Kingdom of Sporatos

  Capital

  Four Months until Spring

  Ketch's breath frosted on the thick windowpane as she watched the streets below. Snow was a horrible thing. It choked the pathways of the city as surely as any creeping vine, but was far more insidious, for it had no roots to upend which might kill the whole infection. She watched as the people of the capital trudged through it with a grim determination she could not fathom, taking to their daily tasks in the same way they always did.

  Insanity. The room that Ketch barely managed to afford was well worth the expense, for it had the luxury of a personal firepce. It was a minor security risk, connected as it was to the other firepces before billowing out the building's chimney, but she'd determined it worthwhile. After all...

  Ketch pressed a finger to the gss, holding it in pce. When she pulled it away, several of her scales tried to remain behind. She could feel them lifting off of her skin beneath, frozen to the gss in mere moments. Ketch shuddered, tucking the hand beneath her cloak.

  "Why torture yourself like that?" A voice asked. Ketch turned to the speaker, a catfolk man, of middling age, sporting a brown coat of fur and simple peasant's garb. He was Ketch's roommate in these cramped cofines, so unlike the spacious cave Ketch knew as home. Her roommate was also very much unlike Selly or her parents. "You know the window is cold," the man continued, "And you know you hate the cold. Why do you keep sticking your fingers to the gss?"

  There wasn't a good answer to that, so Ketch remained enigmatically silent. Tagrensi shrugged. "You will have to go out into the weather anyway, spy. I don't see why you torture yourself over it like this."

  "Am I a spy?" Ketch asked, facing him and crossing her legs in a womanly manner beneath her cloak. "I think that better describes you. I'm more of a... hm. An infiltrator? A saboteur, perhaps?"

  "A child."

  "Maybe a foreign operative," Ketch mused, ignoring Tagrensi's comment. "That feels the most accurate, even if it's a mouthful. I'm sure there's a better word for it." Ketch's hand emerged from her cloak for a moment to point at his chest. "You, however, are a spy."

  "I'll admit that," Tagrensi replied smoothly. "It's accurate, though I'll remind you I've lived my entire life within Sporatos. I have no more loyalty for the king than you, however, and won't protest the bel."

  "You consider yourself loyal to Sara, then? Or Tulian?"

  "To the things either represent, maybe. A future in a better world for my child."

  Ketch perked up. "You don't talk about them often. A son, I think you mentioned?"

  Tagrensi smiled. "A son, yes, and a braver kitten I don't think there's ever been. Sara told you of how I came to be in my current position, yes?"

  "She did. Sounds like your son's got more sense than you."

  "In the moment, perhaps. I've got my wits about me now, thankfully, while at times the boy is too brave for his own good. I'm gd he and my wife are safe in Tulian."

  "Worried for you, I imagine."

  "And prouder than could be, as well." Tagrensi gnced back at the fire, picking up an iron poker to prod it to life. "The time is approaching. Are you ready?"

  "Not like I have much else to do," Ketch said, sliding off the windowsill. Tagrensi reached beneath his tabard to pull out a packet of papers, ying them out on a low table. Ketch sat cross-legged across from him, looking the documents over.

  "The manor is well guarded, as anticipated, but our agents determined most of their efforts are focused on curtailing conventional problems. Peasants storming the gates, or preventing looting during rioting and the like. Word on the street has it that they used to care more for guarding the rooftops, but the rebellion of st year shifted their priorities."

  Tagrensi pointed to a spot on the map, drawing a line over the rooftops to the manor wall. "As most guards are stationed facing the street, it seems best to trail along the far edge of this roof. It has the highest peak of those abutting the property, and can be accessed easily enough."

  "What of the manor itself?" Ketch asked, sifting through the papers. "Do we not have any information on the interior?"

  "No. The grounds are well staffed, and we couldn't get one of our number in their employment. Perhaps they are an odd sort of nobility, and pay their staff a wage that keeps them from dropping like houseflies. Whatever the reason, we found no opportunity for subtler infiltration. Once inside, you'll have to improvise."

  That set Ketch on edge, but not as much as it once would have. Even with months having passed since she st attended to Sara, whatever peculiar connection had been forged between them remained strong. Ketch was still being repeatedly advanced beyond her years, and she was no longer concerned about being detected by common chaff. She could hear their footsteps at a hundred paces, count their heartbeats at twenty, and listen to the blinking of their eyelids at ten. Only certain varieties of Irregurs might have a chance at spotting her in the shadows, and there were exceptionally few specialized in the art of peering into the bck.

  Magical means of detection were the only other threat to Ketch, which was why she and Tagrensi had chosen this particur manor. While far from the first of these excursions, her prior targets had been areas of public access, such as Guild quarters or barracks. This would be her first time testing herself against the wealthy, those with means and motive to defend themselves from her sort.

  Ketch once more read over the dossier she had been provided on the target. The Vomun family were a modest House, of wealth and influence enough to be a valuable target, but not enough that she could expect insurmountable obstacles. The Vomun were young members of the nobility by Sporaton standards, elevated to their position by the deeds of an ancestor only two hundred years distant, and were reported to have a feverish desire to prove their loyalty to King Sporatos. As a result, they were providing above and beyond the required peasant levy for the upcoming war, and would likely be the easiest target in the city to have access to detailed pns for the conflict.

  "How trustworthy are your sources?" Ketch asked.

  Tagrensi scoffed. "You think there are those still loyal to Sporatos in their midst?"

  "No. I can't imagine anyone that had been a sve would turn their back on freedom. But I can imagine that they are overeager, too happy to provide good news while too afraid to deliver bad."

  "They have been working in Sporatos for many more months than you," Tagrensi said dismissively, "And are well acquainted with the brutal realities of this underground trade. Your worries may have been valid shortly after Sara freed them, but not anymore. We know better than to lie for no reason. Spilled blood and torture of those we care for taught us the lesson."

  Ketch nodded, feeling slightly embarrassed. It had seemed like a valid thing to be concerned over, but when Tagrensi shut her down like that, she felt like an ass.

  "Alright. I'll leave when the sun sets."

  "Good luck, 'foreign operative.' "

  Ketch turned back to the window, frowning. Maybe she would try a different title for her profession.

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  Ketch's footsteps sounded like she was treading over the graveyard of a hundred thousand nautilus shells. It was a unique noise. To her new senses, stepping on snow was not just heard in the way of satisfying crunches, nor even in the detailed roll of her heel to the ball of her foot, which could be picked out by anyone paying closer attention to her gait. No, to Ketch's ear, the snow was a thin patina of countless fragile crystals coating the world, each bound spindle edge snapping as her boot forced it apart from its neighbor.

  To distract herself from the ceaseless drumroll beneath her feet, she turned a scrutinous eye to the city of Sporatos itself. It was a sprawling thing, far outstripping Tulian, even when the fallen city had been at the height she vaguely recalled from her childhood. As she understood it, near on a hundred thousand people occupied the city, crammed into the narrow webway of stonebricked buildings. They were fed and supported by near fifty miles of unbroken fields radiating out from the gargantuan city walls, whose heights she had no reference for, other than the fact that they dwarfed Tulian's.

  Those walls had been an intimidating, wondrous sight when Ketch had first approached the city, but when viewed from within, they had lost some of their luster. The interior of the city was an ungainly mess, its near millennia of slow growth taking a toll. Remnants of prior stone fortifications spiraled and spun through the streets, bulging out in pces where there had once been a hill, receding before former patches of marshy ground. Nearly all was level now, and the only purpose the walls served was to divide the chaotic streets into something resembling districts. Chunks of the city were built to the standards of those that lived there, and there was little deviation within those bounds. The wealthiest regions of the city were clustered in pces of mutual interest, whether that was a particurly defensive portion of the interior walls, or ready access to the river that funneled trade goods through the city center.

  Ketch could see beacons of authority rising through the night sky. The homes of the Sporaton nobility. A thousand years of shifting architectural styles had been yered across the buildings in thick, gaudy globs, turning the nobility's finest manors into cshing monstrosities. Ketch knew that the occupants likely had entire theses on why the garish paces were masterpieces, but that didn't change her opinion on them. They looked bad, and no amount of clever expnation for why they looked bad would change her mind.

  Somewhat ironically, Ketch reflected, the manor she was set to infiltrate this night was among the least repugnant. Its retive youth and less influential owners meant it hadn't yet suffered the deluge of chintzy decorations that the more antiquated noble homes had. It was coming up ahead, only a few blocks further down this particur street, and that meant it was time for her to pay more attention to her immediate surroundings.

  Ketch stepped into a shadowed alleyway, pulling the fur-lined hood of her cloak tighter about her face. Even when sheltered behind those monstrous walls and the dense press of buildings, the night's bitter wind seemed determined to slip between every gap in her scales. Monotonous grey clouds, omnipresent in the Sporaton winter, hid the stars, and so it was in near total darkness that Ketch slipped her gloves off, pressing a hand to the brick wall of the alley. The chill of it pulled an involuntary shiver from her. She began climbing, trying to reach the roof before her fingertips went numb.

  Ketch passed several dark windows on her climb, using them as foot and handholds without concern. The four story buildings that composed the majority of the Sporaton capital were occupied by comparatively simple tradefolk, who were, if considerably better off than their farming brethren, still of means that required sensible expenditures. Wasting charcoal on heating the home just to enjoy conversation te into the night was a rarity, and Ketch had no concern she would chance upon a face staring at her through the window. Most bedrooms were on the interior, and only there would a low fire be lit to st through the night.

  Ketch reached the roof in short order, testing the ledge for ice before scrambling up. Several times since winter fell in Sporatos, it had been only her new levels that had saved Ketch's life on these rooftops. Ice was a foreign word to her, quite literally, so strange to her tropical upbringing that she had to make an effort to pronounce it without a heavy Tulian accent. She had been shocked at the pces the irritating substance could show up, even when there had been no recent rain. Roofs, she had decided, shouldn't have ice at all. The water should have rolled off before it had time to freeze.

  The ice, clearly, disagreed with her. Ketch bent forward as she moved along the rooftops, gloved fingertips grazing the shingles to her left as she kept the roof's peak between her and the street patrols beyond. Her long coat dusted the tiles as she went, Ketch paying as much attention to her footing as she did the path ahead of her. She was fairly confident that she could catch herself should she stumble across a hidden patch of ice, but there was no sense in taking the risk.

  Eventually, Ketch reached the end of the roof, predictably undetected. The manor was across from her, many of its second story windows still glowing brightly, and she knelt to surveil the grounds.

  The wrought iron fence wrapped protectively about the manor was a standard affair, metal bars stylized into the shapes of spears that jutted between evenly spaced brick pilrs. A garden courtyard was set behind the walls and covered in snow, save for the stone pathways, which had been kept studiously swept free, as if Lord and Lady Vomun were actually insane enough to spend time in their garden during this abominable season. The bushes and pnts were dormant, but not dead, patiently waiting for the return of fairer weather beneath a bnket of white. Guards patrolled the exterior of the walls in predictable intervals, as the dossier had informed her, while none were stationed in the garden itself. Ketch thought it odd, but figured the noble's employees had successfully argued that they were better pced within the building, where they could keep a closer– and warmer– eye on the things worth protecting.

  I do wonder what misfortune befell those fellows, to be out here in this weather, Ketch thought, watching a group of four guards wearily complete yet another circuit of the perimeter beneath her. Did they draw the short stick today, or are they unfortunate enough to have such an awful duty every night? And why are they forced to endlessly wander, instead of at least having a campfire to gather around? Those torches can't be doing much beyond ruining their night vision.

  Ketch didn't think there was enough coin in all the world to have her marching circles through the snow for hours on end, but clearly, the guards disagreed. As they passed her by, turning the corner, Ketch stood and stretched, reaching beneath her cloak for a st-minute check of her supplies and equipment.

  Her two daggers, gifts from her mother when Ketch's girlhood hunting lessons had begun, were kept in parallel sheaths off her right hip. Beside them was a coil of thin, high-quality rope, tested and proven by the Champion of Amarat before Ketch had left Tulian. It was remarkably soft, Ketch well knew, though that hardly mattered for any application she might use it in Sporatos. Besides the daggers and rope, the right side of her belt held a bag of tools, two small health potions (the gss vials wrapped in soft cy so as to not clink while she walked), and a pair of strange miniature telescopes Sara had diminutively referred to as "opera gsses." The small telescopes were attached in the middle by a hinge, intended to be looked through with both eyes, making it easier to judge distances and size. On the opposite hip, set alone, was Selly's dagger. Ketch kept its sheath religiously oiled, and slept with her hand gripping its handle beneath her pillow each night. The lopsided positioning of her gear wasn't ideal, but she didn't want anything in the way of Selly's dagger should she need to draw it.

  Ketch hopped and stretched a few times on the rooftop, confident that she wasn't being observed. As Sara had dragged her up through the ranks, Ketch's peculiar sense of when she was being watched had grown accordingly. Now she could feel roving eyes not just as buzzing flies on her skin, but could sense them as they grew closer to her, as if the wind from the insect's wings were brushing her scales. That had saved her on more than one occasion, appraising her of the sweeping eyelines of hidden guards she'd not yet spotted. It was far from a perfect Skill, the faint sensation often affording her less than a second to react, but in this case it was enough to let her know there were no prying eyes crawling across the roof.

  Ketch finished her bouncing test, reassured that all id well. She waited until the patrol disappeared around the far corner, then crouched low, gauging her height. Forty feet down, twenty feet distant, with a row of ten-foot iron spikes raised through the middle. Less than a year ago, the gap would have been impossible, to clear, and the impact lethal. But she wasn't the same girl Sara had humiliated on an abandoned Tulian rooftop anymore.

  Ketch leapt.

  One hand pinched her cloak closed, the other spread for bance. For a brief moment, little longer than a second, the only sound was winter wind whistling through the wolf fur of her hood.

  She hit.

  The sound of thick leather boots spping into stone boomed through the courtyard. The force of impact rattled her teeth, but nothing in her knees or ankles broke. The crash of her crouched nding was deafening to Ketch's ears, but clearly not so to the interior of the home, as she felt no sign of attention reaching for her. Slowly, she stood, cloak pooling around her feet.

  With two groups patrolling the walls at regur intervals, she had barely a minute until the next set of torch-wielding guards passed the snowy garden. She had nded on the stone, rather than the softer snow, to hide her footsteps from any keen-eyed guard while she was inside. Ketch bent forward as she hurried towards the manor proper, letting her cloak trail along the cobblestones. Even if the stone pathways had been swept clear shortly after the snowfall abated, wind had since dusted it in a thin yer, just enough wintery mix accumuted for her steps to be noticeable. She hoped that the wider, more irregur streak left by her cloak would be less obvious than defined footprints. If there was a way to hide her tracks through snow, Ketch did not know it, and so she studiously avoided the deeper drifts.

  Ketch knelt before the thick wooden door that led inside the manor, tugging her gloves off. Immediately the bitter air assaulted her, as if icy needles were trying to stab through the tops of her fingernails. She ignored the pain as she brought her tools free, slipping them into the lock. Back in Tulian, when she'd been working with The Shaded Tree, she rarely had need to pick locks. Broken windows and rotted boards were too common. She had practiced it regardless, but as a hobby, rather than a matter of practicality. Between her retive inexperience and the stabbing pain in her hands, she thought it excusable that a full thirty seconds passed before the lock clicked.

  Ketch froze, waiting for a reaction to the sound of the door unlocking. When none came, she hurriedly slipped her gloves back on, nudging the door open and slipping inside.

  Blessed warmth. That was her first impression of the noble manor. Warm. It was no doubt an incredible expense to keep fires lit throughout the night, but she couldn't bme them. She was so relieved to escape from the ravages of the Sporaton night that a reflexive sigh of contentment nearly slipped from her. She bit it back, forcing herself to scan the room.

  Empty darkness greeted her in every direction, as expected. She had chosen this door because the nearby windows were unlit. Now that she was inside, she could see that she had entered a formal foyer of some kind, or perhaps a withdrawing room. The Vomuns clearly took pride in their gardens, because the furniture was arranged to face the windows, rather than the firepce, as was more common. Ketch carefully scanned each plush piece of furniture, confirming that no tired staff had used the room for a surreptitious rest. That done, she straightened, comparing the doors and exits throughout the room to what she had seen through the manor's windows.

  As best she could figure, the Vomuns themselves kept their personal quarters on the second story. That was unusual of nobles, who usually shoved their peasants to any room that required climbing to reach, but Ketch didn't think it as strange as Tagrensi did. She figured that the Vomuns had wisely realized two things: heat rises, and the Sporaton winter was utterly detestable. She'd predicted that the Vomun's room would be in the center of the home, directly above the kitchens, so the cook fires kept it heated. It was what she would have done, and she had heard of simir arrangements from peasants that worked as cookstaff in other Sporaton manors. It was her hope that if she located the kitchen, she would find the Vomun's rooms, and by extension any offices that would hold official documentation.

  She began creeping towards the door on her right, which had seemed through the windows to open into a servant's hallway running around the exterior of the manor. She pressed an ear to the door, listening for footsteps, and when she heard none, she slipped it open just a crack, peering into the hallway.

  Empty. Ketch frowned. For as well lit as the second story had been, it was terribly unusual that the bottom floor was so unoccupied. Fortunate for her at the moment, but concerning in the long run. It wouldn't do if the entire house's staff were packed into the second floor. Ketch slipped out into the hallway, ducking beneath each windowsill as she passed them, so the exterior guards could not spot her.

  As she passed one door, she caught wind of a certain scent. A mixture of smoky charcoal and roasting meat, several hours old. She took one st cautious look up and down the hallway, then knelt down. To her mild surprise, the door had a lock. An unusual level of security for an interior door. To her even greater surprise, however, was the poor quality of it, as the lock was of such simple design she could literally see through the keyhole to the other side. She'd thought those only existed in stories. Why the Vomuns sprung for interior locks, yet cheaped out on them, she didn't know.

  She was grateful for it, nonetheless. Through the narrow slit Ketch could see exactly what she'd hoped for, the stone tiles of the manor's kitchen faintly lit by oil nterns. From her limited angle, the kitchens seemed abandoned, though there were lingering embers in the firepce holding the cookpot, suggesting it hadn't been long since the staff left. She took another moment to ensure she saw no signs of others in the hallway or shuffling within the kitchen, then retrieved her lockpicks once more.

  This time, with such a simple lock, it took her little more than a few seconds of thoughtless jimmying to bypass the mechanism. She gave the door a gentle push, sending it swinging open as if it had come loose on its own, and waited. When there was no reaction, she crept inside.

  She gnced to the right, finding only a counter filled with bowls of vegetables, then to the left, and her heart stopped.

  Sitting on a stool with their head resting against the wall was a guard, their sleep-lidded eyes staring right at her.

  Ketch's hand flew for one of her mother's daggers, ripping it from its sheath. She flipped it in her hand, pinching its tip, raising her arm to throw it.

  Then paused. Though the guard's eyes were open, the man hadn't reacted in the slightest to Ketch's entrance. For an agonizing moment Ketch stood frozen, dagger raised, waiting for something to happen.

  And yet, nothing did. The guard kept perfectly still, eyes not even tracking her. Ketch stayed frozen, inspecting the man for signs of life. She could see his chest moving, and heard the slow whistle of breath coming through his teeth. He was breathing incredibly slow, as if asleep. Ketch met his eyes, searching for recognition, and found nothing but a gzed emptiness staring back at her.

  Ketch slowly lowered her dagger, waiting for the movement to provoke any kind of response. Nothing happened, so she turned her dagger around in her hand, gripping it by the hilt, and slowly stepped forward.

  As best she could tell, the man was half-dead. It was if he'd been hit upside the head with a warhammer, knocked into a coma. She stopped a few short feet away from him, baffled. The only expnation she could think of was that the guard had imbibed some sort of drug shortly before Ketch's arrival, but underestimated his tolerance, and had thus psed into his current state. That or he'd suffered some kind of stroke, which seemed unlikely given his age. Either way, he was completely ignorant of Ketch's presence, which suited her just fine.

  Now that she was confident he wouldn't react, Ketch sheathed her dagger, surveying the rest of the kitchen, to make sure the man hadn't taken his vacation to oblivion with a partner.

  The rest of the kitchen, thankfully, was unoccupied. Ketch took one st look at the guard, wondering what the poor (or lucky?) bastard had done to himself, then put her back to him, returning to her work.

  Ketch briefly surveyed the rest of the lower floor, finding no staff other than the catatonic guard. She'd already been on edge, just by virtue of the fact that she was breaking into a noble manor, but the strange emptiness set her skin tingling. Perhaps the staff were all asleep in the upper floors, but that would be unusual. Surely they'd have at least a few guards on the bottom floor, or servants catching up on incomplete work? No matter. It wasn't like Ketch was going to do anything other than forge on.

  She easily found a hidden door set into the main hall, clicking the wood panel open to reveal the servant's hallway. Many Sporaton manors had been built simirly, with incredibly narrow corridors that snaked through the ribs of the structure. The hallway was dimly lit by sparse crystals, taking erratic and inefficient paths through the home as it avoided the rooms, and was often split by support beams that Ketch had to squeeze past or duck under. Ketch knew they were built and used solely so the nobility didn't have to witness "the help" going about their duties, and the squalor of the corridor lent Ketch just a few extra drops of the anger she knew Sara felt towards this nation's elite.

  She had to admit, though, the servant's corridors were incredibly helpful for her work. The thick wooden walls bounced the echo of footsteps remarkably far, though her own footsteps, of course, were silent. She had no trouble avoiding the first set of foreign feet she heard. She simply moved down a side corridor and waited for the servant to pass, her eyes adapted for abyssal depths staring out from a deep patch of shadow.

  The maid walked past the branch that hid Ketch without ever gncing her way. The woman looked... strange. She held a clump of undry in her arms, which was to be expected, but she was stooped over, as if hiding from something, and was shivering terribly. Ketch couldn't catch more detail than that before the woman hurried past, however, and she certainly wasn't going to risk following the maid. Ketch stepped back out into the main corridor and slipped forward, heading for the steep set of stairs that accessed the second story servant's corridors.

  Here, finally, Ketch started regurly encountering others. Too regurly, in fact, for the te hour. At one point she heard footsteps approaching from both ahead and behind her, and had to skitter up the wall to hide in the shadows left by the intermittent crystal lighting. The man and woman passed beneath her without a word, not acknowledging the other's presence other than to turn a shoulder so they wouldn't collide.

  Stranger and stranger, Ketch mused. Perhaps the lord and dy are tyrants, and the staff is petrified of waking them? That wouldn't fit the rumors though, nor how difficult it was to insert a spy among their staff. I suppose the Vomuns could actually be such good masters that their staff genuinely worry about disturbing them... Nearly as soon as the thought occurred to her, Ketch scoffed. As if. A noble that treats their peasants well is rare enough that they have their name sung in the streets, and Tagrensi's agents heard nothing of the sort.

  Ketch dropped back down to the floor, nding silently. The longer she'd been in this building, the further her discomfort had grown. She was no longer interested in exploring or testing her new Skills, and simply wanted to snag the nearest pile of important-looking documents and leave.

  She picked her way through the servant's corridor with an itch beneath her scales, spending no more than a breath peaking through each exit as she searched for a relevant target. She didn't know if the servants would have direct access to the lord or dy's offices, but she could at least see if she... got... lucky...

  Ketch's legs involuntarily ground to a stop. She had been peeking through a narrow gap in the boards, probably pced there for the servant's to do the very same, when she'd found... something unexpected.

  At the far end of the room was a roaring firepce, fmes licking four feet into the air, so high that their tips disappeared into the flue. Spyed out across the floor separating Ketch from that bonfire were bodies. People. A dozen or more of them, all women, ying in a tangle mess atop stained comforters and pillows.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she saw what was staining the bnkets. Blood. Red droplets scattered around each of the women, as if shaken from a hand like water, alongside a number of older, rger patches of bloody stains. She found herself drawn involuntarily forward, horror and morbid curiosity overwhelming common sense. Suddenly, her view of the room was obscured.

  By an eye.

  Staring back at her.

  Ketch recoiled, fumbling at her waist for her mother's daggers. She waited for a shrieking voice to call for help, or for the door to fling open, or for anything to happen, but there was no response. Just the eye, staring at her, staring at it.

  It was... not moving. At first Ketch wasn't even sure if it belonged to anything alive, so still was it. Ketch squinted, inspecting the eye. She kept her hand on the hilt of her dagger, for safety, but whoever was watching her hadn't made any threatening moves. Was it one of the women that Ketch had seen in that room, silently looking to Ketch for help? She leaned closer, then to one side, trying to figure out who was so silently staring at her. The eye tracked her movements adeptly, but otherwise didn't react, and Ketch found no gap in the wall to get a better view of the owner's body.

  Somewhat strangely, Ketch didn't mind. The eye was fascinating. She had never seen anything like it. Red irises seemed to brighten in time with the throbbing of Ketch's pulse, almost... spiraling? Ketch's palm rexed on the hilt of her dagger as she tried to figure out what she was looking at, the thudding of her heart slowing by degrees. The eye disappeared for the briefest of moments, and Ketch nearly turned to leave, but then the hidden servant's door opened.

  A long, bck dress greeted her, wrapped around the svelte form of a woman a head and a half taller than Ketch. Her face, pale and beautiful, was lit by those enchanting eyes, a glow washing her high cheekbones in gentle light. It was a red glow, as if she were wearing makeup, Ketch thought. It was certainly a fttering look on the woman.

  But not as fttering as the eyes themselves. Those were certainly more beautiful, more beautiful than nearly anything Ketch could recall. Her mouth began to water.

  "Well, well, well, look at this," Lady Vomun purred. "A stray, come in out of the cold?" The woman turned to one side, gesturing to the roaring fire deeper within the padded room. "That won't do at all, dearie. Please, come in."

  "O-oh, no, thank you," Ketch stammered, taking a nervous step back. "I couldn't... um, intrude, I suppose?" With the door open, Ketch could at least hear that the women in the room were breathing, but that didn't make them any less bloody. "Unless, I suppose, you need some help? With the others? Um, what happened to them?"

  "Nothing bad, I assure you, and nothing you need to worry about. They're recovering in this room, you see," Lady Vomun waved a hand towards the roaring firepce. "The heat is so excellent for caring for those who need to recover after losing their blood. They end up dreadfully cold, and with the weather such a fright, I'm sure you understand how dangerous that could be."

  "I-it is awfully cold out," Ketch half-agreed, "But I'm more worried about the blood. Did... did you have a healer help them?"

  "Oh, it's not as bad as all that. They'll be right as rain in a short while, so long as they're not disturbed." Lady Vomun's eyes flicked to Ketch's hand beneath her cloak, her smile shifting to a frown. "You aren't going to disturb them, are you, dearie?"

  Ketch's skin felt very odd. She kept trying to watch the woman's hands, to make sure she wasn't going to make any sudden moves, but her attention kept being drawn back to Lady Vomun's eyes. Actually, Ketch realized, how had she known this was Lady Vomun? The woman hadn't introduced herself.

  Ketch took another step back. "N-no, no I w-won't disturb them, ma'am. That'd be... unwise, I think?" Ketch licked her lips, frowning through the haze that was infecting her thoughts.

  "Oh, you are a smart little thing, aren't you?" Lady Vomun took a step forward, keeping the distance between them the same. "Now what is an Azarketi doing in the city at this time of year? You must be dreadfully cold yourself, yes? Please, come in, so the fire may warm you up." Ketch took another instinctive step backward, but it was smaller this time, for some reason. Lady Vomun chuckled, demurely covering her mouth as she did so. "There's no reason to be so frightful, dearie. After all, I don't bite."

  Ketch

  Css: Rogue

  Dexterity: Eighteen

  Strength: Twelve

  Constitution: Twelve

  Intelligence: Twelve

  Charisma: Eight

  Wisdom: Six

  Ketch wet her lips again, nodding. "Of course, ma'am. I appreciate it, ma'am. It's too cold these days for my kind. I-I mean, you know that. You said that. It's just, the cold, I think it's... getting to me, maybe?" Ketch shook her head helplessly, wondering why her usual poise had abandoned her. "May I come in?"

  "Oh," Lady Vomun cooed, "you poor thing. An Azarketi, left to the mercy of the ice and snow? Such a terrible cruelty. Trust me, you will be much more comfortable in here with your sisters. Please, do come in."

  Ketch's feet drifted forward at Lady Vomun's beckoning, carrying her into the heaps of pillows and bnkets. She felt the woman's eyes staring into her back, but she didn't pay it much mind.

  After all, Lady Vomun hadn't lied. The room was very, very warm.