The Ogre's Pendant & The Rat in the Pit

The Eye of Radiin hung heavy upon Wurhi’s neck.

Though balms and poultices numbed her wounds, the ruby seemed a burden whose chain ground into her flesh. As the thief burned the sacrificial flowers to enter Paradise, she wrestled a desperate urge to cast the stolen jewel into the flame.

“Are you unwell, Mistress Wurhi?” Jeva peered at her in concern. “You are pale.”

“Fine! Fine!” she insisted, throwing an agitated glance at the entrance door. She half-expected it to burst open and a tide of guards to come boiling through. “Just cold. Very cold.”

“Ah, yes.” The seneschal’s gloves creaked as he stroked his beard. “Our winters are considered rather mild for the north, but to a southlander their bite must be fierce. It would not do to have you catch a chill while you are staying with us. I shall be returning to my quarters for the night, but I will have some heated towels sent to your room before I do.”

“Yes…yes, thanks,” she muttered.

Wurhi entered the cleansing chamber to scrub away the day’s sweat. The soothing aromas of lavender soaps, lemon balm and rose oils greeted her nostrils, but she found no comfort in them.

She quickly disrobed and sat beneath the hot showering-fountain facing the door, her eyes fixed on the handle. Every noise made her twitch. The sound of a guest passing near had her looking to bolt for the exit.

She shook her head. Her room. She needed to get to her room. Wasting no time drying herself, she quickly donned Paradise’s robe, hid the jewel deep within, and rushed upstairs.

With the door locked behind her, she looked about, inspecting the chamber for anyone lurking in the dark. She searched every nook and every corner thrice until convinced that she was indeed alone. Next, she needed a place to conceal The Eye.

Wurhi’s eyes darted about: the clothing chest would be the first place she’d look. Beneath the feather stuffed sleeping pad would be the second. Where could she hide it? The room offered few choices, but she could not compromise. What was needed was somewhere inconspicuous. A place no one would want to go rooting through. Someplace dirty. Unappealing. Someplace only a mad person would place a priceless gem.

Her eyes settled on the fireplace. “There,” she whispered.

Coating the jewel with soot, she pushed it down among the cold, grey ash. The little thief stepped to the middle of the room, examining her hideaway. It would do.

For now.

Wurhi wiped her hands with one of the warm towels sent by Jeva. She pushed open the shutters on her window and, leaning outside, drew a deep breath of the frosty night air. The fresh chill filled her chest, yet she felt as though she were suffocating.

Paradise’s estate and the buildings beyond its walls spread before her, with each snow-smothered roof reflecting moonlight. Her eyes drifted skyward. To the north rose the southern tip of the Midgard Mountains. Their peaks were sharp. Unnaturally so. In a wild instant, they seemed to be the fangs of a colossal beast, eager to tear into the sky.

The little thief shuddered. “You’re imagining things. Get your head right.”

They were only mountains. There was no giant beast. No one was coming to get her for now. She was safe. She was-

Chilling howls drifted from the mountains, deeper and more menacing than any jackals’ she had heard in Zabyalla. She stiffened, quickly slamming the shutters. Her breath came hard and ragged.

“You’re jumping at dog sounds now,” she chastised herself. “You’re acting like this is the first piece of bread you ever stole! What’s wrong with you!? Get. Your. Head. Right!”

A panicked thief was soon a thief missing a hand, foot or their life.

Yet, like an unwanted pox, Thesiliea’s words of massacres and curses returned to her.

Slowly, Wurhi looked toward the fireplace. Though buried in soot, she imagined the gem’s ‘pupil’ pointed to her. Staring at her. Through her.

Glancing to a side table, she snatched up a decanter and gulped wine until her hands stopped shaking

She made for the baths.

Sniff.

A wiry man crouched beneath the outer wall of the Ameldan estate.

His greying hair betrayed his age, but his movements - sleek and agile - were those of a young predator. “Here lies another scent,” he pronounced, wiping a finger on the snow and holding it to his nose. His nostrils flared. “The first smelled of incense, but this smells of…”

Sniff.

His eyes narrowed. “…lemon…and lilac.”

“Paradise’s flowers!” Adelmar slammed fist to palm. “That red-eyed demon and those two women! It must’ve been them! By Lycundar, Haldrych, you were right!”

His eyes flashed in the dark as they shifted to the poet. Ice crawled up Haldrych’s spine and he pulled his robe tighter. Nerves chewed at his belly like rats in a grain house. He reminded himself that the man looking at him was his friend. His closest friend. A man like a brother to him.

Not a beast that wore his friend’s skin.

He swallowed. “Yes…I was.” His voice cracked.

Adelmar let out a laugh that rumbled like a beast’s growl. “They’ll regret crossing us, won’t they?”

“Yes,” Haldrych murmured.

He glanced about, trying to hide his unease. Black robed men stood out in the snow and moonlight. Most wore wolf masks - acolytes, like him now. His bronze wolf-bracer itched where it enclosed his forearm and his mask felt tight, stifling.

He wondered just what he had become a part of.

Sniff. Sniff.

The wiry man’s eyes narrowed at the odour. “There is something strange about the second. Like a vermin’s pelt… Berard! Come, take this scent!”

“Yes, hunt-leader.” A towering man stepped forth and sniffed the spot he was shown. Even in human form, he seemed a beast. His shaggy brown hair and beard nearly smothered his brutish face. Haldrych could better imagine him as a bear than as a wolf.

“I will hunt the one who left the scent of incense,” the hunt-leader announced. “Take your pack-brothers and half the acolytes. Go to this…’paradise’. Capture the vermin thief and make an example of any who stand against you.”

The bear of a man grinned, revealing teeth long and yellowed. “This’ll be a good night.”

Haldrych gasped. The faces of those he had caroused with at the wine house swam through his mind. The guests. The servers. The singers.

Juliana… Her smile. Her scent. Her heated touch.

He swallowed, preparing to step forward. To save her from massacre. There had to be another way-

And yet…

He stopped. Why? Why save them? They had scorned him. Spurned him while he had granted them his coin. His jaw tightened. They did not wish for his presence? Then they would not have his protection!

“Hunt leader!” Adelmar cried. “Let Haldrych and I go with them. We will join the hunt!”

Bitterness drove Haldrych forward as well. “Yes, hunt-leader. We know Paradise. We can show Berard how to get in quietly.”

Berard’s grin widened. “I like these pups.”

The hunt-leader gave them a piercing look. “It’s good for the young to be eager. Go, then. Taste your first hunt. Find your quarry and show them their folly.”

The merchant’s son grinned and clapped Haldrych on the shoulder. “Let’s go have some true fun in Paradise.”

Haldrych’s smile grew beneath his mask. Revenge would soon be his. Revenge and the excitement he had always yearned for. Perhaps joining these men would prove a good decision after all. “I suppose this will give me inspiration for my next ode,” he said with the sort of easy, flippant tone he’d always tied to his image of the confident warrior.

He paid no heed to the slight tremble in his voice.