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It felt warm. And, oddly, the warmth fluctuated ever so slightly against his skin. It was if the piece had its own tiny heartbeat. The fluctuation was becoming a flutter, as if he held a small, frightened bird in his hand. Instinct told him to drop it, but curiosity compelled him to hold it. On his upturned palm he could see it quiver, the movement slight but visible. “Strange thing,” remarked Ivor. ” They both jumped. The bracelet flexed, one end butting against Gareth’s hand like a blind worm.

With a grunt, he tightened the last knot. The leather, like his hands, was sticky with blood. “Check her pockets,” said Helgre. Gareth obeyed, wiping his hands on the woman’s leggings before gingerly dipping his fingers into the pockets roughly stitched into the fabric at the hips. There was nothing there, but, beneath the thin linen of the blood-soaked shirt, Gareth found a small leather pouch, the strap that had secured it around its owner’s neck severed by the same blow that had ended the woman’s life.

She was human, mostly, dark skinned, with wide-set green eyes in a catlike face. High on her left cheek was a small rune drawn or tattooed on her face. He frowned, reminded of the markings of the strange creature on the Starbound. But this mark, whether a sigil or a letter of an unfamiliar alphabet, was nothing like those markings. He gestured at her with the knife, and she flinched back. “Explain,” he said. “Easy, Gareth,” murmured Ivor at his shoulder. “I came to warn you,” she said, with only a slight tremor in her voice.