Summer Garden

Vastras

Vastras looked at her workbench. The ruins of her eyes were placed in the centre, and an un-runed but prepared dagger lay to the left. On the right where a half dozen crystal fragments. Useful stones containing small pieces of elemental magic.

Her socket still ached, and she wasn't used to the missing vision yet. It would take time, and she couldn't afford any weakness just now. Events were moving, and coming to a head. Decades of planning and plotting were about to unravel because of a stupid human boy. He wasn't even a decent blacksmith, just your average shlub... And his death had made her reveal the greatest weapon in her arsenal. It would have allowed her enemies to pinpoint her location.

The balance of power had been tipped against her, by the Fae that had placed nightmares inside her head. However, it wasn't a total disaster. Black Faen dust. She'd never seen it before. It represented a new kind of magic, a clearly potent one. All she had to do was extract it, and learn how to utilise it. A difficult task, but she'd spent most of her life learning to master all kinds of magic. Adding one more to her repertoire was just another task, not an insurmountable challenge.

First though, she had to extract it. She selected a small white crystal, and gently held the warm gemstone in her hand. The light crept into her, flowing into her veins. Vastras winced as she felt the magic burning her as it intertwined with her, filling her. She felt her eyes begin to burn, screaming. Eyes, plural. The magic linked her to the discarded and broken orbit lying on the table in front of her. Being able to see herself, albeit blearily, was disconcerting. She immediately felt the stain of the black dust attack her, trying to force itself inside her head, not realising that she wasn't really attached to the eye anymore. So the magic was alive then, like most. It possessed a level of instinctual intelligence.

Vastras took up the smooth blade, the blade that Trei had prepared for her. Her heart twisted, stabbing her. Making her relive his death, over and over. Making her relive her horror as she realised he had dashed after the thief in a misguided attempt at gallantry. The mage stabbed the knife down into her eye angrily. The pain split her head, and vision. The shadow inside the eyes screamed, wrapping itself around the knife. She let go of it quickly. The magical essence found itself without an attacker to possess, with a knife stuck inside its host.

It only had one option.

The creature attempted to possess the knife, so it could remove it. But, it was a bare runic blade. Designed so that magic could enter, but would not leave. Vastras smiled weakly, holding her head as she felt the dark magic flow out of her popped eyeball and into the knife. She let go the white crystal, letting it tumble onto the table as she fell backwards onto the ground. Too tired, too weak.

However, the mage looked up at the bronze blade, now a pitch black, with barely visible runes scrawled into the length of the blade, and she smiled. "Got you."