Dissolvegirl/HatredRidesOnWings
Hatred Rides on Wings
"No, we have to go to the North first." Black Tiger felt as if she were invisible; being a foot shorter and almost a decade younger than even the youngest member of her circle did that. The fact that her companions had become wary of her hairbrained schemes didn't help matters much; she knew she wasn't the person for foolproof plans-- the fiasco where she convinced Nate to summon the ghost of one of her former incarnations to aid them in their quest, only to realize they had summoned the ghost that was now the 14th Deathlord was a good indication. But for once, she truly and strongly felt that her idea was the right course of action. Tiger stamped her foot petulantly on the floor of the hotel, and the men glanced in her direction.
The girl smiled slightly and gave a nod of thanks. She had matured in the last two years of wandering Creation with her circle-mates, but sometimes, showing her age was the only way to assert her opinion successfully.
"First of all, we promised Schala we would go to Crystal and find the man who put her on the throne." The young Air Aspect glanced over at the mention of her name; she had grown more pale since they rescued her from the Imperial City-- having her life saved by a bunch of so-called Anathema probably had that effect, as well. She smiled briefly in thanks to her friend. "Jules, it's a First Age city hidden under that glacier. Or have you forgotten your archeological roots so quickly?" The lanky westerner nodded, his eyes going distant for a moment has he daydreamed about what wonders he might find.
The Dawn Caste looked up from polishing his orichalcum breastplate, shrugging slightly. "It just makes more sense to check out the situation in the Lap now, as opposed to after we get back from Crystal."
Tiger sighed, and pointed at the south window. "You want to see the situation in the Lap? Then Look." They were staying in one of the taller buildings in Nexus, and it was the black tower rising ominously in the southern sky, framed by the sunset and the dark rain clouds rolling in. "I don't know what's going on there, but I get the funny feeling there's not much we CAN do right now."
Thorn sighed. "The least we can do is go look--"
Tiger heard a strange sound, like the wind passing too quickly, and turned to see an arrow fly into the throat of her best friend. "Schala!" She dashed to the side of her friend, Schala's frost-blue eyes wide in surprise and pain. Tiger glanced out the window, spotting a man with tattoos covering his face and red hair flying away on large black wings. The Essence within her screamed for blood and revenge.
She glanced back at her companions. "Get her to a doctor. NOW. The best you can find-- spare no expense, you know where my money is." With that, she lept out the window, running down the side of the slick glass tower using the feet of a spider.
Once on the ground, even her Essence-fueled speed could not keep up with the man wearing the wings, and she lost him. It began to rain lightly, but Tiger had promised herself that she would not rest until the man was dead. She noted the direction in which he had gone, her face somber, and went to check on the former Empress of the Realm.
I was with my friends. Empty circles shone on twelve other foreheads; people I could count on for anything. The Living Tower was approaching us. My best friend was next to me. We smiled at each other. We would defeat Octavian and move on to larger game. We were the secret force in the Primordial War.
We all wore black wings. We were a murder of crows, a gathering of angels. I was Steel Nightengale, and these people were my family.
A man with tattoos covering his face-- my brother-- shot an arrow through my best friend's heart. The betrayer stood and fought beside Octavian. Around me, black-winged birds were falling from the sky.
There was nothing I could do but flee, and vow to never flee again.
As she sprinted mindlessly through the rain, the memory of the person she once was twisted and mingled with her own view of herself; the dream that had haunted her for months happened once more. This man with the tattoos had returned, and once again, he might well have killed her best friend.
She found Nate waiting for her in the hotel room. "Where is she?" Tiger's braids hung flat and heavy against her head, her small frame soaked to the bone.
"Here's the address. We can go togeth--"
The slip of paper was gone from his hand, and Tiger was gone from the room once more.
It was only a matter of minutes for her to find the address of the doctor. She barged in without knocking; there were more important things on her mind. Ledaal Schala was laid out on a bed, shaking and pale, thick bandages covering her neck. Her eyes were the only thing that moved as she looked in Tiger's direction.
"Schala! Are you all right?" Tiger looked up at her companions. "She's going to be all right, right?"
Jules answered. "She's mute. The arrow destroyed her voice box." This was obviously not the first time Schala had heard the news, but her face contorted in pain anyway. Tiger squeezed her friend's hand.
"I'm not going to rest until this man is dead. I just wanted you to know."
And, like the lightning flashing outside, she was gone.
Filth.
What little information she had been able to glean from the people she had interrogated all lead to the same place. "He doesn't live here, not all the time anyway. But when he's here, he stays in Filth." In a way, it was only fitting that he should be hiding in a place where any depravity, any perversion or twisted desire could be sated. It was a dark, disgusting place, a district wholly without rules in a lawless city.
Candlelight flickered inside brothels, the urine-yellow light spilling through dirty windows to pool on the street, like a mess no one bothered to clean up. Occasional faces peeked from behind doors, drunken patrons leering at the young woman whose damp outfit clung to cold skin; no one approached her. An aura of silence followed her, save for the faces on her soulsteel daiklaive slung on her back-- and they only whispered sweet words of revenge.
"Have you seen a man with red hair and strange tattoos covering his face?"
"It's impossible to see much of anything in this neighborhood, my lovely." A solicitous smile oozed solwly across a broken face.
Black Tiger tossed two minae on the counter; the man tried to disguise his eager eyes. "It'll take more than that."
Tiger's eyes flashed dangerously; her voice was flat. "The minae or my daiklaive. The choice is yours."
Pale fingers scuttled across the counter, clutching their prey feverishly before darting below the counter once more. "Three blocks from here; an abandoned building. He may or may not be there, but that's where he usually stays."
"Is that all?"
He gulped hard, nodding. Tiger turned on her heel and left.
The two-story building was dilapidated, a hollowed-out ghost of something brighter. For once, Tiger was glad for the rainstorm; it would help disguise the noise of her coming. She scaled the outside of the facing building slowly, the Essence seeping from her hands and feet binding her tightly to the face of the structure as she climbed the slippery, crumbling building. When she was high enough, she stopped; gulping in a breath of cold, damp air, she glanced across the alley into the dirty window of the building next door.
The man with the strange tattoos-- Old Realm, if her eyes were serving her correctly-- was standing around idly, glancing at a heap of battered flesh on the floor.
A Deathknight. The one who had, for some reason, helped warn Tiger that Schala's life was in danger in the Imperial City. The one who had freely given the party a dark and powerful artifact, and trusted them to destroy it.
The one who was my friend.
The thought came quickly and unbidden; a flash of golden memory revealed itself to her, and she knew the man lying at that traitor's feet had been Steel Nightengale's best friend before... Had been the one killed at the hands of the traitor.
Not again.
