The sharp clap of hands marking the end of Duria’s prayer at the small, forgotten shrine in the heart of the settlement rang out unnaturally loud, echoing like a pistol shot in an empty cathedral.
The local deity; a small stone statue with a face worn featureless by wind and time; remained silent, indifferent to the fate of its followers.
They moved on, leaving behind the stifling, perfume fumes of the pleasure district, and headed toward the steep hill.
Atop its crest, looming like a lighthouse over an ocean of misery, sat the inn.
The path leading to their destination quickly gave up the pretense of being a proper street.
It was now a treacherous ribbon of frozen mud, gouged with deep, razor-sharp ruts.
Caught within the brown, frozen furrows were scattered fish bones, shattered pottery shards, and unidentifiable, bone-chilled garbage that looked exactly like the grim remnants of a predator’s feast, gleaming stark white in the gloom.
Halfway up the steep incline, Yerga stopped abruptly.
Her path was blocked by a particularly vile obstacle; a slick patch of ice several yards across.
Trapped beneath the frozen surface was a brown, congealed slush, entombing what appeared to be the mangled carcass of a crow.
The enchantress sighed the cloud of steam from her breath forming a perfect, geometric circle in the freezing air.
She looked down at her boots; exquisite works of art crafted from the finest leather, completely unsuited for trekking across frozen sewage, yet still irritatingly pristine amidst this sea of filth.
“Absolute barbarism,” she assessed, glaring at the bumpy permafrost with such disdain it was as if the mud had insulted her personally.
On her shoulder, Void shifted abruptly.
The skeletal feline leaned forward, its cervical vertebrae popping audibly, and reached a bony paw toward the ice.
The familiar was clearly fascinated by the frozen tableau; the black feathers locked in the mud apparently seemed like a fantastic new toy.
The cat was already preparing to pounce, visibly tensing nonexistent muscles.
“Sit, Void,” Yerga tossed out in an indifferent bored tone, casually holding the cat by the scruff of its bony neck to keep it from jumping.
She didn’t do it out of concern for its cleanliness; she simply had no desire to stand around in the freezing cold waiting for her pet to finish sniffing garbage.”I haven’t the time for your little excursions, sweetheart.”
The cat hissed in deep disappointment at a passing snowflake, and two green pinpricks of stubborn rebellion flared in its empty eye sockets.
Yerga ignored this completely and snapped her elegant fingers.
A quiet, neon-green magic swirled around her feet, shining in this drab, gray world like a spill of toxic alchemical poison.
The necromancer, who down by the temple had graciously allowed her soles to touch the relatively clean cobblestones, now elevated herself a full inch above the uneven ground.
Instead of walking, she began to effortlessly glide through the air up the winding path, bypassing the dirty ice and the frozen crow with the sheer superiority of a phantom whose standards were simply too high to be subjected to gravity in such a dingy place.
“Duria, darling,” she remarked, drifting past the vampire, who was marching briskly and completely unbothered by the slippery surface.”Do stop waving at those people in the windows.
They are slamming their shutters shut out of stark terror, not shyness.
It looks dreadfully pathetic.”
Duria, who was indeed stubbornly and joyfully waving at every single figure scurrying in the shadows and every barricaded home, giggled.
Her bright laugh echoed off the wooden planks of the nearby houses.
“Yare, yare, (Honestly,) Yerga-sama!
But they are just so kawaii (cute) in their terror!
Trembling like little bunnies!
Besides, look!” She pointed her wakizashi toward the top of the rise, where warm, inviting light pierced the gloom.”You can already see the lanterns of the Ryotei!
(Inn!) I sincerely hope they have warm sake in there, because Figi’s hole in his boot is about to freeze over…
oh, wait, no, his boots are actually intact today.
Well then, his nose will freeze right off!”
“My nose has been red since the day I was born, you pale leech!” Figlin shouted back from the rear, panting as he trudged up the steep hill, tightly clutching his pitch-patched golden tankard to his chest and taking dutiful swigs.”But you’re right on the money about that sake!
As long as it isn’t watered down!”
The sliding doors of the Frost on Silk ryotei opened with a soft rustle reminiscent of fine silk rubbing against dry skin.
They weren’t greeted by a blast of pleasant, welcoming warmth.
Instead, they were hit by a stifling, humid heat, saturated with the scent of expensive sandalwood, roasted fish, and a thick, sticky dread.
Duria barged into the vestibule first, possessing the lithe grace of a dancer and the delicate sensibilities of a battering ram.
Without a single moment’s hesitation, she stepped up onto the raised wooden floor, leaving wet, muddy footprints across the immaculately clean woven straw mats.
This elicited a quiet, collective gasp of pure horror from the row of kneeling staff, who stared at the filthy smudges as if they were the blatant desecration of a holy shrine.
Right behind her, cursing viciously under his breath, lumbered Figlin.
“What?!
Take ’em off?!” he bellowed, when a timid servant pointed hesitantly at his massive leather boots.
He yanked his leg back, nearly knocking over a delicate wooden shoe cabinet.”Are you lot entirely mad?!
I’ve got a knife hidden in there!
And gold in the heel!
If they go missing, I’ll shoot this whole bloody place to splinters!
These are captain’s boots, and they stay on my damn feet!”
Ultimately, muttering dark threats about burning the entire village to ash, he begrudgingly removed his precious officer’s boots and stomped inside after the vampire.
Yerga was the last to enter.
The neon magic beneath her feet dissipated the exact second she touched down on the pristine interior mats.
She did not remove her boots.
Her leather soles were vastly cleaner than the consciences of most of the monks present in this town.
“The wood is far too dark,” she assessed immediately, wrinkling her nose in distaste.”Mahogany paired with ebony?
It’s horribly oppressive.
I feel as though I’ve just stepped into a coffin, and a remarkably tasteless one at that.
But at least you’ve managed to keep the place warm.”
They entered the main hall.
It was a sprawling, cavernous chamber, drowning in gloom.
The dark wooden walls actively devoured the meager light cast by the scattered lanterns, forming deep, impenetrable shadows in the corners.
The vaulted ceiling vanished into the darkness above, and the exposed, curving crossbeams looked exactly like the ribcage of some colossal beast.
Dead center in the hall, set into a square cutout in the floorboards, sat a traditional open hearth.
Only a meager handful of charcoal smoldered within it, over which hung a cast-iron kettle, whistling softly.
The sheer lack of embers seemed laughably inadequate compared to the sweltering heat radiating throughout the room; a suspicious detail that did not escape the dwarf’s attention, who was already eyeing the hearth with deep mistrust.
Seated around the low tables were over a dozen figures; men in formal, intricately folded black robes, accompanied by elegant female escorts.
The women looked the most ghastly.
Their faces caked in stark-white powder, looked exactly like dead porcelain masks under this lighting, devoid of pores or any semblance of life.
The moment the crew walked in, the quiet hum of conversation was severed as if cleanly sliced by a blade.
Everyone froze in completely unnatural postures, with small porcelain cups suspended halfway to their painted lips.
Dozens of pairs of eyes; pitch-black, gleaming, and entirely motionless; bored directly into the grotesque procession of newcomers.
Duria completely ignored the oppressive atmosphere, sweeping her crimson gaze across the hall until her eyes locked onto the very back of the room.
On a raised dais, shrouded in thick plumes of gray smoke, sat an elderly woman.
She was incredibly petite, as wrinkled as a dried prune, yet her posture was forged of iron.
Clad in a multi-layered kimono the exact shade of coagulated blood, she smoked a long, slender pipe, puffing in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.
The vampire smiled broadly, baring her fangs in an expression of sheer, childish joy that, in this gloomy, suffocating interior, looked far more ghastly than welcoming.
“Tadaima!
(I’m back!)”
The old woman slowly exhaled a thick cloud of smoke that perfectly formed the shape of a tightening noose.
She looked down at the vampire from beneath hooded eyelids.
“Okaeri nasai, (Welcome home,) Grandma,” she replied.
Her voice was incredibly raspy, sounding exactly like stones grinding along the bed of a dried-up river.”You have brought some interesting demons with you.”
That single word hung in the stifling silence of the inn like a headsman’s axe.
Figlin, Yerga, Lengos, and Zedora froze entirely.
Their heads snapped toward Duria with stiff, mechanical precision, their eyes darting frantically; first to the parchment-wrinkled, ancient woman, and then back to the smooth, eternally youthful, pale face of the vampire.
“GRANDMA?!” they blurted out in perfect unison, their voices ringing with a potent cocktail of utter disbelief and pure existential dread.
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