Nox - 4th Harvestwatch 1383
Emerald Expanse, Duskmere
Consciousness returned by degrees: First smell, then sound,hen pain. Smell was impossible it seemed sweet soil, wet moss, the sharp green of crushed fern, balsam resin hissing on coal. Nothing in Hell ever smelled this alive. Sound was rain's gentler cousin, a hush of droplets through the leaves, the tick-tick of them rolling on my warm skin, and a low crackle fire. Pain was everywhere bruises, rope burns, a gash at the root of my left horn but pain meant that I still drew breath.
I opened my eyes. Dawn? Dusk? A clouded sky glowed pearl above a lattice of colossal trees hung with veils of silver moss. Mist pooled among roots like spilled moonlight. A campfire burned in a shallow pit, its smoke a thin grey ribbon spiraling into the canopy. Across the flames crouched a man.
"Dalia " My throat rasped the name. I turned slowly. She lays on a pallet of woven fronds, skin grey ashen, lips cracked. She breathed, but shallowly.
"You are safe for the moment," the man said. His voice was velvet dragged across granite soft, resonant, edged.
He wore a suit tailored from midnight: long coat, vest, high collar shirt blacker than coal. Rain beaded on the fabric but never soaked it in as if the cloth refused the world. His hair likewise charcoal, fell straight to , framing a face too refined to be common yet too severe to be gentle. Eyes glinted ruby, his pupils pinprick narrow. He held a tin kettle over the fire, wrist lax, motion .
Prescence rolled from him quiet, tidal. 'In all my time in Hell, I had felt such a gravity only from the demon princes themselves: the sensation that the world itself bent to their will and their will alone; choices dwindled, and individual agency cowed before such a force. And now the man before me exhibited the same sway as the great horrors I had fled from.'Instinct told me danger; exhaustion and pain told me tread softly.
I pushed up on one elbow despite agony. "Where. Are. We."
Despite the rain dark mist wreathing the clearing around us moving, swaying like saying hello, I forced my eyes to hold the stranger's.
"Duskmere, milady," he said his voice while soft carried in the night air. "Three leagues inland from Hell's coast. I found you on the stand at dawn, lashed to a capsized skiff and half drowned."
He kept his hands visible, palms open. While he carried no obvious weapons, her gut spoke that he could be more dangerous than a dagger ever would.
"I am Ran Zephyr. My traveling companions" he gestured toward silent figures sitting on a fall log. I hadn't even noticed them despite looking their way. "are my wife and our daughter, Sylvia. We mean you no harm."
I drew a slow breath, my last memory was water endlessly in every direction. "You found us?"
"I heard wreckage dragging along the rocks followed the tide line to you both." His scarlet eyes held steady. "Your sister was not breathing. I coaxed water from her lungs, warmed her and you with fox pin embers, and brewed some cat's tongue tea to steady the fever. Nothing more cunning than that."
He poured two cups of tea into a pair of metal canteens, not unsimilar to that of someone in the military. He then walked over to me, stopping a few feet away. Lifting up his hand he took a sip, then offered the other to me. "It's not poison, merely a remedy to keep you warm against the cold. Water will chill you faster than air even could and keep you that way."
I took the warm cup from his hands. Glancing over at the two figures sitting as Zephyr poured them each a drink as well. One was clearly younger, she had a dark leather suit on, and a violin propped beside her. The woman had pale white skin, obsidian silk hair, and stunning features that would've caused any war in the crimson garden any time. Her mother was the aged version of , a sweet wine that only improves with age.
I took a sip from the cup and a tremor ran down my spine as a warmth began to spread to every corner of it. Despite the kindness, I to get a solid understanding. "Why camp here? You are obviously well off? Why is there fog swirling like a hungry beast?"
He lifted a brow, "Mist is the forest's own cloak. I merely nudge it in the right direction to keep unwelcome beasts from interrupting a healthy meal." He turned, "Plus, it will be morning soon, and mist acts well to keep the morning glare away. Sunlight has a tendency in dense forests to pierce through a canopy like knives unpleasant for travelers who spent a night on the sea."
"Thank you for your help so fair." My voice came out, still somewhat hoarse from the brine, " you offered your rescue and service one sidedly Neither I nor my sister owe you anything."
The man paused for a moment.
"I ask nothing." His smile was polite, not soothing. "Though I do admit curiosity. I have travelled two Empires, visited every province and seen many species of people, yet seldom horns shaped so elegantly."
I stiffened. If I admitted I was from hell, would that change the dynamic? Would he turn hostile like the captain did? Hell has been sealed for the past two thousand years, so I had no information to go off of other than what I have experienced so far.
"Not all bloodlines care to parade their histories."
"Fair." He nodded, accepting the rebuff without visible offence. "Should you wish a convenient fiction if others pry there's an abundance of changelings in Duskmere. A species who can change their appearance to match various aspects of those around them. It should be useful, folks who value courtesy over lineage will believe the tale." A measured pause took place as he took another draft from his cup. "Wolvsbane for example."
"Wolvsbane?" The name was unfamiliar on my tongue, like most things in this strange realm.
"A free city five and twenty leagues west. Cosmopolitan. Its laws judge based on deeds, not faces." He rested one hand on a fallen trunk; the wind sighed through needles overhead, shaking a silver drizzle that hissed on the fire. "I am bound there myself. If you desire refuge physicians, beds, anonymity you and your sister may travel in our company."
Dalia stirred, coughing weakly. I swiftly walked over and knelt, wiping rain beads from my sister's brow. The fever still held her in its dull vise, yet the rattling breaths sounded a bit stronger,
Zephyr spoke again, lower. "Her illness is beyond my herbal knack. Wolvsbane will have alchemists and healers who weave vitality as easily as I bend wind. Should you want it, I would be happen to guide you there without price."
Thunder rumbled far off, rolling through the canopy. I studied the man in the firelight. Nothing in his stance or tone rang with a classic devil's bargain. Nothing in his stance or tone rang with the classic devil's bargain; the way in which he carried himself and spoke harbored no ill intent. Why? Wariness fluttered in my ribs, but Dalia's ghost thin pulse hardened my resolve.
"We travel at my pace. If my sister's condition worsens, we rest. If dangers come, you do not command me."
Zephyr bowed deeply, as formal as a baron to an Empress. "You will, Lady …?" His voice trailed off expectant.
"Nox." I looked at the man, "Just Nox."
He straightened, "Then, Nox, gather your strength. We march when you deem fit."