Halfling (editing in process)

Chapter Nine

The man, Javen, was thrown back from Aria. He scrambled to his feet, a dagger pulled from his belt as he stalked towards her, breathless and angry.

"You!" He hissed, disgust and pure hatred in his eyes. "You killed my mother! You are the abomination that was forced on her!"

Aria scrambled to her feet as Javen leapt at her and dodged his frenzied strikes with clumsy steps, still disoriented by what she had seen.

"I didn't ask to be born!" She yelled, hurling a curse at him. He dodged and it hit the wall and exploded, leaving no mark. "You think I had a part in that?! You think I would want that to happen to that woman?"

She moved and swept his feet out from under him, narrowly avoiding a swipe at her midsection. She kicked the dagger out of his hand only to have him grab her waist and pull her down with him. They grappled with one another, curses and spells meeting fists and angered words. It probably would have continued until one of them gained the upper hand if the bracelet had not exploded energy outwards and separated the two of them.

Javen glared at her as she sat against the wall. "Why is her bracelet working for you? She put her essence in there and it binds to you?" He hissed. "It wouldn't respond to me, but it latched onto you. Why would her magic bind to the thing that killed her, to the thing that caused her so much agony? It doesn't make sense."

Aria slowly rose to her feet and looked down at the gleaming bracelet. "You are not allowed to fault me to your- our, mother's death. You saw the same vision as I did. I have been punished enough because of it." She silenced him with a sharp noise when he opened his mouth to speak again. "You hate me; I get it. You expressed that already. I have had enough of this shit." She started towards the door, her head and heart pounding in a painful rhythm. "I am trying to kill him, my father, with the aid of a few more demons. If he is who you are looking for I'd suggest looking in the underworld instead of expecting him to pop in here. I don't think he would even look twice at this." She looked down at the bracelet and shook her wrist, the metal not budging.

It was so strange to look at her arms side by side. One was marked by dark demonic runes, the other untouched, almost delicate with the elven metal gleaming on her wrist. Fitting she supposed, all things considered.

She looked up at him when he grabbed her shoulder and prepared to meld herself into the shadows to escape him.

"I'm not letting you leave with her." He hissed his eyes focused on the band, the dagger pressing into Aria's back.

"I don't think you have a choice in the matter, it's not going to come off and I don't think it wants to come off; so either you are coming along or you are going to have to deal with it."

And that was how she ended up leaving the tree-castle with her half-brother, escorted out through back passages to avoid the guards asking questions about her. He kept the point of the dagger pressed in the center of her back as they walked, muttering in a strange, flowing language she couldn't understand.