In a valley where water ran green and slow between steep walls of grey and beige limestone, where strange, stunted oaks hung over a carpet of brilliant late spring wildflowers of vivid red and blue and yellow, a place where water spirits with long white hair and translucent skin slipped effortlessly through the rivers, one such creature had surfaced to smile at the two people and their dog that had paused to draw water.

The necromancer has giving her a harsh scolding.

“Hey! Don't think ye can get away with this! I've had plenty of experience with yer type!”

“Naked spirit women?” Sou Yuet asked curiously, stirring the soup that was boiling over their campfire.

“What? No! Water spirits! That try to drag people into water! Like them aughisky, remember them? The water horses we saw at Yùhǎi?”

“Ah, is that what you meant...”

“Why do ye say that like ye don't believe me?”

“I wonder. Ah, your new friend just jumped back in the water.”

“Damn it!”

It had been two weeks since the funeral. They had taken their time heading west after parting with the dog-people, barely speaking.

Or rather, the necromancer would try to start a conversation, and Sou Yuet would just smile, and nod, or shrug, or sometimes not even notice that their friend had said something.

They carried small packs now, having bartered and traded and otherwise acquired some cooking utensils, a water gourd each, and an old collar that had once belonged to a horse, now adorning the neck of the ever-growing Sunny, who was now as tall as the monk's shoulder and over the necromancer's waist height.

The most expensive possession was a book.

A thick blank notebook that required all the coins they had at the time, plus some healing work on the part of Sou Yuet. The further west one travelled, the less it was possible to obtain paper, and a book with so much was a rare and costly find. And yet Sou Yuet insisted on purchasing it, in a way that the necromancer had never seen them insist before.

Well, the witch understood why now.

Sou Yuet wrote in it ever single day, pages and pages of notes that the necromancer would not have understood if it were not for the impressive drawings that the monk added to accompany the text. Detailed studies of leaves and flowers, sketches of roots and branches, close-ups on fruits and seeds – Sou Yuet was assembling a botanical.

“So what's this one do?” the necromancer asked casually, tapping a finger on a picture of a fleshy, spiky plant.

“Kumari can be used for reducing bleeding, healing burns, improving lost appeti-” The monk stopped abruptly.

“Are these all medicinal plants?”

“... Yes.”

Pages and pages and pages of writing and drawings. Hours spent writing and drawing and testing plants and talking to knowledgeable people in broken Common Tongue. The monk's fingers were stained with the juice of berries used as ink. There were a few neat scratches across their skin too.

“Don't overdo it.” The necromancer gently curled her rough hands around Sou Yuet's. “I'll look after meself properly too, so ye need to look after yerself.” She swallowed to compose herself. “Don't... if ye run out of berries to use as ink, let me know, okay?”

“Mm.”

“Have ye heard from yer old master recently?” she asked, although she already knew the answer.

“The last message reached us at Samant, the one Bir gave to us. Isn't it amazing how efficient the information networks are along the Jade Road?”

Of course, that meant that the incident with the anqa could easily be passed around too. And yet, for some strange reason, this knowledge seemed to have been restricted. Aside from a few legendary creatures, like Bir's Aya, and Lord Hadyahosh, and the strange red-skinned woman at the funeral, once they had left Vurdʑɕahar a thousand kilometres behind, people no longer looked at them maliciously in the street. Perhaps it was just a matter of time.

“Maybe they realised they were being arsefaces about it. There was nothing else ye could have done.”

“It's still not right to take a life like that,” Sou Yuet said gently.

“Then what about... What about what I did?”

“Just like how you don't blame me for what I did,” Sou Yuet said quietly, “I don't blame you for what you did. It made sense. You were a child, and what they did... was not...” The monk closed their eyes, then tried again. “Pang Yau, when you told me that story, it had nothing to do with me, but I was still so angry just thinking about it. I too wanted to find those people and just... hurt them. So when you said that you dealt with them all, I was actually... very, very proud of you.”

Stolen story; please report.

The necromancer shuffled, embarrassed, grateful when Sunny lumbered over so she could bury her face in the si dzi's fur.

“But... there are still consequences for everything. You shouldn't regret what you did. At the same time, taking a life is an extreme act. For me, I keep thinking – what could I have done differently? What if we had retreated earlier? What if...?

“But in the end, I killed her. And because I made that decision, I will bear the consequences.”

Sou Yuet's expression was one of tranquil sadness. The necromancer's was dark.

“So if the Aiteann Court found out, and hauled me out for execution, ye'd say that it serves me right?”

“No, because that's not just. They're not accounting for what was done to you.”

“Dammit, monk! That's just your idea of justice! Ye think everyone thinks like you? They'd kill me if they found out!”

“I won't let them!”

The force of the monk's shout caused a small flock of red-faced finches flutter away with shrieks of alarm from the bushes where they had been foraging. Even Sou Yuet themselves seemed a little shocked. The necromancer and Sunny stared.

“I won't let them,” Sou Yuet repeated, more quietly, but the words were intense and the monk's hands, balled into fists, shook.

“Ah Yuet-”

A scream interrupted whatever it was that she was about to say. The monk and the necromancer jumped up to investigate, but not before exchanging a look.

That voice sounded familiar...

Sure enough, not far downstream they came across the ghostly water spirit that had gotten away, and she had found herself a new victim, in the form of a mostly-naked, ginger-haired, blue-eyed man with sunburnt skin...

“Help!” Spideóg screamed as he caught sight of the group coming towards him.

The necromancer slowed to a walk and looked very pointedly at the pile of the bhard's clothing on the ground nearby.

“That's-! I just-! I made a mistake, I know! Just help me!”

By this stage, he had been dragged down into the water until it was lapping at his chin. Sunny gave a big sigh and sat down on the spot. The necromancer joined her. Sou Yuet summoned their leaf and drifted casually over the bhard's head.

“How did this happen, Bhard Spideóg?”

“Don't ask that right now! Help me ou-” His words trailed off into burbles as his face disappeared under the water.

Sou Yuet leaned over, grabbed the bhard's upper arm, and hauled him easily from the river, spluttering, the water spirit still wrapped around his torso. She hissed in annoyance, but catching the flash of green in Sou Yuet's eyes, she dove quickly back into the water.

“GAH! Me shoulder socket!”

The monk pulled Spideóg onto the leaf like a landed fish. The whole ensemble drifted over to where the necromancer and Sunny sat, and then Sou Yuet de-summoned their leaf, landing lightly on their feet. Spideóg slammed flat on his back, groaning.

“Thinking with yer dick's going to get ye killed,” the necromancer sneered.

The bhard responded with a string of Adhmaid words that only had the effect of making the necromancer grin widely.

Sou Yuet handed the drenched bhard his clothing. “You really ought to be more careful.”

Spideóg grumbled but meekly took his clothes. Or tried to.

Faster than he could see, Sou Yuet had grabbed his wrist and was staring at his hand.

“W-What? What is it?”

Sou Yuet didn't answer. The necromancer looked curiously at the bhard's hand too.

It was a fairly ordinary looking hand, the skin typical of a person from the far west who had been in the sun too long, dotted with ginger freckles, with hairy knuckles, and the nail of the middle finger was a little cracked.

Sou Yuet's grip tightened and Spideóg yelped in pain.

“Where did you get them from?”

“What? Get what?”

The necromancer let out air between her teeth. “Ha... Of course it was you.”

“Me what? I didn't do anything! I- ARGH!”

There was an audible crunch.

“Ah Yuet! Let go!”

The necromancer bodily pulled Sou Yuet away, prising the monk's surprisingly strong fingers away from Spideóg's limp, shaking wrist.

“What... what the feck...”

“Me yew pieces, Spideóg. Where are they?”

The bhard froze as understanding crashed down on him. “I... I swear it wasn't my idea! A man came up to me -”

“Where. Are. They.”

Spideóg, clutching his wrist, found two pairs of unblinking eyes staring down at him. He fumbled anxiously in his pile of clothes with his good hand. “H-Here... In this pouch...”

Sou Yuet snatched it from him and tipped the contents out, finding a small packet containing several small pegs of yew wood. The necromancer counted them.

“There's one missing.”

“I don't know! I swear I don't know! That's all he gave me! W-Wait! I gave one to the merchant at Vurdʑɕahar-”

“I already have that one.”

“Then I really don't know. I swear, I… Tongu do dia tongas mo thuath...”

“What did he say?”

“It's an oath. Something like 'I swear on me tribe's god'. Supposedly it's a strong vow. As if that means anything to a scumbucket like him.”

“It's true...” Spideóg whimpered. It was truly disturbing to watch him grovel. “A woman approached me at Yùhǎi. She said she needed yer help with something and if I could just do this one thing for her-”

“A woman? Who?”

“I don't know. She... She...”

“I will heal your wrist,” Sou Yuet said coldly. “So tell us everything you know.”

Spideóg swallowed. “She was quite tall, darkish skin. Very short, dark reddish sort of hair. Nice figure. Pale brown eyes. Eye. Heavy lidd-”

“Eye?”

“Yeah, she only had one eye.”

“Was it the right one?”

“... Yeah it was, come to think of it...”

“Didn't ye tell me that those fox spirits can change appearance?”

“... Th- That fox that was running the auction had sort of blue-grey hair though-”

“It's dyed,” Sou Yuet interrupted. “There's a plant... diàn lán, we call it, I don't know the Common Tongue word. It's used for dyeing things a dark blue. It has a scent and a particular colour. I noticed when I met Li, although his scent is mostly pine, the smell of diàn lán was just discernible. So he could have dyed it with something else, or perhaps that red is his natural hair colour.”

“I'm thinking his hair's white. Leastways it was when he turned up in the mountains.” The necromancer asked suspiciously, “Why were ye smelling him?”

“Well I was breathing. I couldn't help incidentally smelling.”

“I... I don't mean to interrupt but... could ye... me hand...”

With the blandest of smiles, Sou Yuet seized Spideóg's wrist again.

“ARGH! A- Huh? Oh, it's... It's fine?”