Luckily it didn’t take too long for Asha to calm down its maniacal laughter, though the artifact’s pleased mood didn’t dim, the constant, steady presence in their bond making Priscilla’s own mood lighter. Asha switched into Operation In Plain Sight because Priscilla’s other leather glove was coated in blood that Priscilla did not want to deal with.

  Priscilla was dressed in a simple and thin, white cotton knee-length dress that was too big for her, which probably made healing her easier since the short sleeves of the shirts slipped easily off her shoulders. While that was perfectly fine for a patient, the dress was so loose that it threatened to flash the world if Priscilla moved too suddenly. While Priscilla was confident in her new body and wouldn’t mind showing it off, there was a time and place for risqué clothing. With her shoulder so fucked up, Priscilla didn’t really want to change completely, so she would have to make do the best she could.

  Priscilla’s pack was next to the bed (probably due to Sulaiman’s diligence) and she dug through it with one arm to find the single, thin scarf she packed in case it got cold while they traveled. It was a dark blue color, so it didn’t clash with the dress, and was made of a material that felt like satin. Priscilla pulled the excess fabric of the dress tight so it clung to her figure, using Asha to momentarily pin it behind her because her left arm did not want to cooperate, and then wrapped the scarf around the fabric right beneath her breasts, tying it off in a slightly sloppy bow in the front and returning Asha to her hand. A few gentle hops proved the scarf did the job well and the fabric stayed secured.

  Combing through her hair was quick and simple, though Priscilla sulked when she realized how uneven it was now. Damn Azurin fucked up her beautiful hair. If Priscilla wasn’t pretty sure the man was dead, she would track him down and punch him until she felt better. She thought it could be salvageable but she was going to need another pair of eyes and a pair of scissors, so fixing her hair was going to be a future Priscilla problem.

  There wasn’t a mirror to check the look, but Asha said she looked good and Priscilla was reasonably sure she wasn’t going to flash anyone, so it was a success all around.

  She had no idea where her boots wandered off, so Priscilla slipped on a pair of brown woven slippers she found and followed Sulaiman out the door.

  Sulaiman had raised his eyebrows when he saw Priscilla’s outfit but didn’t comment as she stepped next to him.

  The village was much more cozier in the daytime as the villagers were working to rebuild, but the light of day let Priscilla see just how much damage had been done. Over half of the houses in the village had been burnt in some way, and at least two that Priscilla could see looked like they had to be torn down and rebuilt since they were past repair. She tried to look on the positive side of things that it was just a few houses that had been burnt instead of everything. But then her gaze caught sight of how many pools of dried blood there were on the ground and that made Priscilla’s heart seize.

  “Do you know how many casualties there were?” Priscilla asked in a low voice. She knew that it had been just her and Sulaiman fighting back at first, and that left plenty of time for bandits to slit someone’s throat.

  Sulaiman gave her a sideway glance before looking straight ahead at a cluster of villagers who seemed to be animatedly discussing something with one another. Jeroinin was there and seemed to be trying to steer the conversation but it appeared to be getting away from her.

  “Though many were injured, not a single person died.”

  Priscilla felt the anxiety and tension that had been bubbling up inside her dissipate and relief washed over her.

  They stood there silent for a moment, just watching the villagers they had saved, the fates she had changed despite what the fucking god claimed, before Sulaiman cleared his throat.

  “The bandits are being held in the butcher shop’s storage area,” Sulaiman said. “Follow me.”

  The butcher shop turned out to be on the outskirts of town opposite from where Sulaiman and Priscilla had approached from. A large, broad man with an impressive black, bushy beard wearing a stained apron stood in front of the shop with his arms crossed, examining a table that had been partially burned. But as Priscilla approached, she saw he had one arm crossed across his front and the other arm was wrapped in bandages and ended a few inches below the elbow.

  “Ah, welcome, welcome,” the man said, giving them a wide smile. “You two are our heroes, I hear. The name’s Yarnon, pleasure to meet you.”

  Priscilla forced her eyes off Yarnon’s missing arm and forced away the guilt that rose up in her because she was certain he had gotten injured last night.

  “The pleasure’s all mine,” Priscilla said. “I hear you have some prisoners kept back there.”

  “You’d be right,” Yarnon said, glancing over his shoulder in distaste. “They haven’t spoken much since they woke up besides mumbling about stealing a treasure, though I don’t know what on earth they were doing here if they wanted treasure.”

  “Did they have anything on them?” Sulaiman asked. “Any indication of their affiliation?”

  “There was an insignia we found,” Yarnon said. “None of us recognized it, but maybe it’ll ring one of your bells. Let me go grab it.”

  Yarnon walked into his shop and came out with a palm sized piece of metal.

  “No idea what it means,” Yarnon said, handing it over to Priscilla, “but feel free to take it. Maybe you can find their boss and teach them a thing or two about karma.”

  It was heavier than it looked, made of gleaming silver in the shape of a three pointed shield. At the center was a crown adorned with blood red rubies and bisecting that crown at an angle was a sword dripping with blood that also had a red gem inlaid in its hilt. Priscilla recognized it as the symbol of the Mercenary King but pretended to examine it closely as Sulaiman did the same.

  “I don’t recognize it,” Sulaiman said unhappily, glancing at Priscilla. She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak and he let out a sigh, tucking the insignia into this pocket.

  “The two of you can decide what happens with the prisoners,” Yarnon said, “as Gaelea’s teachings say that we should forgive those who are misguided. But you two aren’t bound to her teachings, so…”

  Yarnon gave them a nasty smirk that told exactly what he’d like done with them if he was in their position.

  “And of course, as the ones who took them down,” Yarnon continued, “you can pick through the items we looted off them. It’s all stacked over by our general pavilion over yonder. I can fetch it if you’d like.”

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  Sulaiman glanced at Priscilla before saying, “I’m most interested in the weapons they carried.”

  “Got it,” Yarnon said, giving them a short salute before jogging off.

  “Do you think we’d get much of a bounty if we turned the men over to the duke?” Priscilla asked once Yarnon was out of earshot. She didn’t want to ruin his dreams of the bandits getting a more permanent punishment.

  “The duke?” Sulaiman said, confused. “Which one are you talking about?”

  That was a great question actually, one that Priscilla hadn’t considered before so she shrugged.

  “I’m not sure, that Captain Azurin fellow called me the duke’s dog,” Priscilla said. “He thought I was sent by this mysterious duke to stop him.”

  Sulaiman gave her a long searching look but for once Priscilla was being entirely honest, though she was omitting the Mercenary King’s involvement. While she did have his insignia within reach, just thinking about saying Lex Vastum’s name or moniker to Sulaiman had blood rising up her throat, which was supremely annoying. She was going to have to somehow annoy the god of cowards to show up before her again so she can complain about how restrictive the weird curse was.

  “I don’t know much about the political factions in this area,” Sulaiman said, tone carefully neutral.

  Priscilla sighed, running her hand through her hair. “I’ll see what I can find when we get home. I don’t really want to drag prisoners with us all the way back though, so maybe we take Yarnon up on his suggestion and then just send the good duke a letter to let him know we killed Captain Azurin for him. Maybe he’ll send us a reward for our service.”

  Sulaiman gave her a strange look.

  “What?” Priscilla said, trying to not be defensive. “It’s a perfectly reasonable suggestion!”

  “Do you really think a Kavendash noble will give me a reward?” Sulaiman said slowly, as if speaking to a child.

  Priscilla opened her mouth to say yes, and then thought about it and scowled as she came to the conclusion that Sulaiman was leading her towards.

  “Stupid racist dipshits,” Priscilla said, kicking at the ground, imagining it was some faceless noble’s head. “They’re all morons – they started the stupid war and then they bitch about how the people they slaughtered are oh so scary!”

  Priscilla caught herself before she could rant too much because the only person around to listen to her was someone who was far more affected by it than her.

  “Sorry,” Priscilla said. “I just find it all so fucking stupid.”

  The strange look was still on Sulaiman’s face, eyebrows slightly furrowed in thought, before the sides of his lips raised.

  “You don’t have to apologize,” Sulaiman said in a wry voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so quick to curse out our kingdom's esteemed nobility. It’s a nice change of pace.”

  Priscilla didn’t have time to respond as Yarnon reappeared, a large sack hoisted over his shoulder.

  “These are the best pickings,” Yarnon said as he put the sack down onto the table with a loud oof. “Anything you don’t want will be melted down and repurposed to something more useful like pitchforks.”

  Yarnon gave Sulaiman a wide grin and Sulaiman smiled in return. Priscilla sensed there was an inside joke there she didn’t get and didn’t ask questions because she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted answers.

  “I brought over the coat of the man you beat up,” Yarnon said to Priscilla, “Jeroinin said it was enchanted armor in case you wanted to take a look at it.”

  Sulaiman opened up the sack, revealing all the goodies. The tattered duster was on top and Sulaiman handed it to Priscilla, intent on looking at the actual weapons.

  The duster was blood stained and in bad shape. To be perfectly honest, Priscilla was having difficulty believing that it was actually enchanted because Asha had torn through it like it was nothing. Asha tightened on her hand, agreement clear in the bond, so Priscilla dropped the ratty thing on the table because she was not going to kill a man and then wear his nasty ass clothes he died in.

  Sulaiman laid several shortswords and bows onto the table before he finally pulled out the crossbow Azurin had been using, his eyes widening before he began to glare at it. He carefully turned it over, squinting at it with intense concentration.

  “It’s definitely enchanted,” Sulaiman said after he finished his inspection, “and I don’t think it has an anti-theft enchantment that will harm someone if they use it. But we should get it professionally appraised because I can’t figure out much more than that.”

  Priscilla looked over the crossbow. It was made of deep brown wood with a black leather wrapped around its hilt. The weapon didn’t look like it had been damaged during the fight.

  “You should use it,” Priscilla suggested and Sulaiman shot her a dirty look.

  Priscilla rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that look. It’s an enchanted weapon and we’d be fools to just leave it behind. If we encounter another stupid toad, you can riddle it with arrows. Plus, it’s not like I can use it with just one hand.”

  Sulaiman glared for another moment before sighing and putting the crossbow down.

  “I’ll take it with us,” Sulaiman said begrudgingly, “but you have to take this, as only an idiot would continue to go around unarmed.”

  A short sword in its scabbard was pushed in front of Priscilla and she wrinkled her nose in distaste. She’d much rather rely on her own fists than weapons that could get broken or stolen from her during fights.

  “I don’t even know how to use a sword,” Priscilla protested. “I can barely handle a dagger without cutting myself!”

  “Do you think you’re incapable of learning?” Sulaiman said, arching a brow challengingly. “Here I thought you were smarter than that. My mistake.”

  Priscilla fumed because she knew exactly what he was trying to do but she was falling for his provocations all the same. She glared at him and his smug look was insufferable.

  “Ah, fuck off with your smugness,” Priscilla grumbled even as she looked at the weapon that was thrust upon her. “I can’t start learning until I’m all healed up anyways, it’ll just be decorative for a while.”

  “If you thought I would immediately become your taskmaster and force you to run drills,” Sulaiman said, “then you’re truly an idiot.”

  Priscilla rolled her eyes and flipped him off, smiling sarcastically. Sulaiman eyed her finger before raising his eyebrows judgmentally.

  “Well, the two of you get along great!” Yarnon said, interrupting their sass-off. “Is there anything else that tickles your fancy amongst these?”

  Sulaiman and Priscilla shared one last glaring look before taking a glance over everything else. They shook their heads at nearly the same time and Priscilla gave Sulaiman a small grin that had him rolling his eyes.

  “I’ll tell Marian she’s free to melt these down then,” Yarnon said. “Do you two want to speak with the prisoners now?”

  Priscilla opened her mouth to say yes when her stomach grumbled loudly. Her cheeks reddened as Yarnon laughed and Sulaiman smirked.

  “Let's get some food into you first,” Yarnon said, his white smile stark against his beard. “I’ll introduce you to everyone while we’re at it.”

  “Great,” Priscilla said, trying to force her cheeks back into their regular olive complexion.

  “So we have Marian, our blacksmith, over there,” Yarnon said as they started ambling towards the group of people who were still speaking, pointing to a woman with impressive looking muscles speaking to a willowy man, “and she’s speaking to her husband, Kayir, who manages our beehives.”

  Priscilla scanned the crowd ahead of her, searching for Kavil. She spotted him near the edge, speaking with an older, athletic looking red-head man. Kavil looked relaxed while talking to him and that made Priscilla want to know more because in the story Kavil had rarely spoken of the people who helped raise him.

  “Who’s speaking to Kavil?” Priscilla asked, somewhat rudely cutting Yarnon off. Yarnon glanced and gave her a smile.

  “Oh it’s good to see him around,” Yarnon said. “He doesn’t live in the village with us but that little whistle of yours must have been heard miles out. That’s Frean–”

  The rest of Yarnon’s words melted away as Priscilla froze, locking eyes with Sulaiman who was staring back at her with a similar expression of shock and recognition.

  And then Priscilla’s feet moved before her mind did, sprinting directly towards the doppelganger with violence humming in her veins.