On Death's Honor

Part 2: The Chase

"What did you do?" Bogdan demanded the moment I poked my head out of the water. I still wasn't quite sure how I was awake - my body felt like a ragdoll that had been tossed into a wild current - but I was grateful to be breathing clean, crisp air, all the same.

The spirit, on the other hand, was not at all pleased to see me. He even went as far as shoving his hands beneath my arms, hauling me up and out of the water - only to shove me when I tried waving him off.

"What did you do?" he repeated. I fell on my rear.

"Killed a nymphtan," I retorted. 

"Where's the man?"

"The man?"

"The man you travelled with."

"You mean Orik?" I looked up, staring through the dark in search of the older man. 

"Wrenva, he went in there."

"What? No, he-" I stopped, a sudden, horrifying realization dawning on me. There had been a scream in there, a warning before I'd offered a demon to an exiled god.

Oh no.

I scrambled to my feet, searching for the gelbeast that had taken us here. Orik would have stayed with her, surely. Maybe Bogdan was mistaken, maybe-

My breaths coming in quick, panicked gasps, I ran my bloodied fingers through my messy hair. I found myself staring at the spring, as if hoping that the aged father would come out.

"Oh fuck," I swore. "I told him - oh, hell, I warned him to-" I peeled my fingers away from my hair to examine them, then quickly ran them through the rest of my hair. They caught on something in the back of my head, where my braid originally began. I yanked several strands out of my skull in an attempt to grab whatever had gotten stuck there.

It was thin layers of shredded skin.

Frantically, I began stripping down to my undergarments, not caring that I was getting the outer clothes muddy when I tossed them aside. What I'd thought to have been blood from my wounds reflected back at me from the soaked clothes.

Not all of it was blood. Goey, slimy red substances matted my front, gore that came from contents only found within internal organs. This could not be happening. This should not be happening. 

What have I done? 

There was a scream. A sound of rage that burned the back of my throat like an all-consuming fire. I let hundreds of people die just hours before so that I could ensure a nymphtan's final moments would be painful. Men, women and children. I wasn't sure where the sudden frustration came from - why Orik dying was enough to stir old, bitter emotions. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that my head was a quieter place than it had been in ages without the help of a drug or magic.

Orik was dead. I orphaned four children, and they didn't even have a body to bury.

Bogdan didn't leave me to myself. Instead, he took a step in front of me to give me another rough shove.

"This is why we don't bring civilians, Wrenva!" 

"He wasn't supposed to go in," I snarled back, but it was all bravado and little defense. Not that it mattered. Bogdan reached out to grab a handful of my shirt's collar to bring our faces within inches apart.

"What happened, Wrenva?" He asked through gritted teeth. "Don't make me ask again."

His knuckles scraped against my collarbone through my shirt. Actual, physical touch that should only belong to the living. I raised my hands to push him away - right when his eyes landed on my necklace. "What is that?"