Heirot

Tenele thrashed against the person crushing her down into the floor, snarling and screaming a thousand curses at the Gold Cleric with his staff against the holy circle, driving shrill, painful screams from her child.

There was the clatter of broken wood from above.

The Cleric removed the staff, offering Tenara a reprieve as he tilted his head and listened. She shivered, twitching with aftershocks of agony. It was strange to be hurt and have no wound. Strange to feel fire and see no flame… In her warped vision, the Cleric moved, and she couldn’t tell if he was moving his impossibly bright staff towards the circle again or stepping away from it.

“Vlad!!” Her mother called.

Vlad followed Tenele's voice. He teleported to the base of the stairs, planning to take whoever had kidnapped his wife and child off guard. The room was dark, but the first thing he took in was the sight of Tenara trapped in a holy circle, and the cleric standing over her. He didn't think to look around the rest of the room. A snarl of blackened fury curled up from his throat. He wound back and hurled the sword at the man standing over his daughter, full-strength.

The Cleric stiffened, looking down at the sword sticking from his chest. Strangely, he didn't seem surprised, or maybe it was that he didn't care. They'd lured the vampire. He was in the room they had prepared for him. The Cleric collapsed into the circle with Tenara, his staff clattering out of his hand. Someone emerged from the shadows, scooping it up and driving it into the wall behind him.

Sigils lit, one by one around the room, all along the wall. They burned bright and hot, until the circle of runes completed.

A chant swam up from the dark, twenty voices humming a song that turned Tenara's insides out. Prayer.

Fucking prayer.

The activated super-circle ripped Vlad to his hands and knees mid-stride. It was more than the typical pressure of a holy circle. Vlad made a choking sound as the power tore into him. It was like sabers skewering him to the ground. The vampire strained to rise. The effort tore at his insides, and he coughed blood across the floor. With blurred vision, he scanned the room. So many voices, making his ears bleed. How many were there? This wasn't a holding circle, it was a goddamned exorcism.

After being left behind by Vlad's teleport, Havi took the stairs 3 at a time down into the room. He could feel in the rush of his mind that the sword had taken blood, but he wasn't sure whose. He couldn't feel Vlad's control at the other end of the weapon; didn't feel anyone wielding it at all.

The room was glaringly bright as he entered, even though he was sure it had been dark when he first entered the stairwell. He squinted and took in the strange people lined up around the room, chanting. Then he spotted Vlad, and finally, Tenara and Tenele. He didn't understanding what was happening, but it was some kind of ritual, and it was going terribly wrong. What could possibly be so powerful that even her father would be wounded by it?

A memory pulled at him. When Tenara had injured her hand, hadn't she said something about vampires being vulnerable to the same power as well? Was this something to do with that? Why else would only Tenele still be able to move?

He dipped a foot into the waves of light encircling the room, but nothing happened to him. "Tenara!" he shouted, bolting into the room to get to her side.

At Havi's entrance, one of the cleric's broke his chanting to scream, "Demon!"

Tenele dragged her gaze from Vlad's crumpled form to Havitharon, shocked to find him still standing on his feet. The act unnerved every cleric in the room. The spell was powerful. He should be on his knees, in agony, but he crossed the room, going to Tenara.

Tenele thrashed against the person holding her. He was just shocked enough to see Havitharon tread across the pool of light that he wasn't focused on her. She jerked her head back, cracking it against his skull and shattering his nose. She shoved up and back, slamming him into the wall. He crumpled, and she ran for the sword sticking out of the Cleric closest to Tenara.

A few clerics broke away from their chanting to rush Havitharon and Tenele. She drew the sword and cut one down when it reached her. "Destroy the sigils!" She couldn't believe she was partnering with the alien, that she was even considering it. But her husband could barely stand and her daughter... Tenele looked down at Tenara, curled in on herself, shuddering with each verse of Thar's prayer. Tenele snarled, turned, and slashed the glowing symbol on the wall with the sword. It struck, arching against the stone, carving a line through it.

"Destroy the sigils!"

The command burst through him, halting Havi's effort to reach Tenara's shuddering form on the floor. He hesitated, straining against the sword's authority. He didn't want to go the other way. He wanted to shelter his Yurivis.

With a growl of displeasure, he turned for the nearest sigil and bolted for it.

"Stop him!" shouted one of the monks who didn't seem to be part of the ritual. "Jerob, the arrows!"

Havi rolled his eyes at the idea of getting shot again. Great, more arrows. He kicked over the sconce fueling the sigil at the North side of the room and kept running without breaking pace.

Tenele heard the twang of bowstrings, but stayed focus on getting to the next sigil. Arrows thunked into the stone behind her, and she thought she might have heard a few hit flesh. She spared a glance at Tenara to make sure she hadn't been shot. She could barely see her in the dark, with the dim glow of the sigils on the wall. Blood seeped out of her ears and nose. She wasn't certain how many of these things she needed to hit before the exorcism halted. They were flickering, waning with each one lost. She would hit them all if she had to.

She turned for the next one and a staff flew out of the dark, slamming into her stomach. The air left her lungs, and it flung her back off her feet. The sword clattered out of her hands. She wheezed, rolling to reach for it.

Vlad tried to keep track of what was going on around him, but the sensation was so overwhelming he could barely see. There was, of course, pain, but perhaps more concerning was the sense of being undone. He'd seen circles like these before, even built one himself, but he'd never been in one when it went off. If the spell had been enchanted in advance, he and Tenara would both be a lump of ashes right now. But this had been opportunistic, so they were casting the spell the slow way. That meant they'd get to enjoy the ride as their insides got blasted to cinders.

He heard shouting, a disruption to the organized change he'd heard so far. He could barely turn his head, but he vaguely saw Spiky take out a pair of monks and then knock out a sigil. Something knocked him off balance, and Vlad thought he saw the alien grasp for a wound on his side, but the hesitation was so brief and his vision swimming so badly that Vlad wasn't sure if he'd really seen it.

Havi sensed the sword had lost its holder, and paused in his task to look back at Tenele struggling on the floor. The chanting was starting to fall apart, with more and more monks taking up arms against those disrupting the ceremony. He didn't like his odds against this many opponents when Tenara was defenseless. He needed Tenele's alliance. He pivoted on his heel and ran for the sword. "Here," he called, kicking the weapon back toward her. He danced around a monk that was coming at him clumsily with a dagger he clearly wasn't used to using. He understand almost nothing about what was happening, but if Tenele thought the sigils were the priority in this situation, he had to take her word for it and finish the job.

Some monks gave chase, but he was faster than anyone else in the room. He ignored everything else around him until the last sigil was down. Only then did he stop to deal with men catching up to him.

Tenele took the sword and rose, she cut off two of the clerics running after Havitharon. It was easy to deal with them when they were torn between wanting to worship her and defend themselves.

When the last sigil fell, the room collapsed into darkness, save for a single light coming from a dim, flickering oil lamp in the ceiling above the small circle that had trapped Tenara. The circle itself was broken. The clerics, in their scurrying, had smudged the line of salt, and it no longer held her to the earth like weights around her limbs.

No one thought about the princess on the floor, curled in on herself. No one paid any attention to her as she unfolded, stretching, rising, standing. She stumbled dizzily on her feet, raising her bound hands towards the warm blood on her neck, trailing from her ears. The rope binding her hands fizzled, flamed blue, and burned to ash. The room was too dark to see the shadows grow and claw across the space, swallowing even that thin, flickering orange flame in the ceiling, until there was no light at all—not even from the doorway and stairwell above them.

The only light came from a pair of bright red eyes in the center of the room.

The clerics stopped—because they could no longer see and because the floor trembled beneath them.

One of the clerics moved in the dark, racing to the pair of red eyes that flicked towards him. In the same instance, he screamed and went silent at the audible sound of bones shattering with a sickening crunch. The building above them groaned, the wood flexing and straining against a pressure no one else could see or feel.

Two clerics bolted from the stairs, never making it to the door. Their screams died just as they began.

The cleric that had been occupying her mother fell to his knees and grabbed at her skirts. "Merciful Thar, save me from the dark. Protect me from the beasts of Verin. Blessed Attara, grant me mercy. Shield me from that which is not yours, from dark and death and—"

"I am hers," Tenara said in the dark, haunting and soft. Velvet and violence.

The cleric's hands trembled, matching the rhythm pulsing through the floor. "Please. Please. Pleasepleaseplease—Ahhh!" Bones snapped. The hands disappeared from Tenele's skirts. The screaming silenced. The building above them shivered, raining dust and loose nails.

One of the clerics lunged up to Havitharon, trying to wrap a hand around one of his horns and pull him down so they could put their holy dagger to his throat.

Havi was too distracted by the sudden darkness and whatever was happening to Tenara to notice the cleric coming for him. His stomach did a flip as a hand clenched hard over his horn and tugged. He hissed, and the muscles in his legs went numb. For another male to grab his horns so... he had to admit that it was such a firm taboo that it wouldn't have occurred to him as an option. The shock effect wore off within moments, but by then he was on his knees and the thoroughly spooked cleric was holding a knife to his throat. His nervous hand shook badly, and his touch wasn't controlled enough to avoid cutting him. The metal bit haphazardly into his skin, dripping blood down into the dipping muscles at the base of his neck.

At this rate, the man would slit his throat out of sheer discoordination.

"S-stop! If you value this demon, stop at once!" the cleric shouted at the menacing red eyes embossed in the shadows.

Tenara's gaze flicked towards the cleric with his dagger at Havitharon's throat. Normally, she couldn't see very well in the dark, but when she was like this, in the heat of her magic, the room was as bright as a late-afternoon sky. She saw the black blood dripping down his throat. She hesitated a second, because if she hurt the man, if she crushed him like paper, he might flinch just enough to slit Havitharon's throat. Worst of all, the man had his hand around Havitharon's horn, and she felt a strange territorial hatred towards him for touching what was... hers.

The room groaned, the building above them cracked. A joist snapped. The man jumped, his blade sliding across Havitharon's neck.

Tenara's gaze flicked to her father, lying just behind them.

"Let him go," Tenara said, "and I'll let you go."

"I don't believe you!"

Holding back hurt. Tenara felt that aching pressure build inside her chest, and the building around them felt it too. The brick beneath her feet cracked. Blue flame licked up. She growled. This wasn't helping convince the man she wouldn't hurt him.

"Let him go," she growled, sweating with the effort of pulling her magic back in. The darkness receded.

One of the last clerics crept up behind Tenara in the dark, dagger raised. As the shadows slunk back from where they came, Tenele spotted him. She raced for him, sword raised.

Havi's nerves went on high alert as the blue flames illuminated the man coming up behind Tenara. He couldn't afford to wait anymore. If he grabbed this guy's knife, he could throw it straight at her attacker's skull. It was mostly a question of whether his arteries would survive the maneuver. The heavy grip on his horns would make him slower than he should be, but something was terribly wrong with Tenara, and he needed to get to her. He decided it was worth it, and braced himself to disarm the man.

Instead, he heard a ruthless crunch of bone, and the man holding him collapsed on the spot. Havi spun to see Vlad looking at him from the floor. The only way he could tell it was him was the faint crimson of his eyes, much duller than they usually were. There was no time to figure out what the vampire had done. Havi grabbed the dagger from the dead man's hand, but the realized he didn't know where Tenele was. If he threw the dagger now...

Swearing, he scrambled to his feet and burst toward Tenara's position.

Tenele sliced down and through the cleric from behind. His knees buckled, and he collapsed forward, bleeding a pool of red on the stone.

When Havitharon was close, Tenara grabbed hold of his arms. She clutched him, breathing heavily. The earth rattled beneath her feet, the building above her shivered. Another joist cracked. Her red eyes burned fierce and bright.

"Tenara," Tenele whispered. "It's okay. We're safe. Everyone is safe. You can let it go now."

Tenara nodded, but that did little to affect the pressure. Before, it had been bliss. Wonderful, sweeping bliss as bones snapped and men screamed. As her magic did as she asked at her whim and leisure. Now, as she tried to draw it back in, it felt too strong and she was so worried she'd lose control of it. That it would burst from her and level the city above them. That she would kill her mother.

"Go," Tenara whispered. "Please. I need to get it under control. Please..."

Tenele appraised her daughter. "We're here with you."

"Help Daddy."

Tenele turned her gaze on her husband. Now that the shadows had lessened, the sun spilled down the stairs and a pool of gold light highlighted his sprawled form where it had fell at the start of the exorcism. Tenele turned her gaze hesitantly back to Tenara.

"I'll be okay. I'm getting it under control. Help him. Get him out of here before more come."

Tenele hesitated a moment more and nodded. "Help me get him up the stairs," Tenele said to Havitharon before she reached down and pressed the sword's hilt into Tenara's hand. "Deep breaths."

Havi shook his head, more out of displeasure than protest. He belonged with her. He didn't care if the roof came down on him.

But...He did care about serving her well. He'd witnessed the close bond she shared with her family, even been jealous of it. The walls around them creaked and groaned, promising the building would be the cost of the magic Tenara had just spent saving them. He looked back at her faithfully. "I'll return to you," he swore, and took off with Tenele toward Vlad.

It was a bit of a shock to see the disastrously strong vampire so badly wounded. Vlad was twisted on the floor where he'd fallen after his short expenditure of power earlier. Havi knelt beside him and curled his arms very carefully under Vlad's neck and waist and twisted him gently onto his back.

Vlad's eyes met his, assessing him. His face was creased with barely suppressed agony. "Leave her in here, and-"

"And you'll chop off my horns and eat them, I'm aware," Havitharon sighed as he hoisted the vampire up to his feet.

Vlad covered up a wince. "Ew. I would have come up with a much better one." The vampire's legs attempted to hold him, but buckled anyway.

Havi dipped under Vlad's arm, holding the vampire upright. "Alright. Do it later." Tenele took up Vlad's other side, and they scrambled for the exit.

Tenara watched them go, and when their shoes winked out of site she collapsed. Her knees cracked against the stone, and the fissures in the brick spread. She huffed a breath of air into her lungs, tilting her head up to the ceiling.

Control. Control... Just... end it. Sever it. It's over. You're safe. You don't need it anymore... She closed her eyes, breathed. Breathed deep and long. She thought of Havitharon, and tried to think happy thoughts, but all she saw was the blood spilling down his neck. The knife at his throat. Rage boiled white hot inside her and she wanted to shatter their bones again.

The building shuddered. It seemed to drop an inch, and Tenara sucked in a breath. The wood groaned.

Control. Control. Breathe.

She thought of making love to Havitharon. She thought of his lips on her skin, his hands. Tender caresses. She thought of looking at the stars with him. Dreaming. Wishing.

The pressure eased a little. She relaxed. She felt it ebb, felt her limbs turn to mush. She sank onto all fours, took a deep breath. A joist above her shattered. The building rumbled. Her head tore up, gaze on the floorboards above her head. She scrambled to her feet, stumbled. Another joist broke. A cloud of dust burst over her head as she scurried for the stairs.