The heavy rain settles to a cold, steady drizzle, pattering against the timber roof of the house.
Inside, the room is gray and quiet.
Sylvie stands flush against the shuttered window, peering through a narrow crack in the wood into the thick white fog that still blankets the square.
Behind her, a low, wet groan breaks the silence.
Sylvie spares a brief glance over her shoulder before returning her eyes to the crack in the shutters. On the floorboards, Leonard's frame is jolting.
Steam rises from his trousers and neck as the high-grade potion forces his torn muscle and skin to knit back together.
The flesh sizzles and burns, pulling tight over the bone. His entire body trembles against the planks.
A raw scream tears from Leonard's throat. His eyes snap open with a loud, ragged gasp, his hands flying up to clutch his skull as a spike of white-hot agony lances through his temples. "Arghhhh!"
Sylvie turns from the window. She walks across the floorboards with unhurried, deliberate steps, stopping just above him as he writhes on the floor.
"Ten thousand gold coins," she says, her voice flat and cold. "And before you open your mouth, bastard, I am not here to save you. Give me my money, and get lost."
Leonard's breath hitches. His bloodshot eyes lock onto hers, the grief and fury boiling over in an instant. "Shut the fuck up!" he roars, his voice cracking against the timber walls.
"I know you have a reason to treat me like this, but shut up right now!"
Sylvie's boot shifts, and her fist strikes him hard across the jaw. The crack of knuckles against bone echoes in the small room, snapping Leonard's head to the side.
"Don't fucking shout at me," she hisses, shaking out her fingers. "I just saved your pathetic life."
Leonard spits a mouthful of blood onto the floorboards. He pushes the heavy wool of Sylvie's cloak off his chest and hauls himself up, swaying as a wave of nausea rolls through his gut.
He grabs the iron latch of the door, leaning his weight against the frame.
"You'll get your money once we find a way out of this hellhole," he rasps, his hand trembling on the latch.
"I have to save the princess and Grace."
Sylvie's posture stiffens. Her eyes narrow into sharp slits. What about the boy? Don't tell me you got him killed!
Leonard's jaw locks. He does not turn around. He wrenches the door open and stumbles out into the drizzle, his voice rising into a desperate, hoarse shout as he calls out for Elsbeth and Grace.
Sylvie's fist slams into the timber wall beside the window, splintering the dry wood.
"This bastard! They're all going to die!" She lets out a sharp, bitter breath, snatching her fallen cloak from the floor and throwing it over her shoulders.
"I should at least save the girls. If they're even still alive."
She steps out onto the porch, pulling the hood over her silver hair.
Before she takes a second stride, she halts.
Through the suffocating, sour stench of the fog, a faint, distinct sensation brushes against her senses.
It is warm, sharp, and clean a pulse of pure, holy energy cutting through the rot of the town. Sylvie's eyes widen.
Something this pure in a cursed hole like this? It'll keep us breathing.
Her silhouette blurs, and she vanishes into the mist.
She reappears at the edge of the clearing, standing before the cottage where Leonard's party had sheltered.
A massive, jagged hole gapes in the timber wall, splintered planks jutting outward into the mud.
Dark, heavy smears of blood stain the wet clay and the porch steps.
Sylvie draws her short sword, the steel ringing as it leaves the scabbard, and steps through the broken wall into the dark interior.
The kitchen is a ruin of overturned chairs and shattered earthenware.
Sitting upright in a wooden chair near the cold hearth is Rose. Her pink wool dress is spotless, her red hair falling loose over her shoulders.
She turns her head, a bright, welcoming smile blooming across her face.
"I've been waiting for you," Rose says, her voice dripping with sweet familiarity. "Oh, how I missed you, Sylvie!"
Sylvie's eyelids drop shut. She does not hesitate, and she does not look. Her boots slide across the blood-slick floorboards, and she drives her sword straight through the center of Rose's chest.
"Don't you fucking use her, you bastard!" Sylvie snarls, twisting the hilt.
Rose's smile does not fade. Thick, black blood bubbles up from her throat, spilling over her chin as she lets out a wet, crooked laugh. "You're all going to die!!!"
The body turns to smoke, dissolving into the white fog curling through the broken wall.
Sylvie steps back, flicking her wrist to shake the dark fluid from her blade. "Physical attacks don't hold," she mutters, her eyes scanning the ruined room.
Her gaze catches a wide, crimson smear across the timber floor a heavy drag mark leading away from the kitchen toward the open cellar door in the corner.
Sheathing her sword, Sylvie descends the narrow wooden steps into the dark basement.
At the bottom of the stairs, a soft, golden glow illuminates the damp stone walls.
Sylvie steps off the final tread, squinting against the light.
On the dirt floor, two figures lie crumpled together inside a shimmering, spherical barrier.
Above them, a black leather book hovers inches in the air, its pages humming with a faint, rhythmic pulse.
As Sylvie crosses the threshold into the cellar, the golden light flickers. The black book drops with a dull thud onto the dirt floor, and the shimmering barrier vanishes into the damp air.
The clean, holy presence Sylvie had sensed outside disappears with it, leaving only the cold stench of wet earth and copper.
Sylvie steps closer, her boots crunching in the gravel.
Elsbeth lies slumped across Grace's torso, her arms wrapped around the older woman's shoulders as if she had dragged her down the stairs before collapsing.
Sylvie drops to her knees in the dirt. She hooks her hands beneath Elsbeth's arms and pulls her off to the side, laying the princess flat on the ground.
The girl is pale as bone, her chest barely rising.
Her dress is soaked in mud and blood. Sylvie's eyes catch the dark, swollen puncture marks on the side of Elsbeth's neck black veins radiating beneath the skin, pulsing with the exact same poison as Leonard.
Then, Sylvie looks at Grace. Her dress is torn to ribbons across her chest, revealing three deep, ragged claw marks that cut down to the muscle.
Blood wells from the torn flesh with every shallow, fluttering heartbeat, pooling dark and thick in the dirt beneath her back.
The smell of iron hangs heavy in the small space.
Sylvie's jaw tightens. The poisoned girl had dragged Grace into the barrier to shield her, and the venom had dropped her before she could stop the bleeding.
"She's losing too much," Sylvie mutters, her fingers already moving. "She'll bleed out before the poison even finishes the other one."
Working with sharp, practiced hands, Sylvie grabs the torn fabric of Grace's bodice and rips it wide open to expose the lacerations.
Grace's skin is cold, clammy against Sylvie's knuckles.
Sylvie unclips a leather flask from her belt, pulls the wooden stopper with her teeth, and tilts the flask over Grace's chest.
The strong spirits splash into the deep cuts.
Grace's unconscious body arches off the dirt, a thin, choked whimper escaping her parted lips before she drops back limp, her breath hitching into a shallow rattle.
"Stay with me," Sylvie hisses under her breath.
She grips the hem of her own heavy wool cloak, finds a seam, and tears a long, wide strip from the fabric.
Sliding one arm beneath Grace's back, Sylvie lifts the woman's dead weight off the blood-soaked dirt and wraps the strip of wool around her ribcage.
She pulls the ends tight, her knuckles whitening as she ties a hard knot over the wounds to stanch the flow.
Within seconds, a dark crimson stain blooms through the gray wool, spreading across the fabric.
Sylvie reaches into her belt pouch, her fingers shaking slightly as she pulls out a glass vial of shimmering amber liquid.
She twists the cork free, hooks her thumb behind Grace's jaw to force her teeth apart, and tilts the potion between her lips.
Grace's throat does not move. The amber liquid pools in her mouth, spilling down the corner of her chin.
"Swallow, damn it," Sylvie growls. She pinches Grace's nostrils shut and strokes the front of her throat with her thumb until a weak, involuntary gag reflex forces the liquid down.
Sylvie doesn't wait to watch it work.
She pivots on her knees toward Elsbeth.
The black veins on the princess's neck have crept higher, reaching the edge of her jaw. Her lips have turned a faint, bruised blue; her chest has stopped moving altogether.
Sylvie's eyes widen.
She slams two fingers against the side of Elsbeth's throat, feeling for a pulse.
Nothing just a faint, erratic flutter beneath the swollen skin.
"Don't you dare die on me now," Sylvie snaps.
She tilts the princess's head back, exposing the blackened punctures.
Without hesitation, Sylvie presses her mouth over the torn, swollen flesh and sucks hard, drawing the thick, dark venom out of the wound.
A foul, bitter taste coats her tongue, burning the inside of her mouth like acid.
Sylvie turns her head and spits the black blood onto the dirt floor. She leans back in, sealing her lips over the punctures again, pulling the poison from the veins, spitting it into the dirt, repeating the motion until the blood running from the cuts turns a clean, bright red.
Grabbing the flask of spirits, Sylvie takes a mouthful, swishes it through her teeth, and spits it out before pouring the remaining liquor over the raw wound on Elsbeth's neck.
She uncorks her final vial of potion. Her hands are stained with blood and dirt as she parts the princess's pale lips and pours the last of the amber liquid down her throat, holding her jaw shut and tilting her head back until the swallow reflex catches.
Seconds stretch into an agonizing silence in the dark cellar.
Then, Elsbeth's chest hitches. A sharp, ragged gasp tears into her lungs, and a faint flush of color begins to creep back into her cheeks. Beside her, the dark stain on Grace's makeshift bandage stops spreading.
Sylvie sits back on her heels, letting out a long, shaky breath as she wipes the back of her blood-stained hand across her mouth.
She looks down at the two unconscious women breathing in the damp dark, the weight of the close call settling into her shoulders.
"You girls better stay alive after all this," she mutters.