| It didn't hurt. Even when the bardic scoundrel Count Soren threw his arm around her to squeeze. It should hurt. It had hurt. But right now all she could feel is the warm embrace and purple paint dripping from his nose.
“You didn't need to paint me by ambush, Nerta. I already agreed to wear matching purple.” He squeezes her again, and her wound still does nothing. “Though I shouldn't be surprised. Can't take the wilderness out of the woman…”
Glittering eyes staring out from under the hood of that heavy cloak, her sour expression is all the more shadowy from her purple face paint. “I saw you in the arena. You sing better than you fight.” Even injured, she pokes his gut hard enough to slip free. “Also, I was tired of your moping. The Festival of Lights is about the end of winter, not sulking about losing in the second round of the tournament.”
Soren rubs his side and sighs with all the theatrics he can muster. “True enough, how can I make it up to you, oh festival-organising priestess? Maybe a dance around the coloured fires,” he gestures to her brandy stained cloak, “or a drinking contest featuring the famed Agyrian Ichor Brandy?”
The reminder of a stumbling reveller pouring most of a flagon on her, earned Soren an eye roll and a huff. “Later. I've got official matters to attend at the Academy.” The lie was a bitter weight on her tongue. “So why don’t you entertain a crowd of gawkers or something?”
Somehow Soren of Seven Rivers let that slide leaving Nerta ‘the Weaver’ free to shove her way through, with spear in hand, toward the venerable house of learning. The deserted venerable house. Apparently even boring scholars and sages had poured into the city to enjoy the equinox festivities.
Her search reveals dozens of empty study rooms, workshops and libraries, along with an orphaned book in the middle of one hall. That tome earned an experimental prod with her spear, as though it might bite, and in a fashion it did.
“Oh. Don’t touch that or I’ll forget.” An unexpected finger snaps from the side room. “Something… Crystal Cursed! What was it? Oh no.”
Nerta pokes her head around the corner to find a workbench-lined study room that is practically mid-demolition. Every bench is piled with books, tools, and open flames that leave glassware bubbling. Perched atop a tall chair amidst the carnage is a spectacled woman surrounded by papers and dressed in an ink-stained tan shirt and black trousers. Her mountain of blonde hair is piled and pinned hap-hazardly, and her ice-blue eyes dart about the room.
“It wasn’t the translation. Oh. Hello. Do come in. Oh! Careful! Don’t touch that! Wait. Nevermind. That’s safe.” Fidgeting with her quill as Nerta stands motionless in the doorway, the blonde spins like an owl to point to one project after another. “It’s not that. Not that either. Ooo I should turn that off. Hmmm. Wait. Was I supposed to be somewhere? Are you here to get me? Sorry, I’m sorry.”
The seat teeters as the tall woman slips down and darts about the room in a last minute hunt for a jacket against the spring chill. Only Nerta’s steadying spear stops the tall stool from crashing into a bench of delicately carved wooden figures on the left. “I’m not here to collect you. I’m here looking for help, and so far you’re it.”
“Oh? That's good.” The blonde pauses. “I mean! N-Not good that you need help. I-I’m sure you’d rather not… You know. I’m going to stop there.” Breaking into a smile the woman folds her hands in front of her and continues with a musical tone. “Hello! How can I help you?”
Nerta’s precise movements pivot the tall chair out of the way and place her on the other side of the side table ladened with crusty bread and old cheese. “A month back I caught a blade in the arm which turned into a fever a week after. Since I was in prison at the time, the guards weren’t keen on prompt treatment.” The corner of her mouth twitches. “Why waste medical supplies on a prisoner when an army was fast approaching to put the city to siege? I got out, I got even, and I got treatment at the Temple of the Old Gods. I thought it was a full recovery. Until last week.”
Nerta slips her bandaged forearm from under her cloak. The clean linen wrapping is tight, but around the edges of fabric are wriggling black lines that move and twist under her skin. Painless black veins.
The spectacled woman doesn’t seem too worried about the admitted convict or her strange infection, and latches onto Nerta to inspect the limb. An experimental poke of the black veins sets them moving again, leading Nerta to extract her arm from the giggling blonde. “I’m glad it amuses you, Librarian, but can you help?”
Silence fills the room as those ice-blue eyes flicker down the rough appearance of the purple painted guest. “You can’t read.” The arm vanishes back under the cloak with that flat statement. “Because if you could, you'd have gone to the medical wing.”
Insight earns a sour glare. “I've been all over this place and you're the first person I've run into. Can you help or not?”
“Help you learn how to read? That takes time. Help with your arm?” There's a pause as the Librarian glances around while chewing on a stray curl of hair. “Maybe.”
Spinning off, the blonde starts rummaging through various items, still talking as she works. “What happened a week ago that made it worse? Oh. That burner. Should turn that off.”
“I led a group of unprepared Patricians to the Pool of Black Whispers.” Her voice flat, Nerta’s dark eyes glitter in the fading light of the flame. “Right into a conclave of necromancers.”
The Librarian continues to chew on that curl of hair as she pulls a knife from behind the cooling glassware. “That… must have been horrible.”
The cloak rises with a shrug, Nerta’s words barely a whisper. “A shade plucked a strand of dark power from the air and used it to tear free a scream. Now it looks like this, but it doesn't hurt at all.”
The bright eyes of the Librarian seem to read the depths of that strangled anguish. “Oh.” Ruffling a few papers she frowns. “I need the burner, why’s it off? Silly me.” The cheery glow of the flame sparks to life once more and the knife soon dips into the heat. “You were dying. Necromancy, you know? I dabbled. Oh! Not in Necromancy. No no. I-I dabbled in studying Necromancy. Which," the rush of words pauses for a heartbeat, “I’m now realising, is also misleading. Um.”
Nerta sighs and raps her spear on the ground. "Focus Librarian. I understand your meaning. You don't strike me as a cultist to the cursed Crystal Maiden." A brief pause sees the knife slip from the flame now sporting a curl of soot across the edge. "In truth you barely strike me as a scholar, if only because you don't bore me."
“Good… I guess? Um.” The blonde adjusts her spectacles. “The original wound, it must have been from a black blade. Nasty things. Poisonous. Of a sort. The Elixir from the temple might have healed your wound, but it didn't remove that poison.”
Nerta eyes the knife, but sets her jaw. “And you can?”
The blonde pauses for several heartbeats, and when she continues, her voice is soft. “Do you know how they make the black blades? They grow them, in people. It’s a dead thing; that grows…” She shrugs, her voice breathless and sullen. “Necromancy at work.”
Nerta’s dark eyes widen and the arm slips back out of the cloak for inspection. “A black blade? But it doesn’t hurt.”
“Not yet.” The soft voice carries a hint of sadness. “It’s feeding on the pain. Given enough time…” she trails off and fidgets with her hair, “…you’ll lose an arm and get a free sword.” She winces and holds up her free hand. “I know. I know. Bad joke.”
Nerta exhales and leans against the central table piled with books for translation, but can't help a small smile. “I prefer spears and to keep my arms. So what are you going to do, cut it out?”
The woman's puzzled frown turns into a look of shock. “OH! No no, I-I was cleaning the knife so I could cut some lunch. I’m hungry,” her voice straining, “Sorry.”
Nerta sighs and scrubs her face as she rises from the supporting table. “Well thank you for your help, whoever you are. I guess I’d best head to the medical wing.”
The blonde woman cuts a slice off the old cheese and mumbles between bites. “I’m Lucia, and…” setting the cheese and knife next to the wooden figures, she reaches for the bandaged arm to begin unwinding the linen. “…and I don’t think the medical wing can help.”
“Fortune brought you here. This infection isn’t fully physical. Within your arm is a shard of the Necromancer’s malice. It tries to devour you from within. That you’ve survived even a week like this, tells me you might be okay.”
The exposed wound is alien, with pale white flesh along the edge of a blackish core made of a tar-like material that sticks to the bandage. As the long strands snap free of the linen one by one, Lucia pales and puffs her cheeks. “Oooo… you might be okay.”
Though the wound looks worse, it feels no different and Nerta eyes the increasingly alien limb with an air of calm. “So what then? Do I pray to silent Gods for a boon? The Wolf Lord will tell me to heal myself; the Dark Mistress would have me join her in death; the cultists of the Crystal Maiden caused this mess; the Ice Queen fated it all; and the Masked One cares not. Only the Ephemeral Emperor’s good luck has brought me here and you say even the vaunted scholars of the Academy can do nothing. Better to cut off my arm in that case.”
“That the most devout priestess of the Old Gods would offer her arm rather than a prayer tells quite a story.” The blonde smiles and begins to rub Nerta's bicep. “But we’ll save that for another time. Right now, I want you to think about something happy.”
After a heartbeat, Nerta barks out a laugh. “Happy? I’ve had precious little of that, Lucia.”
“I know, I know.” The woman pauses her massage and pushes up her glasses. “But just… try.”
Nerta shrugs and scratches her nose. “The Festival of Lights is… nice. I've not been able to attend one in a few years now.”
“It does sound lovely. All the coloured fires, and the paints for lovers. I think I’d read about it once. Some sort of old Foederati celebration.” Lucia continues to massage Nerta’s arm while the painted woman's gaze hardens.
“Yes…” The lingering silence contains an unspoken question of whether her heritage would be a problem, but Lucia either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.
“And you went for purple paint, the colour of the Eternal Flame here in Agyr. There must be someone special.”
Nerta props one foot against the chair. “An idiot bard with a taste for the exotic.”
“Can you really blame him?” Lucia winks, those fingers digging in just above the wound.
“I can, and do," Nerta's tone dry, mirth dancing in her eyes, "regularly.”
A giggle accompanies a careful massage back up the arm. "Sounds cute. Okay, you've got a bard, a festival. Friends?"
Nerta’s lips compress in a thin line. “I’ve met some I trust, many of them are dead now.”
“Ah.” Though she wilts for a heartbeat, Lucia rallies. “Many, but not all. Does one come to mind?”
“I have a friend, Jacinda. I call her ‘the Driven’.” The Weaver’s voice softens. “She’s a fool; wants to save the world.”
“I see the two of you have something in common…” Fingers trace down the wriggling veins of darkness toward the pool of tar that marked the wound. “Okay, okay. Hobbies?”
The wanderer smiles faintly. “You could say I dabble in weaving.”
“Weaving? Oh. I see. Clever.” Lucia’s chin points down toward her ink-stained shirt. “Maybe you can make me a shirt later.”
Nerta's chuckle at the comment slides into a hiss of pain that tightens her voice. “W-What are you doing?”
“Shhh, it's okay, it's okay. I know it hurts, just think about the good times at the Festival, Soren, your grandmother’s songs. Almost…”
“How…?” Twisting in the grip, something clicks and chitters in the back of Nerta’s mouth. It isn't a tongue. “...Soren. The songs. Priestess. I didn’t say… Y-You're an Auger.”
“Yes dear. Just a bit longer.” The massaging fingers dig in around the wound. Old black fluid, maybe blood, oozes as Nerta’s head swims and Lucia’s voice calls from far away. “You're doing well, your grandmother would be very proud. Just a bit more, focus on the happiest memories, focus on the love. It'll contain the malice.”
Contorting in Lucia's iron grip, Nerta can feel that dark power claw across her insides like a wild animal. The malice scrabbles, desperate for a solid hold and sinks talons into the meat of her heart. But the blonde slowly tears it free all while singing an off-colour drinking song. The hideous darkness does not go quietly and the flailing whip of anguish lashes through the Weaver as she sobs in pain. But the grotesque display was not in vain, and eventually, a thin black needle slips free of the wound.
The sliver of darkness jutting up from Nerta’s forearm pulses as though a beating heart, and begins to vibrate in the open air. Such a tiny thing had caused so much corruption, who can say what the shard of malice might do next. Not waiting to find out, Lucia stabs the cheese onto the needle before wrenching the entire thing free and hurling it into the flame.
Blackish blood is everywhere, splattered across papers, Nerta’s cloak, and Lucia in equal measure. Yet the woman merely smiles cheerfully and dabs at Nerta's rapidly colouring wound. “At least I got a bite of lunch first. Oh, and thanks for not biting me, Nerta. I know that hurt. I'll try to answer your questions while you collect yourself.”
“Yes I'm an Augur and get visions from the Ice Queen. A few months back she showed me that I needed to help someone who’d trip over a specific book in the hall. Well actually two someones. Apparently you today, and maybe this Jacinda later? Visions can be a bit vague in many ways and far too detailed in others.” A fresh bandage is pulled out from behind the wooden figures. “Anyway, everything I told you was true, with one exception. The poison. It’s fed by sadness and loneliness. Familiar companions for you, I'm sure. I'd suggest you lighten up: get a few more friends, hobbies, lovers if that does the trick, but I think you’re actually going to hit me right now…”
Nerta hisses and strikes the woman in the stomach as her jaw settles back into place. “And why not? Crystal Cursed, that hurt and, more importantly, you lied about cutting it out.”
Doubled over, the sneaky Librarian coughs and tries to catch her breath. “No, I misled. A knife wasn’t needed.” Lucia’s cheeks puffing, she exhales slowly. “Besides, the pain wasn’t caused by me but the shard of malice. Opening up, that can hurt but when we do, wonderful things can happen. We got a Festival of Lights because you decided to share part of your people’s heritage. That brings a lot of joy to a lot of folks.” Casting a glance toward the still smouldering wedge of cheese, she continues. “All that joy, friendship and love you’ve found is why I could pull the needle free. If you were still alone as when you started; nothing would have saved you.”
Her face paint smudged, Nerta refuses to turn from those brilliant, ice-blue eyes so full of care. Finally she nods and huffs aside a few stray hairs. “Then I guess I owe you my thanks, and a shirt.”
Lucia can’t fight a growing grin as she inspects her now almost black shirt. “This? I mean I get to run a new experiment. Figure out how the black blades grow.” Her words hitch before coming out in a rush. “Not that I’ll infect someone!” Clearing her throat, the distracted Librarian wrinkles her nose. “Ignoring that: if you’re offering, I'd love a violet shirt. Now head back to the festival and give Soren a kiss. He kind of saved your life. Sort of; Ish.”
The Weaver snorts, collects her spear and shakes her head. “Again? Great. Knowing our luck, I’ll have to save him by next week.”
As Nerta turns to leave, the blonde Librarian calls, “Oh. If you could grab the book about trapdoor spiders in the hall? I have to return it later and get one about pots & kettles.” | 
