I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but there it was, plain as day. A wanted poster with a drawing of my face on it. How was it already here? We had only been missing for a few days, maybe a week and already they have distributed posters with drawings to towns? How was it possible to do this in such a short amount of time?
Snatching the poster from my hand, Kona put it back on the board, turned me around and pushed me out of the building.
"People are looking, move."
Once we left the building, we started to head back to the inn where we had all of our belongings. We sat to the side of the street where there were fewer people. Kona pulled me along the whole way. Glancing over her shoulder every so often. I was so fixated on thinking how it was even possible that there was a bounty for me already.
Suddenly, Kona pulled me into a side alleyway.
"We're being followed."
She pulled me into another side alley that was even darker and narrower than the one we were in. We squatted down behind some boxes. Kona's axe was back at the inn. She could easily take someone in a one-on-one fist fight, but if they were armed, that would be a different story.
"How?"
"I don't know much 'bout the church, but I know they are rich and powerful. More so than even I thought it seems."
She peeked over the box I was sitting against and quickly ducked her head back down. Trying to make herself as small as possible to hide behind the box. Our faces were incredibly close to each other, and I knew this wasn't the best time to have these kinds of thoughts, but if I leaned my head forward only slightly.
"Êtes-vous sûr de l'avoir vu?" [Are you sure you saw him?]
"Sa taille et sa carrure semblaient correspondre, mais son visage était couvert." [His height and build seemed to match, but his face was covered.]
"C'est tout? C'est tout ce que tu avais?" [Is that all? Is that all you had?]
"Ils ont dit qu'il pourrait être dans cette ville, cependant. De plus, bien sûr qu'il se couvrirait le visage." [They said he might be in this town, though. Plus, of course he would cover his face.]
"Savez-vous dans quelle direction ils sont partis?" [Do you know which direction they went in?]
"Non, retournons simplement sur la route principale. S'ils ne sont pas d'ici, ils vont se perdre dans les petites routes. Nous finirons par les repérer." [No, let's just go back to the main road. If they're not from around here, they'll get lost on the small roads. We'll find them eventually.]
"D'accord, prévenez-moi si vous le voyez ou si vous voyez cette femme géante. Je vais vérifier par là." [Okay, let me know if you see him or that giant woman. I'll check over there.]
We heard one of the pairs of footsteps getting closer and closer. We heard a blade being drawn as the footsteps stopped. Both of us wanted to look, but if he didn't know we were here yet, looking would seal our fate.
"Je sais qu'il y a quelqu'un là-bas." [I know there's someone there.]
I looked down slightly and closed my eyes for a moment, opening them again as I mouthed the word 'fuck'. Kona knew instantly. She cocked her head to the side suddenly, giving me a signal to run. I looked up at her, confused. I shook my head slightly, and she smiled and gave me a nod. She must have had a plan, whatever it was. Either way, I trusted her.
I leapt to my feet and bolted away from the man who was following us.
"Arrête là, petit merdeux!" [Stop right there, you little shit!]
The man started to run after me. I glanced over my shoulder to look at him. He was taller, older. A full-grown man with a beard and a large frame. As I glanced back, I saw Kona still hiding by the box. She extended her hand out and grabbed the man's ankle, causing him to trip and fall forward.
"Ah! Espèce de salope!" [Ah! You bitch!]
As I reached the end of the path, it split into two directions. I stopped and looked back to see the man swipe his sword towards Kona. The blade cut her forearm. With a yelp, she released her grip, and he scurried to his feet, facing Kona. She held onto her bleeding arm as she stood, raising her fists.
The man's back was to me, his sword pointed at Kona. Kona didn't have a weapon. If either of them fought the other, she could easily die in a few seconds if this man could handle his sword well. She had no way to block or defend herself against the blade. She would have to disarm him right away, or she would die.
Without even realising, I had started moving; I was in a full sprint towards the man. It was just like last time, on the boat. As I rushed towards him, he spun on the spot, hearing me approach. His sword raised high, came swinging down towards me. This wouldn't end like last time.
As his sword plummeted towards me, I stopped, braced my arm, opened my hand and caught it. Gripping the blade, I felt it digging into my flesh. Compared to the blades carried by metonym soldiers, this one was dull. With a squeeze of my hand and twist of my wrist, the blade snapped in two. I took a half step forward and, with my other hand, drove a punch into the man's stomach as hard as I could.
He hunched forward with a gagged cough but immediately fell silent. I was expecting his move, pull away, counterattack. Nothing happened. But my left hand, the one I had punched him with, felt warm and very wet.
Pulling my hand back released a torrent of blood onto the floor, followed by long, stringy entrails. Looking down at my blood-soaked hand. Under all the red, the shape of my hand had changed. My fingers looked pointed and slightly larger than normal. As I looked at them, I saw the shape change; they grew smaller and more round. I flicked my wrist to remove some of the blood; my skin looked pure black, but the colour was fading rapidly, returning to the normal colour of my skin.
The man collapsed onto the ground, and I took a few steps back to avoid the growing pool of blood on the floor. I looked up from my hand to Kona, who stepped over the body and towards me, hugging me.
"Will you ever let me save you for a change?"
I was surprised she wasn't shocked by what I had just done. No human could literally punch a hole in someone like that. But did I punch? I don't remember closing my fist. What was with the fingers? And the colour of the skin? Was that you, Wrath? If you won't tell me now, at least tell me in my dreams. I know you're able to show me things there.
The two of us tried to sneak our way back to the inn through the back roads for what felt like hours. After all, if I walked on a road full of people with my arm covered in blood, that would get the guards' attention very fast. We tried not to get too far away from the main road, but the side roads split off in random directions, some leading to narrow roads that were hard to walk through and some very wide and full of people.
As we walked, we were lucky enough to come across a ground pump for drawing water. Kona pumped water, and we used it to wash my arm clean so we could go back onto the main road once again. We were near the inn, so it wouldn't take long. I told Kona that they had people on the road looking for us, so sticking to the back roads was safer, but the entrance to the inn was directly on the main road.
By the time it started to get dark, we had found the inn, coming out of a narrow path you had to squeeze through sideways to fit. We walked around to the main road and quickly entered the inn. Not stopping, we walked straight up the stairs and to our room.
How many of the people at the inn, eating dinner or drinking, were after us? How many of the people who looked our way recognised us? Was this room even safe?
If I cleaned my arm thoroughly at the washstand with a wet rag, I couldn't help thinking about it. From the back of my head, I heard his whispers. They were quiet and disjointed. More like loud thoughts he was letting me hear rather than direct communication, but I understood it all the same. Wrath was taking a long time to adapt to my body; he thought he was only half integrated. But the more he integrates, the more we become one, the more of his power I can use. His power is in his hands and arms. Wrath, violence before weapons, was of course carried out with hands. To punch, rip and tear. So it was that part of my body that would change first.
I wondered what that would mean in the long term. Would my hands or my whole arms change like that permanently? Would my fingers become clawed and only good for killing? Would other parts of my body change as well? Either way, for now, I noticed I felt stronger.
As I was washing my arm, Kona came up behind me.
"Did you notice it as well, when we came in?"
"Yeah… Should we sleep in shifts?"
"Maybe, we could barricade the door with something so nobody can get in."
"How about both. The Bounty sum was quite large."
Still, it's hard to even imagine that amount of money. 50,000 franks. Back home, a hard day's work would only get me a few. If they know where I am, for that amount of money. I have no idea what someone might try.
Once we were clean, we ate from the rations we bought that day rather than leaving the room to eat. We locked the door, and Kona placed a heavy bookshelf in front of it. We packed our bags to be ready to leave at a moment's notice, as soon as the sun started to rise the next day, and decided to take shifts sleeping.
I took first watch as Kona slept. There was a chair in the corner of the room that I moved to sit near the door to the balcony so I could keep an eye on the rooftops. It would be impossible for anyone who saw us enter or go upstairs to know exactly what room we're in. But it wouldn't hurt to be safe.
As Kona slept, the lights in the street below began to be extinguished one by one by a lamplighter. The faint candlelight from the windows began to extinguish, and silence fell.
It was an eerie quiet, something I was not familiar with. Back home at night, we had the faint noises of things in the woods nearby and the wind dancing through the trees. Even in Vilta's sky prison, the wind was constant and noisy. But this was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat, and I could hear Kona's breathing. I could hear a faint, crackling sound.
Confused, I turned my head, trying to find where that sound was coming from. It came from the hallway. As I got closer, the strange sound grew. It sounded like something I've heard before. How long had I been sitting here in the quiet dark? Was I hearing things from downstairs? It sounded like the kitchen.
Then, as I placed my hands on the bookshelf, my hands felt warm. I placed my hands on the metal doorknob that stuck out next to the bookshelf. It was hot. Of course, I knew that sound all too well from my mother in the kitchen back home; it was the sound of wood burning.