Upon having established the necessity of laying low any scourge which suffers to cross thy path, it is imperative to establish thy priorities.

Put first to the sword any scourged thou finds in possession of his faculties, for he is more of a threat than one without. Fellbeasts suffer beneath the yoke of their irrationality far longer than razatches do, but for all that their [unclean] forms are [inhuman], make not the folly to dismiss them as without thought.

For the thoughts of the scourged are not the thoughts of man for their minds are [unclean]. A razatche professing sanity [is] akin to a fortress fully manned, working beneath the yoke of a general.

Suffer not a warrior of mundane power and mundane means an entanglement against such a foe.

- The Scourged by Grimundt the Grave.

It was minutes after the atrocious breakfast and the four were gathered at the entrance to Lord Kimmel's study, each of them nursing a chalice of Malmsey as they surveyed the room. The corpses had begun to stink but they were already desensitized to the stench, giving what they'd had to trudge through the day before. There were no flies, strangely, the legion of scourged having gotten to the bugs too it seemed.

Voscov leaned heavily against the door frame. Constant activity had not done much good for his injury but he insisted on having a look alongside the others.

"Pity," Ellen said, breaking the silence. "I liked Lady Hybna."

She handed her chalice to Gabriel and stepped gingerly toward the woman's corpse, trying to get as little of the congealed blood as possible on her feet.

Getting to her objective, she nudged the dead woman onto her back and scanned her for injuries. There were none, as far as she could see, and so she pried open an eyelid with her fingers. There was only congealed blood where eyeballs should have been.

"As expected," she murmured.

"You know what killed her?" Valerina asked, taking a mellow sip from her chalice.

"Mind rupture," Ellen replied, wiping her fingers on her dress. Then she scowled down at the dress, noting in the light just how soiled it was.

"So whomever did this is close enough to Lady Hybna to place a mind parasite in her. Intriguing," Voscov commented.

"I would wager it was Galdis but it may just be bias on my part," Ellen said as she tiptoed to the city lord's corpse propped up on the chair. She examined it for a moment then shook her head. "Surprise attack from behind and from a very awkward angle it seems. This is most certainly a betrayal from within." She began to make her way back to the entrance.

"So that rules out the Aristocratic Council," Gabriel mused. "If they had this much power and clout, we would all have been killed long ago."

"Certainly," Ellen quipped, arriving before Gabriel and taking her chalice from him. "What stumps me is why Galdis and whoever he is working with would plunge the whole island into this charnel of madness. I have a feeling that Lord Kimmel and his wife were just collateral damage and not the principal targets."

They milled about the room for a while, poking and prodding at things to satisfy some morbid curiosity as they sipped from their chalices. It got old, eventually, and they soon trudged out of the place as one, slamming the door close behind them in a vain attempt to stop the stench from spreading to the whole house.

They were curious about what happened, yes, but it hardly mattered since they would all be dying anyway.

The four walked down the hallway, chatting leisurely and pondering what to do next. It was barely afternoon and the day was still long. Razatches and fellbeasts, no matter how much of a real danger they were, seemed less deadly than boredom was to them at the moment.

They were poignantly aware that they were going to die in the end. The specifics of it they were not sure, but they would, and not even Gabriel believed otherwise. He may damn his future and dive deeper into his power when danger comes, but then what? He was in no way invincible and for all that he might be able to hold out for hours more, death would come, and perhaps more brutally.

Three hours found them in one of the guest rooms on the upper floor. They had all wiped off the dust and grime from themselves with towels and changed into cleaner clothes gotten from the various closets that littered the house. Voscov and Gabriel were on the bed, a board of chess Gabriel scrounged up between them and a game ongoing. Ellen and Valerina were to the side, with Valerina helping the silverhead apply some more of the salve onto the bruises and cuts on her back while she cradled a pillow and watched the game.

"By the gods, Ellen," Valerina was saying. "What is it that you do to your skin?"

"What do you mean?" Ellen asked, flinching as Valerina's finger brushed over a cut.

"What do you apply? What do you eat?"

"Why the sudden interest?"

"Your skin is so smooth. Very smooth. Like, far smoother than mine. Tell me: what's your skin care routine?"

"Oh, that." Ellen laughed. "I have none."

"What?" Valerina asked, her tone suddenly deadpan. "You want to tell me that this..." she gestured over her back. "Is natural?"

"It's always been that way," Ellen said, shrugging. "I just do whatever I want. I don't specially take care of my skin."

"You can't be serious."

"I truly am."

Valerina brought a hand close to the princess' back and compared their skin for a brief moment.

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"I am so envious," the brunette breathed in the end. "The world just isn't fair."

She did up the two buttons she had loosened - the cuts were only on the upper parts of Ellen's shoulders - and picked up a hair brush.

"What style?" Valerina asked as she pulled back Ellen's hair.

"Just do whatever you feel like. A simple brush down is alright too," Ellen replied. "Hey, hey! Gabriel has a pawn at - "

Gabriel glowered at her and she promptly shut up. She gave him a sheepish smile and said: "Voscov would win anyway, so why try? Get lost already let me have a gander."

Gabriel turned back to the chessboard without a reply and Ellen sighed. She felt Valerina begin to pick up strands of her hair to braid and stopped her.

"Anything complex would come loose soon anyway so perhaps a brush down is best."

Valerina acquiesced and began to brush back her silver tresses. By the time she was done, the game of chess had already concluded in Voscov's favour and the board was being reset.

"Help me with mine while I play," Valerina told Ellen as she took her place across Voscov. Ellen gave her a sheepish grin.

"I can't do anything more complex than a brush down," the princess announced.

Valerina appraised at her silently.

"You don't look remorseful," the brunette stated, annoyance lacing her words.

Ellen's grin widened. Valerina's fingers twitched and not for the first time she wished she brought Likki along with her. Ellen deserved a lash. Just one lash.

"I'll do it for you," Gabriel volunteered, coming around behind Valerina and pulling back the unruly strands of hair that had come loose from the single braid she sported the night before. "What style do you want?"

"You?" Valerina asked, raising a brow. "What would you know about styling a lady's hair?"

"A lot. Though now I am not quite sure why I even volunteered. Just forget it."

Valerina's gaze flitted from Gabriel to Ellen and back again before she shrugged and turned to the chessboard.

"Have a gander at it at the very least," she said. "You've set yourself up for it already and if it's too bad I can always loosen it."

Gabriel chuckled, took a seat behind her, and began to loosen the braid Lynica had forced Valerina's tresses into. Thin strands of light green power escaped from his fingers as he worked, sneaking through her hair and seeping into her body.

He felt her a moment later, her presence magnifying until it was all he knew. He perceived the slow rhythm of her heartbeat, felt the coiling and uncoiling of her muscles as she moved her pawn, felt the soreness layered over her feet and legs like a cloying parasite, felt the still healing injury leaking essence from the side of her neck.

He breathed and power rose, flitting over the internal area around her chest where a scar should have been with a whispered touch. What little remained of his manipulation from six years ago, coiled in tight ribbons within her, reacted and began their work once more. He waited until the cut at her neck healed completely, leaving behind unblemished skin beneath the bandage, before retreating, his power running down the length of her body and fixing up the countless nicks and abrasions littering her sides before pulling out completely and letting the ribbons coil back into dormancy. He could do nothing about her sore muscles, unfortunately, as that would simply be a waste of a very limited resource.

Why? Vit's voice sounded within the prince's mind. Guilt? From six years ago?

"Not exactly," Gabriel murmured quietly. "I fulfilled my debt to her back at Heathram. I had saved her life back then so I owe her nothing."

I don't think you believe that yourself, Vit stated. And there is every likelihood she would end up dying here anyway so why heal her again?

"True. However, if she does not die, there is more likelihood you won't get sealed again and I'll have a higher chance of surviving too. It is simply logical to have her not leaking essence everywhere."

Vit fell silent.

You are not a perfectly logical being, the avatar said in the end.

Gabriel didn't reply. It didn't matter. He did it because he wanted to.

He twisted the last braid into place and tucked Valerina's hair behind her ears.

"I'm done," he declared, rising and taking a step back.

"Hand me the hand mirror on the table, would you?" Valerina requested absentmindedly as she pondered her next move.

Gabriel acquiesced easily, handing her the mirror, and she halted the game to have a look at her hair. It was rather well-done, she found. In no way was it elaborate and complex like she was used to but it was well made at least, and seemed like it wouldn't be coming loose easily.

"It is actually good," Valerina said as she examined her reflection with a critical eye. "Why do you know how to do something like this?"

"My imperial mother usually has me fixing hers up just for fun. I'd been forced to learn," Gabriel said as he sprawled over the other side of the bed. He licked his lips, suddenly wishing he had some sweets.

"I think I saw some sweets in the pantry," he said, poking Ellen. "Let us go get some."

Ellen got to her feet with a groan.

...

Daylight passed quickly and late evening found them gathered within the upper floor guest room, Gabriel, Ellen and Valerina facing each other on a semi-circular sofa they had dragged in while Voscov lay on the bed, insensate due to a fever that had sprung up sometime during the afternoon. They had found his wounds had been badly infected when Valerina changed his bandages and applied the last dredges of the salve to it.

Ellen had been almost apoplectic at the time, throwing a fit and running out the room when Valerina took off Voscov's shirt with nary a hassle. Gabriel and Valerina had been extremely confused by her behaviour, and it was only when she came back after Valerina was done and began to scold the other girl on propriety and decency had they understood what was going on.

Xerdians, it turned out, considered a male's upper body being seen by a lady as scandalous - which Valerina found weird. She had watched the clan guards and her male cousins wrestle and spar while shirtless since she was six. What was there to be seen? What was so great about their torso?

On that point Xerdians were just strange and Ellen even more so, she decided. The silver haired Maeser had come across as something of a truant and a rapscallion right from their first meeting, swearing and cursing like a plebeian and generally acting as she saw fit. They had labelled her as something of a renegade, seeing as she had very little qualms with acting contrary to what tradition dictated. It was strange to find that she was not as much of a dissident as they thought.

Presently Ellen and Valerina were discussing, the latter sharing tales of her time with her cousins in Heathram while the silverhead listened with a rapt, fascinated attention. Gabriel lay listlessly on his side, his eyes half closed as he listened to Valerina drone. He had boarded up the rest of the windows in the building using his manipulation, and working with dead wood always left him drained.

Soon darkness stretched across the room as the moon rose, and Ellen unlidded the crystal lamp, allowing its radiant light to spill over the space. For a while Valerina's light whispers and Ellen's interested hums alone filled the air, Gabriel seemingly having drifted off to sleep at some point.

Then all at once the golden haired boy jerked awake, his eyes tired but wary.

"Anything the matter?" Valerina asked, her story tapering off.

Gabriel did not deign to give her an answer, instead lurching for the lamp and slamming its lid back over it. He rolled off the couch silently and tiptoed his way to the window.

"What is it?" Ellen whispered, rising, now well and truly alarmed.

"We're being watched," Gabriel murmured as he peered through the slits in the window. "Something's wrong."

"What is?" Valerina asked, stepping up beside him and peering through the gaps. Her hands trembled slightly, her breath hitching as anxiety and fear began to mount in her.

Again Gabriel did not answer, instead turning on his heels to stride out the room purposefully.

"Give me a realmsdamned answer, will you?!" Valerina all but screamed.

"Keep your voice down!" Gabriel hissed back at her. "I am trying to get an answer myself."

He left the room, the girls following after him, and they glided down the corridor silently. Said corridor was dark, with sparse illumination coming from strips of moonlight that managed to make it through the boards covering the windows.

Gabriel halted their progress at one of the windows, peering out into the night. Valerina and Ellen followed suit, putting their eyes to the holes between the boards.