Sparkle (KOTLC) {Completed}

36

"Ah, Fintan's little pet. I knew you would be here." The voice said. "I warned him his affection for you could lead to his downfall."

Janessa was frozen in fear. Something about Vespera hit a chord in her that was wholly wrong, and she wanted to run away. As the bodyguards pushed her into the circle of elves they were protecting, Vespera sighed, "It is a pity. All this time—thousands upon thousands of years—and still we remain reliant on simpler species for our defense."

"Pretty sure that's the cue for you elves to use your fancy abilities to drop this creepy mystery lady." Ro said.

"They will try." Vespera's voice said.

Finally, as Vespera spoke, they were able to follow her voice to a balcony, where she stood wearing a burgundy gown with a high neckline and an intricate headdress.

"This is far prettier than a thinking cap, is it not? And it provides far superior protection—even from the moonlark's mind tricks. There is nothing any of you can do that will harm me."

Ro snarled and threw a knife at her, but she wasn't there. The mirror broke, and Vespera appeared on a new balcony on the other side of the room.

As they theorized on where she was and Dex attempted to find any hidden technology, Vespera's expression did not waver. "If you had done your research, you would know that I designed many of the tricks that keep our cities hidden. Even all this time later, my methods hold."

"There's nothing to research. You've been erased." Fitz told her.

For the first time, her expression changed. It darkened, and Janessa almost took a step back from how much more terrifying she was. "The world I knew was a small-minded, ungrateful place that was not worthy of the help I gave it."

Janessa scoffed, finally out of her stupor. "You call this help?"

"Yes. And I suppose we should focus on why we find ourselves here today. Fintan told me the moonlark would be unable to resist coming after us. I did not believe you would be so careless, but here you are, risking so much for so little—and still not risking enough." Vespera pointed to the other side of the force field. "An elegant dilemma, is it not?"

"So this is a test." Sophie surmised. Janessa wanted to take one of Ro's knives and throw it at Vespera.

Taking a deep breath, Janessa turned away from Vespera, only half-listening to her sick explanations as she focused her gaze on the gorgodon. How could she control the flames without feeling the heat she was supposed to use? Pyrokinesis wasn't a long distance ability the way telepathy was, it didn't work through forcefields, even with the help of a Shade.

But... maybe... if she could try to feel the heat not through the forcefield, but through the stone. 

"I do not hold back from making the hard choices. And that is why I will win."

Janessa grasped for the faint tendrils of heat coming through the stone.

"I can show you. It is time for your first lesson."

Janessa found them, followed them through the stone painstakingly, to the other side of the force field.

"In what?"

She was so close; her first tries were just sparks, but she could feel herself getting close, and just as she was going to get it—

"Ruthlessness." Fintan's voice made her freeze, and her connection to the other side was lost. Slowly, painfully, she turned, facing the balcony again as the door slammed shut.

As the others prepared for flames, Janessa grabbed one of Ro's knives angrily, and the second Fintan appeared next to Vespera on the balcony, she threw it, landing it exactly between his eyes. The mirror shattered.