Priscilla woke up feeling unrested. She didn’t dream of wolves and toads like she had tried to will her unconscious mind to explore, even if it was inherently violent. She couldn’t remember the details of the dream like if it had been set in that same empty place as before, but there were flashes of clarity.

  A soundless scream from a mouth with too many teeth that nevertheless worked its way into your ears and left them ringing. Fire burning, burning so brightly and hungrily as it swept across the landscape, swallowing up everything in its path. And a pit of terror building inside your soul as the world was plunged into darkness as a monster with a wicked cackle blocked out the sun.

  Unsettling images by themselves, but it was worlds ahead of the freaky creature from yesterday. Though she wondered if the dreams were symbolic, Priscilla rationalized it herself that it was a nice, normal nightmare because why would she get prophetic dreams?

  (She ignored the voice that whispered, You did piss off a god, idiot.)

  Priscilla yawned loudly, forcing that voice to be quiet, and stumbled to her feet. The sight that greeted her in the mirror wasn’t as bad as she expected it to be. There were dark circles under her eyes, yes, but she didn’t look nearly as tired as she felt. Priscilla’s hair was a bit of a mess and curlier than she expected, but that was because she had fallen asleep with it still wet. The messiness could be fixed with a little elbow grease and a hair brush. It wasn’t too tangled and the brush went easily through it, but the hair refused to lay flat against her head when she pulled it up.

  Priscilla resigned herself to the flyways and tied it off with a green ribbon that matched her eyes. The only person who would be around to judge her was Sulaiman, and he didn’t particularly care about appearances other than his own.

  “You look great, master!” Asha piped up, the pureness of the sentiment making Priscilla’s lips raise despite herself.

  “Thanks Asha. Do you want to stick with Operation In Plain Sight or should I drag out the leather glove?”

  “Hmm. Will we be punching any lunatics today?”

  Priscilla went to shake her head but caught herself in mid-motion. She didn’t actually know if they would encounter the bandit group today or not. The bandits were active in the area they planned on traveling, but they could be anywhere on the trail up to and including already at Kavil’s village.

  “I’m not sure,” Priscilla said, pushing away the flash of people being slaughtered mercilessly that her mind oh so helpfully summoned. “We won’t be at our destination until tomorrow, which is where the lunatics are most likely to be, but I don’t know where they are right now.”

  There was a moment of contemplation from Asha and then it shifted into a leather glove.

  “Better to be safe than sorry,” Asha said firmly.

  Priscilla nodded. Though cleaning off the glove wasn’t the most horrible thing she’d done, there was a lingering smell of ash and charred remains that clung to it. The smell made her feel vaguely sick as she wondered if that was what humans smelt like when they burned to death.

  Priscilla shook her head violently to get rid of that thought and returned to getting ready with an intensity that Asha questioned, but she placated the artifact by saying she wanted to leave as soon as possible.

  She was affixing her armor in place when there was a knock on the door.

  “Just a second,” Priscilla called as she buckled the last strap and threw the compass-whistle necklace over her head.

  As she suspected, Sulaiman was on the other side of the door, his pack over his armored shoulder and sword strapped to his side. It seemed he too wished to be safe than sorry on this leg of the journey.

  Held in his hand was a tempting pair of sandwiches made of a long, dark bread and had a saucy pile of noodles of all things on it for the filling.

  “Ah, is one mayhaps for…”

  Priscilla didn’t have time to finish her sentence before Sulaiman rolled his eyes and stuck it out.

  “Of course one is for you, idiot,” Sulaiman said. She took off her gloves despite Asha’s small feeling of panic so the smell wouldn’t work its way into the sandwich, and then Priscilla took the food eagerly and took a deep breath in to fully enjoy the experience. It smelled delectable and for the first time since she heard of the bandits, Priscilla’s stomach rumbled approvingly.

  Priscilla’s sandwich was gone by the time they made it to their horses.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Did you even taste that?” Sulaiman asked, looking almost disgusted by how quickly the food entered her mouth and the way she licked her finger to enjoy every last drop of sauce.

  Priscilla’s thumb left her mouth with a loud pop just to annoy Sulaiman.

  “Of course I did,” Priscilla sniffed. “It was really fucking tasty, so it needed to be in my stomach as quick as possible so the rest of my body can enjoy it too.”

  Sulaiman rolled his eyes. “If that’s the excuse you want to go with for inhaling your food, be my guest.”

  Priscilla stuck up her middle finger at him even though she knew this world didn’t have the same cultural context to find it offensive. But based on the way Sulaiman’s eyes narrowed, he probably had a feeling it wasn’t something complimentary. She put her glove and Asha back on and mounted her horse before he could question her.

  But the light-hearted banter slowed as they began to navigate through Grazda as the city awoke. Luckily, they didn’t get too swept up into traffic moving higher up into the city, and left the Hot-Spring city behind them.

  Neither of them seemed to want to break the silence between them, but it wasn’t awkward or full of tension like before. Priscilla and Sulaiman had reached an understanding now, and had a shared goal of fucking up those bandits. They probably wouldn’t be singing with each other to pass the time, not when singing might announce their presence and reveal their position. The current battle plan was focused on them trying to get the drop on the bandits – Sulaiman hadn’t exactly covered what the plan was if the two of them got ambushed instead. But that might just be because they probably wouldn’t survive long in that situation, arrows sticking out their throats before they even realized they were surrounded.

  Priscilla tightened her grip on the reins and tried very hard to not think about that.

  The land surrounding them was hilly, with high grasses that tickled the edges of Priscilla’s boots even though she was seated atop a horse. Visibility was decent, as long as one wasn’t next to a particularly large hill, so Priscilla kept up a steady scan of the horizon, ready to alert Sulaiman the moment anything was amiss.

  After several hours of travel, in the distance, on the edge of the horizon, there was a dark patch against the light green sea of grass. She squinted at it, wondering what it might be, and deducing it looked like a house based on the shape and size. There were no recorded settlements between Grazda and Kavil’s village, but now that she thought about it, there was only one other person that lived near the village…

  Priscilla checked her compass, confirming that the mysterious house was in the direction that they needed to head. She tapped her finger against the reins as she thought about what she might do if her suspicions were correct.

  She may become a killer sooner than she thought she would.

  “Hey, Sulaiman, do you see that?” Priscilla asked, pointing out the house.

  He squinted for a moment before nodding.

  “Do you think the problems may be staying there?” Sulaiman asked.

  “No,” Priscilla said slowly, eyes never moving from the house and the potential inhabitant it may hold. “But I think we should check it out since we have to pass by it to get where we’re going. I have a feeling it might be important.”

  Sulaiman didn’t respond and they lapsed into silence as they mutually decided to spur their horses to go faster. It took another hour of riding before they got to see the house in more detail.

  The house was a squat, one-story abode with a thatched roof jutting over the front door and skinny logs for walls built by the base of a hill. There were no windows, and the door was firmly closed. A short, wooden fence was wrapped around a small garden near the house that was slightly overgrown. There were zucchinis, squash, and even some pea trellises growing near dandelions and long grass, but every plant was overburdened with abundance, some of the excess having fallen off and was rotting on the ground, shriveled in the sun.

  Priscilla pulled her horse to a stop, searching for any signs of movement or life. But everything was completely still and silent save for her own breathing.

  “Why hasn't the owner picked any of the vegetables?” Sulaiman asked in a low voice, frowning at the offending plants. “It seems like such a waste to let it sit there.”

  Priscilla’s gaze lingered on the rotting vegetables, on the way that no flies hovered over the decaying flesh. She flicked her eyes to the door to where grass had been allowed to overgrow into a tripping hazard.

  “Why indeed,” Priscilla murmured and dismounted the horse, gripping the dagger at her side.

  “Priscilla, you shouldn’t –”

  “Shh,” Priscilla said, walking forward with careful steps towards the fence around the garden. This close, she could see that some of the pieces of wood were rotting as well and would cave in on itself at the slightest touch. No one had tended to this garden for some time and no animals dared to approach it, not even the boldest prairie dog.

  Sulaiman dismounted as well, his face stormy but remaining silent as he stood next to her, his sword pulled from its sheath, though his shield remained on his back. Priscilla walked towards the door, following what may have once been a path from the door to the garden but was now reclaimed by the wild grass.

  There was a thin layer of dust on the door’s handle, Priscilla noted, and the grass was definitely too tall to open it without effort. Slowly, Priscilla walked along the edge of the house, searching for another entrance or a window.

  But she found none, and the smell of rot grew stronger when she walked along the back of the house. Sulaiman and Priscilla shared a meaningful glance and walked back to the door.

  Sulaiman equipped his shield, stashing his sword. Priscilla gripped her dagger tightly, standing to the right of the door and nodded at him that she was ready. Sulaiman pulled harshly on the door and the hinges squeaked loudly as the bottom scraped over the ground and flattened the grass.

  The smell of rot, decay, and stale air flowed out the house to hit her nose, making her gag.

  Sulaiman stared into the open doorway, not taking a single step forward. His expression had shut down into practiced blankness, though something like horror lurked within his eyes.

  Taking a deep breath with her only mouth, Priscilla moved so that she could see inside.

  The house was small and slightly cramped, with a bed in one corner, a bookshelf against the opposite wall, and a table in the center of the room.

  And atop that table was what remained of a man.