A Stranger's Hand

JP with Winteroak and White_Caribou

Amalu led Shalia across the dark alleyways of the Holy City, putting as much distance between them and the place he had come to her rescue, as possible. They passed mazes of corridors, narrow streets and abandoned buildings along the way and she could tell they were heading north towards the walls that faced the desert.

Eventually he came to a stop, leading her inside what looked like an abandoned house, where he led her to the first floor. From a broken down window slightly boarded he looked at the street below checking for pursuers. Shalia noticed the man smell the air several times

When he was satisfied they had not been followed he turned his white milky eyes to her and asked in Odon:
"You are Noraura's priestess, are you not?" He looked at her and she could not tell in the gloom if he was blind or not.
"Who were those people that seemed to resist your gift?"

Shalia had followed silently, both angry yet grateful that the fight had been interrupted. When they got to the house, she finally caught her breath and was able to observe him only lightly with the nightly shadows at play. He sounded like a dog sniffing.

"Yes, I am," she said resting her body against a wall. Though, she never really thought of herself as a priestess before.
Her thumb raised to wipe some of the blood off her neck, but it had dried in the cool air. That's when she noticed her fingertips covered faintly by a red frost, slightly glowing. Painless, but there, almost pulsating in color. Shalia shifted the dagger to her other hand in order to cradle the wound on her arm with a wince.

"Helians." She looked to the stranger. "Part of the Inquisition no doubt, come to kill me. Felt something hunting me since I arrived."

"The woman. The one disguised as one of us. She cut through your magik like butter." He said curious on why one could wield so much power. "I have been chasing her since yesterday. She stole something very important from us." He offered.

Shalia frowned, mulling over the words. Not once had she been hunted for her magik, rejected for it here in Arcadia after she made it to Fang. Slipping just out of that cult's reach. And even then the followers who chased her through the woods were not immune to her and suffered greatly for it.

She had a feeling this evening would haunt her forever. The holy man's voice...filled with such poison. The woman...likewise without hesitation to run her through using that sword which felt somehow different than the one her companion brandished. Sturdier, more powerful, having an air of importance alongside its wielder. She had a feeling they'd done this before, Arbiters perhaps? Had so many come to the shores already, poised to cleanse the land of all evils?

Was Tamazzalt right?

"Who is 'us' and what did she take?"