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No perpetrator to be discovered.
There’s only me and this dead body.
There’s only me in this room that I cannot remember frequenting; I cannot remember how I got here.
The memory of scalding liquid burning my throat as Abra pressed the vial to my lips and forced me to drink scalds my memory.
You presumptuous fool.
Instinctively, my fingers find my mouth.
When I pull them away, they’re coated with blood.
It’s then that I realize I didn’t bite the inside of my cheek.
The scent of the woman’s blood overwhelms me, and it’s like smelling a pie in the oven after already gorging oneself on scones. I feel as though I might become ill, and I do in the latrine in the corner.
The sight of what I vomit up is so much worse than I could have imagined.
What have I done?
I don’t want to gaze upon the woman again, don’t want to catch sight of her blood and taste her against my lips, but I can’t help myself.
She has beautiful green eyes, but they’ve glazed over.
I crawl over to her and press them shut, because I can’t stand to look at her like this. Can’t stand for those striking eyes to stare right through me.
My legs are shaking, but there’s something different about them. Something stronger, even as they quake.
I have to get out of here, have to get back to Gunter so we can reverse whatever’s happening to me. My mind flips through the possible side effects of each ingredient I used in the potion meant to bring Farin back to life. Ashes of the lost, a life sacrifice, liquid moonlight.
Liquid moonlight.
Legends of physicians found drenched in the blood of their dead patients. Gentle women leaving behind a trail of dead bodies along the mountain trials…
Just legends, legends told by superstitious humans suspicious of magic.
Or so I’d thought.
My gaze glances back to the corpse on the floor, and my world collapses around me.
What have I done?
I close my eyes and steel myself. Gunter will find me an antidote; I just have to get back to him.
First, I have to figure out which part of town I’m in; the best way to sneak back to the castle without being seen. The townspeople won’t understand that I didn’t mean to murder the woman.
Murder.
The sour scent of bile and blood threatens to make me heave again, but I don’t.
Instead I pace over to the window and draw the curtain.
Pain erupts across my face as the sunlight slices at me.
It takes me a moment to recognize that I’m burning.
I waitfor the sun to set before I venture back to the castle. I hide in the shadows and pray no one comes to check on the dead woman.
