The sun was setting. Clouds ate the blue skies, their edges pink with the last of the day's light.

Ira burrowed into her coat. Towels and linen hung from a laundry post at the side of the manor. Most had long dried and now sat in the upstairs closet, rid of a decade's worth of dust. Ira planned to collect what remained on the line on her way back inside. There was dinner to be prepared, and Sir Beaufort's orders to consider besides. The creatures lurking in the surrounding woods were likely wanting a good supper, as well. Ira wasn't too keen to be a part of it.

A horse neighed. The gale whipped the sound as it climbed the mountain, a scream caught in the wind.

Ira startled. Her hand flew to her side and she widened her stance. She cocked her head, listening for the distinctive noise of hooves striking dirt.

As Ira watched, a brown horse broke through the tree line. It was moving quickly, but not nearly at full gallop. Ira's eyes moved from the beast's hulking rider to the cart bumping in its wake. Her eyes caught on red.

Blood.

Ira sprang forward. She let her feet drop hard as she ran, keeping her balance over earth made wet and soft by the recent storms. The rider lifted a hand, acknowledging her presence but not pausing his own journey. They met halfway between the stream and the manor. Ira bypassed horse and man entirely with the barest of nods. She grabbed a hold of the cart and climbed on, eyes on the women within. A young girl sat in one corner. She was trembling, watery gaze jerking from the woman lying in the cart to Ira and back. The coat the woman was wearing had bloomed a path of crusty red above her right breast. She groaned, heavy and pained, even as she lay unconscious.

"What happened?" Ira asked.

The girl shook her head in mute terror. "She was bitten," the rider called over his shoulder. "We're taking her to Beaufort."

The horse slowed down to a walking pace once they neared the manor. Ira climbed out, careful not to jostle the cart. "I will let Sir Beaufort know," she told the man.

Blue eyes bored into her. "Thank you."

Ira took a last look at the girl. Then she was off, racing for Beaufort Manor.

#

Valeri smelled the blood long before Ira thundered up the stairs calling for him. The vile, polluted stench cloyed his nostrils. He gasped for air he didn't need, wakened from a rare reverie in a most impolite and irritating fashion.

Valeri waited until Ira was at the door before rising from his seat. Slow, silent steps took him through the study and into the bedroom. He paused there, debating whether to answer or feign absence. He had no desire to play doctor, and to such a putrid patient at that.

The knocking notched up in intensity. Ira did not seem inclined to stop pounding on the door until she got inside, one way or another. Sighing, Valeri put on a mask of mild bewilderment and turned the doorknob.

"Is there something the matter?" he asked.

Ira bowed her head, a bare nod to formality. "There's a woman here who needs help. She has been attacked—bitten, her companion said. It does not look good."

The sound of the front door being urged open had Valeri gnashing his teeth.

"Help the woman to the sickroom downstairs. I will be with you shortly." Valeri's voice didn't betray his reluctance. The persona of the kind, confident doctor was already firmly in place. There was little else to be done, given that the sickly human had already invaded his home.

Ira departed with another hurried bow. Valeri made his way back to his study. A locked trunk sat beneath the desk, from which he extracted a leather satchel. He hurried his steps once he reached the stairs, as to make his arrival appear appropriately rushed.

Ira was waiting for him. A brown jacket hung in her hands, its lapels heavy with blood. The stink of rancid flesh had Valeri's stomach turning. Hushed voices burbled just out of sight.

"There is a girl with her," Ira said, "The woman's daughter."

Valeri strode forward. "Take her out of the room and remain with her. This is no place for a," his teeth snapped closed with an audible crack, cutting off the sentence's end.

The room Valeri employed for his more troubled patients was small and windowless, and hosted but a single bed and a shelf stocked with medicine. The rotting woman writhed on the thin mattress. A girl knelt at her side, head bowed. Valeri's eyes took in and discarded each of them in turn, attention instinctively drawn to the room's third occupant. The air grew still. The woman's pained moans, the girl's harried breaths faded under the dull thump of adrenaline. Valeri's fangs extended to pierce his gums. He swallowed his own blood and felt his sight narrow to the vein pulsing in the man's thick neck, to the hated griffin pinned to his chest.

A hand touched Valeri's elbow. He whipped around, expression twisted into something ghastly.

"I will take the girl," Ira said.

She brushed by him when she slipped inside the room, making Valeri aware he had been standing in the doorway. The stink of death was momentarily diluted by the scent of her skin. Valeri watched the woman coax the girl from her mother's side. The soldier watched, too. Valeri found himself holding back a territorial hiss.

The girl grabbed onto Valeri's coat in passing. "Please, Sir Beaufort. Please, help my mother."

Valeri inclined his head, expression solemn. The girl hiccupped around a thank you. Ira led her outside. All pretenses dropped with their departure.

"Leave," Valeri snarled.

The soldier smiled—the grin of a wolf about to tear out a deer's throat. "Take care of the woman, Beaufort. Then you and I will talk."

The desire to rip a smile of a different kind across the human's throat rose and ebbed. Valeri steadied himself, refusing to be goaded. "Since when does the Amith Capil concern itself with the welfare of the common man?" he asked.

The man said nothing, but the set of his jaw hardened just lovely.

The sick woman reared up, mouth open in a voiceless scream. Valeri eased his patient back onto the blood-soiled mattress. A flicker of surprise tightened the soldier's features. He didn't move from his position at the head of the bed, but seemed to stand down nonetheless. Valeri's mind conjured the image of a large, shaggy dog of a breed the farmers up north raised to guard their fields. Despite the man's lack of hair, he found the comparison fitting.

"I will treat her, and then you will leave," he said.

"The information I seek concerns you, as well."

Valeri considered the words as he checked the woman's pulse. Lies, likely, but he couldn't deny his curiosity was piqued. "You will share what you know with me."

The soldier hesitated for a long moment before nodding. Some of the tension in the room dissipated as host and guest came to an understanding.

Valeri sliced through the woman's bloodstained shirt with a clawed hand, exposing the wound. The massive, black bruise that pulsed over her heart had him rocking back on his heels. A fresh surge of that miserable, rotting stench filled the room. "What did this?"

"That is my question."

The soldier's eyes were firmly on the woman. His hands were at his sides and well out of reach of the massive sword slung over his shoulder. Valeri accepted the stillness as the peace offering it was and focused more thoroughly on the task before him. He prodded the tissue around the wound—twin slashes, deep and gaping. A viscous liquid that was half-blood, half-puss budded over the torn skin.

"The flesh that has blackened is dead. I need to cut through it." Valeri motioned to his satchel. Having to narrate his actions grated, but producing a blade in the presence of a soldier without an explanation would only end one way. The woman would certainly die while he and the human quibbled.

"Do as you must," the soldier said.

Valeri found a dagger of desired length and thinness among a number strapped along the satchel's lining. He settled himself at the edge of the bed and bent over his patient. The woman jerked. Valeri reeled back, having almost sliced through her arm.

The soldier laid his sword down and knelt by the bed. Two massive hands wrapped around the woman's shoulders and pinned her down.

"Go," the man said.

Valeri shook off his surprise and set to work. The first cut into deadened skin sent the woman gurgling in pain. Her body was hot under Valeri's hands, burning with a terrible fever. His prognosis for the woman's health degraded further. Valeri disposed of the blackened flesh in a metal basin by the bed and studied the flesh he had revealed. The meat was pink and wet with blood. Gray wisps of decay, too fine for mortal eyes to detect, spun webs over everything in sight. The woman's blood carried a caustic scent that was most worrying.

"Poison," Valeri said.

The soldier nodded, a bump of motion in Valeri's periphery.

"Do you at least know what kind of creature bit her?" Valeri asked, deeply annoyed. The man could play mute on his own time.

"No."

"How do you expect me to treat her, then? " he demanded. Most antidotes contained small doses of the original poison. The woman's body would not withstand a trial of random cures.

A sudden silence grabbed Valeri's attention. He lowered his head until it hovered above the woman's chest and listened. There was a stutter, then nothing, then another stutter, then nothing again.

"What is it?" the soldier demanded.

Valeri withdrew. "Her heart is about to stop," he said.

The man's expression hardened. "Do something."

"There are limits to my profession. The poison has spread beyond what traditional medicine can heal. If she had come to me earlier, there might have been hope. Even a few hours would have made a difference," Valeri took some pleasure in the defensive hunch of the man's shoulders. He pretended to think over the situation, savoring the gradual narrowing of those pale eyes. "Unless..."

"What?" the soldier snapped.

Valeri grinned with too-long teeth. "There is a certain substance that will fight off the infection."

The soldier's eyes burned. "Your blood."

Valeri inclined his head.

"No," the man said.

"There is nothing else I can do," Valeri told him, and it was not a lie.

"I cannot allow you to make her a monster," the man protested.

Valeri scoffed. "A mouthful will not turn her. It is her only chance of survival."

"Then she will die," the soldier said.

The woman writhed between them, caught in what were to soon be her death throes. Valeri studied the soldier. So proud. So blindly, foolishly loyal. To Her damned Highness, yes, but perhaps the sentiment had come to extend further.

"Do you know why Sofia Korral asked you to bring her mother to me?" Valeri asked.

The mention of the girl's name had the soldier's eyes livening. Got you, Valeri thought.

"When Sofia was ten years old, she fell ill with a terrible sickness. Her mother rushed her to my doorstep. The girl barely clung to life. I tried everything, but no medicine worked." Valeri let his lips pull into a smile. Not a soft, human one, but the sharp-edged grin natural to his kind.

The soldier's body grew tense. The thought of a vampire's blood coursing through the girl's veins lit his eyes with rage.

"You should have let her die," the man growled.

"She is just outside." Valeri gestured with the hand not holding the dagger. "By all means, put my wrong to rights."

The man said nothing. Valeri appraised the stubborn set of his jaw. One more good push, and he would have him. He didn't question why it was important that he did - why he wished to save Kristina Korral, a human whose life intersected in no way with Valeri's own. Whether it was pride, or the desire to play with the soldier's notion of honor hardly mattered. Valeri simply wanted, and he had not wanted for anything in a long while. That was motivation enough.

"What do you think will happen to Sofia if her mother dies? Do you think anyone would take her in? The daughter of a whore?" Valeri arched an eyebrow at the man's startled glance. A mocking smile twisted his lips. "You must have suspected. What do you think will become of innocent little Sofia, for that matter?"

The soldier stood up. Valeri's grip on the dagger changed, ready to use its blade to hurt rather than heal.

The man bent to collect his sword. He walked a wide path around the bed, eyes straight ahead. The door slammed shut behind him.

Valeri watched him go, eyes narrowed. Understanding curled his mouth into a satisfied smirk. The soldier had removed himself from the room, leaving no instructions or threats regarding the woman's treatment.

Valeri brought his own wrist to his mouth, and bit down.