The infirmary air hung thick with the medicinal tang of galingale poultices and the sickly-sweet scent of decay. Gas-lamps cast long, flickering shadows across the white-draped cots, illuminating dust motes dancing in the heavy quiet. Sivani, her movements precise and unhurried, dabbed a fresh compress onto the wound gaping in Rochus’s chest. The gray-green rot had already begun its tireless crawl, a fractal pattern of decay spreading from the edges of the jagged tear in his flesh. She worked without a sound, her gaze fixed on the intricate patterns the ashen filaments were forming. Each pulse of decay, each new vein of corruption, was a detail she cataloged, an input for the loom of her mind. This was not a man’s pain, but a dynamic, evolving canvas. Her brow was smooth, her lips a thin, unmoving line. She dipped a length of fine, silver thread into a vial of phosphorescent ichor, its glow muted against the gloom. This was no ordinary stitchery; these were containment wards, woven with the precise knowledge of energy flux and spirit binding. Rochus mumbled, a low, guttural sound that barely disturbed the silence. His skin was slick with fever, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. His eyes, when they fluttered open, were glassy and unfocused, fixed somewhere beyond Sivani’s shoulder. “My… my father’s prize grimoire. Burned. For a single line of light,” he rasped, his voice raw. He coughed, a wet, rattling sound, and the necrotic bloom on his chest seemed to pulse with renewed vigor. Sivani continued her work, her needle arcing gracefully, securing the glowing threads into the edges of the wound, forming a protective lattice. “The light was worth more than the book, then,” Sivani said, her voice even, devoid of inflection. She did not look at his face, her attention solely on the spreading corruption. Rochus’s hand, surprisingly strong despite his weakened state, shot out and seized her wrist. His touch was burning, his skin clammy. Sivani paused, her needle hovering. She did not flinch, did not pull away. His grip was a minor inconvenience, a distraction from the task at hand. “You…” he whispered, his eyes now finding hers, though still glazed with delirium. A faint, almost imperceptible tremor ran through his hand. “You saw it. You saw the purpose. The beauty in the ruin. Where others… saw only ash.” His words slurred, but the intensity in his gaze was stark. “I hated it. Hated that you… that you did not break. When the water came. When the dyes were spoiled. When the looms shattered.” His grip tightened, bruising. “I wanted to see it. The… the fall. The tears. The… the ordinary sorrow.” Sivani watched him, her expression unchanging. She saw the fever, the fear, the strange admiration twisting his features. Her pulse remained steady. He was, in his own way, offering her a confession of his own craft – the careful cultivation of cruelty, the expectation of predictable human fragility. “But you did not fall,” Rochus continued, a dark, desperate admiration coloring his tone. “You stood. You… you built beauty from the wreckage. You saw what was there. What I… I could not.” His thumb stroked the back of her hand, a strange, hesitant gesture against her bleeding palm, the tiny pinpricks from her relentless weaving still visible. “You are a stone. A diamond in the muck. Unyielding. I… I see it now. I want to… to know how.” His eyes, briefly, cleared. The delirium receded just enough for a flicker of intense, almost painful lucidity. He fumbled beneath his pillow, pulling out a slender object carved from dark, polished wood, intricately inlaid with silver filigree. It was a spindle, ancient and clearly precious, radiating a faint, steady hum that spoke of deep enchantment. “The Spindle of the First Patriarch,” he breathed, pressing it into her hand. His grip on her wrist finally loosened. “My ancestors’ most prized possession. Unbreakable. It… it always finds the truest thread. May it… may it serve you in this… this monstrous task.” His voice faded, and his eyes rolled back, his breathing becoming shallow and ragged again. Sivani closed her fingers around the spindle. It felt warm, alive, humming softly against her skin. She examined its smooth, dark surface, the subtle swirl of energy within its core. A valuable tool. An interesting development. She placed it carefully beside her work tray, then resumed her weaving, the silver threads now glowing with a sharper, more urgent light. Just then, a piercing shriek echoed through the quiet infirmary, tearing through the medicated calm. The sound was not human, not quite, but a mangled, desperate wail that vibrated along the floor tiles. Footsteps, heavy and uneven, scrambled down the corridor, accompanied by a sickening squelch. The door to the infirmary burst open with a splintering crash, revealing Jeshka. Her clothes were torn, her hair matted with grime and something dark and glistening. Her face was half-covered in the tell-tale gray-green rot, a tendril of decay snaking from her left eye socket, another already consuming the lobe of her ear. One of her arms, grotesquely elongated, ended in a gnarled, multi-jointed claw that wept viscous, putrid ichor onto the polished floorboards. Her eyes, wide and bloodshot, fixed on Sivani, wild with terror and a decaying fury. “You!” she screamed, a guttural rasp that scraped against the air. She staggered into the room, leaving a trail of putrid bile and half-formed threads of decay in her wake. “You were supposed to be the victim! The fragile one! Crying! Broken! This isn’t… this isn’t how it was supposed to be in ‘The Weeping Lace’!” Her mutated claw thrashed wildly, knocking over a tray of sterile instruments, sending them clattering across the floor. “The System! It promised me! It promised you’d fall! You’d weep! You’d be the one consumed by… by the tragedy!” She clutched at the rotting flesh on her face, her mutated digits scraping against bone. “Why aren’t you crying? Why aren’t you dead? It said… it said I just had to make you suffer!” Her voice rose to a hysterical shriek, spittle flying, mixed with streaks of foul yellow fluid. “It’s *your* fault! Your unfeeling, resilient fault!” Sivani slowly lifted her head. Her dark eyes, usually so impassive, gleamed with an uncharacteristic intensity. She stared at Jeshka’s mutating, rot-spewing form, at the contorted face and the grotesque, unraveling arm. Her gaze was not one of horror, or pity, or even recognition. It was the gaze of a weaver contemplating an extraordinary new fiber. “What excellent raw material.”

Bleeding Hands, Dark Hearts