Hiraeth -- Eleceed FF

Chapter 8

The Bryan residence in England was large, almost obscenely so, and there was a chilling emptiness about it. Nathalia could sense the traces of power around; she knew that whoever lived here must be immensely powerful. Jacob Eresby had promised, of course, to draw James Bryan out of the country on some pretext, but Nathalia still felt apprehensive.

"I'll imitate a golden eagle's call if anything happens," Cain said with a nervous smile. "You'll be alright."

"Thank you," Nathalia said, though she knew there was real danger here, a chance that she might not leave alive. She looked out at the massive garden from where they were hidden, and at where her quarry was sitting, still oblivious.

"Do you want me to do the spatial isolation?" Cain asked.

Nathalia smiled. "Thank you, but it's alright. I want him to know who it is."

She stepped out, and clenched her hand into a fist. Her dark blue spatial isolation spread over the garden like a wave.

Arthur Bryan twisted around, alerted to her presence, and faced her. 

Unbidden, fear coursed through Nathalia. She felt suddenly alone in the presence of so much power. Not even Cain had been able to say with certainty who would win in a fight between them.

I'm afraid, she thought.

Warily, she raised her eyes to meet his. Then, as if set off by looking at the heir of her father's killer for the first time, a sudden courage seized her. She smiled.

But Arthur broke the silence first. "What does a nobody like you want with me?"

"Revenge."

"My family has many enemies." He said it almost as if it were a source of pride. "You're one of the more daring ones." A wolfish grin broke over his face.

"One of those with a deeper-running vendetta." Nathalia kept the cold smile on her face, but her jaw tensed. Involuntarily, she let out a nervous surge of power.

A look of recognition came over Arthur's face when the grass around Nathalia turned brown and dried, and the water that had run through its veins and suffused its cells came slowly up to hover around her clenched fists.

"So it is you. I must apologise for calling you a nobody," he said, giving her a mocking smile. "My father told me about you. But you don't really think you can kill me, do you?"

Nathalia returned the smile, bringing up more water from the grass and from the groundwater under it until a sizeable volume was under her control. I must be patient. There would be more to take later.

Arthur now gathered his power around him, a mass of indigo energy gathering around him. Nathalia had a brief recollection of a whip-like tendril the exact same shade of blue wrapping itself around her father's neck and tightening.

"It's a pity my father's not here. He would've loved seeing the last of the Espinozas die at his son's hand."

Nathalia feinted but did not attack, and the energy arced toward her.

Arthur's counterfeint and attack were as refined as any Nathalia had ever seen. A lash of energy missed by the barest fraction from severing the tendons of her shoulder.

Nathalia moved neatly away to the right, avoiding a thickly planted flowerbed, letting Awakened reaction-mechanism flow through her, not attacking to conserve her energy. At the forefront of her awareness was Cain's advice, albeit years-old: "Arthur is impatient. If you bide your time, he'll grow ambitious and overextend himself. And he likes to aim for the face and the eyes to blind you and make you vulnerable. He also prefers to attack at the same time as his opponent; he relies on brute strength to force the attack through."