The Princess and the Blade

[Emora Deen]

Lelana nodded. "Yes. I need to make her... upset. But, the key will be training her to not use magic when she's upset, and learning to use it when she has no emotional stimulation. When she can hold back and let go as she wishes, then she will know how to control her power. For safety, it's probably best we do it somewhere remote—"

"How upset does she need to be?" Tenele asked.

"However upset it takes," Lelana said, shrugging. She looked at Vlad. "I did say you wouldn't like it any better. We can still ram the sword through her and hope Tenele's magic can bring her back..."

"I would like to avoid the sword through the chest again, please." Tenara fiddled with her food, hating how much they spoke about her, about separating her from Havitharon.

"Lelana..." Tenele warned. "You have a tendency to get carried away..."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad shook his head. "Tenara, you don't need to do any of this if you don't want to."

[Emora Deen]

"I don't think I'm understanding, exactly, what it is we're going to do," Tenara said.

"I need to take you someplace and force you to live your worst fears and memories, and teach you to react, or not react with magic," Lelana said. "It's the fastest way to conquering your powers. Once you master them..."

"I won't hurt anyone by accident," Tenara said softly.

"That, and you might be able to get the upper hand on the sword's magical pull."

Tenara pursed her lips together. "Live my worst fears?"

"And memories."

Tenara looked away as the shadow of a dark ship's hold filled her mind. The crash of waves echoed in her ear. The thump of boots against the wood thundered like the beat of her heart. "I-I... I don't..." Her face paled a little. "How... how real will it seem?"

At seeing the panic beginning to claw its way through her daughter, Tenele said, “None of this needs to be decided now. Lelana has given options, that’s all. No one is going to force you to do anything. Let’s eat. Enjoy our time together, as best we can. Right?” Tenele looked at her husband.

[Soran Nightblade]

"It will be real," Vlad said on Lelana's behalf. He scratched at his head, looking ill. Then he noticed Havitharon staring at him. "Something to say, Spiky?"

"...What did she make you see?"

Vlad's eyes lit up neon-bright. "None of your fucking business. Don't ask again unless you want your spikes ripped off."

Infuriatingly, this answer seemed to give Havitharon what he was looking for. He frowned as if he'd confirmed something. "If you are still not healed, I take it her damage will be permanent, also."

Vlad's eyes glowed. A fork rose from his place setting and shot out at the alien's face. Havitharon dodged it, and it landed in the wall behind him. The vampire sighed and sat back, perhaps just a little impressed. "If you do this, Lelana, there need to be some kind of ground rules. Don't twist the relationships she will need in order to heal afterwards."

[Emora Deen]

Tenara stared at her father, wondering what her aunt might have shown him that was so horrible it could make a vampire look paler than the pale of death. She glanced to her mother, who shifted uncomfortably in her seat and reached over to her father’s hand, squeezing tightly.

It will be real…

“Of course,” Lelana replied to her father. “I wouldn’t do that to her. I’ve learned. I’m not the same. Well, not entirely the same. But, I care enough about Tenara that it should keep my darker impulses in check….” Lelana continued on with other optional safeguards, such as ending it if Tenara decided she couldn’t handle the process.

But, Tenara had gone pale at the idea of her worst nightmare becoming a reality again. Would that mean that she would feel whatever happened? Judging by the edge of horror still shadowing her father’s face, that would be the case. And it would mark her, as Havitharon had pointed out. The damage, the experience would be permanent and not just a blurred mirage in her head.

Because it was, or would seem real.

The dining hall walls closed in, darkening. Her breath came quicker. She could feel the heat in her palms, and she smoothed them against the silk of her dress. “I don’t think I can,” she said, fisting and tugging at the fabric. Her chest felt tight. “I don’t think… I don’t want it to happen again. I can’t. Can we…” A bud of red light grew in her eyes as the sound of ocean waves filled her ears. “I need some air. I’ll be right back.”

She rose for the balcony door, brushing past a servant bringing a plate of fruit to the table. She struck the girl in shoulder, sending the tray clattering to the marble floor. Tenara choked out an apology as she swept out into the hot air, to the balcony railing, gripping the stone and feeling like her chest was caving in.

Tenele gave Vlad a worried look. “What if we just… leave it as it is? Her connection to the sword? What’s worse? Forcing Tenara to relive… whatever happened to her or driving a sword through her heart or… him?” She nodded to Havitharon.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi's gut twisted at the expression on Tenara's face. He had the unpleasant feeling that anything he suggested to try to dissuade her family would come across as self-interest. He looked back at her parents. Tenele was holding Vlad's hands, and the normally vicious vampire bent forward to kiss her hair. They were worried together, leaning on each other for strength. They spoke and acted as equals. Neither side held control of the other, nor seemed to want to. To Havi, it was mesmerizing. He wondered how they'd achieved it, how it worked. For the first time, he wondered what it would be like to know people like them normally, not as an enemy.

"If we leave it as it is, and someone takes that sword from her, it'll kill her," Vlad pondered, resting his chin on his wife's head. "It has too much pull on her."

"Instead of making her more powerful, why don't you make the sword weaker?" Havi asked quietly. He looked at Lelana, because something about the way Tenele and Vlad were holding each other made his insides ache.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele nodded to her husband, closing her eyes and brushing her fingers over them to wipe any sign of tears away. Her green gaze flashed to Havitharon as he spoke.

“You are the sword,” she said. “Are you suggesting we weaken you?”

“We could try,” Lelana said, rising from the table. She stooped by Tenara’s chair and lifted the sword from where she’d rested it, admiring the blade and hilt. “Maybe one of these soul stones popped loose…” Her long red nail scratched at one of them.

Out on the balcony, Tenara was gathering herself, staring out at the city hugging the Ongore sea. She took deep breaths until the waves she heard were distant, coming from the port. She smelled the salt air, looked at her home, and felt peace. That was, until she saw the square of newer buildings sitting among a throng of ancient construction.

That was her doing. An entire city block wiped out. One-hundred-and-fifty innocent men, women, and children dead because she was seven years old and frightened by kidnappers. Because she had far more power than she deserved and no idea what to do with it, how to control it.

Even if they somehow found a way to separate her from the sword, or help her wield it, it wouldn’t change the fact she was dangerous to people. That she was incapable of controlling herself or her emotions or her magic.

She thought about asking for another tether to keep her magic locked away, but it was the reason everything had happened to begin with. Because she hadn’t had access to her magic…

The worse possible things had already happened. There was no changing it. So, why not use it to get better at controlling her gifts?

[Soran Nightblade]

"A few of those stones were already damaged during the summoning anyway," Havitharon acknowledged. He met Tenele's stare, but wasn't sure what to do with it. He honestly didn't know how to answer her question. He didn't know what he was suggesting, only that he'd prefer not to see that look on Tenara's face again in this life, if he could avoid it.

"If her magic only comes out when she's scared and powerless, that's not a great habit to reinforce," Vlad said. "I know from personal experience that being exposed to your weaknesses can only make you stronger to a point, and the line between improvement and destruction gets very blurry." He resisted the temptation to think about being on that table on Maxwell's estate.

"You can't just call on her trauma. I want her to associate calling her magic with a sense of confidence and power. It should come to her when she channels a sense of certainty and purpose. Spooking herself every time she wants to call power is no better than what she's doing now, running her hand across the blade." He looked at Lelana. "You helped me reframe my memories once. Couldn't you do something like that for her?"

[Emora Deen]

Lelana nodded to Vlad as she picked up a butter knife and started to pry at the corner of a red stone. “Of course. My objective would be to teach Tenara how to channel and control her magic no matter the situation. I’m not going to teach her to use her trauma as a key…”

The balcony door opened and Tenara slipped back in, her eyes going to her aunt, who had the sword propped on the table, prying at a stone with a dull knife. It wasn’t even the fact her aunt was trying to damage the sword, but the fact she was holding it at all. The memory of that bounty hunter’s cruelty sprouted in her mind, and though she loved her aunt, her aunt was just the sort to use the sword as such.

“No!” she shouted, racing forward and pulling the sword from her aunt. “Don’t hurt him.”

“It was his idea,” Lelana muttered. Tenara looked at Havitharon, confused. “If we weaken the sword—“

“I’ll do the training. There isn’t a reason to weaken the sword.” She clutched the sword to her chest. “I’ll be fine. I can handle it.” It was hard to tell if she was trying to convince Havitharon or herself.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi looked up at Tenara, speechless. He knew Tenara did her best to treat him fairly, but he hadn't expected to be protected so passionately.

Vlad looked startled as well, but more because of her willingness to be tortured. "It is your mind and your choice, Tenara. We'll support you it if it's what you choose," he said gently.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara hugged the sword, hesitating at her father's words. She glanced around the room, setting her eyes on her aunt. "If I want to stop..."

Lelana frowned. "Tenara, it won't work if I stop as soon as you're struggling... But, if it becomes more of a hurt than a help, we can stop."

Tenara nodded. "Then... I'll try."

Lelana sighed, clapping her hands together once. "Now, we should discuss where it would be safe... If Tenara loses control, which I'm sure she will in the beginning, we should avoid populated areas..."

Tenara sank back down in her seat next to Havitharon, her ears filling with white noise as her aunt draped herself across the table to discuss with her parents whether she could take them back to her castle in the jungle, which it was likely to only bother the golems and snakes roaming her woods. Tenara reached down next to her and grabbed Havitharon's hand.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi's fingers were no longer feverishly hot, just life-warm. They hesitated only a moment before they wrapped firmly around hers. He, too, turned his attention from the conversation between her parents and focused instead on Tenara. *I will be with you,* he said, though he wasn't sure if it would comfort her. All of this was to separate them, but he found himself determined to be at her side until the choice was no longer his.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara squeezed his hand, but found that not even her mind could find the words to speak. So she held him and the sword, and watched without listening as her mother argued with her aunt.

Eventually, Tenele negotiated more time to decide where Tenara's training should take place. For whatever reason, her mother didn't feel comfortable with them traveling to her aunt's home and wanted to think about it some more. Her father seemed equally uncomfortable with the idea.

They spent the day with her family. Tenara gave tours of the three gardens the palace possessed, and pointed out all the sculptures they passed, telling Havitharon whatever fable she knew about them. At night she played a board game with them, and for a moment, everything felt as it had before she'd been taken. They laughed, drank wine, and tried to pretend it was going to be normal again.

Close to midnight, Lelana rose from her place on the floor and stretched. "Well, I've had enough of this goody fun. I'm going into town to find some trouble."

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon watched Tenara's family game night quietly from a seat in the corner. He still couldn't be trusted to roam the palace unescorted, so he'd done his best to blend into the scenery while the family played and drank. His attention naturally gravitated to Tenara, and he found himself watching her the whole time, following her expressions and movements. At some point, a maid had placed a glass of wine in his hand. He sat with it, running a thumb along the neck idly, but didn't sip it.

When Lelana rose to go, he came back to attention, wondering if the family was retiring for the night.

"Too good to drink anything, Spiky?" Vlad cajoled him from across the room. Either because they'd been stuck together all day, or because Vlad had drunk enough for even his vampiric metabolism to do some work, the vampire's attitude toward him seemed to have evolved very slightly. Instead of frigid hatred, it was now biting sarcasm. Was that an improvement?

Havi frowned, unsure what to say. He couldn't exactly tell his antagonistic host he didn't trust the drink, but he'd been drugged too many times in his life to partake just to be polite. "I don't drink," he offered up. It was close enough to the truth.

"You drink. Just not with people you don't like," Vlad corrected with a wink.

"..."

Vlad rolled his eyes to his daughter. "I don't get what you see in this stick in the mud."

[Emora Deen]

Tenara smiled, shoving her father in the shoulder hard enough that, if he weren't inhuman and possessing perfect balance, he might have fallen over. She crawled the short distance to where Havitharon was sitting and took his glass from him. She rested an arm across his knee, steadying her slightly swaying form as she took the glass and drank a small amount. She licked the excess from her lips and passed the glass to him. "No poison," she whispered, and flopped back towards the game. She scooped up her four cards and admired them, her legs bent at the knee, feet swaying in the air. "I think I'm out of moves..."