The sound of an explosion had Eleanor rolling to her feet before her brain, still half asleep by this point, had fully registered what was wrong.
Over the din of the sodden downpour, she heard the rattle and snap of dozens of shutters. Multiple neighbors similarly curious about the noise.
Not to be mistaken for thunder, the distinct bang sounded as if it’d come from only a street or so away. Eleanor strained her ears, body tensed up like a bow string—now wide awake and ready for just about anything. After what felt like an interminable wait, however, when nothing appeared forthcoming, Eleanor allowed for her body to relax.
That was when the pile of rotting crates and waterlogged barrels littering the other side of the alleyway burst apart in a spray of soggy planks and stinking rainwater.
Eleanor flinched back instinctively, and was about to dash from the alley entirely, when she recognized the thing that’d landed, and subsequently been buried, beneath an avalanche of broken containers.
It was a person.
Rushing forward, Eleanor immediately began extricating them from the jagged remains—tearing away large chunks of wood with her bare hands and flinging them aside. It was probably only seconds before she’d revealed the bloody figure beneath, though her rapidly beating heart made it feel like so much longer.
Panting heavily, she bent over the person to examine them, captivated by the flickering light of blue flame wrapped around their neck. When she caught the harsh scent hot metal and sizzling sounds of burning meat, her intrigue turned to horror in quite fast.
Reaching for the fiery band, her only warning came in the form of an uncanny red glint in the stranger’s eyes.
They lashed out with an uncoordinated swipe Eleanor was just barely able to avoid. Swatting aside the offending hand, she was immediately shocked to feel three burning lines of pain tear into the meat of her palm—the strangers nails having somehow traced long, jagged red furrows.
Flexing her hand through the sudden agony, she was relieved to find that the cuts didn’t go that deep.
Regardless, she now maintained a healthy distance between herself and the stranger—far warier of them than she had been before.
That was, until those glittering red eyes abruptly slid shut, and they unceremoniously slumped into unconsciousness. Without missing a beat, Eleanor lunged forward, fingers once more reaching for the fiery band that, even now, appeared to be burning the flesh around it to blackened char.
A calloused hand caught her wrist before she even came within a foot of the stranger. Glancing up sharply, Eleanor was brought face to face with someone she honestly hadn’t expected to see again.
“You don’t want to go touching that, kid. Nasty stuff, slave bands.”
“Mary? You’re here-? But, why?”
“You couldn’t think I’d be so ungrateful as to wander off after the good turn you did me? Not without somehow repaying you for your kindness.”
The two women shared a look.
It didn’t need to be said out loud that was exactly what she’d been expecting. Growing up in the slums, Eleanor knew better than most that generosity and good will were very rarely reciprocated.
And indeed, more often than not it was the exact opposite. In the relative silence, a distinctive sizzling brought her mind back to the crisis at hand.
“Please let go of me. Can’t you see that they’re being burned alive? We need to help them!”
The woman, Mary, merely shook her head solemnly, a look of pity crossing her face.
“Unfortunately, I think it’s you that needs to look a bit closer. Look at its eyes, it’s hair. It might be enough to fool most, especially on a night like tonight, but it’s clearly not human.”
Unsure, Eleanor turned back to the stranger and did as she was told. Scrutinizing them more closely, now that panic and adrenaline were no longer addling her mind.
Eleanor gasped in sudden recognition.
It was true! Whatever they were, they lacked the straw blond hair, light brown freckles, and delicate features that marked any woman of purely human descent. And yet the similarities in general body shape were so readily apparent that she’d overlooked this small detail entirely.
“But then what-?”
It was an effort not to take an instinctual step back.
“It is possible that she is a crossbreed between human and rift spawn…”
Eleanor shuddered in revulsion at the mental picture that summoned.
“…or it could simply be that she’s some manner of rift spawn I’ve yet to come across before. In which case the bestowal of gender may not even apply.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Eleanor bit her lip, the sickening smells of roast pig teasing at her nostrils.
“I still think we should help her.”
Freckles or not, the thought that she was some gender-less rift spawn able to replicate the human form, was more terrifying to her than the thought of a rift spawn impregnating a human, was disturbing.
How would that even work? Do rift spawn even have the requisite soul fire needed to kickstart a pregnancy?
Mary looked down at her, her face a mask of incredulity.
“Did you not hear a word I just said?”
“I know. I understand but…” Eleanor hesitated a moment before her eyes turned fierce and unyielding. “But it’s the right thing to do. The knightly thing to do.”
The woman seemed to wince before, with a look of consternation, she clicked her tongue and sighed.
“Damn it all! I just hope I don’t come to regret this…”
Mary reached down and lifted the human rift spawn hybrid up into her arms, being extra careful not to graze the glowing band around her neck.
Stepping purposefully towards the bakery’s back entrance, Mary brought her fist to the door loud enough to wake the dead. After what felt like a minute, Nancy Baker emerged wearing nothing but a robe and her nightshift, a soul fire lantern held in one upraised hand.
After a heated argument in which Mary clearly got the better of the exchange, the older woman gestured for Eleanor to follow as she stepped into the bakery.
Ducking her head beneath the weight of Nancy’s evident hostility, it was only then, out of the very corner of her eye, that Eleanor noticed something hidden beneath the broken bits of debris—glittering enchantingly under the light of the blue flame lantern.
Almost without thinking, Eleanor reached down and plucked up what was, ostensibly, a very expensive looking medallion. Having entirely forgotten her injury of only moments before, Eleanor winced as the slick gemstone pressed into her lacerated skin.
In the next moment the world exploded with color.
She felt something warm and sticky running freely down her lips and chin. But before she could attempt to clear her vision or wipe it away, everything in her nearest vicinity gained a hazy, unreal quality. The world turned wavering and insubstantial, before her vision was completely overtaken by darkness.
image [https://i.ibb.co/rw6tMBB/IMG-2711.png]
Through a narrow seam in the doorway of an unassuming broom closet, one which should have, by all accounts, housed nothing more than a comatose burn victim on the eve of his recovery, there can just faintly be seen the trace flickers of color.
A faded glow permeating gaps in the inelegant woodwork.
Each pulse of which, by deductive reasoning alone, must have originated from the kaleidoscopic light show undoubtedly happening within. In the cramped room, on a small cot, where only one person could possibly reside, four distinct voices can be heard.
Each speaking in time with the light strobing anomaly. Hushed tones and adamant voices held unorthodox council, with the life of a prospective young knight in training hanging perilously in the balance.
There came a general chorus of assent, as they all recalled the flickers of a life lived primarily on the streets—scrounging and scraping for every last bit of change in the hopes of fulfilling a lifelong dream.
“Who’s to say, for instance, that killing her does not end poorly for us in turn? We do not yet understand the strength of the link that binds us.
“Until we do, brash actions have a high likelihood of backfiring. Secondly, our goals align closely enough as to make aiding her of negligible inconvenience.”
“So must we if we are to stand any chance of defeating the many enemies arrayed before us. The team that brought us here, for one, the Cthulle who you blinded, and the dread entity who flattened an entire clearing with her mere presence.
”In order to survive, let alone overcome these hurdles, we will need the strength that this Academy of hers can offer.
“And even if the curriculum itself falls short, sooner or later she will be called to participate in this ongoing war that hangs ever at the forefront of her mind. We will be in the unique position to capitalize on this when the time comes, without garnering any undue suspicion.
”As we are clearly abnormal to the point of being ostracized in these lands, I can only see this as a must.”