She knelt beside him again, her thumb pointed down as she pressed it against the corpse’s forehead.Her brow wrinkled as she closed her eyes.For a long moment, all was silent except for the wind swishing through the grass outside.
Then the corpse sucked in a wild, gasping breath.Bastion leapt back, scrambling to draw his sword.Before he could finish the motion, the corpse slumped over and lay still again.
Bastion’s heart bounced against his ribs like a ball on a string.The dragon-kin turned wide eyes on him.
Then she seized his arm and dragged him back toward the infirmary.Standing outside, rimmed in the orange glow of firelight, she held up one hand flat and mimed writing across it with the other.
Blinking away his shock, Bastion stared at her.When she made the gesture again, he cast around for something before remembering the journal he was supposed to be recording his Account in.He held up a finger and stepped into the infirmary to retrieve it from his pack, fishing an errant nub of charcoal out of a side pocket.
When he handed them to her, she opened the book, pausing at the words written inside.She glanced up at him.All the blood fled Bastion’s face, leaving him chilled and embarrassed.He snatched it out of her hand, fumbled to turn it around to the last page, and handed it back to her upside down.
She took it, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly.
Then, with a swift flourish, she wrote,pirate.
Bastion nodded as he read over her shoulder.She kept writing.
Last thoughts - regret.He hoped for a better life after this job.Cursed his captain.
“Why?”Bastion asked.“Was this job unusual?”
She watched his mouth as he spoke.This close, he could hear the breath leave her lungs and see flecks of emerald in her eyes.He felt himself drawn forward and realized how close they were.He took a sheepish step back as she returned to writing.
When she finished, she handed him the book and charcoal, regarding him seriously.Electric unease raced up his legs and spine, banishing all enchantment as he read her words.
It was a distraction.
Chapter 4
A deep-seated unease compounded by an urgency he didn’t understand drove Bastion from the village before first light.He’d slept poorly, feeling that he’d stumbled upon somethingimportant, and it bothered him, like a bruise under the skin, not yet visible.
He looked for the Yvri healer before he left, but she was nowhere to be found.He didn’t know what he would say to her, except that without her help, he wouldn’t have crucial information.
The further he got from the village, the more his sense of the situation clarified.Without the distraction of people–of the Yvri healer–his gut screamed there was something afoot and that he should hurry.
He followed an overgrown track, sprinting often.Silently, he thanked Captain Hanniel for all the cross-country excursions with a full kit and full armor.He’d cursed the captain of the guard at the time, but the discipline had built muscle and stamina that benefited him now as the road dipped and rose.It took him over windblown bluffs, skirting sandy beaches tucked between stretches of rocky cliffs.
Beneath his shirt, the Acari pendant swung against his chest.It was an anomaly that demanded an explanation, spurring him on like a biting fly.
Just as the sun made a brief appearance, cutting through grey clouds that had hovered all day, Cypress Shoals came into view.Bastion sighed.He’d barely stopped to eat or drink, and he was exhausted.A line of liquid light vanished beyond the horizon as he picked up his feet and ran the rest of the way.
True dark descended as he entered the town.Outside almost every building, the warm glow of oil lamps brightened the streets.Bastion’s muscles screamed at him as he drew deeper, catching his breath.Even in winter, plenty of people lingered after a day's work, laughing and talking.Their frivolity was such a stark contrast to the anguish and destruction he’d witnessed in Windwick.
Outside the town square, Bastion stopped abruptly.Three Yvri loitered in an archway.For a moment, he thought one of the women was the healer.Then she turned, and Bastion deflated, disappointed.
Duty had driven him onward, despite the lifelong ache in his chest urging him to turn around.Bastion had been attracted to plenty of beautiful women, but something deeper, something inexplicable, drew him to the healer like the waves to the shore.The fact that he hadn’t been able to find her after their exchange the night before almost bothered him more than the secrets of the dead pirate.
A scowl darkened the Yvri male’s face, and Bastion realized he was staring.Immediately, he turned on his heel and engaged a passing man with his arm slung around a woman.
“Can you tell me where to find the garrison?”
They slowed, looking him up and down, their jovial expressions turning dubious.In a town this small, everyone knew everyone, and he was clearly a stranger.
“What business do ye have with the garrison?”the man demanded.His sleeves were rolled up to reveal muscular forearms darkened by soot.
Bastion frowned.His entire body burned from his cross-country journey, and hunger battered in his stomach like a bird trapped in a bag.He shifted so that his cloak fell open to reveal his sword and turned the pommel towards the nearest lamp, making sure the three-petaled bud caught the light.The woman’s eyes widened while the man raised an eyebrow.
“That way,” the man said, pointing.“At tha smithy, take a right.”
