*COMPLETE* Allayria promised to do what it takes to stop the Jarles, to make the ugly decision. She thinks, at last, she understands what the dynast meant. The lesson earned from the top of that lonely cliff and given the dark murky water below.
It...
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They are here.
She watches them move along the far right edges of the street, masked and armored, slipping in and out of the flames. She doesn't need to see the missing arm on that small, leading figure to know who she is. She doesn't need to see the antlered symbol to know what they are here for.
Around her is screaming chaos, girls shrieking and soldiers hollering, hands gripping her arms and yanking her up, away from the flaming river that was once a street, the collapsing, igniting ruin of the split dais. But she just keeps watching, watching as the figure she had remembered, one of the three that haunt her steps and thoughts, moves with ease in this bloodied, burning mess.
The trio have been phantoms in her dreams since the Day of the Black Sword; dark, slippery things that tormented just out of reach, ghosts of rage and cruelty.
But this is just a girl.
And so is she.
It's her handmaiden that lets out the blood-curdling scream when Fae breaks free, and another takes up the call when she rips the binding coat off, throws the heavy, black crown to the ground. The knife at her thigh is in hand now, held tight in the blinding orange light.
The ash crumples and crisps underneath her boots as she jumps down from the balcony, smoldering in black tar as her feet turn, her shoulders align themselves, her hands curl into careful fists. It's all just a roar now, a pounding furnace.
One step; two. Duck and lunge, a buried knife, a muffled groan. She takes this sword, letting it dance between her hands until she finds the right home, the right grip.
The Cabal was gleeful when she jumped down alone. They're afraid now.
She kicks up embers with the sword's tip; sprays up coals and cinder as she swings. And she remembers again how it is to feel the strength in her fingers, the lethal dexterity of her legs.
Her principal opponent has noticed; she moves, taking the direct path, running alongside the wall of flames in a straight line to Fae, her quarry.
They clash.
Steel hits steel, ringing, singeing in the blasting heat as sparks fly and they break apart, Fae ducking the chunk of burning rock that sails for her head, twisting, slipping the hidden knife back out, burying it in the other's side.
And this girl grunts beneath the mask, the raised sword quavering in her one hand, but it does not drop. It falls with purpose, toward the juncture of Fae's neck and shoulder, and Fae rolls, feeling the tip of the blade cut deep into her thigh, feeling the burn of searing flesh. It's a pain that throbs, a pain that glows, but her sword switches hands and her left hand lifts it to deflect as another punt of concrete unearths itself. The other woman'ssword is coming up again just as Fae's is down, and it arches high, flinging on a tight fist, and Fae flings her own unoccupied fist out, white-knuckled, and pounds into the still-lodged knife at Meg's side.
