Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 117: Leads

Mawar

I coughed, my body rattling as blood streamed down my chin. Pain lanced through my stomach, but it was somehow distant. I pulled myself against the wall, the cold snow underneath me biting through my tattered dress.

I groaned slightly, my mind trying to catch up with what was happening.

I felt the overwhelming urge to run. I wasn't the predator anymore. I should be, but this monster in front of me watched with the calculating eyes of a bird of prey. They burned me with every tracing movement over my skin.

"I'm not going to ask again," the mage said, crouching in front of me. "What do you know of Mardeth?"

"You'll have to try harder than that," I forced out, trying to appear strong. My Scythe, Melzri, had told me over and over again that the only way I could be strong was to break those that broke me first. "You'll have to–"

"Do to you what you threatened to me?" the man asked, cocking his head. He seemed eerily calm; something that only made me shudder more. I found myself wishing I hadn't ripped his mask off. Somehow, the hard angles of his face seemed more terrifying than the old vicar's mask. There was a scar stretching over one of his brows, and runes burned under his eyes like hot coals. "That's how Mardeth operates, you know. By torture."

I lowered my eyes, wincing as I exhaled. "Do what you will," I hissed.

He plodded forward, loping like a brimstain lion. I froze as he neared, and not from the cold. Eventually, he stood not a foot from my crumpled form. I closed my eyes shut, waiting for the end.

They'll try and hurt you, daughter, Melzri's voice bounced around in my head. They think you are weak. They think you are unworthy of your position.

I am unworthy, I thought, fighting back a stray tear as death loomed closer. I failed.

"My mask," a voice said from over me. "Give it to me."

My eyes fluttered open in incomprehension. His mask?

I wheezed stupidly for a few seconds, before the dark, riveted metal mask in my hands suddenly alit with a white outline. It yanked itself out of my hands, leaving my fingers grasping for something; anything to anchor me

The mask settled back into the man's hands. The straps around the back were torn away, so he was unable to put it back on. The front had been damaged irreparably by my decaying magic. He stowed it away in a dimension ring with a scoff.

"You said Mardeth had a base along the Redwater?" the man's even timbre said.

I tried to force mana along my limbs to ward away the cold. It moved like molasses, my core stuttering painfully. That punch had rattled my nexus of power more than I'd ever experienced.

"He... he has a new base near the headwaters. At the base of Mount Coreshen, along the western bank," I responded hazily. "He went there after something happened in Fiachra a week ago or so. Something about Scythe Seris intervening and Scythe Dragoth offering asylum."

The runes faded from the man's cheeks. The glowing chains, which superimposed themselves over his sleek, dark tunic, shimmered away in turn. The pressure, which I hadn't even realized had suffused the air, dispersed like mist under the sun. Suddenly, each breath felt less painful.

"That strain on your core will wear off after a while," the mage said. Under the moonlight, I was able to see that his hair–which was tied off into a short tail–was a strawberry-blonde color. There was a little streak of some other color in there, too. Was that red? "But you won't be able to use your mana at maximum efficiency for a little while."