Chapter 151: A Murder Frozen In Time
Vuvi steps forward with Pip at her side, the rest of the team fanning out behind them.
Zora glances at the churning army in the distance, sighs like a man who decided his day was suddenly very complete, opens a portal, and starts to step through it.
"Good luck, all of you." he says merrily, one foot already through to the other side, "I’ll warm up the healing potions."
"Are you seriously just going to abandon us?" Vuvi asks, mouth open in disbelief.
Zora shrugs, a bony hand halfway into the shimmering violet light. "You’re welcome to join me."
"At least get the dwarves somewhere safe first." Veena helpfully suggests.
Zora brightens instantly. "Now that is a perfect use of my particular talents." He drifts over to Kathoril, whose hair was a wreck, her body wrapped in a hastily rebuttoned dress.
"Allow me to lead you and your people to safety, Your Highness." Zora says to her, and offers her his arm with a theatrical flair.
Kathoril glances over at Pip, who gives her an approving nod before she takes Zora’s arm. He opens a fresh portal and sweeps her through it.
"Anyone not interested in dying today is welcome to join us." He calls over his shoulder to the dozens of people now crowded around the carriages who promptly accept his invitation.
"You should probably go too. This could get ugly." Lula says as she turns to Penelo.
Penelo grits her teeth and tries to roll her neck but just sprains it slightly instead. "N-Nooo! I’m not going anywhere without Pip. I can help."
Across the field, Syraleth calls out, her voice carrying easily over the churning portal at her back. "It’s very simple... I’ve come for the Prince. Hand him over, and we can all skip the ... unpleasantness."
"Come say that to my Boombuster!" Vuvi shouts back. "She’d be happy to tear your face off again!"
Syraleth grins, delighted. "Somehow I knew you’d say that."
Vuvi snarls and steps forward, the whole team moving with her.
"Oh please, there’s no rush!" Syraleth calls out, waving Vuvi back with a flick of her hand. "I’m still waiting on the rest of the party."
Vuvi’s brow furrows. "Who—"
A portal rips open directly overhead, crackling violet against the grey afternoon sky, and Eris and Maribelle drop through it in a controlled fall, both landing on the churned earth with matching, effortless flourish, cloaks snapping before settling like nothing at all had just happened.
Maribelle’s eyes find Vuvi first, and she shoots her a wink. Vuvi grins wide and waves back before Maribelle turns to Eris, sizing up the army and the stunning, dangerous woman standing at its head. "That’s her? The greedy one."
"That’s her," Eris confirms, with a deep breath and tired sigh. She rolls her neck, drawing her scythe out of thin air, and beginning her long, unhurried march toward Syraleth.
"Where’s Vexena?" Syraleth calls. "I’d like to think myself worth the Queen’s personal attention."
"She’ll join us soon enough," Eris says. "Which is exactly why I intend to enjoy myself before she arrives to ruin all my fun."
Black flame erupts from her horns in a violent corona, crackling and hissing against the afternoon sky, crimson magical rolling off her in visible waves that flatten the grass for yards in every direction and send loose stones skittering away from her boots like frightened animals. The air around her hums as she radiates unrestrained power.
Maribelle throws an arm up against the sheer pressure of it, hair whipping back off her face, "Mother’s mercy," she mutters under her breath, "I’ve never stood a chance... not against this."
Syraleth sighs, almost wistful. "I wanted to save this trick for Vexena herself, you know. You’re absolutely ruining my surprise."
Eris doesn’t answer.
She simply moves. A crimson blur tearing a raw, smoking fissure through the earth as she closes forty yards in less time than it takes to blink. The air itself shrieking in protest around her body, black flames streaming off her horns, scythe already blazing white-hot at its edge, its flaming blade halfway through the arc that should, by every law of physics and violence, end Syraleth’s life in the very next heartbeat.
Syraleth lifts one finger. Then twirls it, lazily, like stirring tea.
Eris freezes.
She stops mid-air, mid-swing, mid-stride, a single perfect frame of unrelenting violence suspended in the air like a single moment trapped in a painting, black flame hanging motionless around her horns in petrified ribbons, dirt and torn grass hovering in the air where her feet had kicked it loose a heartbeat ago that would never finish falling. A single droplet of sweat frozen halfway down her jaw, glinting like a tiny, captured star.
The whole battlefield seems to hold its breath along with her, the wind itself going still, birds hanging motionless in the air overhead.
Somewhere behind Syraleth, a cluster of monks collapses to the ground at once, drained husks, robes fluttering empty around them. The rest of the congregation close ranks and begin chanting even louder.
Syraleth laughs, delighted with herself. "Oh, that never gets old."
Bilorial’s face drains of color, monocle nearly slipping from its socket. "That’s... impossible!" he utters, "That’s... temporal magic. That’s a god’s domain. Not even Vexena can touch time itself."
He vanishes in a curl of smoke and reappears ahead of Vuvi and the team, directly facing Syraleth.
"Where did you learn that you heretic!?" he snaps, "Do you... do you have even the faintest idea what you’re inviting by tampering with the Great Mother’s own sacred timeline? You tamper directly with her will. Such actions will not go unnoticed, Baroness!"
Syraleth shrugs, completely unbothered. Long since having decided where her priorities lie.
"The Great Mother’s welcome to come down and smite me herself, if she’s so concerned." Her gaze slides past him, warm and hungry, fixing on Pip. her eyes softening into something almost romantic.
She waves at him, fingers fluttering, sweet as can be.
Pip waves back on pure reflex before Vuvi slaps his hand down out of the air.
"Seriously!? She’s trying to kidnap you!" Vuvi hisses at him.
He boops an apology, but his eye-cameras slowly, reflexively steal a peek at Syraleth’s spellbinding curves.