Eleanor froze as the voice of her master sounded in her ears. He had ordered her to take Valkeries soul. The teacher she had loved. Her lip trembled and her eye wavering, her sense blind for a moment. Then she felt a sharp pain as the tip of Valkeries blade brushed against her cheek. A trickle of black blood running down her face from the cut. Valkery pushed forward stabbing again, This time Elanor deflected with a black tendril stumbling back as she brought her sword up to meet another flurry of blows. She looked in Valkeries eyes White and glazed over like her own. The white-haired student facing the white-haired teacher, both much too young for their pain. Much too young to carry the mark of a
weapon.
Though Valkery was older, she had sworn never to use the full extent of her power but she sensed the swelling of power and fear growing in Eleanor as she drove her back. She needed to end this now. She took her eyes off Eleanor for a second and tapped into Luna's life aura directly, she knew that taking to much of this could kill the both of them but it didn't matter. She felt the familiar pain growing in her head, her nose and eyes began to bleed. Everything seemed to slow she darted forwards ducking around and under her blade, lunging her own blade towards Eleanor's book with a scream as she felt her own magic and the void eating away at her.
There was a split second of indecision as Eleanor felt Valkery draw the life from Luna. Then she let out a cry of her own as the full force of the black void erupted from her book seconds before Valkery's blade came in contact with it. Valkery was knocked back. Eleanor rose up carried by black tentacles, looking down on Valkery with cold eyes as the void thrashed about her.
Valkery lay on the ground dazed her drain on Luna halted and the book she had taken lying knocked from her hand's several feet away. And here she was again, lying helpless on the battlefield, defeated by her own power.
A void tendril scooped up the book Valkery had dropped and carried it to Luna so that she could heal from it's power.
Valkery rolled over coughing up blood. Eleanor could hear the hurried sound of marching feet as moving lanterns approached. A nearby patrol must have heard the screams and come to investigate. Valkery tried to get to her feet but a void tentacle knocked her back down. Her whole left arm felt numb and she fought against unconsciousness drawing on what aura she could find in the space to continue to cling on.
Eleanor loomed over Valkery. She had been ordered to take her soul. Her quarry lay helpless in front of her. Her master hungered. Valkery had tried to kill Luna and destroy her sisters.
The patrol of city guards flooded into the marketplace center lantern light bobbing in the dark as they shouted orders with swords and spears and tried to surround them. Eleanor bearly even noticed them. Like a buzzing on her peripheral. The void lashed out on her command and impaled them all. She opened her book and drained the life from them.
"There, take them, sate your hunger on that," Eleanor thought.
But the voice of her master echoed back "I want her."
Eleanor looked down at Valkery and a pain stabbed her chest like a fist clenching around her heart as her hesitation grew. "Now" Her master ordered. She gasped and tears filled her eyes as the void began to dissipate till she was standing small and alone over Valkery, her eyes returned to their usual green color.
She helped Valkery up and the older woman looked her in the eyes, Eleanors eyes wet and pleading. "Go, now, He can punish me but he won't kill me. He needs me to badly for that." She cried out and feel to her knees.
Valkery looked at her former student and for a second she understood. She then turned around and ran off into the darkness, not even bothering to acknowledge Luna's presence.
Eleanor lay writhing on the cobblestones tears streaming down her face as her insides were wracked with pain.
"You stupid, stupid girl, You do not know what you are playing with." Her master's void rung in her ears.
"I'm- I'm not wrong though," She thought through the pain, "You won't kill me."
"I might not kill you but I can make your life a living hell. I can fill your every step with agony and take away everything you ever loved."
"You know my contract." She gasped as the pain began to numb only to begin again somewhere new. "I would rather trade my soul than let you have the soul of someone I love. You must have known that I could not have followed that order." She let slip a pained smile as she struggled to stand but collapsed back down.
"I can give you many other souls, that is worth much more to the survival of the cult than the soul of one. We need strength now more than anything."
There was a silence but the pain slowly dissipated "I will hold you to that," the whisper lingered. The pain was gone, only a shadow of it lingered, but Eleanor didn't move, breathing heavily as she tried to gather her strength.
