I raised a brow, letting a slow, saccharine smile bloom across my face. “Pyre? My, my, your Holiness, what a *charming* greeting. One might think you’d rejoice to see the Radiant Chantry’s blessed maiden returning to the fold.” I gestured vaguely at the snarling, blind boy still clutched firmly against my chest. “Especially when she brings in a fresh lamb for the altar… I mean, *sacred purification*.” His pale blue stare twitched toward the sodden heap in my arms. The cruciform sword, spitting white-hot solar fire, dipped an inch. “Purification? This… *thing*? It reeks of the Undercroft, Vakarė. A blight, not a blessed soul.” “A blight easily scrubbed by an anointed touch, wouldn’t you agree, Excellency?” My grin drew taut, bare teeth catching the glare. “Consider it a field trial for my divine efficacy. Proof that even cellar filth yields to the sun.” I patted Ignas’s head, ignoring the way his muscles tensed under my palm. “Besides, he needs a good scrubbing. And a proper meal. He’s much too skinny to be an effective… *vessel*.” Giedrius slipped forward, ink-stained wool rustling against the wet cobbles. “Indeed, Eminence. The maiden's mercy knows no limits. She claims even the lost dregs of Jūrapolis. A spectacle of devotion that will charm the plaza mobs before the Solstice rites.” The cleric's mouth tightened as his glance darted across my grin, Giedrius’s bow, and the coiled boy at my hip. The blade's radiance sputtered down to an orange hiss. Publicly immolating an anointed maiden for hauling stray vermin into the sanctuary would sour the guildmasters before winter. The people loved a redemption story, even if I was the one writing it with a bloody quill. “Very well,” the prelate bit out, words sharp as gravel. “He remains interned within the Sunken Cloister. Shackled under guard. And you will justify this idiocy before the Grand Conclave at dawn.” “Perish the thought, my lord,” I chirped, dropping into a theatrical curtsy. “Lead on. My new stray is famished for sanctified mercy. And lye soap. Mostly soap.” He pivoted on his heel, steel sabatons grinding against the flagstones as his retinue flanked the lane. Giedrius let out a tiny, almost imperceptible sigh of relief. “You know,” Giedrius muttered beside me, keeping stride as Ignas stiffened in my grasp, “for an insurgent, you recite their scripture like a fanatic.” “It’s all about presentation, my dear scribe,” I replied, a cheerful lilt in my voice. “And a complete lack of shame. Now, let’s get this little terror fed before he decides to bite the hand that tends him.” The Sunken Cloister, usually a place of hushed reverence and chilling austerity, felt particularly opulent tonight. We navigated its labyrinthine passages, the gleaming polished obsidian floors reflecting the soft glow of blessed oil lamps. I skipped the common dispensary and aimed straight for the kitchen vaults—a granite hall smelling of rendered lard, burnt rosemary, and cooling brick. It was abandoned at this late hour, save for a few glowing embers in the massive hearths. “Right,” I declared, depositing Ignas unceremoniously on a sturdy wooden prep table. He stumbled slightly, his blind eyes scanning the emptiness, before righting himself with unnerving grace. “Operation: Fatten the Feral Fido begins now.” I pulled a heavy iron chopper from the magnetic strip. The flat metal slapped the pine block. Ignas twisted toward the sound, heels anchoring into the table, nostrils flared like an alley hound scenting wolves. “At ease, sunshine,” I said, tapping the iron spine against the wood. “This is for marrow, not your throat. Not tonight, anyway.” I filled the largest copper pot I could find with water, setting it on a high flame. Then, I turned my attention to a neglected scullery, a small, enclosed space with a surprisingly deep, stone-carved basin. It was meant for soaking large cooking implements, but it would do. I filled it with steaming hot water, adding a generous handful of lavender salts from a nearby jar. “Strip,” I commanded, turning back to Ignas, who was still stiffly perched on the table. “And don’t make me do it. I keep up appearances, even if you don't.” Ignas remained motionless, a statue carved from suspicion and resentment. Dirt and dried scab crusted the pale skin over his cheekbones. “I don’t take orders,” he rasped, his voice a low growl. “Oh, you will,” I hummed, snatching a hemp towel from the drying line. “Hot water and broth carry far more leverage than pulpit nonsense.” When he still didn’t move, I sighed theatrically. “Fine. Have it your way.” I stalked over, and with a swift, practiced motion, began unfastening the crude leather buckles of his jerkin. His body went rigid under my touch, a low, guttural sound rumbling in his throat. I ignored it, peeling back the filthy layers of his clothing, revealing a landscape of old scars, fresh bruises, and the unnervingly lean musculature of someone who survived on the knife-edge of starvation. “Such a mess,” I clucked, pushing him gently towards the makeshift tub. “Into the water, you. Don’t worry, I won’t look. Much.” Ignas hesitated at the lip of the basin, his feet scraping against the stone. Then, with a grunt of what sounded like reluctant defeat, he lowered himself into the steaming water. A hiss of pain escaped his lips as the heat met his raw skin, but he quickly suppressed it. I turned my back, rummaging through a pantry for ingredients. Soon, a rich, savory aroma filled the air. I’d found a pot of slow-simmered bone broth – beef, I thought, with hints of star anise and ginger – still warm on a back burner. I ladled it into a bowl, the steam rising in fragrant tendrils. I walked back to the scullery, bowl in hand, and found Ignas submerged up to his chin, his head leaning back against the cold stone, eyes still sightless but seemingly lost in thought. His usually tense shoulders had relaxed a fraction. “Here,” I murmured, lifting a ceramic ladle of broth. “Open up.” He tensed again. “I can feed myself.” “You’ll slop it over the scrubbed tiles,” I replied, edging the porcelain rim to his lower lip. “And wasting fat is an unforgivable offense.” He glared in the direction of my voice, then, to my surprise, parted his lips. The first spoonful of broth was a revelation. His milky pupils fixed on nothing as his throat worked, swallowing hard. A small shiver broke the knot in his shoulders. I ladled another measure, then another, the ginger and marrow settling the hollow in his ribs until his parted jaw simply waited for the rim. Suddenly, the water in the basin began to churn. Not gently, like disturbed bathwater, but violently, as if a creature thrashed beneath the surface. Ignas’s head snapped up, a primal growl tearing from his throat, his hands instinctively reaching for an invisible weapon. The lavender-scented steam thickened, swirling into a darker, more viscous mist. From the churning gray brine, a sinuous spine of blackened gristle breached the surface, clawed forelegs hooking over the basin's edge. Its head was a gaping maw, but what truly caught my eye was the faint, pulsing glow embedded in its forehead: a small, silver sigil. “Oh, for the love of the Radiant Mother,” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “Seriously? In *my* bath? Do you know how hard it is to get bloodstains out of blessed stone?” I snatched the carbon-steel chopper off the counter. The creature shrieked—a rasp of wet slate—and lunged. Ignas launched his wet heel upward, smashing the creature's chest and deflecting it across the tiles. I stepped into the arc, driving the weighted edge down with two hands. The blade crunched through vertebra and gristle into the flagstones. The skull bounced across the tile floor in a smear of black bile, its jaws snapping empty air before dissolving into acrid soot. In the tub, the carcass melted into oily grease that turned the lavender water murky. “Rude,” I muttered, scrubbing the edge clean against an oiled rag. “Ash in my stockpot.” Giedrius, who had been standing frozen in the doorway, finally found his voice. “Vakarė… what was that *thing*?” I tapped the weapon against the flagstones toward the dissolving pulp. “Looks like an Umbral construct from your former syndicate, Giedrius. Slipping an ambush into the cloisters is unusually brazen.” Giedrius approached the monstrous head cautiously, his brow furrowed. “Yes, it’s… definitely from the Umbral Hand. An off-the-shelf syndicate puppet. But…” He knelt, his fingers carefully probing the thrall’s forehead, right where I’d seen the pulsing sigil. “This isn't guild craft. The stitching belongs to the order above.” He picked something small, metallic, and gleaming from the thrall’s dissolving skull. He held it up, his face pale with dawning horror. “It’s a Chantry seal. The Mark of the Sacred Flame.”

Baths, Broth, and Bloodshed