Chapter 6

  We’re both covered in sweat. We smell of consensual, well-done sex. It’s a way better scent than the… other kind I am used to finding on bandits.

  I’m cuddling against Manon. We’re both still naked. One of her arm rests in between my breasts, one of my legs is draped over hers, my thigh still feeling how wet she is, and I trace the curves of her body with a finger. The woman looks satisfied, her muscles relaxed, yet her gaze is anxious, unsettled.

  I don’t want this to end.

  Yet it can’t last forever.

  “This…” Manon starts, her gaze crossing mine, before looking away, “This is not proper,” She finishes, bothered.

  I’m not sure what to answer, “And.. and so what? It was nice, and hot, and we enjoyed ourselves didn’t we?” I ask, rolling to the side to give her some breathing room.

  “The Church of the Sun-”

  “Clearly hate me, and enforce dumb rules that are not even theirs to speak about,” I cut her with a smidge of anger, before I tone down my voice and look at her.

  “I know we’ve only met a few days ago, but I like you, I like what we did, and I’m not going to hurt you. I-If… if you want this to be the first and last time it happens, I won’t say anything about it, but you should be happy too, not prepping yourself into being useful enough that your husband won’t discard you like a useless rag, to avoid becoming a prisoner in your own city,” I say my piece.

  I can smell a storm of emotion around her. Fear, apprehension, happiness, anger, an explosive cocktail.

  In the end, she starts shaking her head, “This… is something that shouldn’t have happened. It only happened because you needed blood,” She half-lies to me and, I can smell it, to herself too, to protect herself, then continues just so, “We will dress ourselves and go back to my study, then we’ll make it look like I was teaching you heraldry and etiquette. We will not…” She looks at the bed, her gaze caressing my body before she takes it back in shame, “... not speak about this ever again, and I’ll forget it. I won’t… I can’t fight my father and the church just for a fling with you...”

  I feel my heart twist. I want to scream, I want to cry but, once more, everything is locked away at the back of my mind.

  “And don’t worry, I’ll find people to provide you with the blood you need. You won’t lack anything,” She quickly adds with a grimace, and I feel the sorrow radiating from her.

  She wants to do this, she wants to be with me, but the world is against her, me, us.

  I want to die.

  No.

  I want to break this world.

  I WILL.

  ***

  Manon and I went our separate ways for the evening. My way? Towards the prison.

  The world is slow, the sky is red and yellow from the last sun rays. Now that everyone knows who I am, I don’t slow down for them anymore.

  My anger is also pushing my steps, but that’s irrelevant, as irrelevant as it is a good idea to go interrogate a prisoner while being angry.

  I quickly find my way to the prison since I scouted yesterday, when I left the old man that was too tired to work anymore.

  I just slow down a bit to announce myself to the two guards keeping the door and the first room, then storm my way inside.

  I don’t pay attention to my surroundings, my mind is clouded by emotions, mostly anger honestly. The rest are locked away, too painful at the moment.

  There she is.

  I’m standing in front of her cell. The cell left and right are open, one guard in each, and two more guards stand at both ends of the corridor, but no man is standing right in front of the witch’s cell.

  They’re afraid of her, I can understand. She did bust both my hands after all.

  A guard nearly stops me when I walk forward, but he quickly recognizes me, and now they all look at me with a mix of curiosity and wariness.

  The witch is huddled in a corner. Her cell is filthy, she is too. She’s still wearing her clothes from two days ago, and there’s a bucket full of excrement in one corner. Her hands are shackled behind her back. She stinks.

  I frown. She’s an assassin for sure, and yet I’m annoyed at how she’s treated. I guess being a witch will make other people treat you like that.

  I’m still angry about the previous situation, but the stinks and the prisoner’s state push that emotion away. Now I’m just disgusted and ill at ease.

  She looks weak, and another smell finally pierces through the cloud of horrible scents floating in this place. Blood. I squint my eyes. She’s wearing trousers, like me, and there’s blood on them between her legs.

  Okay Camille, calm down. She’s a criminal, she tried to kill Francis, and you, and was after Manon. She deserves to be treated like this…

  I shake my head, I can’t convince myself of what I just thought. Maybe she deserves to die, but she doesn’t deserve to live like this. Even rapists wouldn’t deserve this, better kill them swiftly and be done with it, instead of making them stew in a cell until they’re so mad and angry that, if freed, they would get outside and be even bigger monsters.

  “You, go fetch a bucket of water with a clean rag as well as clean shirt and trousers,” I order one of the guards, who hesitates for a second before nodding, “Yes Ma’am!” and bolting away.

  All along my internal struggle and me ordering a man around, the criminal looks at me with accusatory eyes, seeing me as a monster and a soon-to-be torturer. I think.

  The misery of this scene is getting to me, somehow, deflating my emotions. Anger leaves while nothing fills the created void, and I start to feel empty again.

  The world speeds up a little bit afterward, and I try to latch on to the feeling to intensify it. To my surprise, it does work just a bit, and I find myself having to not slow down my speech too much to be understood.

  “I will ask you questions, and you will answer as well as possible. I will not torture you, but if I don’t get the answers I need…” I pause there, not for any dramatic effect, but because I didn’t think this far.

  I’ve never interrogated a prisoner before, shit, I don’t even know where to start. Should I menace her? Torture her? The idea disgusts me.

  Oh.

  “...Then I’ll drink from you, until you’re a dry and empty husk. I can see the memories of my…” Victims? Prey? The bandits had been that, but Manon… she hadn’t been prey or victim, so I’m not sure what to call the people I draw blood from. I have no words to cover both the willing and the forced.

  “...my meals,” I finish, unsure. This doesn’t feel like a very savory thing to say. Also, this whole memory-seeing thing, I hope I’ll be able to do it if push comes to shove, since it doesn’t always trigger. Maybe if I focus really hard on it, I’ll be able to trigger it?

  She gulps down hard and quickly nods, both afraid and defiant. I smelled a slight peak of fear when I spoke of humans being my meals. Ah, well, I already ate from her, didn’t I?

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Good. Step up and come closer,” I ask firmly, but with no ill will.

  She nods again and gets in front of me.

  I inspect her as she walks toward me.

  She’s a woman with a thin, oval face. Just like I had seen during our battle, she has red hair stopping around her ears, shiny green eyes, and one large tattoo over her whole face, looking like some kind of flower growing from the top of her forehead downward, with stylized stems growing around her eyes, her noses and her mouth, finished in blooming flowers. Small inscriptions are woven throughout the whole tattoo.

  As for the rest of her body, I can’t see much because of the filthy clothes, but she’s smaller than me by a foot, and she is thin. Her arms and neck are muscular in a dry way.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Catherine.” Short answer. Her voice is deeper than mine, sounding like soft fur, and she speaks with a strange accent, as if she’s not from this country.

  “Are you a witch?”

  She grimaces at that one. “Dumb question, but yes.”

  I nod and keep calm. I’m trying to smell her, to read her, but it’s hard. Compared to her, Charles was an open book yesterday.

  “Why did you ambush us?” On to the serious questions.

  She looks at me but doesn’t answer.

  “You know that I could drink you to have my answer, right?” I ask her with a light menacing tone, at least I hope it looks like that, and she looks at her feet, “Then why don’t you do it?” She answers defiantly.

  I’m not sure how to answer that, and I’m saved by the guard coming back with the bucket and clothes I asked for.

  I nod at him, “I will come in your cell. You know how dangerous I am, don’t try anything funny.” I say flatly.

  She clenches her mouth and nods, stepping back as a guard opens the hefty iron door.

  I enter with the things I asked for, put the clothes in the less filthy corner, and turn my eyes at her.

  “We will keep talking as I clean you,” I say, looking at her stained trousers and shirt. I grimace. It must be hard to go to the toilet with your hands shackled and over a bucket.

  She looks at me warily as I remember something else, “Ah, and let’s get some privacy," I tell her with a soft voice, before turning around to order the guards to leave "Everyone out!”

  Once more they hesitate, but one nasty look and a fanged smile are enough to jolt them into action. Yes, I am dangerous, remember that.

  They leave fast, and soon enough I’m left alone with the prisoner.

  “I don’t want to hurt you. I will be as gentle as possible. That’s also why I don’t want to drink you dry. I want you to answer me,” I tell her, feeling bad for her.

  “Why? So I can be beheaded with the thought that you were nice to me?” She shoots back with venom.

  Ah. Of course. I’m an insensitive dumbass am I not?

  She attacked a noble lady, tried to kill Manon’s bodyguards so she could kidnap her. Charles will most likely want to execute this prisoner.

  I look at her with the clean rag in my right hand, the bucket in my left, and I just try to think about something, a plan, I don’t know.

  “Okay. At the least, I can guarantee you that you will not be killed. If what you tell me is useful enough, I’ll even think about freeing you or something, but I need you to answer me honestly,” I explain, before putting both the rag and the bucket down.

  I leave her there as I go fetch the keys to the room and to her shackles, the guards left them just far enough that the shackled woman could not grab them but I could, and under the surprised gaze of the woman, I free her hands.

  “There. Maybe you think I’m naive or overconfident, maybe I’m both those things, but now you can clean yourself, I won’t touch you,” I frown and add, “Though I will look at you. You’re still dangerous, and I’m already taking a risk here, so I won’t turn my back to you,” I tell her what I hope is a reasonable explanation.

  She’s massaging her hands as I speak, and she looks at me warily once again, yet she slowly nods, “...I understand, thanks,” She says in her soft and slightly deep voice, then undresses.

  As she does, I try both to not look at her too intensely and to make sure that she doesn’t try anything bad, which is hard, I tell you.

  She quickly discards her soiled clothes, and takes the bucket and the rag.

  She’s lithe, as I thought, and the rest of her body is like her arms, muscular in a dry way, with well-defined abs and calves. She’s as hairy as I am, with darker shades of red hair on her legs, genital and armpits, and lighter shades on her arms, her torso and the like.

  Her whole body is covered with tattoos that look much like the one on her face. Stems and flowers snake their way over her arms, her legs, on her belly and her back, around her collarbone and her breasts.

  I study those tattoos with surprise. There are so many of them, so densely drawn. I can feel her look at me looking at her. I bring my gaze back to her eyes, where it will stay, for now.

  I rest my back against a wall and ask again, “Why did you ambush us?”

  Catherine stops cleaning herself for a second, her gaze in mine, hesitating.

  “It was my mission,” She gives me another short answer before going back to scrubbing the dry blood between her legs.

  “What was your mission, exactly?” I play along, since she won’t answer more than what I asked.

  “To kidnap Lady Manon and bring her to a pre-arranged drop point, West of Lyenass.”

  “So why did you fire your magic at Francis? The fireball man,” I precise.

  “Because I could feel his magic, he was dangerous,” Blood mixes with the water in the bucket before she brings the rag back on her body.

  “Feel his magic? Is that a part of your own magic?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is your magic, exactly?”

  Another silence, longer than the previous ones. She keeps cleaning herself, and seems to try and decide what to answer.

  “Life. I can use my own life, shape it into specific strength, like the bolt I shot at your witch,” She sighs, shivers a bit because of how cold the water is, and adds, “The tattoos help me shape my life without it hurting too much.”

  It’s the first time she added a bit of information by herself. Progress.

  I nod. “Who gave you this mission?”

  “My master. We are… mercenaries.” Mercenaries. I dig in my mind to find the meaning of the word.

  “Ah. Sellswords? In this case, Sellwitches I guess?” I comment. Henry told me about mercenaries a few times, long ago, I just had to remember.

  “I guess you can call us that. We’re paid to fulfill missions. We’re not told why, and people usually use a servant or something to contact and pay us, so before you ask, no, I don’t know who gave us this mission.”

  She’s nearly finished cleaning herself up. The bucket is dark with filth and blood. She leaves the rag in the bucket, and waits a bit for her skin to dry. I keep my gaze on her face.

  I nod, “Thanks.”

  As she dries, I think for a bit.

  So she’s a life witch, I guess that making herself faster is another of her powers, along with throwing those blood bolts of hers.

  She’s a Sellwitch and she works with her masters. They don’t know who bought their service.

  “Where do you live, you and your master?” I ask the next question I can think of.

  “On the road. We have a cart that we use as a home, so we can move from place to place. He picked me up a few years ago far north from here, in the Holy Lemian Empire.”

  Ah. That’s the accent, I guess. They don’t speak Rankian in there I reckon.

  “How do you find each other again after a mission?” I ask curiously.

  “I know where he’ll be for the next few months. He has an itinerary,” She answers, before adding, “I will not give it to you,” with determination.

  ***

  I quickly wrapped up this interrogation afterwards. I didn’t have more questions to ask her, so I left it at that.

  The sun is down when I exit the prison, but people are still moving around, mostly getting ready for the night, finishing some last-minute tasks and such.

  I left the guards with instructions to put Catherine in another, clean cell. I put the shackles back on, of course, but I told them that I would come back tomorrow. I couldn’t let her live in such filth, so I would give her a change of clothes and something to clean herself, and change her cell, every day.

  I realize that, for some reason, I like her. She’s courageous, a witch woman doing what she can to survive in a world that rejects her.

  I could have gone down a similar path pretty easily, if I hadn’t saved Manon.

  I think a second, and realize that technically, our paths are already pretty similar, the only difference being that I’m on the side of a Lord, of the law.

  Though if Charles asks me to kidnap the daughter of one of his enemies, what would I do, then?

  Case on point. I feel sympathy for Catherine.

  I want to help her.

  But she’s a witch, a strong one, and she works for an enemy of Charles.

  An enemy of Manon.

  I try not to think about what we did, a few hours ago. I want to do it again, but she’s quite certain it won’t happen. I won’t push her. It's her choice, I don’t want to hurt her.

  And so, with all those complicated thoughts and emotions in mind, my feet take me back to a place of peace and focus. The world goes at a nearly normal speed. I’m getting the hang of this. I hope.

  “Hello Warden,” The blacksmith says between two hammer strikes. I realize that I don’t know his name.

  I’m back at the smithy and, today, the old man is forging a kitchen knife.

  “Hello… unknown blacksmith man who helped me this morning?” I say with a splash of humor, and smile a little.

  “I’m Erick, and you’re welcome,” Clang! “Helping you while annoying Laurant at the same time?” Clang! “That was a godsent opportunity, I tell you. That old prick, he believes the world revolves around him.” Clang!

  “Well, thanks anyway,” I say, walking to the bellow as Erick brings the knife back into the forge. I pump a few times until the old blacksmith makes a sign signifying the fire is at the right temperature.

  “So, knives tonight?” I ask him, and he gives me a genuine smile, “If you want, Warden,” He answers with a nod, waving for me to step closer and watch.