Private Tales A World Governed by Providence

[Priestess Marta Maisal]

"You can talk," said Daelin to Emelia. "Don't pretend like you can't."

"I have but one question for you, Daelin."

"And that is?"

With stern reprimand, and yet also with a hint of sorrow for another life subsumed by Chaos, Marta said, "Why? When you could have committed in earnest to all you said, rather than allow such fine words to wither to lies; when you could have embraced that which is good rather than that which is wicked, and known in time a life far better than that which you have led. Why?"

But Daelin just shook his head. "There's nothing to say."

Marta closed her eyes in brief frustration, and her chest and shoulders deflated with a sigh. And then she placed in Emelia's empty hand the knife she beckoned for. "So be—"

"But there's something I can do!"

In a flash, Daelin's deception became clear. He had sat there, biding his time, as the trait of his Letai kin spirit, that of a kind of lizard, slowly regenerated the wound he'd suffered. With his hand over his stomach he had covered it, and kept up the ruse of his debilitating injury until this moment. But now he was whole again, his wound gone and all his strength returned.

And he sprang up from where he sat, and lunged to seize hold of the knife-wielding arm and hand of Emelia.

Emelia Atchins

 

[Emelia Atchins]

She might not be a trained fighter, but Emelia wasn't a naive fool either. She had watched Marta with cold eyes and watched Daelin with equal absence of emotion. And readiness. She had been caught unawares once, too confident by half and more. She shook her head at his assertion; of course, she could speak but she had made a deal with a devil-

-searing heat running through her body-

-and the deal had been explicit. She had no desire to indebt herself further.

The hilt of the knife slapped against her palm and Daelin made his move. Her immediate reaction was a widening of the eyes and an 'o' of surprise. In the same moment, her body moved of its own accord, jerking the hand back and slide away from the man.

She made a desperate swipe at him as she retreated, reversed her grip and crouched for all the world as if she knew what she was doing. Her eyes smoldered with wild rage tamped down to a cold burn.

 

[Priestess Marta Maisal]

Daelin missed his mark, and with a thrust of his body backward, so did Emelia.

Marta, then, attempted to intervene. A quick flight of her hand saw her fist, if obliquely, connect with his cheek. But now entangled by closeness, her arms and his arms grappling madly for advantage, Marta and Daelin stumbled about, now smashing into the stone wall, now crashing into the bars of the cell. But Daelin with his strength proved the victor in such an entanglement where bursts of speed counted for little, and overpowering Marta he slammed her head into one of the cell's bars and knocked the wits from her. The clang of the impact reverberated in the dungeon.

Marta fell. On the ground she lay, eyes closed and lips dancing to the murmurs of stupefying pain, and a few trickles of blood ran freely now from where her head had hit the metal.

Daelin stood over her body like a champion over a conquered foe in an arena.

Breathing heavily from the struggle, but far from winded, he held out his hand and beckoned with his fingers and said to Emelia, "Give me the knife. Don't make me take it from you."

Emelia Atchins

 

[Emelia Atchins]

She said nothing to his demand.

Of course.

Instead, she acted. The innkeeper's daughter was smaller and weaker than Daelin, untrained by comparison. It was a patently uneven match and both of them knew it. She would be damned if she let that stop her from putting up the wildest fight that the thug had ever dealt with in his entire life, even as fear threaded its way through the core of her. It left her bones chilled to icicles, her stomach a knot of pain.

Panic was nowhere to be found, though. An icy, fatalist calm settled over her like a suffocating cloak. She stood a little straighter and stared at Daelin in defiance.

Stronger, bigger, better trained... But perhaps not faster or smarter.

Certainly not anything like as vicious. That streak had been burned into her flesh when her patron's blood had been given to her. The fire may have passed, but the wildness remained behind.

She set herself and waited for him to make the first move. She wasn't entirely sure whether Marta was part of this fight any longer or not. She had felt the blow as if it had been her own head. Regardless, she had been abandoned by every soul that came along and into her life.

She held the knife in a trembling hand, and whether the shaking was excitement or fear - or perhaps a little of both - she stood ready to receive her foe.

And fight like a rabid hellcat if it came to it.

 

[Priestess Marta Maisal]

Daelin with a small motion cracked his neck.

"So you want me to take it."

And like a leopard that had stalked its prey through long grass and came now to the point of pouncing, so Daelin's muscles tensed. So his body made ready to lunge. So he committed to his assault.

Yet there was one thing he did not, or could not, count on.

Whether by force of will or the discreet intervention of something greater, Marta's foot caught and for a second hooked one of Daelin's own. This small act, timed as it was in the full effort of Daelin's lunge, caused the Letai elf to stumble, throwing what might have been a far more vigorous assault into disarray. Though his hands still groped for purchase and control at Emelia, they lacked form and coordination.

In his moment of unbalance, there was deadly opportunity.

Emelia Atchins

 

[Emelia Atchins]

Her lips compressed into a thin line. She said nothing to his statement.

Of course.

Instead, her eyes tracked him. She noted the bunching of muscles in advance of his attack. She knew that she could not let the man get his hands on her unless she wanted to be borne to the ground and pummeled. She was not afraid of death.

There were worse things on the table than that, after all.

She shifted her weight, and caught Marta's movement out of the corner of her eye. She did not look to the woman. Instead, she twisted adroitly out of Daelin's way. She spun out of his reach as she dropped the blunt pommel of the knife towards the back of his skull with every ounce of her strength behind it. If she had not held the blade in a reversed grip she would have been stabbing him in the head instead.

Immediately after regaining her balance after the dodge, she turned and went to stab the son-of-a-bitch in the back.