Every morning now, I wake with an asp coiled around my body. It was my wrist this morning and it has been awful teaching the thing to not wrap around my throat. There aren’t many snakes in my homeland, so I have no tolerance like the bold flutists that charm the monsters for coin in the street. I have seen more than my share of men take a bite to the leg while marching and I have no desire to feel warm scales rubbing across my flesh.

Vi won’t let me get rid of it though. She gifted it to me to help keep me safe, which makes it a strange gift to someone that’s supposed to be keeping her safe but our relationship has seemed to be entirely reversed the entire time.

Whether she is a woman or an angel, I can no longer tell and neither can she. We both agree that she was one, but that was centuries ago. Her memory is more fragmented than she lets on. At times, she slips into an older language. It happens when she gets thoughtful and wistful, but also when she gets heated. She cursed a cat seller so fast in so my languages I swear his eyes swam round in his head, and all so she could get a mangy rat-catcher a few coppers cheaper.

The cat wasn’t long for this world even before she bought it and she did nothing to prolong its stay. What she needed was a part of the cat, and not the thing itself. She took from its mind part of its instinct and grafted it to the mind of the asp that even at this moment has made its home in my boot. The serpent allegedly sees me the same way a mother cat sees its kittens.

I pity the first sneak thief that tries to make off with my coin purse, and I pity myself because I’ll be the one disposing of the corpse the next morning.

The two of us always make an impression wherever we arrive, be it a trading market, a tavern, or an inn. I’m used to such stares, due to my stature and my pale skin which even the Giordanan sun has failed to color. The curiosity is always counterbalanced by my presence, that when men look upon me they know they are looking at a warrior. Plenty of men have challenged me to duels, drunk or not, but that is a small hassle compared to being seen as a potential victim.

With Vi it’s different. Men desire her. Her beauty is like the twist of a whirlpool, dragging the flow of people around her whether they want it or not. Even the most vain women, the kind that see overwhelming beauty as an affront to themselves, are first put in awe over her. Perhaps this is because of the reticent nature of women in the south.

The cities that once composed a proper kingdom are now nothing more than a collection of people. Some might think that is the same thing, but it lacks an intangibility that networks of merchants can only imitate. Those merchant families are the real nobility of the desert. Everyone else, every farmer, fisherman, shepherd, miner, and hand-worker lives a meager life one step from violence and yet they call themselves peaceful because there are no armies. Only Vassermark was half-fool enough to conquer them, only to learn that all the commerce of the realm is the barter of farmers, that to garrison a city is nothing but an expense while the merchants divert their caravans and hide their slave-mines.

I fear I’ve strayed from my point, but the art of words was never my world.

The women of Giordana are never without the protection of a man, be he husband, father, or brother. If she has none, then she joins the temples or has the most pitiable existence for some short years before disease rots her. Winning the heart of a merchant’s son and being whisked away to be a princess is nothing more than a dream.

Stolen novel; please report.

Consequently, people assume I am her husband. When they realize that she is the one paying and making arrangements, some realize that I am a retainer, and that puts them even more in awe of this woman who can pay to have a swordsman at her side. None imagine that I am in bondage to her for the debt of my life in a most literal sense.

The leash tethered to my soul is one she does not pull upon, however. I can feel that should she wish, she could hex me in any number of ways. She could work spells upon me that would debilitate me before I could ever raise a hand to her. I’ve seen the wizard perform such sorcery at great expense, due to the effort of penetrating a man’s soul.

I have also seen him save his magic by substituting torture until the man was nothing but a husk with his brain spilled out for perusal. The process took weeks, but saved the wizard some measure of magic for which he is ever greedy. This weakness is the bond she holds on me, which she professes she intends to never use.

I believe that had she intended to force my cooperation, she wouldn’t have played the role of my nurse. She was a different woman after the events in Tavina which prompted this journal, but I think I have jumped over too many things. She has distracted me and confused my thoughts. Her serpent is at this moment slumbering in my lap and she lounges on the breezy balcony as the sun sets far to the west. The river wharf is still noisy with porters hauling cargo to and fro, the bickering of merchants and farmers, the life of a city. I can hear a trio of minstrels plucking out a comedy of a song in the plaza below, between their panhandling cries and the jangling of coins in a hat. The music here is of a different character, more attuned to the needs of dancing than the content of the words. In fact, I think most of the bards ad lib the music as they see fit, merely keeping a familiar melody as they do. The good ones can be uproarious in a tavern, but I wonder if the best isn’t this very moment arm in arm with my pupil of the sword.

Aisha is a gem of this country, more than I ever imagined when I heard her called the jewel of Tavina. Beautiful and of a noble character, but with none of the rough flaws that come from heritage. She was given education in coin, in nature, history, and culture.

Last year, in the rebellion of 755, many men gave their lives to keep her safe, though they are but a footnote to her brother’s strife. This year, I gave mine for it. I had promised the boy that I would keep her safe, but rogues found their way to her. I cut down nearly all of them, including a fine swordsman by the name of Mihael of Bakerstreet. Had he and I been able to duel, I think it would have come to neither of our deaths, rather than both. The treachery of war made it such that I was outnumbered and they could not surrender lest their cause be lost entirely. I died while Aisha was still in their clutches. All that I had been able to do wasn’t enough for me to keep my promise to the boy that I would keep his woman safe.

I was as weak as a babe when I woke, and could put no strength through my stigmata. My lifelong companion had abandoned me for my failure and all I could do was struggle against my pain. That companion will never leave me except in true death. When I fell out of bed and struck the floor, hands found me and turned me over. Though I did not know it was her yet, Vita asked me what was the matter. I could only croak out the crudest of responses but it was enough that she could sooth me with promise that she was safe. Where I had failed, my pupil had not.

Now, she and I wait. There is work for us to be done, here in the southern country. There will be a party of wastelanders soon and we must look for them. Tonight, there is nothing but rest.

I must put my quill down. Tomorrow I will straighten out my thoughts. The angel has asked me to dance and I think I will agree.