Page 29 of Of Blood & Stone

“Oh please, you love hearing about the monsters in Lhaal. Besides, they’re only here to exchange their orodyte,” Sylzenya said. “Thenthey’ll talk for hours about their adventures.”

“Just because the forest interests me doesn’t mean I want to hear them boast for an eternity,” she said, “And just when I was hoping to get a break.”

Sylzenya rolled her shoulders back as two Dynamies approached. She recognized them, one with black hair and golden skin, the other with long red hair and a pale complexion covered with endless freckles.

Nyla’s face flushed while Sylzenya cursed under her breath.

“Morning, Nyla,” Marlo, the Dynami with black hair, greeted. “And you as well, Sylzenya. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Sylzenya smiled with everything but her eyes, while Nyla crossed her arms.

“It has,” Nyla replied, “seems you two have been busy. Are days like this ideal for swinging swords at monsters?”

“Fancy you say such things, because wedidjust get back from a mission in the forest.” Westley, the Dynami with red hair, said with a broad smile.

“You don’t say?” Sylzenya said, looking at the blood and gashes on their arms, “I would’ve never known.”

“Not a fault of yours by any means,” Westley replied, “We know living life in the temple must be limiting in your understanding of what happens outside of it. Perhaps, one day, we might be able to convince the High One to let you leave these grounds and experience something… a bit different.”

In your dreams, Westley.

Memories of their night together three years prior flashed through Sylzenya’s mind. Sweat-stained skin, clumsy touches, and a naivete she wished she could forget. Despite the celibacy law for both Kreenas and Dynameis, it was rarely followed. It’d been the first and only time she’d done anything outside of the High One’s rules, an experience Nyla had convinced her needed to happen at some point to “get it out of the way.” When Sylzenya had returned that night, she promptly decided she preferred the rule, which is why she’d denied Westley’s advances ever since.

Whenever she found pleasure, it would be by her own hand, which proved far more skilled. So, despite Sylzenya’s instinct to throw her disheveled plum at the Dynami’s oversized head, she smiled.

“Afraid we’re rather busy nowadays,” she replied.

Westley’s confident demeanor faltered. Sylzenya took another bite of plum.

“Anyways,” Marlo interrupted—thank gods, “Do either of you have any fresh orodyte we might be able to take off your hands? Ours have run dry.”

He revealed two pieces of clear stone, a myriad of colors reflecting in the soft sunshine.

“You ran out ofboth?” Nyla asked, reaching into her robe’s pockets, which Sylzenya knew held four pieces of glowing orodyte.

“We went up against an ichthys,” Marlo replied, “nearly lost one of our newest recruits to it.”

Marlo looked at Sylzenya and Nyla expectantly.

“Never heard of an ichthys,” Sylzenya finally said.

“You don’t know what anichthysis?” Westley asked. “By the gods, it’s only one of Lhaal’s most deadly creatures. Surely even Kreenas know that.”

“Then how’d you manage to escape it?” Sylzenya asked, a genuine question, yet she knew her tone would cause Westley to bristle.

It worked.

Marlo replied, “An ichthys is an aquatic creature invisible to the naked eye. They’re the rarest in Lhaal, but not extinct by any means. Westley and I hadn’t encountered one before. We were just filling our waterskins at a pond when someone pointed out a strange black cloud in the water, but one of our recruits had already drunk his fill.”

“Dying by infected water sounds like a rather unimpressive way to die in that place,” Nyla said, pulling out two of the glowing orodytes.

Nyla offered two of her orodytes, keeping her other two in her pocket, sticking to the Kreenas’ codes of creation. If Dynameis seek to exchange their orodyte during their shifts,Kreenas may offer half of the orodyte stones they filled. The other half must be brought to the temple to be distributed fairly amongst the warriors.

“Oh, no, the ichthys’ poison doesn’t kill you,” Marlo said, accepting one of the stones. “It controls you.”

Sylzenya and Nyla stilled.

Westley took the other piece. “It’s true. The ichthys secretes a toxin into the water, and you don’t even have to drink it to be infected. If it gets in your mouth, eyes, what have you, then the ichthys has control over your whole self. Mind, body—even soul.”

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