Kesra was dead. I was sure of it. Zabra came skidding into the room, two small flasks of healing potion in each hand, looked down, and howled like a wounded animal. Tam, close behind her, wrapped an arm around her waist as she tried to hurl herself at the body on the floor.
Kira was having none of it.
“No,” she growled, not having moved an inch since Kesra’s pained breathing stopped. “No, I don’t think so. You will not die. You hear me? You will not die! I won’t allow it!” Her head snapped around. “Zabra!”
Her tone was sharp enough that Zabra choked off her screams and looked at her.
“Two potions, one in cut, one on. Now!”
Zabra stared mutely for a second, then exploded into action. Straddling Kesra’s legs, she uncorked one vial with her teeth. Then, putting the mouth of the vial through the cut, she poured its contents directly into her sister’s belly.
“Draka, hold the cut closed!” Kira commanded. Commanded! She commanded me! And I obeyed, without a word, without hesitation, trying to line up the torn flesh as Zabra started pouring the liquid from a second vial along the wound. All the while I could see more and more magic gathering inside Kira. She’d stopped her healing, but sweat poured off her face as she gathered power inside herself, more than I’d ever seen a human use at once. And when the orb next to her heart was almost blinding, when I thought it might burst the way it did inside me when I consumed the last of a Heart, she put one hand to the side of Kesra’s breast, right over her heart, and the other over the middle of the cut, and she whispered: “Live, damn you!”
The incandescent sphere of magical power next to Kira’s heart split in two, and two pulses of light exploded down her arms into her patient.
Kesra’s back arched, so powerfully that it threw Zabra off her and onto the floor, and she took a long, moaning breath before her back crashed back down. Then she took another difficult breath, and another. And then she was breathing. Her breaths were quick and shallow, but she was breathing.
Kira sat back on her heels, swaying softly. “Zabra,” she said weakly and gestured to Kesra. “Potions. Drink. Fast.” Then she fell backward, into Tam’s waiting arms.
Kesra died. And then, because Kira would not allow that, because Kira demanded it, she lived.
Zabra scrambled forward the moment Tam released her to catch Kira. As I raised Kesra’s head, Zabra tore the top off one vial with her teeth and poured it into her sister’s mouth, covering her mouth and nose firmly with one hand to prevent her from coughing it out. Healing potion apparently didn’t do any harm if it got into the lungs, but the body didn’t know that. Once Kesra had swallowed Zabra repeated the process, then laid down in the blood and wrapped her arms around her. I sat holding the edges of the cut closed, watching as it healed, the corners creeping slowly inwards, and Zabra lay there, whispering to her sister in that mix of Karakani and Barlean that they used with each other. She told her that she loved her, that she needed her, and how sorry she was that she hadn’t been able to protect her and that she’d do better in the future. It was a bizarre thing, to be part of such an intimate moment, considering who these two women were, and knowing what I had to do didn’t make it any better.
“They can’t stay here,” I told Tam. “It’s not safe.”
Tam looked at the two sisters. Kesra was out cold, and Zabra showed no sign of hearing anything. “I’m surprised that you’d be so worried about them, considering what they did to you and our sisters.”
I didn’t want to get into the exact reasons for that, so instead I shrugged and said, “I’m responsible for them. And I’m not alone in being concerned, and I? You’re the one who brought us here.”
“I don’t give a damn about them,” he said flatly, then sighed. “Or, well, I don’t give a damn about Zabra. I still haven’t seen anything incriminating about Kesra. But I suppose they must be important somehow, or I wouldn’t have—” he looked at Zabra again. “You know.”
Or his supercharged Luck and Intuition wouldn’t have brought us here in time to save them. “Yeah. If nothing else they still owe us a ton of money. Right, Zabra?”
She didn’t even glance my way. Some things were stronger than anything I could do to her.
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We waited until Kira had recovered from her exhaustion, and declared Kesra stable enough to be moved. What she’d taken from the Heart was gone, which came as no surprise — there was nothing in what she’d done that looked like anything I’d have expected from either her or Mak. As far as I was concerned, she’d brought a woman back from the dead.
Once Kira gave her okay, she and Zabra changed Kesra into a whole, clean dress. Zabra made herself presentable, gathered their stash of gold and valuables into a chest which went into a sack, and then we left. Zabra locked up best she could, but there was no reason to leave anything easily stolen behind unguarded.
They trudged through the rain, Zabra carrying her sister, and Kira carrying the sack. Tam had a wide cloth umbrella that he held best he could over the Tesprils, and Kira had her own, but despite that they were all mostly soaked within minutes. I was nice and dry, in the sense that I wasn’t even solid as I followed them, but I instead had to suffer the intense discomfort of rain passing through me.
No one followed us, as far as I could tell, and no one tried to stop us. The few people we met were too concerned with getting to whatever warm, dry place they were going to care why one finely dressed woman was carrying another, followed by two people with umbrellas.
We settled the Tesprils in a room at the inn. Mak and Herald were as exasperated as they could be with me. They were not best pleased about having Zabra staying as a guest in their home and place of business. Ardek made himself scarce the moment he saw Zabra, and Garal and Lalia, in for a rare night of leave, were mostly confused about the whole situation; who these two women were, and why my sisters were so unhappy about their presence.
“I know that you’re protective of your thralls,” Mak said, “but was it necessary to bring them here? Couldn’t you have left them with the Guard?”
“Nah. They’ve bribed too many of the Guard officers. Can’t have them look weak in front of people they’ve been paying off.”
“Jekrie, then? I’m sure that— what were their names? Dar and Elma? I’m sure they could keep track of two women.”
“Really, Mak? That would end in one way. They’d be the queens of that little place within a week, and they’d be entirely useless. No, I need them nearby, where I can keep them safe, under control, but still productive.”
“It’ll be days before Kesra can go anywhere. I had a look at her, and I talked to Kira. From what Kira told me… was she dead? Like actually dead?”
“I don’t know if she was dead, dead, but she stopped breathing. I’m pretty sure her heart stopped. So, yeah.”
“And Kira brought her back.”
“Using the power she took from the Heart,” I confirmed.
“I guess that answers that,” Mak said thoughtfully. “I’ve never heard of a healer bringing someone back from the dead before. But my point was: I don’t see Kesra up and moving within a week. I know you recovered quickly, but humans just aren’t like that, no matter how much you heal them. And while I’m sure Zabra will do anything you command her to, I don’t think she’ll leave her sister’s side willingly. She’ll be useless. So they may as well be somewhere else.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Mak,” I sighed. “I know you don’t like it. I definitely don’t blame you. If you happen to punch Zabra in the mouth… I’d rather you didn’t, but as long as you fix her up I won’t say anything. I understand entirely. I don’t like it either. I don’t like inflicting them on you and Herald. But I want them here. I won’t be comfortable otherwise.”
That ended that sorry excuse for an argument. “Yeah. All right,” Mak said. “Should I have Ardek look for Hardal?”
“That’s probably best. Don’t spread the word that the sisters are here, though.”
“Right. So. What the hell happened?”
That wasn’t complicated. Zabra blamed herself entirely, and didn’t hesitate to tell us once we got her away from Kesra for five minutes.
It was, essentially, a criminal partnership that broke down in the worst way imaginable. Zabra had tried to put an end to one of her smuggling routes. Her partners for that particular enterprise had unfortunately figured out who the Night Blossom was, had heard that the Tesprils were trying to sell off some investments, and smelled blood in the water. Instead of ending the smuggling operation, they’d decided to try to take over the whole thing. The first step in doing that was to send assassins after the sisters, something that was made possible by the disappearance of Tark, and Hardal having to cover for both that little weasel as well as the guy whose head I’d ripped off a few months back.
“When we realized what was happening, we made for the cellar,” Zabra told us, too worn out to show much emotion. “Torv and Sover led, with Kesra following them while I brought up the rear. The guy was… I don’t even know how my boys didn’t see him. He went straight for Kesra. You saw what he did to her. He took down Sover, then Torv and me took him out. I got Kesra into the safe room, but the potions in there were gone. And then the rest of them came down. Torv was checking on Sover. I’d left the door open for him but he didn’t even make it to the corridor.”
She was speaking mechanically, and I decided we should leave her alone. She’d told me not so long ago that a big part of her motivation for capturing me and my sisters was that she’d been angry, not about the lost income from the freed slaves, but about her lost men. Now I got the feeling that she was grieving for her dead guards, and that we were intruding.
We didn’t owe her anything. None of us did. Giving her some space still seemed like the decent thing to do.
“So, Draka,” Mak said after Kira had taken Zabra to bring her to her sister, “I’m guessing you want to do something about this?”
“Zabra’s mine,” I said. I shouldn’t care, and I was exasperated with myself, but Mak was entirely right. “They tried to kill her. They almost did kill Kesra, and now Zabra is even worse of a wreck than she’s been. They hurt my Zabra. You understand?”
Garal and Lalia, looked entirely nonplussed. They were only barely clued in on the whole situation, so I didn’t blame them. Tam just shook his head unhappily where he sat, and Herald sat back with her arms crossed, but Mak nodded. Of course she understood.
“Ardek is already out looking for Hardal,” she said. “Once we have a hold of him and his men, we’ll find out exactly who is to blame and where to find them, and then we’ll take it from there.”
“Just find them for me,” I muttered, and she nodded, again understanding exactly. This was something I needed to do myself.
“So,” Garal said. “The Night Blossom. Lady Tespril Zabra? She’s like Tammy?”
Lalia snorted. “I doubt anyone’s like Tammy. I don’t know what you did to her, but that woman had the mental fortitude of a soft cheese.”
“Be nice,” I said reflexively, then grimaced. “Actually, you’re probably right about Tammy. But yeah, Garal is more or less right. I did something similar to Zabra. She… works for me, now. For us.”
“Right. Too useful or too connected to just kill her?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“All right.”
“And you can just do that?” Lalia said. “To anyone?”
At this point I didn’t see any reason to hold back. They already knew so much that filling in some blanks wouldn’t hurt. “I think so. There’s some variation, though. Tammy cracked like a defective egg, while Zabra took days. I don’t know if it’s just something about them, or if our relationship has anything to do with it, or the exact circumstances. Can’t exactly test it without hurting a bunch of people.”
“Right.”
“But no one I’ve actively tried to… turn, has been able to resist.”
“Yeah, I believe you,” Lalia muttered. “No need to be creepy about it.”
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Hardal arrived about two hours later. I didn’t meet him, but Mak later told me that she’d seen the closest thing to emotion so far from him. She swore that when they led him to a regular room, where Zabra sat free and unharmed, watching her sister sleep, Hardal showed just a hint of relief.
“He thanked me,” Mak told me. “In that unsettling voice of his. Mercies, that man talks how I’d expect a lizard to talk, and I’m friends with a lizard.”
“That’s Lady Lizard to you,” I told her, and she snorted.
“Anyway, we got the details out of Zabra while waiting for Hardal. We know who hit the house, and Hardal and his guys can show us where we need to go. They go by the very imaginative ‘South Docks Gang,’ but don’t underestimate them. You know better than I what they can do.”
“What they can do against a bunch of humans who think they’re business partners, sure,” I growled. “Let’s see how they feel when the shadows grow teeth.”
Mak grinned viciously, but Herald just crossed her arms. “I do not see why you need to do this on your own. Let Hardal handle it!”
“I just have to,” I said gently. Almost apologetically. She clearly hated the idea of me doing anything to avenge her tormentor, and I couldn’t blame her, but I also knew that my dragon side wouldn’t let this go. Even if Hardal told us that they’d rooted this gang out completely, and we believed him, it wouldn’t be enough. I knew that it would bother me if I didn’t punish them myself. “Zabra is mine. By hurting her sister and by killing her men, they hurt her. I can’t let that stand, you know?”
“Fuck Zabra,” Herald hissed, with a shocking amount of venom. “Are you going to have them move in, now, too? Maybe have them stay down here, with you?”
“I— only until—”
“We should have just killed her,” Herald spat, ignoring me. “And damn the consequences.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. Seeing my own jealousy and possessiveness in Herald was endearing more than anything, but I hated what came with it. This was the closest thing to anger she’d directed at me since… ever, and even if it wasn’t directed at me personally I wasn’t sure how to handle it. I mostly didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought about me anymore. Anyone except Herald. Her unconditional love was the foundation of my entire emotional edifice. The slightest hint of a crack there shook me to my core.
“Hey, Kitten,” Mak said, putting her arm around our sister. “How about this? We could go with her! We both want to really test our abilities now, right? How about testing them against a bunch of criminals that tried to deprive us of one of our assets?”
Herald didn’t say anything, but she looked at Mak, uncertain but interested. “Because that’s what they are, right?” Mak continued. “Zabra and Kesra are supposed to make us a lot of money. They already owe us a shipload of gold, and they’re supposed to be paying us half of their profits. Remember that. Don’t even think of them as people. They’re an asset. This gang, they didn’t just go after the Tesprils. They damaged our assets. They attacked us. It only makes sense that we go after them ourselves, right? You know how Draka is with her stuff.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Herald, you know this isn’t because I like Zabra or Kesra, right? This is nothing like when they hurt you two. This isn’t even like when they beat up Ardek. They’re not my friends. Like Mak says, they’re assets. And I have to defend what belongs to me. That means that they need to stay here until their home is secure again, and that we need to punish those that attacked them. Okay?”
“Right,” Herald said. She sounded uncertain, but I got the feeling that she was willing to be persuaded. “Yeah. Of course. Sorry. I overreacted. We— of course we need to keep them here, to make sure that they are safe. For now.”
“For now,” I agreed. “I’m sure Hardal will have the estate secured in a day or two at most, with extra guards and all, and then we’ll be rid of them.”
Herald nodded agreeably. “And then you will not have to look after them anymore.”
“Right.” I glanced at Mak. Her lips curled into a tiny smile, and she shrugged, rolling her eyes in our sister’s direction. “So, we know where this gang hangs out, yeah?”
“Hardal can have one of his guys lead us right to them,” Mak confirmed.
“Good. Get the word to Hardal that we need that guide. Have a meal, take care of your gear, and have some rest. I want to hit them tonight.”