrible judgment and sixty-eight hours to do something impossible."
"That's accurate."
"I know." She held out her hand. "So. Partners?"
I looked at her hand. At the calluses from years of sword work. At the faint scars across her knuckles from fights she'd won and fights she'd barely survived.
At the woman who'd just taken down two bounty hunters while half-dead from a curse, then sat back down and had a conversation like nothing had happened.
I shook her hand.
"Partners."
Her grip was firm. Warm. Real.
"Don't make me regret this," she said.
"Same to you."
She let go and headed for the door. "Come on. Food first. Then we plan how to steal the thing. The fucking Tear of the first Emperor; the most valuable artifact in the empire from under the noses of the entire Inquisition."
"When you put it that way, it sounds almost reasonable."
"That's the spirit." She glanced back at me, and there was something in her expression that might have been the beginning of trust. "Sixty-eight hours, Yozi. Let's make them count."
I followed her out into the Sump's perpetual twilight, touching the wound on my side without really thinking about it.
Matching scars. Matching stakes. Matching chances of dying horribly in the next three days.
"You like her," Malgrin observed.
"She's useful."
"That's not what I said."
"I know what you said."
"And?"
Performance Rating: ????? (5/5) Malgrin's Note: "Ooooh, I like her. She wakes up from a coma and immediately helps you cripple two bounty hunters. And she called me special, totally unprompted. Flattery will get her everywhere. You two trading scars like friendship bracelets is so damn adorable. Keep this one alive, kid. She balances out your bleeding-heart tendencies with actual competence."
RELATIONSHIP UPDATE:
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Nyssara: Status upgraded from [Liability] to [Partner].
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Note: She is a Witch Hunter with high-level Inquisition knowledge. Useful, dangerous, and likely to stab you if she finds out exactly what I am. Let's keep the mystery alive.
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INVENTORY & SKILLS:
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[Cursed Blade]: Demonstrated. Intimidation factor: High.
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[Binding Ward]: Observed Skill (Nyssara). Single-target paralysis. Very handy.
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[Matching Scars]: You now share a physical bond with your partner. This increases synergy but also emotional liability. (I ship you two.)
CONTRACT LOG:
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Active Mission: The Heist of the Tear.
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Time Remaining: 68 Hours.
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Current Obstacle: The entire Imperial Inquisition.
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Plan: "Reconnaissance and snacks." (A solid start).
CORRUPTION: █████????? (19%) - The veins are climbing. Nyssara noticed. She is smart enough to know that 'months' is an optimistic lie.