A bird cawed, and Rachida sat up. Her blankets slipped off her, and she shivered in her smallclothes. The room was cold and dark, a breeze flowing in through the window she had forgotten to shutter before she’d collapsed drunk in her bed. She wrapped the blanket back around herself, stood up, and made her way to the window. Before she closed the shutters, she caught a glimpse of crimson fingers stretching across the darkened sky. Morning already. At least she had drunk enough corn whiskey to pass out for a few hours. Sleep had not come easily as of late.
An odd sensation came over her, like tiny pinpricks working up her spine, and she whirled around. In the far corner of the room, she spotted the outline of a figure sitting cross-legged on the ground. She squinted, trying to see it clearer, and then moved to open the shutters once more.
“No need for that,” said Quester’s somber voice. “It is only me.”
Rachida breathed out deeply, glancing to the edge of her bed, where the Twins rested against the wall. “Why are you here?” she asked. “Do you wish to lose your head?”
The brash young man laughed. It was a sad sound. “That would depend on which head you speak of. One of mine would gladly lose itself in you for a few hours.” He sighed, then slapped his knees as he stood up. “But alas, such a desire will never be granted, so I must settle for the next best thing.”
“Which is?”
“Watching you sleep, milady. You make the most pleasant of sounds.”
Rachida groaned inwardly. Quester had been oppressive in his advances during the entirety of their excursion. His eyes, and the eyes of nearly every other sellsword, were constantly affixed to her rump and bosom, despite her loose-fitting clothing. Even many of the western men, in their childlike exuberance, took to staring at her as she worked the fields with them. Not that this was unusual; Rachida had grown up dealing with the constant attention of men. It was something she could handle, even understand. Having one of them sneak into her room to watch her sleep, she could not.
“Get out,” she said. “Now.”
Instead of moving away, Quester took a step forward. Rachida inched toward the bed, tensing her muscles in case she needed to leap for the Twins.
“It’s all so strange, milady,” said Quester, his tone reflective and even a bit sad. “So much to do, yet they are willing to give up so much.” He looked up at her with pleading eyes, and Rachida could see red veins, hear the hint of a slur from too much drink. “I am drawn to beauty. I revel in it. I thought the red dyes I wore in my hair were beautiful, but they made me wash it out. It is. . not. . fair.”
Quester moved away from her, approaching the window. When he entered the faint light coming in from beneath the shutters, she caught sight of a glint of steel on his hip. Rachida leapt over her bed and snatched one of the Twins. The scabbard thudded on the hovel’s soft dirt floor as she whipped the blade around, anticipating his advance.
He didn’t look at her, didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her at all. He fell against the window, then yanked open the shutters and lifted his right hand. For a long time he simply stood there, staring at his fingers while gently swaying from side to side. She could see he was wearing his leather armor over his smallclothes.
“Quester,” Rachida said, moving toward the center of the room with her sword held out before her. “What is the matter with you? What are you looking at?”
“This hand has taken so many beautiful things from the world.” He turned to her, frowning. “I detest it.”
He laughed. It sounded out of place given his dejected expression.
“This world is full of treachery, you know,” the man said. Despite his obvious drunkenness, his voice was surprisingly steady, though deflated. “Do you remember that wreck of a ship we passed our first day on the water?”
She nodded, remembering it well. It had been a long, sleek ship, built for speed and painted black as night, half sunken just beneath a rocky precipice. Rachida had never seen its like before, and there were no discernable letters or sigils marking its cracked hull. She had suggested they investigate it, but Quester had told them not to bother. “Our destination is all that matters,” he’d said, “not some sunken oddity.”
“I lied to you,” the man continued. “I knew the ship. It was my masters who built it. It was crafted to appear lustrous and ominous, even though only the cheapest of materials went into its construction.”
“Why?” she asked, to keep him talking. So long as he was talking, he might not do something stupid.
“Because it was a ruse,” said Quester.
“Ruse? For who? You’re making no sense.”
“The ship was meant to be handsome, to inspire wonder and fear,” he said with a sigh. “And yet its sole purpose was to carry three large crates filled with weapons from Port Lancaster to the coast of Paradise.”
“To what end?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter? I was never told the ship’s intention, but then again intention is such a strange beast. Does anyone truly know what anyone else intends? Beauty. . beauty is tangible, it is visceral, yet it can hide so much. That ship was beautiful, but that beauty was a lie.”
Rachida let the tip of her sword drop to the ground. “What does any of this mean? What does it have to do with you sneaking into my quarters and watching me sleep, while armed no less?”
“Everything.”
Quester stood from the bed, causing her to flinch. He undid his belt and let his sword drop to the ground.
“I am like that ship.” He stared at his right hand again. “Outside, I am beautiful, I know that. Yet inside, I am vile. I have killed. I have captured men and women and led them to torture and bondage. I’ve taken joy in watching a man break down while his wife was flayed. I killed a child. . ”
Despite his frightening words, Rachida took a few steps toward him, and when he didn’t move, she placed her own sword down on the bed and lifted his chin with her fingers. He gazed at her, his eyes clear and blue, his skin perfect but for a single scar tracing the left side of his jaw. Despite his attractiveness, she could see exactly what he spoke of, the violence that hid just behind his eyes.
“Enough memories and riddles,” she said. “Tell me what all this means.”
He took a deep breath. “You are so unlike me. Both inside and out, you radiate splendor. This world would be a worse place without you in it, and more than anything I detest removing beauty from this wretched world.”
Rachida froze, her hand still gripping his chin. “What?”
“Before we left the Isles, Master Gemcroft promised me fifty pounds of gold if I ended your life.”
She let go of him, backed toward the bed, slumped down on it.
“Why?” she asked. Her fingers touched the cold steel of her sword, and for a moment she considered driving it into Quester’s gut.