“Oh, yes. Very… interesting indeed,” Alissa said, a forced smile on her lips.
The brothers slowly walked beside her, staring at the collection on display with pride. “I wish I could remember each and every one of these souvenirs,” the elderly-like twin said.
“They certainly remember us, brother,” the younger one answered, eliciting scandalous laughter from his twin, which soon morphed into a series of harsh coughs.
He bent over, trying to catch his breath. “Oh, you’re killing me, brother.”
Alissa exchanged awkward glances with Freyah, who seemed mortified, standing on the opposite corner of the room, trying to avoid looking at the human parts on display. Alissa instantly flinched when the arms of the younger twin wrapped around her shoulder.
Noticing her distress, Eldric took a long stride and grabbed the hands of the creature, twisting it sideways. “Touch her again, and it will be your body parts hanging from the ceilings next,” he said in a low, threatening voice.
Alissa turned her face to look at him, her mouth half open, stunned by his sudden change of attitude. As she studied him, she could see for the first time the true strength of the man in their company. Eldric had no obligation to defend her, especiallywhen she’d been holding him captive for days. Yet he acted as if he would not stand by any sort of abuse. She wondered if there was more to him hidden underneath his brute façade.
Could she actually trust him? Could he become an asset in this world that’s proven to be more dangerous than she had anticipated?
She couldn’t know for sure.
Alissa stepped back from the brothers, whose merciless scrutiny was on Eldric. She decided to intervene since she could not risk being prohibited from entering the canyons. “Might I ask you, what motivated you to start such auniquecollection?”
“We do not do this out of cruelty, little person. Not entirely, at least. You see, it turns out the cure to our condition is in another’s body somehow, and so, we keep searching in the hopes of someday finding the answer.”
She turned to them, seeing past their ghastly appearances and noticing for the first time two poor men, born in a shared body, hoping for the day they would finally be free from the prison of flesh and skin that tied them together since birth.
“Didn’t the canyons give you the answer you seek?” Freyah interrupted, her voice barely audible.
The brothers chuckled. “The canyons showed us the cure lies in another living being. It is up to us now to figure the rest. The same way that the canyons will not give you the answer you seek but the means to find it, little person.” They glanced around, surveying their visitors with watchful eyes. “Which one of you will help us increase our collection today?”
“It’s me,” Alissa promptly answered. “My companions will stay here and wait for me.” They had agreed previously—although not with little reluctance from Freyah—that Alissa would enter the canyons while her friend stayed behind to keep an eye on Eldric.
“Very well.” The brothers circled Alissa, rubbing their chins as they observed her actions. They approached her from time to time to sniff her hair, raise her arms to look at her armpits, or poke her knees. It was apparently part of their assessment to define the price she would have to pay for free passage to the canyons.
Alissa’s heart thundered as the elder brother pulled a hatchet from a drawer and handed it to her. “We demand your right hand.”
Alissa didn’t need a mirror to know all the blood drained from her face. She had been hopeful that the twins would not demand something as vital to her survival. Her hands were her tools as much as the bow and the arrow. How was she supposed to hunt without the hand that pulled the string?
Freyah stepped up, taking the hatchet from her hands and giving it back to the twins. “I’m sorry, the answer is no. Thank you for your help.” Her hand closed around Alissa’s as she tried to pull her towards the exit.
Alissa, still petrified, dug her heels into the ground, making it impossible for Freyah to move.
“Freyah, wait,” she murmured and turned to the guardians of the canyons. “Please, I could give you some fingers or toes?—”
The twins interrupted her attempts to negotiate. “There’s nothing else you could give us, little person. The price is set.”
Alissa nodded slightly, a thin line on her lips.
“Lissa, you can’t do this!”
For a moment, she stood there, speechless. This was the highest price the twins could have demanded, but in the end, denying them her hand could be the reason she failed to save Dhalia. Alissa could find a way to survive without hunting; she could learn another craft. But she would not survive the loss of her daughter.
“I need to find the answer more badly than I need my hands, Frey,” she whispered, her lips wobbling.
Freyah didn’t say anything; she couldn’t, not when she fell apart in sobs.
“I accept your price,” Alissa told the twins, and before she even realized it, the weapon was back in her hands.
She wished she didn’t have to ask more of her friend than she had already, but she couldn’t do this alone. “If they needed my left hand, I would do it myself. But being the right one…”
Freyah’s lips parted in horror. “Please don’t ask me to do this to you, Lissa! It’s too much, I can’t!”