Valen loomed against the horizon. Its high walls and spires flickered with pinpricks of light visible from half a day away. A pulse of light shot upward and punched through the cloud cover as the Illum Hearth vented excess energy.


    They reached the Black Gate late that night, with the rain turning to sleet again. It was warmer near the city, but Winter’s icy fingers groped for its throat. The smell of rotted burnt wood and the cacophony of fresh masonry hit them way before the sight of the gate did. Familiarity shook Tallah out of another fitful bout with sleep and cleared the cobwebs in her head.


    They said their goodbyes at the gate, reined in Vergil, and left Amus to his deliveries. They even bought a wheel of hard cheese off him, small enough to fit in Sil’s Rend.


    “I’ll sell the tunnel map and see if there’s anyone looking for this guy,” Sil said as they walked along the cobbled thoroughfare towards the central fortress of Valen, jostling among the throng of workers gathered for the rebuilding, at least until the first real snow would stop them. “I don’t want any surprises on our hands later on.”


    “When you’re done, come down to the Sisters.” Tallah had her hand on Vergil’s shoulder, holding him close as they walked across the busy street. She ignored the stares the boy gathered.


    “Can you get up there on your own?” Sil had been mothering her incessantly for the past half-day, as if she’d been crippled in some way by her spat with Anna.


    I would be terribly impressed if you admitted you can barely walk. Christina woke in the back of Tallah’s mind and voiced her amusement, pushing forward the mental image of a mocking smile. She and Bianca had been mostly quiet since the village. That blissful peace of mind never lasted long.


    “I’m perfectly capable of walking half the city on my own, thank you very much. I’ll meet you there.” Tallah’s temper flared, but Christina’s taunting kept it subdued. She wouldn’t give the ghost such satisfaction, even with Sil giving her boast a mocking smile of her own.


    “Sure you are, your Ladyship. But, just in case.” She handed over a vial from her satchel. “If you get dizzy or feel nauseous on the ramps up, drink half of this, then a swig of water, then the rest. If you still feel sick, just sit down and I’ll find you eventually.”


    She walked off before Tallah could protest and offer to shove the vial where the suns normally didn’t shine. Christina snickered again.


    And you say we are unbearable in our worries. Tallah ignored this.


    Valen’s night life was chaotic, especially now that they had nearly finished rebuilding the outer walls and the gates and all work was slowly moving towards the heart of the city.


    As a major hub for the Guild and with one of the largest Halls outside of the Empire, adventurers and travellers came and went at all hours. Aside from them, the city’s more mundane industries employed at least half the population and worked all hours. Valen never slept, never slowed, could never stop. They even wrote it on billboards.


    She watched Sil stop on a street corner and wait for a ride. It wasn’t long before an illum-powered carriage came into view. It belonged to the Enginarium and had become a common sight in Valen. A metal box on metal wheels running on metal tracks. How anyone could get on one of those and not feel sick was beyond understanding.


    Sil loved the bloody things. She packed herself in with the rest of the commuters and was away faster than a swallow.


    Tallah missed the horse-drawn carriages. Their horrible smells less so. They were no longer allowed in the city proper as Valen had relegated all transport to the Enginarium’s engines. The city was cleaner for it, but it meant she had no choice but to walk everywhere.


    Rain and sleet had washed Valen, scoured its streets and alleys of their many and intricate miasmas. Aside from the ever-present scent of ash always lingering on the air, the city smelled… not exactly clean, but pleasantly rural.


    Tallah made no effort to step over muddied puddles and fresh banks of soot washed out from the gutters and gathered on the roadside. The horrid dress was due a burning anyway.


    At least the boy didn’t seem to mind the long, slippery walk, as opposed to Sil’s incessant whining every time they had to get anywhere on foot.


    Vergil’s strange look here, deeper into Valen, drew less attention even as he proved prone to shout and curse at passers-by. Tallah smiled her apologies at people and ushered the mad man along, keeping a tight hold on his arm as he strained to reach out and punch anyone that made eye contact. Like an attack corallin on a leash almost.


    It made for a slow, heaving trek up the many stairs that led up to their destination. One more lashing-out from the boy and she may just have let him plunge off the walls.


    The Sisters of Mercy occupied a large, white-marbled, green roofed building on the outskirts of the Medical Quarter of the Inner Plaza. Through the centre of the dome’s roof passed the ten-meter-wide trunk of a White-leafed Tree. Its canopy offered shade for the hospital in the long Summers, while its roots provided the raw sap that they refined into medicine.


    The Sisters, druids of the Dryad, plied their healing arts for any and for all, regardless of species or allegiance. All were welcomed, for a price, in the bosom of their capricious goddess.


    Tallah walked through the open archway shaking melting snow off her hat. She marched past the line of people waiting in the atrium and tried to enter an ornate side door, just behind a green clad priestess that was trying to sort through those for whom the coming of Winter was proving dangerous.


    The priestess grabbed her arm before she could wrap fingers on the door’s handle.


    “Where does the lady think she’s going?” the woman asked with practised patience.


    “In. I’m expected.”


    “The lady is expected at the back of the line with the rest of the Dryad’s many seeds.”


    Tallah tried to pull her arm away, but the woman’s grip was iron-hard.


    “I’m expected,” she insisted and planted her feet, defiant.


    Vergil grumbled next to her. His hands balled up into fists, but he made no threat against the priestess barring their way. Rather, he was looking at the crowd, and they at him, the tension in the room starting to froth.


    “Aliana is expecting me,” Tallah insisted, forcing a smile.


    “The High Priestess is not expecting anyone at this hour. Please head to the back of the line and you can ask for her when your turn arrives.”


    “What’s the noise?”


    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    A tall, heavy-set woman opened the ornate door and walked out. She wore the same flowing green robe as the other priestesses bustling about but hers also had a white leaf embroidery that showed her rank.


    One look from Aliana quieted the room and even had Vergil taking a step back. The High Priestess of the Dryad wore her rank like war plate and her glare was a spear.


    “Finally. Aliana, tell your wench to let go of my arm.”


    “What’s going on, Siphra?” the woman asked without even glancing at Tallah.


    “This one is giving me cheek. She tried to jump the line.” Siphra yanked Tallah forward and finally released her arm. “Her friend is agitating the others.”


    Aliana swept her dark gaze again over the gathered crowd. None met it.


    “Line looks quiet to me. I’ll deal with her,” she said.


    Tallah met her sneer with a grin and poked her tongue out at the priestess. “I did say I was expected, did I not?”


    Aliana shoved her through the small door and Vergil followed, as cowed as the others by the imposing olive-skinned High Priestess.


    “How dare you?!” the woman bellowed when the door clicked shut.


    For anyone that had only known Aliana of Tohman as the severe priestess of the Dryad, the blazing fury in her voice and eyes would have been cowing. Tallah, however, paid it no mind as she tried to find a place where to set her hat. The office was small, tightly packed with books, salves, and medicine bottles. White leaves formed garlands that intertwined among the apparatus used to distil their valuable sap and lent the room some of their luminescence.


    Herbs and other supplies were neatly stacked on shelves, each with its own label written in the Dryad’s peculiar runes. Complex notes of herbs and antiseptics scented the air.


    On the main desk, among the scrolls of office and the many files on patients, was a bottle with a thimble glass next to it. Both were filled with an amber liquid.


    “Calm your humours, Aliana. I bring you something that you’re going to like.” Greetings were a rare thing between Tallah and the priestess.


    “Where’s Silestra? I don’t deal with you without her present.” The older woman scowled at Tallah, giving her a sneer vile enough to curdle dairy. It would have worked on anyone else.


    “She’s busy. Today you deal with me.” She picked up the bottle and took a swig from it. “I’ve always liked that you respect yourself enough to drink something expensive.” She hiccuped. Whatever that was, it went down burning.


    “Sil’s at the Guild Hall, if you really must know, declaring the death of this guy and his friends.” She gestured with the bottle toward the twitching Vergil, diverting Aliana’s attention to him.


    Vergil looked wretched in the white leaflight of the office. His clothes hung on him like dressings on a scarecrow, and his stench overpowered the smell of disinfectant. Aliana stiffened as she looked him over.


    “Maybe like is a strong word.” Tallah drank more and swished the burning liquid inside her mouth. “I need you to fix him. We found him in a ratman camp, caged and starved, in the Valen-Drack Passage. Pretty sure he’s gone insane. The rats were eating alive his female companion.”


    Aliana’s demeanour changed. The boy stiffened and grumbled, backing up a step.


    “How is he standing?” she asked, picking up her thimble and draining it. “Looks to me he should be dead.”


    Tallah pointed to the helmet.


    “That bucket on his head houses some kind of ghost, or an echo of one. We’re not terribly sure what it is. Its strength, however—” She shuddered and drank more. “To call it simply impressive would be lying. We’ve been feeding it illum for a few days now, and it kept the boy alive and going. Lad’s also got one of those stupid blessing tattoos the paladins give to their fresh recruits. If I stop the illum siphon I don’t think he’d last out the day.”


    Aliana raised an eyebrow. She drummed the tips of her fingers over her lips.


    “I assume this was your idea on how to save the lad. I couldn’t imagine Silestra coming up with something so vile. What were you doing in the tunnels?”


    “That is none of your business. Can you help me or do I leave the corpse here?”


    Aliana shrugged.


    “We were running low on fertiliser anyway. Take him back or leave him, it’s no skin off my cheek.”


    That worked well, Christina whispered. We need her help, not her disinterest.


    Tallah shrugged.


    “I’ll have Sil take another crack at him then. She said you’d be a better choice, but it seems you don’t like a proper challenge after all, oh great High Priestess of the Twiggy one.”


    She snapped her fingers and pointed the boy to the door.


    Aliana downed the rest of her spirit and set the glass on top of the bottle, pulling it away from Tallah’s grasp, to Tallah’s annoyance. She had planned to take the whole thing with her.


    “Do you want him back on his feet or just lucid enough to answer whatever you need him to?”


    When all else fails, appeal to Aliana’s pride. Christi, this used to work perfectly even with you. It was Tallah’s turn to inwardly smirk at the ghost.


    To Aliana she said, “Walking, talking and as sane as you can get him. Don’t dig too deep in his head. There’s some kind of enchantment in there, we think, which kicks like a unicorn if you bother it. Sil tried to mind-touch him and it flung her. Literally, I might add. Broke a rib or three when she hit the wall.”


    “How do we get him out of the armour he’s wearing?”


    “It’s going to disappear on its own. It’s a secondary effect of the helmet. Don’t ask. You know how these Southern relics work generally.”


    “I’m going to charge you an arm and a leg. And I’ll double that because I need to deal with you instead of Silestra.” The woman’s tone did not soften, but she was curious. Tallah and Sil never failed to provide the challenges city life lacked.


    “Add in this as well.” Tallah leaned over the table, grabbed the bottle and waggled it. “I haven’t had a proper drink in weeks. Sil’s kept me on tonics and water. No alcohol at all.”


    “Silestra being smart and responsible while out in rough places? I’m truly amazed.” She clutched at invisible pearls around her neck. “It’s a pity she still associates with you, brigand.”


    Aliana opened the door and shouted out for some girls. Three large women arrived at a trot, and she explained the situation to them in concise terms, quick and efficient. Two of them got a rough hold of Vergil’s armpits. The third grabbed his helmet. He fussed a bit, looking confused from one to the other, grunting, uncertain of the hostility in their actions. He would have struggled but Tallah glared at him.


    “Ready.” All three called in unison, and she dropped the illum siphon. It felt like a weight dropping off her shoulders. Vergil’s legs buckled under him as he was already being led away. The third woman handed the helmet to Aliana.


    “Why’s there a big red willy painted on it?” she asked, studying the ugly horned thing.


    “Ask Sil. She’ll be more than happy to tell you all about it.” Tallah grinned and drank.


    “Now push off, sorceress. I’ll send a runner to fetch you when we’re done. You’re still at that swanky place?”


    Tallah didn’t leave. Instead, she pulled off her eye patch. The eye, as if to spite Sil’s ministrations, had gotten worse. It stung, and the pain had only numbed due to the alcohol. The scars, unseen now, itched like a bugger.


    “Can you do something about this?” She pointed at the stricken organ. “I hate not being able to see your face in all its ugly glory.”


    “You’ve been giving Silestra a hard time again? I should leave you like that.”


    “But you won’t.”


    Aliana smiled an unpleasant little smile.


    “Of course. That, I’ll deal with personally. Wait right there while I fetch my tools. I’ll make sure you remember this time why it’s in your interest not to end up back here.”


    Tallah felt ice climbing up her back and she shivered despite the burning hearth. She wouldn’t ever admit it, even to the voices in her head, but Aliana’s ministrations frightened her.


    When she saw the array of tools the old priestess brought back and the lack of any kind of pain relief salve, she wished she hadn’t asked for help. Two bells of screaming obscenities later, she would have preferred going blind.