Chapter 46: Chapter 46: Doomheart

Nay had hidden the black rose from the strange man inside one of the inner-pockets of her cloak. Her arms were wrapped around Ilyawraith as the eddy of snow carried them across the frigid sky.

The Wraith of the Moving Ice never asked about the man Nay had met. Nay wondered if she even knew of their meeting. She had known when she had collected the fifth vigama. Her teacher had shown up shortly after she saw the prompt on her interface.

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[Quest Complete!]

[Catch 5 Vigama Completed!]

[Congratulations!]

[You have been rewarded Vigor Points]

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Again, more golden vigama had descended out of the sky and flown into her, merging into her veins. Then the rush of dopamine indicating her vigor was upticking again.

Somehow, Ilyawraith had known when she had caught all the vigama. Maybe she had put an enchantment on the jar or something that notified her when it was full. Was it possible her teacher was watching her?

Yet, Ilyawraith didn’t seem to know about her odd meeting with the man with void-black hair and starry eyes. Did the man have powerful magic to cloak his presence?

These were the thoughts tumbling around in Nay’s head when they arrived at the iceberg, flying into the eye-socket cavern of Ianthe.

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Quincy had done some ice-fishing while Nay was chasing around vigama in the Frozen Vale. There was a special area near the bottom of the berg where fishing holes had been cut out of the ice. He had placed his catch in a pool that was towards the back of the hearth chamber, where Ilyawraith kept her seafood alive and fresh.

“Let’s see what you brought to me,” Ilyawraith said, walking over to the pool. She pointed at each one. “Sanguine Salmon. Icestone Tuna. And some Darkfall Yellowtail. Very nice, Quincy. I’ll make a fisherman out of you, yet.”

“There’s something peaceful about ice-fishing,” Quincy said. “I can enjoy the silence without having to relive all the mistakes I’ve made in my head. Maybe I need to get out here more often.”

Nay glanced at Quincy.

What does he mean by that? Mistakes he’s made?

“If you do that, you better make sure you’re never followed,” Ilyawraith said. “Otherwise I’ll have to find a new place to live.”

“Only a madman would come to the Caraxe Strait.”

“It’s the mad men that concern me,” Ilyawraith said. “Especially the ones with long memories.”

“They’re too concerned with their politics and scheming and backstabbing on the Peninsula. The Ligeia families are too busy dealing with each other than to worry about a hermit. The Grand Chessboard requires blind obsession.”

“Maybe so. But the Orsonnen family does not forget.”

Nay fixed herself a cup of pink coral tea and went and sat in front of the blue flames, warming herself. The tea was soothing and she could sense a saltiness to it, which made her think of a good broth.

But yet it had the lightness and astringency of a pleasant green tea.

The brew method still consisted of seeping the tea in hot water, but instead of actual leaves or plant matter and herbs, it was more like mixing the water with a matcha-like substance derived from the coral. It was a pink, chalky powder.

Ilyawraith used a net to collect the fish for their meal. She bled and gutted them and packed them in ice.

Nay had dozed off, lying in front of the fire. She awoke to the sound of a spoon stirring liquid in a bowl.

Ilyawraith had a pot of rice made and Nay sat up and saw that she was stirring a sauce. She sniffed and could smell the vinegar in the air. She had probably combined it with sugar and salt and was making rice vinegar.

Her teacher had orange-pink, red-orange and pink cubes of fish flesh sitting on the table.

Sushi!

Ilyawraith poured the vinegar mixture into her bowl of rice and started mixing it, making sure to get the vinegar on every single grain.

Nay wiped the sleep from her eyes and observed Ilyawraith assemble the rolls. She took a sheet of nori and laid it out on the table and started scooping the rice onto the sheet.

Of course she has nori, Nay thought. She’s using dried seaweed as foot mats in this place.

Next Ilyawraith picked up her knife. The handle looked like it was made out of yellow coral. She began carving slashes of Sanguine Salmon. She placed them on top of the rice and then rolled it all together.

She even had a makisu, the woven map to shape the roll. It didn’t look like bamboo though, but some other type of dried plant matter.

It was calming to watch her work, and when she was done, she cut the rolls of Sanguine Salmon, Icestone Tuna and Darkfall Yellowtail and put them on a platter of ice.

/////////

They were all eating in front of the blue hearth.

Nay looked at her plate of sushi in awe. There was even some type of fermented sauce she could use for dipping. She dipped a pinkie finger in, it was salty like soy sauce but the color was more of a light caramel. But it served the same purpose.

She picked up a piece of the Sanguine Salmon and was blown away by the striations of color on the meat. She took a bite and was hit with how fresh it was. Because of her taste buds, she couldn’t appreciate it fully. But she knew this straddled that line between fishiness and vinegary tartness that all good sushi has.

If she ever wanted to cry because of her ruined taste buds, now was an appropriate time.

But she did enjoy how soft and pleasing the texture was. There was the crunch of the nori and the vinegary chewiness of the rice. Together it was all the perfect bite.

There was no talking for a few minutes, as all of them were enjoying their food too much.

One doesn’t simply interrupt the sacred moment between an eater and a tasty bite prepared expertly and with love.

Nay waited for Ilyawraith to finish before she spoke. “I didn’t know this world had sushi.”

“Sushi?” Ilyawraith said.

“Yeah, this dish,” Nay said. “Fish and rice, as you prepared it.”

“I’ve always just known it as hapan kalasta. Sour rice and fish.”

“Oh, in my world we call it sushi.”

Nay was struck with a stray thought, then. On her interface, whenever Quincy appeared in the quest logs, the first time being the boss battle with the Nether Sister, his name had appeared as –

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[Quincy the Doomhearted]

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“Quincy,” Nay said. “I have a question.”

He was eating his sushi with laser focus. As if the only things that existed in the world were him and his Darkfall Yellowtail roll. He merely grunted at Nay’s voice and took another bite.

“Why are you called The Doomhearted?”

Quincy and Ilyawraith both stopped chewing and looked at her. Then they glanced at each other.

Quincy swallowed, pulled out of his special moment with the sushi. “Where did you hear that?”

“It’s on my interface,” Nay said. “That’s how you’re named, ‘Quincy the Doomhearted’. Plus, I heard you call yourself that when we first got here.”

“It’s kind of heavy conversation while we eat,” Ilyawraith said.

Quincy brushed flecks of rice from his mustache. “It’s okay.”

He set his plate next to him and wiped rice vinegar off his hands with a cloth. He got up, walked over to Ilyawraith’s wine rack and selected a green bottle of mead. He popped it open and guzzled.

When he was done he rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand and sat down. When he finally spoke his voice was unnaturally quiet. “My sister and I didn’t come from noble blood. Far from it.”

He looked into the blue fire, the flames reflecting in his pupils as he visited the past.

“We were the children of a blacksmith. We were able to become Marrow Eaters because we had enlisted in the Ligeia Military and we had both risen through the ranks, becoming officers. The military was the only viable option for us to increase our social standing, because we could attain titles through service and deeds. Once we became officers, we earned the right to become Marrow Eaters through the DMA.

“After our shining service in the Ligeia League, Quella and I took two different paths. As a Marrow Eater, she had taken skill trees that veered her towards the study of stealth and assassination. She became a valuable member of the Thieves Guild.

“Me? I became an adventurer. I craved the rush of taking monster contracts and hunting for Delicacy and Marrow. While I was making a name for myself with my party, Quella was becoming something of a feared name in the criminal underworld of the city-states on the Peninsula, specifically in Delicatessa and San Violeta.

“If you were an individual with some considerable coin and you wanted someone dead, and I mean, guaranteed dead, no mess-ups, then you hired Il Fantasma, the name of an assassin spoken in whispers within the Thieves Guild and the criminal underworld.”

“That was Quella,” Nay said. “Il Fantasma.”

Quincy nodded. The blue hearth crackled, the only noise in the silence, save for the echoing drip of water.

“My sister was stubborn. And passionate. When she wanted something, there was no talking her out of it. She was hard-headed and we had a lot of fights because of it.

“So there was no convincing her that having an affair with Prince Furio was a bad idea. She was going to continue her romance with one of the most powerful people in San Violeta. The Furios were the family in control of the city. They represented San Violeta in the Ligeia League.

“It was only a matter of time before his wife discovered her husband’s indiscretion. In response, Lady Vittoria sent all of the assassins under the employ of the Furio family after my sister.

“The Fall of Il Fantasma is a well-known modern tale in the Ligeia League. But my sister didn’t go down without a fight. She killed six Bronze Rank Marrow Eaters in a fight that destroyed the canal district of San Violeta.

“But in the end, there were too many of them and they overwhelmed her.

“Lady Vittoria had Quella’s head on display in front of Palazzo Furio for a day. But her husband, grief-stricken and still in love with my sister, had it and the pike it sat on taken down.

Quincy took another swig from the bottle. His eyes glistened with tears. Then his face hardened and he continued.

“I went to great lengths to get the one Delicacy I knew would be appropriate for my revenge.”

“The Bile of the Plaguemonger,” Nay said.

“There were rumors of a horrific calamity that befell the island of Vynia. That a terrible plague had run through most of the population and sailors were warned to stay away from the island. I paid a Seer, one who had the power to observe and see and spy on places far away, to tell me what she saw.

“The cause of the plague was a man who had come to the island, a man who had the power to spread disease. He didn’t even have to draw weapons or raise his fists to take over the island. Once one person got sick, it ran through the whole population. A terrible affliction of fever, exploding boils and blood rot.

“This man made his dwelling in the deceased Governor’s mansion.

“I pled my case to my adventuring party and they agreed to make him our next job.

“Half of my adventuring party died helping me take down the Plaguemonger, an Entrophist from the Phantomhead Empire, a land far from here to the south on another continent. He had come to Vynia because of some slight one of their diplomats made to him while in the Phantomhead.

“The fight…is not something I will ever forget. Fighting and killing monsters requires courage. But fighting and killing another person requires…sometimes it can require a part of your soul. It was easy for me though, after seeing what he had done to the people of Vynia. And my heart was willing to do anything to avenge Quella.

“When the Entrophist was dead I butchered him for the Delicacy. I bribed an Epicurist to prepare and activate it for me. He made the Bile into a red sauce I ate over a culotte, a cut severed from the cap of beef sirloin. It was Ignatius beef, extremely expensive. It was cooked on a grill over winterwood and seasoned with Vancian salt.

“It was one of the most delicious steaks I ever had.

“With the Delicacy acquired and consumed, I took the remainder of the coin I had accumulated over decades of soldiering and adventuring and I hired the most-skilled and most sadistic mercenaries I could find from the Company of the Black Rose.”

Nay sucked in her breath at that phrase and thought of the rose tucked into the inner-pocket of her cloak.

“We infiltrated Palazzo Furio during the Feast of San Violetta del Carro. Dispatching the guards was easier than I thought. I infected the first one I cut down with Gertrude. The plague spread through his comrades with surprising speed.

“By the time we were shedding blood in the dining hall, the disease and sickness I wrought spread through the Furio family, their servants and their friends with a shocking celerity.

“Imagine that in one moment you’re feasting, and the next you’re being attacked by Marrow Eater mercenaries of the Black Rose. Perhaps it was overkill to rub unholy disease into their wounds.

“I killed Lady Vittoria with no hesitation or remorse. She tried to beg for her life, but I swung Gertrude before she could make her appeal. I felt no satisfaction watching her head roll down the stairs of the Palazzo Furio dining hall.

“I let her husband live. It wasn’t his fault that my sister chose to love him. I watched him trip on the stairs in his wife’s freshly spilled blood. He scrambled out of the hall, all dignity absent, and that’s the last I ever saw of him.

“As I went to step out of the hall and leave the Palazzo, a woman’s voice begged for my attention. It was Duchess Strega, Lady Vittoria’s mother.

“She said, ‘I curse you! I put a curse upon you for this pox you put on my family. As long as you wield your axe, as long as you wield your bow, you will be known as The Doomhearted! Your heart a day closer to death for every life you take! For each life you steal, you will be robbed of yours! Now go Doomheart, go and take death with you!’”

“She died then, succumbing to the plague that moved through her body, turning her organs to soup.”

He finished the bottle of mead.

“It’s funny,” Quincy said. “I think she pulled it off. Because whenever I wield Samuel and Gertrude, whenever I take a life, my heart flutters. Like a wounded bird.”

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