Chapter 60 – Buried Sins

  Sinbad dragged the two of them off the main streets and down towards the river. At this time of night and so far from the festival it was dark and near empty, the glowing of his sword and her own flames barely giving them light to see by. The only people around were a couple trying to eat each other’s faces a few blocks away and a drunk passed out next to some ghosts gambling over a game of cards. Not one of them seemed to give their odd little group a single glance.

  On a normal night being alone in the dark with an older man was the kind of thing she’d preferred to avoid, especially when she was still living on the streets. But Sinbad—for all she didn’t personally like the man—had never given her reason fear him in that way. She was more worried he was going to try and press gang her into fighting more Demons for him, like when he had tried to turn her into his agent against the Ambrosi. And if that was going to be the case she was confident that Tintinnia would take her side in telling him off.

  Speaking of—the shorter girl sat at the river’s edge, Malocchio pried open on her lap so she could repair him. Palmira tried not to look too close at what she was doing, lest she lose her stomach to the horrors that lurked within her living mace. Not that the smaller girl minded the gore—she hummed a soft lullaby as she worked, thin tools plucking at thinner organs in the dark.

  Palmira grimaced, looking away. It was probably fine—Sinbad likely understood what her friend was doing far more than she did, and if he was fine with it it couldn’t be too horrible. Blasphemous, perhaps, but after the week’s revelations she found the concept of such sins not as sickening as she might once have.

  Though she would have to wait a bit longer for answers, as the Paladin did not speak. Instead the three of them stared out over the dark waters in silence, the air between them not quite comfortable enough for either of them to relax.

  Then, after what felt like ages, he finally turned to her.

  “First, before we get into anything else, there is something I must do,” he ground the words out, his face twisted like the mere act of admitting such a thing hurt him. “I… have to apologize.”

  “Apologize?” she blinked slowly, her eyes widening in shock. The flames she’d drawn along her arms flickered with her surprise, lighting up the grimace on the older man’s face. “Why? For what?”

  “For not containing Rosalina when I had the chance,” he sighed, rubbing his eyepatch in frustration. “I’ve been hunting her down for years. Through mountains and valleys, to places holy and cursed, across half the damn continent, only for her to suddenly show up here. I had her right in my grasp, and yet…!”

  The Paladin huffed, shaking his head with a scowl. The sword in his hand seemed to dim for a moment, and he closed his remaining eye to center himself. Only once his blade began to shine again did he continue. “I should have stopped her before she could do anything, before she could hurt anybody. And I could have, my chance was there! But each time we fought she laid me low, and I found myself the one running from her.”

  “I mean…” Palmira’s mouth twisted, not having expected that. Somehow, even after their ‘fight,’ she still put the Paladin above the Priestess in her head. The idea that he was the weaker of the two was… more disconcerting than she’d expected. “I always assumed she just got away from you?”

  “Hah. In a manner of speaking, I suppose that is what happened. …But the truth is I am not as strong as I once was. Age and old injuries have been taking their toll, while she only gets ever stronger. So let me make this clear: if Rosalina were not a madwoman with more power than sense, I would be dead. The only reason she did not kill me each time we fought is because in her twisted mind she still considers me a close friend, and despite her god complex she has apparently still saved some room in her heart for mercy.”

  “…Oh,” Palmira said at last. It wasn’t particularly eloquent, but she wasn’t sure what else to say to that. “But if even you can’t defeat her, then what should we do…?”

  “Don’t worry!” Tintinnia stopped what she was doing to grin up at her, pumping a blood-splattered fist. “If she comes back I’ll be there to help you this time, and with the power of friendship the two of us will tear her limb from limb!”

  “You will do no such thing!” Sinbad shot her down immediately, scowling down at her. The pink girl blew an angry raspberry at him in response. “If Rosalina ever stops playing around she could kill you with little more than a glance. Neither of you will seek out that woman, do you understand me?”

  “We understand,” Palmira nodded, cutting off the other girl’s protests. “I wasn’t planning to do that anyways. I don’t have any plans to die any time soon, trust me.”

  “Good,” he sighed. “Good. At least one of you has sense.”

  “Hey!” Tintinnia huffed, angrily pointing a wet scalpel at the man. “I have more brains than everyone else in this city put together!”

  Morte scoffed. “Oh, I very much doubt that.”

  The girl turned her glare on the staff, but begrudgingly corrected herself. “Fine, I have more brains than anyone alive in this city. Happy now?”

  “Not in the slightest,” Sinbad rolled his good eye. “I’ve known you long enough to have learned that intelligence does not equate to wisdom. When you start putting that supposed brain of yours to use in something other than your projects perhaps I might one day change my mind. But until that day comes you will stay away from that woman, no matter what.”

  Tintinnia stewed angrily at that, and the Paladin let her. Instead he turned back to Palmira, his expression even more grave. “Now, I did not only come here to apologize. You spoke with Rosalina, didn’t you? I would hear from your own mouth what she has done, what vile heresies she tried to fill your head with. Even if you don’t know much, every little bit counts if we are going to put her down.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Palmira did not particularly want to relive that night so soon. But she was also aware that this man was one of the few who could potentially stop the mad Priestess, so she swallowed her apprehension and told him what she’d experienced. How Rosalina had been corrupted—or was corrupting?—the Lich-King, how she had a bunch of zombies of old heroes following her around, and of course how she was planning to usurp the Goddess and take her divinity for herself.

  By the time she was done Sinbad had taken to pacing angrily, fists clenched at his sides like he was barely holding himself back from punching something.

  Just in case, she took a step away from him.

  “That crazy, egotistical, mother of a giant…” he snarled, a flood of further obscenities flowing from his lips. “I thought she was bad before, but actively raising the dead…!”

  The light from his sword began to flicker again, and again he stopped himself. Clenching his fists so tight she could hear them pop he stopped, reciting a long prayer under his breath. As the seconds turned to minutes the two girls could only watch him warily as they waited for him to stop.

  Finally, he unclenched his fists, and a great gust of air left his lungs as he slumped.

  “Fuck,” he said at last, brining up the palm of his hand to dig into his eyepatch.

  “Um…” Palmira wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to get his attention, frankly. “Are you okay…?”

  The aging Paladin let out a hollow chuckle, his wrist moving ever more frantically as it dug into his face. Even from so far away, she could swear she could hear something squelch. “No, I don’t think I am.”

  Then, she saw it.

  Dripping slowly from beneath the black cloth came a thin stream of yellow, putrid liquid. It drizzled down his cheek and onto the curve of his lips, like rotten tears painting his face with their sickly decay.

  It was a sight she’d grown far too familiar with over the past days to ever mistake it for anything else.

  “You’ve been corrupted,” she whispered in horror, her mouth moving before she could think.

  The man’s eye snapped to her, and for a moment his face darkened and he reached for his sword.

  Then he flinched as though struck, and with his other hand he dug into his wrist until it let go of the pommel, red blood joining the putrid puss on his arm.

  Sinbad let out a deep, ragged breath. And then with a bitter, exhausted facsimile of a smile, he nodded slowly.

  “Aye,” he rasped, blinking a tear from his good eye. “I am.”

  “But—you’re a Paladin! Surely you could purify yourself!?”

  “My injury is too deep and too old to heal,” he shook his head slowly, forcing his gaze back to the river. “I tried when it first occurred, but nothing I could do could cure the infection. And by the time I got back to the land of the faithful, it had already dug too deep to purge without killing me.”

  “By the time you got back…?”

  “You—supposedly—killed one Demon Lord,” Morte cut in, his voice grave. “And no other. But a man like you—ambitious and good and oh so self-righteous—you’d never stop at one. And for a man who’d lost all his allies to the whispers of the damned, Nytheloph certainly would look like the softest target.”

  “Heh… Is it really so obvious?” he laughed bitterly, nails digging deeper into his arm. “I thought myself strong then. Invincible. But that thing… It dug it tendrils into my skull before I even realized what was going on. And by then it was far too late.”

  Feeling unbalanced Palmira turned to Tintinnia, but the girl had only hunched further over the mace, a deeper frown stretching the skin of her cheeks. She picked at Malocchio with the fervor of someone hoping to lose themselves in their work to escape an ugly truth.

  Finding nothing to help her there she looked back to the Paladin.

  Just in time for his blade to barely miss slicing into her cheek.

  Palmira screamed, stumbling away. Her training allowed her to just barely avoided falling on her ass as she brought Morte up, igniting his skull in an instant. Tintinnia snapped up to join her, starry eyes wide in shock as she jumped to her feet, bringing a barely finished Malocchio to bear against her adopted father.

  “Sinbad—!” she shouted, unsure if she should start burning him, unsure if she could even defeat him in a fight—!

  The Paladin did not make another move. Instead he took a deep, shuddering breath, his eye not looking at her but rather somewhere far beyond. His sword, which had once shined bright enough to light all three of them up alone, had now dimmed to mere steel.

  Then with an act of willpower that looked titanic even from where she stood he stepped back and turned away, returning the blade to its sheath with shaking limbs. It took a full minute for him to do so, his body looking like it was fighting him the whole way.

  “I will not be speaking to you in person again,” his told her tersely, his shoulders slumped in defeat. The muscles in his hands were near popping out of his skin from how much he was straining to keep them at bay. It was so different from how she was used to seeing him that she felt more scared by the sight then when he tried to stab her. “It is too dangerous—for the both of us. The Vile Bastard seems to want you dead for some reason. Maybe you’ve screwed up too many of its plans, maybe it just doesn’t like you. Whatever the reason, it is demanding your blood, and I…” he bit his lip hard enough for it to bleed. “My mind is not in a state right now to ward it off.”

  “Are you—you mean…?”

  “I have held out for years against its influence,” he snapped angrily, before taking a deep breath and muttering more prayer. The light of his blade began to flicker back to life once more, though now it was dimmer than mere minutes ago. “I can hold out a bit longer. …But not everyone else is as willful as I.”

  Sinbad then began to walk away, his steps stiff and forced. But he moved them, cobbles cracking each time his heel touched the stone.

  “Beware the All-Seeing, Palmira di Firozzi,” the Paladin called over his shoulder even as he marched away. “For it has decided you are its enemy, and if yesterday has proven anything it is that this city is not near as safe as any of us might have hoped.”

  That… that was the last thing she wanted to hear!

  Then she felt a tugging on her sleeve. Glancing down, she saw Tintinnia giving her what she thought was a reassuring smile, handing a finished Malocchio back to her. “Don’t worry,” the girl told her, squeezing her arm. “I won’t let anything hurt my only friend, Demon Lord or no. If it wants to hurt you, then I’ll just tear it apart and turn it into a new necklace for you first!”

  Her creepy little friend, as always, seemed to only find ways to worry her more. But… she appreciated the sentiment.

  “Thank you, Tintinnia,” she tried to smile back, but it was a weak thing. “But you’d better not get hurt yourself. I’d be sad if my friend died trying to protect me, you know?”

  If anything, that only made the other girl smile wider. She lunged forward, wrapping her arms around her waist in a tight hug, before turning to chase after Sinbad. As she caught up to the man she slowly—hesitantly—slipped a tiny hand into his. And—just a little—the dying man seemed to relax as he was pulled back into the crowds.

  And Palmira was left alone, with only her weapons for company and a foreboding feeling that refused to leave.

  This would not be the end, she realized grimly.

  No. If anything, she feared things were only beginning.

  here, so it’s not been easy to decide. Ah, well, you’ll all know what I’ve decided come next week.