Sara
She closed her fingers around Mia’s leg as tightly as she could, but her hands trembled under the combination of nerves and electricity that still rattled her body. Maya’s Death Ward spell had worked as intended in that she had survived a lightning strike. I could almost swear that one was at least twice as powerful! She wasn’t quite as disappointed as she found herself in that moment when she learned she wouldn’t actually be protected from the blast. Although she was quite certain she would survive the next hour at the least, she had been thoroughly mangled by the assassin’s instinctive spell. Her flesh was burned, and every inch of her tingled.
If she didn’t do something, no amount of healing would save her when the Death Ward expired.
Mia let out an enraged snarl as she stomped on Sara’s back with her free leg. The pain was excruciating and she struggled to breathe, but a powerful feeling surged in the back of her mind, keeping her conscious when she shouldn’t even be alive. Looking up at her assailant turned out to be a mistake, one that was punished with three more stomps in quick succession.
“Let! The fuck! Go!” She yelled out hysterically.
Sara gritted her teeth and reached out to Serenity in her mind, calling for her magic to protect her. As Mia raised her foot for another stomp, the floor beneath her parted on either side of Sara’s prone form, from which two stalactites sprung to catch her ankle. Blood dripped onto the acolyte’s back as the assassin struggled to free herself from the stones. The feeling of safety from her attacker renewed Sara’s strength, just as her faith had always led her to believe would happen. Although her body burned with the pain from her injuries, she found the energy to crawl out from under the stones and stand up.
She staggered away from her foe in an attempt to gain some distance before turning slowly to face her. The stones that held Mia in place were effective in protecting Sara from her conventional abilities as an assassin, but she didn’t account for the storm magic that had floored her to begin with. Sara seemed to recognize this mistake at the same time as Mia did. Consequently, she was unable to avoid a third lightning bolt that Mia had driven into her chest. Her heart jumped wildly with the intense sensation and she screamed at the pain that racked her whole body. But she couldn’t die now, so why fall in the first place? She focused as intently as she could on keeping her legs steady. Whatever happened, she was determined to stay on her feet.
When the torture ended, Sara nearly doubled over in agony, but her knees remained locked. She looked up at the assassin once more, panting heavily. Her whole body trembled, her hair was wispy, and her body ached with terrible burns, yet still she stared her adversary down adamantly. If she was ever to talk the Champion of Salica off of this terrible path of hers, Sara needed to keep her still long enough to talk. Mia never intended to make this easy, but Sara was out of time to take her abuse. It was time to finish this before the castle came to any further harm.
Mia roared as loosed yet another bolt of lightning. Gods, why did she have to master the most dangerous spell first? This time, however, Sara was ready. She called out to Serenity once more for protection and found her salvation in a wall of stone that sprouted from the ground in front of her. This newly conjured barrier absorbed the brunt of Mia’s lightning while deflecting some of the energy into the walls around it. With a grin of jubilation and a shudder of dread, a plan formed in Sara’s mind instantly. The Royal Family wouldn’t thank her for it, but perhaps completely encasing Mia in stone would help to protect those who remained. She had to try.
So, she held her hands out toward Mia and called upon her goddess to cast her entire body in stone. The stones that arose from this third spell rose to cover her in a haphazard dome. The only gap remaining in the stone exposed only half of Mia’s face, allowing her to breathe, albeit uncomfortably.
“Gods damn it! Why won’t you die?!” Mia shouted in frustration.
“The Gods have everything to do with my continued survival,” Sara grunted weakly as she finally sat down and called upon some of Serenity’s holy magic to start tending to her wounds.
“Well, good for you!” Mia retorted impatiently. “But what do they care what I’m up to, anyway? Why protect these Royals? They’re all scum!”
Sara shook her head slowly, the dull ache that remained stiffening her neck. She was continuing to recover, but suddenly worried that her body might take much longer to recover from the consecutive lightning strikes. Still, the fact that she had gotten Mia talking was good enough for her to feel the sensation of tranquility that always brought her closest to Serenity
“The Royal Family aren’t why I’m here,” she croaked raspily. “The Gods may not care about your insane plot to rid this country of its rulers, but Salica cares for you.”
Mia scoffed. “I’ve been hearing a lot about her lately. I promised to convert once the last of those piece of shit excuses for a ruler stopped breathing.”
“You are in pain,” Sara said gently, her throat now clear. “I could see it the whole time I was following you. I do not claim to be an expert in Salica’s Doctrine, but if you need to talk, I am willing to listen. In fact, I insist.”
“Fuck off! I didn’t come here for a spiritual discussion, priestess!”
Sara struggled back to her feet, her pain now replaced with fatigue. The only evidence that remained of her injuries was her damaged hair. Still, she managed to smirk.
“I don’t think you have any other choice,” she said firmly. “We’re in a public area that should be closed right now. You can either talk to me, or sit there until the guards find you. Keep in mind that if you chose the second option, I would let them pick you out of the stone rather than releasing you myself.”
Mia sighed and replied, “This whole mission was bullshit.”
Progress! “How do you mean?”
“I mean I was told to kill the other royals to put Anthony Clark on the throne, but there was more to it than that!”
Sara did a double take at the mention of Dr. Clark’s name. A man of his reputation who showed so much kindness to her couldn’t possibly have wanted his siblings to die, could he?
“Are you seriously telling me Dr. Clark was the one who hired you?”
“Yes!” Mia snapped impatiently. “But he’s not in it for the Throne. He’s been trying to launch this plot called Operation Lighthouse. He wants to shock everyone out of their naivete with a little bloodshed so people can see the world in the way people like me do!”
Sara smiled at this critical divulgence of information. She wasn’t sure how she could have been so lucky as to find Mia in the mood to reveal her whole plan. Something must have changed in her to weaken her loyalty to the Starlings so much.
“And in what way do you see the world?” Sara asked curiously.
“The world is chaotic and tragic,” Mia said, a trace of sadness in her hard tone. “Evil breeds at an incredible pace, turning victims into villains. The Scarlet Starlings exist only to give those who’ve felt a taste of this evil a purpose. A chance to protect the truly innocent from this pain.”
This explained a lot, as far as Sara was concerned. Mia had clearly experienced some tragedy that affected her deeply. But instead of getting the help she needed to properly handle her grief, someone had convinced her that she was irreparably damaged and that all she could do with this broken life was kill people. A sense of revulsion surged through Sara’s body, not at Mia, but at the Scarlet Starlings. If it was true that they collected the emotionally damaged and turned them into killers, their legend as honorable killers was a complete lie. If she weren’t so disgusted and dehydrated, she could have wept for the woman who stood before her.
“I don’t think that’s true,” the acolyte responded with a sigh. “While it is true that terrible things can happen for no reason, evil is not a disease. It is a choice we all make on a daily basis. It is the choice to act on our darkest impulses and forsake the righteous path in favor of what’s easy. Some people find this choice easier than others, but we all have to make it at some point.”
“Have you ever seen somebody die, priestess?”
Sara shook her head, even knowing that Mia couldn’t see her. “I have, but not to anything as violent as you are used to. Not all those who visit temples with a grave illness can be helped, unfortunately.”
Mia scoffed again. “Well, that has fuck-all to do with my point! Until you have truly seen evil, the only things you have to say about it come will from a damned prayer book.”
Sara hesitated to respond as she bit back a sudden rush of anger. “The religious texts I refer to are based on the wisdom of people who have seen more evil and hardship than you will ever know.”
“It doesn’t matter. Until you’ve watched someone get slaughtered, you will never understand the feeling that drives killers like me.”
Sara sighed pointedly. “What I understand is that you are unwell, and I suspect you have been for a long time. But instead of getting help, you were manipulated into becoming the very thing that traumatized you.”
Mia didn’t have anything to say to that, so Sara pressed her point.
“You have been raised to believe that the Scarlet Starlings are noble, but they aren’t! They are a collection of mentally unstable people who’ve managed to hide their dysfunction with a codified set of ethics. The Gods see them, and they see you suffering beside them. That is why Salica has chosen you.”
“Chosen me for what?”
“I believe that you are meant to serve the Gods as Salica’s Champion and help me and my friends send Maula back to Fadal.”
Mia actually laughed at Sara’s answer, albeit weakly since her chest was still compressed by stone. “You can’t be serious!”
“This can’t be a coincidence!” Sara insisted firmly. “If the Starlings’ plan was to terrify the people of Resta with the prospect of senseless death, then you have been working close to Maula’s agenda. You are in a unique position to undermine our foe! If that’s not proof enough, just think of the magic she has bestowed upon you!”
Mia sighed and grumbled. “I don’t care about Maula. I just want Anthony Clark dead!”
“If what you’ve told me about him is true, then perhaps that is your role in our quest,” Sara said with a shrug. “But killing him will bring you no lasting satisfaction.”
“I’m not sure I’ll live long enough for the satisfaction it will bring me to fade,” Mia said venomously. “If you want to be friends so badly, you shouldn’t be trying to stop me!”
Sara sighed and considered their predicament. There was no chance of talking Mia out of this, and the only way she could stop her would be turning her over to the guards. Whatever Mia did was up to Salica to forgive, but she couldn’t let her be arrested. She would have to let the assassin go to get the cooperation she needed.
“I’m going to free you,” Sara said heavily. “In return, I want to go with you so that we can confront Dr. Clark together. If you still feel that he must die…” she hesitated for a moment before concluding,”I won’t try to stop you.”
“If you try, there is no god that will protect you from what I’ll do,” Mia growled firmly.
The stone began to recede into the ground, allowing Mia to see as Sara nodded her assent. “It’s not as if I’d have the strength left to resist. All I can do now is place my faith in the Gods and hope that Salica has made the right choice."
