6 Chapter 6 ~Ritual~

"What th- the fuck was, that?" Iris uttered, her arms crossed her whole body shaking like it was suddenly several degrees colder.

"That, was something that Avi was supposed to deal with" Tom said, placing his arm on her shoulder she took in several quick breaths "a Ruskin?" Tom nodded, not elaborating on her question.

"why do you need a witch?" Iris asked, her shaking easing a little,

"It was made to find witches, a witch's got to kill it" Tom said simply, he glanced at the cage as he said that.

Where'd you find it? Iris said, moving past Tom's proposal with a shudder.

she'd been taught about Ruskin's before, in her early day's they'd just been a myth, stories brought from the north, along with the tales of fox women and mirrorlings. Ruskin's where many things in those stories, the rising corpses of dead kings, witches who'd been warped beyond recognition, even children in some stories.

"you don't have to do it if you can't" tom began saying "I's sure we can wait for Av to recover" he said, removing his hand from her shoulder and motioning towards the stairs.

"no, no wait, hold on" Iris said, popping back on her feet, "Avi needs to rest" she said walking towards the cage slowly, "and won't one of those religious Varnile bastards be trying to find this thing?", Tom nodded "aye, they've been coming through the upper district first though, so we've got a few day's" he answered with his arms crossed as he watched Iris, she'd been cracking her knuckles in front of the cage, with a twirl to face tom Iris paused to say, "well alright lead away then, how'd we supposedly kill this thing"