Part 1: Whispers at the Well
The Ironhorn market was never quiet.
Even at dusk, the shouts and haggling tangled in the smoke of cookfires and the stench of too many bodies packed into too little space. Children ran beneath carts. Guards loitered near brothel doors. Coin changed hands like breath—fast and dirty.
Yuji stood near a dry well at the plaza's edge, watching a dwarf bark about rustproof armor while Sylvia picked through a basket of preserved meat. Sacha was nearby, sharpening her axe on a whetstone that hissed louder than the merchant behind her. Amelia had vanished again. She did that sometimes.
He was about to speak when he felt it.
A tingle. Not danger—attention.
He turned, casually.
A figure stood half-shrouded in a merchant stall's shadow. Slim. Cloaked. The hood was deep, but not deep enough to hide the faint glint of moon-pale hair and the soft green shimmer of one visible eye.
She didn't move. Not toward him. Not away.
But her gaze locked.
And she nodded once—inviting, not begging.
Yuji left the others and crossed the space slowly.
The woman stepped back into the alley between two cracked buildings. He followed.
There was no ambush.
Only silence.
Then: her voice. Soft. Educated. Slightly melodic.
"You're him."
Yuji didn't answer.
"The one who killed the slavers. The one who scorched the guild pit. The one whose magic smells like spring and rot."
Still, he said nothing.
She stepped forward into the light.
Her face was sharp in profile—half-elven cheekbones, silver-gold skin, a healer's calloused hands. But her eyes… not elven. Not innocent.
There was a weight behind them.
"I'm not asking for salvation," she said. "Only shelter."
Yuji tilted his head. "And what are you offering?"
She lifted a satchel and opened it just slightly—revealing tinctures, scrolls, ritual tools, and a pair of preserved monster hearts still pulsing faintly in mana suspension.
"I heal. I cast. I brew. I know Church protocols and necromancer chants."
"And what do you need protected from?"
She met his gaze fully now.
"My blood," she said. "And the people who want it in a vial."
Yuji stared at her.
Then he asked: "What's your name?"
She hesitated.
Then: "Siora."
He watched her for another long breath.
Then said, "One test."
She nodded. "When?"
"Now."
Part 2: The Blood Trial
They didn't go far.
Just a forgotten prayer room beneath the old chapel wing of the Ironhorn market—a ruin half-swallowed by root and dust, long since abandoned by any gods that might have once cared.
Siora cleared a patch of ground with precise movements. She didn't ask for help. Didn't ask for symbols or candles. Just a basin, water, and a moment.
Yuji sat across from her and drew the cursed blade from his side—short, jagged, and etched with a death-glyph that hummed against his fingers.
"This won't kill me," he said. "But it'll try."
Siora didn't flinch. "Good. I don't heal paper cuts."
He pulled the blade across his forearm in a clean arc.
The pain hit immediately—hot, wrong, like something burrowing inside the wound.
Black veins spread from the cut in seconds.
Siora moved quickly.
She placed her hands over the wound, not touching—hovering—and whispered words not meant for open air. Her voice shifted, like it echoed between trees not present.
A green light sparked from her palms. Not bright. Not clean.
Wild.
Yuji felt something enter the cut—not cold, not heat. Something older. Something living. It pushed against the corruption, forcing it back.
But it wasn't pure.
The death-glyph fought it, and for a second, her magic faltered—twitched.
Yuji's body stiffened. He watched her eyes widen slightly.
"You're hesitating," he said.
She didn't stop casting. "Because I'm not supposed to be able to do this. My magic is... fractured."
"Fractured how?"
"My mother was a druid. My father, a witch-hunter. They both left marks."
The corruption flared again. She gritted her teeth and pushed more energy through.
"I wasn't born to heal," she hissed. "I learned to do it because I destroy too easily."
Yuji winced as the wound smoked—then closed.
Black veins faded.
Silence fell.
She collapsed backward, breathing hard. "There. Done."
Yuji looked at his arm. Smooth. No trace.
"You're cursed," he said. Not a question.
"Yes," she whispered. "And I don't know how long I'll stay safe to be around."
Yuji stood.
Then offered her his hand.
"Good," he said. "We don't need clean magic. We need honest magic."
Siora blinked.
Then took his hand.