The Princess and the Blade

[Emora Deen]

Tenara groaned at the feel of someone nuzzling her awake. "No, Stalker, go..."

"The sun is rising, Princess... If you don't leave now, you'll get caught in the changing of the guards. I don't think the day shift will be as lax in their judgments of you as the night."

Tenara cracked an eye open, wallowing into Rami's single, poor excuse of a pillow. He lay on his side, tucked into the corner of his small room. A gray-pink sky glowed through the narrow stone window just above his head. He placed a kiss on her bare shoulder before his handsome face devolved into that concerned frown he often wore when she spent too long in his company.

"This has to stop," he said. "Don't you have concubines for this sort of thing?"

She stretched with a sigh. "I do, but he won't touch me."

"Why?"

"He's too afraid my father will kill him."

"Which one?"

Tenara slipped out of bed, grabbing her borrowed servant's garb. "The one that eats people."

Rami shuddered. "Even more reason this has to stop."

"Don't worry, he won't eat you."

"Because he doesn't know about me?"

Tenara shrugged. She really didn't know if her father—the vampire one—knew of Rami or not. If he did, he didn't say anything about it.

"Well, this has to stop, either way. It's not safe to be with me. For many reasons, least of all because you know... you might..."

Tenara laughed. "No, definitely not." She wasn't going to go down that road again and explain to him the many reasons she wouldn't. Least of all because her body was an amalgam of inhumanness, she'd never tell him about.

"Well, other than the fact you might get pregnant, you might catch something down here."

"I'm only sleeping with you," she said, dragging the cloak around her shoulders before stooping to pull on the wicker sandals.

"Yeah, well, I'm not only sleeping with you, you know..."

She frowned at him.

"I'm a whore, Tenara. It's my job."

Her nerves bristled and she snatched the last buckle of her shoes before jerking the black wig out of his hands and dragging it over her braided silver hair. "Oh, of course." She dug into her pocket for a cluster of silver coins and tossed them onto his bed. "How could I forget..."

"Tenara..."

"Thank you for your service!" she shouted as she left the room, passing overnight guests as they slinked with heavy-lidded eyes out of their play spaces.

She'd only ever paid Rami once—the first time. After that, he insisted she didn't because he enjoyed her company and because he didn't want her going to some of the other men in the Indigo House. Not all of them could be as discreet as Rami, and most of them would try very hard to father a child in the Hajaran heir, or blackmail her in some way. or at worst, kidnap and ransom her. Over the last few years their visits had become more frequent and friendly and, in some ways, she'd begun to think of him as something other than a thrilling adventure. It stung to hear him talk about his line of work, to know that his time with her was more business than... well, the other part of his job.

"I'll see you in a few days!" he shouted back.

"Fuck you!"

Tenara made her way back to the palace using the winding back road, coming in through the servants entrance. She passed the guards with a wave of her hand. Herald and Almar chuckled at her disheveled appearance. "Lose all your money tonight?"

"Not a single coin," she replied.

"That a girl," Almar said. He'd taught her to play 4 Kings and a Curse when she was twelve, and she'd gotten so good at it she tried her hand in the red lamp district. She lost a lot, and often, but they didn't need to know that.

Tenara used a forgotten servant's path to avoid the main halls of the palace, and burst into her room through a grated vent in the wall just as her handmaiden entered the bathroom. She stripped the servant's garb off and shoved it into the bottom drawer of her wardrobe, sweeping into the washroom as the tub filled with hot water.

"The wig, your majesty," Lel said, patting the top of her head.

"Shit..." Tenara sprinted naked across her bed chamber, jerking the wig off and shoving it into the pile of clothes at the back of the drawer. She spotted Stalker pouting on her bed, his ears twitching and his eyes roaming as he watched her run back and forth. "Don't say a word!"

Tenara ran back and slipped into the tub, tugging the pins from her hair and running her fingers through the braids before submerging herself into the lavender and rose bath, scrubbing and washing the smell of the Indigo House off.

A half hour later she was clean and dressed, sipping coffee on her balcony and watching the sun finish its introduction of the day.

Lel retreated and Bora entered. Bora was an older woman with a pinched face and neurotic passion for schedules. "You're running late for breakfast. The Queen and King are already there, and afterwards we have to greet the delegation from Losaris—is that glitter on your cheek?"

Tenara reached up and rubbed harshly at her face. "No," she said.

"It's the other cheek."

She switched.

Bora licked her thumb and rubbed the spot Tenara couldn't seem to find. "You are going to get caught one day and I do not want to be there when it happens... It's time to put your toys away, your majesty. You'll need to find a husband soon, whether you like it or not."

"Yes, yes," Tenara said, waving the woman off. "And settle down and have a large number of babies so no one worries about the succession of the Hajaris dynasty ever again. I'll just sit at home all day nursing children while my husband runs the country. If only my parents could have had more than one child, perhaps a son..."

"Breakfast," Bora said, ignoring her tirade.

Breakfast was held in the private conservatory. It was humid and smelled of orchids, but when they opened the doors into the courtyard a desert breeze blew in the scent of salt and sea. A long glass table was filled with an assortment of fruits and pastries and cured meats. Her Uncle Talon sat on one side of the table with his wife Espha. She was mortal and he was not. Age was showing in the silver spotting her black hair. She ate fruit and he sipped at a bowl of warm blood with a silver spoon, eating a person like soup.

Her mother sat at the left of her demi-god father, Atul, with the space at his right empty. It would be filled by her vampiric father, Vlad. There was already a bowl with his breakfast waiting for him. She slipped into the chair closest to her mother.

Tenele leaned over and pressed a kiss into her daughter's hair. "Good morning."

"Good morning," Tenara replied, smiling.

A week later, Tenara found herself feeling restless and, as much as she hated to admit it, missing Rami. She donned her servant's garb and slipped out the side entrance of the palace. She did her usual—met with her friend Amor at the local tavern. They drank a spell and danced their way to the Indigo House. She didn't find Rami on the main floor, as she often did, so she parted ways with Amor and went to his room.

Only, it didn't seem to be his room anymore. She found a different man lounging on Rami's bed. He wasn't Hajaran, either. He was pale, with light-colored hair and green eyes. He sat up, eyes brightening when she entered.

"Sorry, wrong door."

"It could be the right one," he added.

"I'm looking for Rami."

"He moved on," the man said. He stood, coming a foot taller than Rami was.

"That's unfortunate, I really liked Rami..." Something felt wrong. A shape moved off to the side, in the corner of the room to her right. She jumped, trying to fling herself out of the room, but the door slammed shut behind her and hard arms grabbed hold. A cloth pressed to her nose and mouth and she drew panicked breaths into her lungs. The harder she breathed, the darker the world got.

Tenara knew very little of the next month. She was drugged and held in the bottom of a ship. She ate and drank as they gave it to her, and as soon as she had nourishment they put her under again. She tried to get the bind on her wrist off, so if anything, she could kill who'd taken her and sink herself in the sea before she could be used to harm her parents or her kingdom. The bind was stubborn, and she was not lucid enough to focus on the rage she felt she should have at being kidnapped and stolen away, and just as she would conjure enough energy to focus on that, the world would go dark again.

When she woke again a cold wind blew over her. The sky was crimson, with a swirl of gray-black clouds overhead and the sound of chanting in the air. She was chained to a stone, her arms above her head. She gathered her legs under her and stood, relieving some of the taunt pain in her arms.

A man stood at an altar, a gleaming blade in his hands. He held it up to the sky, chanting in a language not familiar to her. He wore a black robe which billowed around him like an angry cloud, and beneath that he wore trousers. No shirt and no shoes. His chest was painted with hundreds of runes weaving in circles.

Tenara turned her eyes dizzily up to her hands and wrists, and found the bind there, stubborn as always. They had taken her clothes but they couldn't take that. She thumbed at it, trying to remember the incantation to unlatch it. It had been so long since it was placed on her, she wasn't sure she knew how to get it off or what would happen if she did. It was designed to come off if she needed her powers, if her life was in danger, but she was too foggy to garner the right amount of fear to trigger the latch.

Red lightning danced across the sky, followed by a harsh clap of thunder hard enough to shake the earth. Her gaze turned back to the sorcerer, to his gleaming, sharp weapon. His chanting grew impassioned, and he turned towards her, grasping the hilt of the blade. He approached, and she pressed herself into the stone, finally finding the ability to be afraid.

"If you harm me, there will be no place far enough for you to hide."

He smiled, lifting the blade with both his hands, and then brought it down.

Two things happened.

First, Tenara felt the sharp, terrible pain of being impaled on steel. It wrenched a sharp, watery gasp from her. Second, the bind around her wrist sensed it too, but before it could break free and release her, the magic in her swelled. Fear compounded by pain grew, stretching against the bind that held it in place, until the metal cracked and split open.

Tenara felt blood running freely from her chest, over her belly and down her legs, pooling on the carved symbols at her feet. As they began to glow, so did the blade. In that instant, the wind died, the lightning ceased, and the thunder silenced. There was a second for her killer to rejoice, to think he had succeeded in what he sought to do, and then red light glowed in Tenara's eyes and the world came apart in a concussive blast. Her attacker was thrown back into the opposing pillar, his head cracking against the stone hard enough to leave a splattering of blood—leaving the blade lodged in her chest.

The stone dias beneath them shattered. The pillars surrounding them cracked and shifted and clattered to the ground. The chains binding her to the sacrificial place melted against the blue fire spiraling around her hands. Tenara tried to pull the power back in as it spread, flattening the black pines around them, but it swelled and grew and fought her. She grabbed the blade in her chest and pulled. It would kill her, but she was dead already, and better to die before her power killed a village of innocent people—wherever this was they had brought her to.

Blood flowed hot and free when the blade was out. Tenara placed a hand over the wound, trying to hold it closed, but it spilled down her back too. As the painful, cold drag of death drew over her, she had the faintest sensation of the wound closing. Odd, since she did not inherit the healing gifts of her mother, and while she could heal faster than most humans, she could not outpace her own mortality. The wounds in her chest and back closed, leaving two pearlescent white scars, one on her spine and one between her breasts.

Tenara collapsed dizzily into the stone, the glow in her red eyes fading as exhaustion wore her magic down.

[Soran Nightblade]

A new brightness brought the sorcerer's senses slowly back to the disastrous scene his spell had created. Amidst the menacing rumble of his alter crumbling, beyond the blinding spiral of blue fire his sacrifice had caused, he could feel it building.

Violet sparks were beginning to cut like brilliant knives through the air. Through blood-tinted vision, the sorcerer followed the jagged brightness to its destination. The sword he had spent years and destroyed countless souls to craft.... It lay half-buried in rubble and blood a few yards from the princess's corpse. And it was glowing as if possessed from within by lightning.

It had worked. It had worked! That spoiled bitch's blood truly had been the perfect catalyst. A twisted smile quivered on his ashen lips. He'd done it. He'd brought The Being to this plane. With this power at his command, no obstacle could prevent him from his goals. He could surpass even his mother's power.

He fell forward and crawled through the dust like a starved man toward his creation. His body felt sluggish, but the pain of his injuries could be dealt with later. It was meaningless in the face of this new power he'd just achieved.

Then he saw it. The first dark crack, spread like a cobweb across the sword's glowing surface. More formed as he approached, lacing across the gilded blade. A horrifying sense of realization settled over him. Several of the bloodstones in the hilt had melted down like a resin, no longer anchoring the spell as intended. The violet sparks in the atmosphere were growing more chaotic, arcing like heat lightning among the rocks surrounding his ruined alter.

"No. No, no!" he began to mutter. At this rate, the vessel would crumble to dust before containing his newfound power. Without a new bloodstone to reinforce it...

Souls. He needed more souls.

He looked around desperately. Of course there would be no souls here. The location had been chosen precisely because of its desolation. It was as far as one could get from the life forces of this world, alien and remote. There were only rocks and freezing seas for miles in every direction. He stretched out his power, feeling into the ether for any sign of life and knowing it would be fruitless.

Something bright and warm prickled back against his energy. He glanced toward the source and cursed in disbelief. This was an epic stroke of luck. She was still alive!

With speed that belied his injuries, he scuttled across the wreckage and dragged the damaged sword over to the princess's side. "Looks like you can still be useful, Hajaran bitch," he panted. "If you can summon that much power by yourself, your bloodstone will be all I need. He placed a hand over the bloody cloth over her chest, thrust his magic around her soul, and squeezed.

[Emora Deen]

In the darkness, Tenara mourned her family. They would never stop looking for her, and she would never be found. She thought of her poor worried mother, her angry fathers. She thought of them finding out how she'd been taken—where she'd been taken from. They wouldn't understand... She was slipping deeper into blissful death or unconsciousness, she wasn't quite sure which, when a terrible pain arched through her chest.

She groaned, dragging her eyes open, searching the world and not quite seeing the source of her anguish until the sorcerer came into focus. She fumbled, grasping for his wrist as the blue in her eyes flickered red and she felt that consuming, maddening power swell. Either this bastard was going to kill her or her magic would. The blue spark of her father's demonic fire, born of Verin and his dark realm, coiled around the tips of her fingers, spreading and swirling over the sorcerer's hand, burning. "Let. Go."

[Soran Nightblade]

The sorcerer sneered down at her plea, for a moment too excited to even feel the pain. His mind registered it before his concussed nerve endings did, as he glanced down to see flesh charring away from his own bones. "Wha... w-..." The half-formed question contorted into a formless shriek as the agony and terror finally set in. He screamed until there was no air left, and then went on soundlessly, flailing against her grip on his wrists. The fire was spreading up his arms, setting flame to the rocks around him, melting the very earth he sat upon. The sword fell from his grip, sizzling, and clattered at Tenara's side.

In counterpoint to the princess's glowing blue power melting all it touched, the violet sparks in the air grew dense and dark, its wild blackness threatening to swallow it all. The air no longer felt like air, as if they'd been transplanted to some alien moon.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara released him in a shove. It felt weak and unfocused but there was power behind it, power enough to sling him out of the ring of blue fire and away from her. The fire was spreading, gorging on the earth and stone, hungry for this new place, this new taste. Tenara drew her hands against her chest and clenched them, hunkering down as she attempted, vainly, to call the fire back, to whither it to embers and ash. Come back, come back, come back…

She was going to vomit. She was going to seize and contort and lose herself to it, as she’d done before. She barely remembered the tally of the dead, the hundreds killed by her uncontrollable gifts. She barely remembered the day they locked her magic away for the good of Hajara, if not the world. But she remembered why… because she was weak. Half mortal. Frail in body and constitution. She was not like her fathers, and not like her mother. She was something between them all, and Tenara wasn’t certain it was the best of any of them.

[Soran Nightblade]

As Tenara's weight shifted, she wound up leaning against part of the sword's blade. The fabric of her clothes had partially frayed away in the flames, and her skin pressed directly against the she splintering weapon. The instant her power touched it, an odd silence shuddered through the atmosphere, sucking at her ears and senses like a black hole.

"Release me!" a frayed voice snarled inside her mind. The blue inferno of her power around her was beginning to implode on itself like a smothered fire.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara took hold of the sword, the voice buzzing in her head. She thought it had to be her father—her true father. The one that was both her others put together, speaking to her from the sword. It had to be him. They'd used her blood—his blood—to conjure him. "Help me," she called to the sword, her voice strangled with the effort of holding back what belonged to someone else. Someone stronger than her. She did not know how to release him, her trembling hands fumbled over the hilt, along the blade. It sliced her skin, and she barely noticed until the blood was drip-drip-dripping on the stone, and the wound was sealing shut, leaving another iridescent white scar. She smeared her blood along the blade, thinking that if her blood had called him here, it would release him too.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon snarled at the unseen voice that tore at his body like the teeth of a saw. The voice was no one he recognized. One of Prav's assassins? No... someone with the skill to command this much power would have subjugated Prav, not the other way around. No matter how much she wanted him dead, she wouldn't be able to afford something like this.

He tried to look around, but it was like staring at the sun from behind his eyelids. As much as the power ripped at him, he couldn't seem to sense his own limbs. A thought dawned on him. Could he be dead? Had they somehow taken him off guard and killed him in one quick shot?

"Help me!" the voice came again. Something wet and hot seemed to wash over the nothingness of him. That power again, calling for him, dragging him powerlessly toward something painfully bright. He snarled at the assault, baring teeth and claws he was sure he hadn't been able to feel a moment ago. Just because this new attack included some tricks he'd never seen before didn't mean he wouldn't fight back. He thrust his own strength against the maddening light, tearing into it. Pain seared between his eyes as he pushed, reminding him that he had eyes. He had eyes again, and he was staring and clawing at the sun itself.

Wherever he tore at the power around him, dark patches bristling with sparks took its place. He could feel the light flooding into him, like flame climbing up a stream of oil to explode the can that held it. Well, he would not be so easily burst apart. "Ha," his low voice sizzled with absorbed power. "Go ahead and keep trying. I just have to outlast you."

[Emora Deen]

Tenara winced, blinded by pain and power. The effort it took to focus, to see what she was doing instead of closing her eyes and letting the torrent of magic flow over and out of her until there was nothing left, not even herself, was draining. She was uncertain which would win, her magic’s wrath or her exhaustion. At least, if she passed out, there might be some hope.

The voice no longer sounded like her father, but she didn’t care. There was a voice, so there was help. “Please…” She placed the blade of the sword in her palm and cut deep, feeling the blade slice down to the bone. She cried out, dragging the sharp edge over bone and muscle from one end for her hand to the other. Blue flame licked up out of the wound, over the blade, until the wound sealed shut with a shimmering scar.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon shuddered as another wash of heat spread through him. This time it didn't hurt. Quite the opposite. He reached out with his senses to explore the feeling, and it responded in kind, plunging into him and tethering him down from whatever nonreality he was stuck in. Sure enough, the senseless blur of his surroundings began to take shape.

A young woman was in front of him. She appeared to be dying. Blue flame was swarming over her body. She was holding a sword. Something about it felt disturbing, and he couldn't quite look at it or make out its features. He stared at its staticky non-appearance for a few moments until a prickling sensation began forming behind his eyes. It felt like trying to bring something into focus that was too close to see.

Instead, he glanced down, and found that he could make out his own body again. It wasn't quite right. His hands seemed translucent. He could vaguely see the rocky ground below him. Something that looked like dark smoke was flowing around his skin, crackling with violet sparks.

He turned his gaze to the woman on the ground. Had she done this to him?

In front of Tenara, a man-like form took shape, half-transparent and silhouetted in phantom smoke. He was taller than her by a head, taller still if one counted the spiraling horns arching up from his head. His long hair was a deep blue, nearly black. It hung loose, falling past his hips. Smaller sections were parted off beside his pointed ears and horns in small braids, adorned with jewels. His skin was a pale slate gray, and black scales crept across the edges of his features near his ears and throat.

His body was built lean and lithe, like a dancer. Or a fighter. Given his state of dress, perhaps he was a mix of both. The clothes looked like nothing from any culture of this world. They were minimalist garments designed to allow speed and movement. A billowing sash hung around his hips over close-fitting dark pants. His top was of such fine fabric that it seemed to mold to his skin, and a breastplate of an unfamiliar gleaming metal protected his upper chest and one shoulder.

The oddest was his eyes. They had no whites. Gold irises gleamed at the center of pure black sockets. Their blackness seemed to swallow up his long eyelashes, and it was hard to make out where one ended and the other began.

He took a step closer to the ailing woman in front of him, no sign of sympathy or mercy on his alien features. "Drath ik slechni ros?" he asked her coldly.

The blue flames of her magic seemed to be stretching toward him, drawn to the smoke-like power silhouetting him. He reached out toward the sword in her hands, as if to take it.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara had not thought to fear the voice calling to her until he appeared, looking nothing like any man or beast she'd ever seen, and she was the daughter of monsters and gods. But she felt her magic bleeding towards him and the relief in the pressure just beneath her skin was enough to make her wilt into the stone. Then, he spoke in a language she did not know, and icy fingers ran down her spine. Shit... What had she done? What had she drawn into this world. He reached for the sword and she pulled it back towards her, scooting on her rear along the carved stone. Her magic flowed away from her, even as she slid away from him.

The pressure ebbed, and she could think. Really think.

She had to send him back. Somehow. Before he took her magic. Before he got his hands on this sword. She scrambled up to her knees, feeling sick with dizziness, and took the sword hilt with both hands, raising so the point angled towards him.

Her parents had sheltered her in some ways, and not others. She had never seen a battle, but she had been trained to protect herself. She had never tested the theory outside of practice rounds with her fathers and mother, not really. Aside from a few squabbles in bars, one that really constituted a true brawl, and even that she only won thanks to Amor, this would be her first solo fight. And judging by the way he looked, she was going to lose.

[Soran Nightblade]

The moment she fully gripped the sword, something fierce seemed to worm through his gut. His legs folded immediately, dropping him to his knees before her. It happened so fast that his brain was still making the transition from confusion to full-out panic when the power hit him. It rushed through him like a dam had unleashed, flooding his body. His nerve endings throbbed. He felt something squeezing around him, binding him. The overwhelming sensation might have been pleasurable if he weren't so certain it was trying to kill him.

Wild gold eyes glanced up at the woman kneeling a few feet from him. This woman wasn't dying. A dying woman shouldn't be capable of...whatever this was. If she was a suitor, he'd never heard of her. Her complexion was unnatural, and he could find no sign of her family crest. What did she want with him?

Havitharon tried to stand, but he couldn't move a muscle while resisting whatever power was thrumming into him. He'd been bested. Should he submit to her? What would she want in return? The same thing they all wanted, he thought grimly, his thoughts bordering on panic. He'd survived all these years without playing their stupid game, but he'd finally been caught. His sister's vengeance would not be mild.

Fury buzzed through his overwhelmed mind. He wanted it gone. This power, this person. But there was no choice. He had to submit for now until he could figure out more about his situation. He released whatever mental resistance he had left and swallowed the woman's power like it was a foul medicine. His nerves thrummed, echoing against it, and it swirled to a standstill inside of him.

Finally, his surroundings stilled and grew quiet around him. His vision held a bluish tint to it as if looking at the world through colored glass. Against every fiber of his will, he lowered his head to make the formal gesture of male surrender. "I am bested. Make your demand of me, Yurivis."

To Tenara, the words came out as a jumble of harsh, alien syllables.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara felt an immense relief, as if all the power bursting beneath the surface of her skin had subsided. Gone. It felt too good for her to worry about it, to worry whether or not the magic that had mostly been a curse her entire life was gone from her. But a second after the cool relief washed over her, she felt the spike of fear. She was weak. Powerless. Then, he lowered his head, as if bowing.

What the fuck was going on?

"I don't understand you," she said, not lowering her sword. But, if she didn't understand him, she doubted he would understand her. She wanted to stand, but she'd lost so much blood. The only thing that had kept her awake, kept her moving, was the power inside her and now it was... gone? Diminished.

She was staring at him through tunneled vision, the edges of her sight growing darker by the second. Her arms trembled against the weight of the weapon. She turned a panicked gaze on the sorcerer. Was he dead? Would he come awake and finish her? Would this monster obey him?

She groaned and pushed to her feet, keeping the sword trained on the human-like beast as she swayed on her feet. What if she ran for it? Ran until she collapsed, which she doubted would be very far, but there seemed plenty of large rocks and downed trees for her to crawl under and hide. What then?

Tenara shook the blackness from her vision, or at least she tried. She took a deep breath, and ran for the black tree line. Her bare feet left the stone and sank into rocks and muck and sharp sticks. She cut a straight path through the woods and ran until she collapsed near a fallen petrified tree. She dragged herself half beneath it and tried to still the panting of her breath, tried to burry her legs and the thin, gossamer gown they'd dressed her in beneath the mud. She hugged the sword to her, closing her eyes and praying they wouldn't find her, praying she could stay awake long enough to survive.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon didn't understand. Far from the victorious behavior he'd expected, the woman seemed openly afraid of him. People had employed many tricks and strategies against him in the past, but this one didn't make any sense. She had literally just run away. Was it some sort of insult? Not that he had any intention of being used as an Ivis, but he'd expected her to at least try.

He was still busy thinking about it when he realized his body was going numb. His blue-tinted vision began to swim. When he glanced down at his body, he realized in horror that it was barely even there. It was like he was fading away, and he had no idea why. If he disintegrated right now, would he ever reform? He felt a pulling sensation sucking at his consciousness until everything dissolved into darkness.

The first thing he was aware of when his senses filtered back online was the smell. This place had a scent like nothing he'd ever encountered. He straightened slowly, and realized he was sitting with his back pressed to a bumpy pillar. All around him were more pillars of various sizes. As they ascended into the sky, they feathered outward. He would say it seemed like a fungus, but he'd never heard of a fungus that large before. Even the earth smelled unfamiliar. It was as if he were on another planet.

The sound of muffled breath startled him. He glanced to his right and jerked up straight as he spotted the woman from earlier. She was just a few feet away, and they were looking straight at each other.

She looked weak. She'd covered herself in tar, and was still holding that weapon that hurt too much to look at. If he attacked her now, would he win? He didn't feel like being disassembled again.

Anger festered immediately. Had she unmade him without warning just to put him in his place? His eyes hardened. "Enough games. If you want me to follow, say so."

[Emora Deen]

He was just laying there. Speaking. How had he even gotten there? She didn't remember seeing him walk up, he just... appeared. Next to her. Tenara might have screamed at the shock of it, if she weren't so exhausted and worried about attracting the attention of the sorcerer or the others who worked with him. There had to be others, right? The sorcerer was not the one who was in Rami's room, or the ones on the ship.

She couldn't run from him. She wasn't certain how he found her now, so it was likely he could find her again. There was no running. She rolled onto her side, slid across the mud, dragging herself and the sword to him. When she was close enough, she flung herself up, raised the sword above her head, and brought it down on him.