Kichi and Whitebeard left Midbluffs and traveled west into the windy valleys until they reached flat, forested mountains and a city called Wythmere. Tucked in the evergreens, it looked like two towns that grew together along a babbling creek, for the east bank had thatched roofs, and the other had red tile. There were two huddles of inns and taverns and shops on the west bank. They stopped at the Dragon Scale Inn for a night's sleep before they would continue into the flats toward Dunaguard.
She protested that she had no silver and would be fine under the stars, but he insisted it wasn’t a matter of concern.
Two servings of stew landed before them in wooden bowls with long spoons. She sipped at watered-down beer, which tasted sweet on her dry tongue. She’d walked so far that she’d passed hunger, and this measure of beer filled her up and made her burp. She picked at a meat chunk but gave up. It smelled good, but her stomach began to feel uneasy. She fingered the little imperfections of the polished tabletop, and her attention wandered to the strange faces in the dim atmosphere. Strangers tossed glances their way, and she got the unpleasant notion that they whispered about them.
Then Kichi’s eyes hazed over, and she stared into nothing in the common room.
She always foresaw things in threes. Never two, never four, always three. They hit her now. She wished she could pick the time, but it came at random, and she didn’t care if she was tired.
The first vision was of something liquid and hot pouring from her hands. She didn't often give visions of herself. In fact, it was very rare, but she was pretty sure it was her hand in the image.
The second vision was of a man saying someone was going to die. The words were: I put enough poison in that stew to kill a horse, no, an entire stable of horses.
Finally, the third vision showed shadow and fire emerging from a depth, from a pit like a moat of cliffs around a castle high in the mountains. Kichi felt it more than she saw it. It was a great evil, enough to make the glank seem like an ant in comparison, and it wanted something. No, it had to posses something, and it would ravage everything in its path.
When she returned to herself and looked down at the stew, she panicked. Once again, the vision of the man saying that the stew was poisoned rolled through her mind. She didn't know if this was this stew, but it could be.
She pushed her bowl away. And she turned to Whitebeard to tell him to do the same, but he was already slurping down the last drop. He turned to look at her. Then, his head fell to the table. His mug tipped, and his white hair splayed in the liquid. His eyes were wide open. She checked for a pulse, but there was no beat that she could feel with her fingertips.
A man in tattered clothes pushed at Whitebeard’s back. “I poisoned a knight. I put enough poison in that stew to kill a horse, no, an entire stable of horses.”
A handful of people closed around her table. Some looked rough, and she wasn't sure if she could fight them off. All had a shadow over their face. Something was wrong here. She reached for the hilt of her sword, but the man lifted his hand, and then it was as if irons were clamped down on her wrists.
His eyes were black, leaving no whites, and reflected the candlelight. “I think we’ll keep this one alive. She might come in handy for the ritual. Lock her up in one of the rooms. We're going to give her some well water.”
A man whose jaw never closed and hung askew full of rotten teeth took her sword girdle. “But they're bringing more for the well, Hach. Makes the water sweet,” he said, but the words were barely pronounced.
Kichi only had one card to play. “Now,” she said, and Bin scrambled from her inner pouch and darted across the common area, using tables to land and leap.
Hach yelled, “Catch that damn thing.” But Bin slipped through the door and escaped just before it slammed closed.
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The man placed her sword girdle on the counter at the kitchen entrance. “Why don't we just cut her throat? I think she’s a squire.”
Hach fixed his inky eyes on her and sized her up. “She’ll be no trouble, will you?”
She wanted to tell him off, but his face could unsettle a stone, and looked away. Two strong hands roughly bent her arms behind her back.
Hach directed them. “Lock her in a room.”
They pushed her up the stairs, but she caught a few words from frustrated voices in the common room. “His sword won’t budge. It’s like trying to lift a chest of gold.”
“I wish it was a chest of gold.”
“We’re following Hach. We don’t need wealth.”
They prodded her down a narrow hallway and shoved her into a room. It had a single window, a small bed, a chest, and an oak door.
“What if,” one said, “She drops out the window?”
The other pushed the shutters wide and peered down. “Yeah, we better put someone down there to keep an eye out.” He turned to her and pushed her, and she saved herself from tumbling backward with an outstretched arm. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
They closed the heavy door and left her alone.
She sat on the bed and cupped her face. If only Whitebeard had made her into a proper squire before being murdered, she might have had a chance. How can I do this if I’m not even a squire? And what if the whole city’s gone mad?
And then it hit her; he was dead. It sank in and felt cold to the marrow. It wasn't just that he was the man to train her, but in the short time on the road, she’d come to consider him a friend and mentor. They even sparred for the last three mornings before they set off from camp. She knew he held chivalry above all else, and the realm was weaker without him. Now, her premonitions had finally turned inaccurate. Sure, she’d foreseen the poisoning—too late—but all the other visions of him turned to ash in her mind.
To save yourself, she needed to act. And she would bury him properly, as was due any knight. An archknight should get a procession, and that meant that if she truly cared and respected him, she should carry his body to the closest knight’s order.
She opened the chest and looked in. Inside, there was a candle and a whetstone, but she only took the first, for a pure sword rarely needed sharpening and it never rusted. She picked up the codex and thumbed through it. She wondered who left it. They probably killed the person who occupied this room.
To escape, she’d need to figure out what magic the pure sword had given her. Honestly, she had no idea how it worked, but she needed to try. All pure swords were made of purity spirits that didn’t color the metal, but some had other spirits mixed into the steel. Her father’s blade contained some kind of fire spirit, but she had no idea what kind. All she had to go on was her premonition, and that had something to do with melting.
She held the candle out and thought about fire and heat. She concentrated harder but felt nothing. She pictured a flame that got hotter and brighter and made it feel real but to no avail. Perhaps it wasn’t a flame spirit after all. “I should have asked him about magic.”
Why hadn’t she tried the iron doorknob? That made her feel dumb. She didn’t need to battle anyone if she could just slip away. The iron felt cold in her hand, but it wouldn’t budge, and the whole door was as solid as a rock. She tried imagining it burning, but no matter how hard she tried, it felt cool to the touch. There was something there, a connection to the rings Whitebeard told her about, but no matter how hard she tried, nothing happened.
After this and the long day hiking in the sun, she felt drained and wanted to lie down and give up. She felt drunk on her feet from exhaustion. No, keep going. They can’t get away with this.
She took the whetstone and concentrated, and finally, she felt a warm grow. Is this magic?
The warmth was as if she’d dug this stone from the ash of a campfire doused the night before. It startled her with a pop when it fell apart in her hands. Perhaps it was a lava spirit, or perhaps this was her ability. She jammed fragments in and around the door lock, and she concentrated. The rocks turned red and oozed over the iron, yet the metal wouldn’t melt. The wood, however, smoldered around the handle. The molted stone burnt it out, and she swung the door open. Smoke filled the hallway.
Kichi
Level: 4
Focus: Prescience
Secondary focus: Lava
Weapons: pure sword - 3% pure