Yelena
Fury.
Seeping through every pore of her body, every orifice that wasn’t filled with congealed blood or the improvised knives of the Glancer.
Time slowed down with each breath she drew in the golden room, and when once again she opened her eyes, they looked upon a world bathed in shadow.
At its center, the Glancer stood, his face twisted in confusion as he commanded his thousand glass blades to slam into her.
[A-B-A-B-B-ABI-LITY-U-U-U-]
[ARCANIST’S RES-S-R-RESTOR-R-R-R-ATION]
Glance: 20/20
No more than that. No more than what I need.
I’m still me. I’m still…Still me…
She licked her lips.
The taste of her own blood was foreign to her. It was diluted. Too pure.
She needed…his.
[Searing Strike]
The light from her blade was dull, dim, and yet no less potent than ever.
It flew right for the Glancer, cutting through his windstrike that he conjured as a quick counterattack. She saw him fall back, smashing through another mirror.
Before he could raise his head, she had already launched herself at him, her sword swinging in a wide arc that dashed the other mirrors remaining around them both into nothing more than slivers of broken shards.
One cut went right through his body, and she watched his form stutter and fade.
[Aerial Mimic]
Her every muscle bulged with rage.
“You like that one, don’t you?”
[AAA-A-A-ADMINISTERING ABILTIY 3.893#68/83/THF]
[Uncanny D-d-d-d-danger sense]
The next wave of energized air that came slicing at her from out the corner of her eyes she took in her side, laughing as the sensation of pain trickled up her sword hand while her other arm spun to grab at the air to her right.
It met resistance. Something thin. And her gauntleted fingers clenched round it.
“Found you.”
Her body moved of its own accord, muscles bulging, her whirring blade becoming an extension of her body. The place where her tendons met her fist and where her fingers coiled round the hilt of her sword merged into one perfect, organic unity.
And with such unity, she struck.
The Glancer’s arm tore off its socket with little more than a crunch and a pop, and she threw his body towards the pristine wall of the mirror room and watched him sputter, coughing up blood as he realized he had one less limb to ply his trade with.
She wasted no time on gloating, though the desire to watch him scream filled every fiber of her being.
Her boot met his gasping face and smashed him clean through the wall itself. It gave way effortlessly and he fell, she following after him. Both Guardian and Glancer landing on one of the sun-drenched domes of the great palace.
She rose to her full height and breathed in the dry air. She listened to the sounds of battle raging below – on the killing field of the palace steps, and within the throne room. Cries of pain. Shrieks of suffering.
“To end like this,” she said in a voice that was not her own. “To watch the Argents tear themselves apart. It gives me no small measure of satisfaction.”
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Yelena blinked, her hand flying to her head.
“You’re not in control.”
“By the Loft, girl, at least give me this! After all, you are every part as pleased to see this destruction as I am. Have the decency to admit it.”
She blinked again and saw the Glancer raise himself up, one robe-sleeve dangling where his arm once was, a torrent of blood pooling beneath him.
His breathing was controlled. His eyes were focused.
“How is he still alive?”
“Windcaller training,” her Voidling replied in her own voice. “So long as he has lungs, he can re-direct airflow through them. Impressive for a Seeker-Level Glancer. You know, of course, what the solution is.”
Her hands – their hands – tightened as they twisted their blade.
“We have some dismantling to do.”
She surged forwards towards her target and felt his invisible chains constrict her again, catching her by her ankles and throwing her against one pristine palace tower. She felt ichor rise in her throat as she steadied herself from the impact, and then saw him perform and air-slice that cut clean through one of the dome spires and sent it cascading towards her.
[Searing Strike]
She barely had to lift her arm. With one hand she sent her wave of corrupted energy towards the spire and saw it tear away at the golden material till it crumbled to dust in front of her.
And through this dust, she flew.
She saw him float away, keeping his distance, flying towards another spire to try and slow her down. He’d never showed emotion down in the dungeons below. But she could see it – even as she looked on him as a buzzard prospects a wriggling mouse – he was afraid.
“As he should be.”
[AAA-A-A-ADMINISTERING I-I-Incan-t-t-TATION 5.721#98/03/LIGH]
[Glance Incantation: Angel Armament]
M-M-MA-MAGISTER LVL (LIGH)
Her hand disappeared in a haze of burning, killing light.
Instinctively she knew what this was – she knew it was the power she needed. Power she wanted. Power that could cut down all of this blasted, miserable place. Power pooling, coalescing in the palm of her hand.
Power that could even cut down Caer Argent above ground, if she wanted it…
She looked upon the fleeing Glancer and waited till his blind eyes found her again.
Then she fired.
The rooftops of the palace disappeared at once, replaced by a miasma of shimmering light that tore apart the golden façade, melting away what Jael and his myrmidons had endeavored to build – their bulwark against the dangers of the depths.
She saw the walls crumble and burn. She saw the Glancer trip and fall as the beam spreading out from her palm found his foot and traveled up his body, burning him with white hot fire.
Then just as quickly as she’d summoned forth the killing laser, she retracted her hand and jumped down to where the Glancer was lying, spent, dying, burnt like a dried-up husk.
She looked at his lolling skull, pieces of his swarth skin melting away to reveal blackened bone, and she marched towards him, sword tip raised to touch his throat.
“Scream.”
No response. He lifted his hand to drape a final chain around her and her sword pecked at his fingers, cleaving them in a single twitch of her arm that was barely perceptible to the naked eye.
“Scream for me.”
Still nothing. She looked at his smoking face and crumpled, debased body, knowing that the Glance within him had finally been depleted.
And for some reason her fury still wouldn’t dry up.
“So strong in your silence, aren’t you?”
She stuck her booted heel in his gut and threw her sword away, her shaking hands flying out and clamping down on his throat in the next second.
“Is this how you felt? Is this how it felt to cut me? To brand me? To tear away at my flesh at the orders of your sick little crow? Go on, little man, tell me it made you feel good.”
She felt the air begin to leave his lungs. Felt his body start to struggle, his legs kick against her as she cut off his windpipe. But as her fingers drew inexorably close together, clamped around his throat like a vice, he lifted what was left of his right hand and touched her frayed, wild threads of golden hair.
“Remiel…”
His hand becomes strangely calm as it touches her, even though she knows those same hands were what inflicted unimaginable cruelty on her when she first woke up in these doomed sands.
And that name…
That was it, wasn’t it?
She felt her fingers loosen their grip.
The shadows that moved across their eyes. The demons that hounded their every step – it was more than just the black magic of the Blackbird.
It was him.
No.
Her.
“A title that means nothing to you,” she hears herself say. “A name you attach to something beyond your feeble minds.”
“And a name that isn’t mine.”
She could see herself in the wall that glistened behind his head – the dark angel intent on vengeance, filled with the same hatred she’d always known beat within her breast.
“But that’s not who I am. And that’s not how this story’s going to end.”
Her hands retracted from the Glancer’s throat. And only now did she watch his face twist, the smile fade.
“You are a fool, Yelena.”
She looked down at Knox’s grasping hand, his bloody stump trying to catch her again, trying to whip up a wind that would carry her back to him like a lost, wounded puppy.
“He’s just a child,” she said. “A child that’s only ever done what he’s told. That was me, once.”
She looked down at the Shifting Sands below – a field of barren, wasted ground, filled with horrors beneath every dune. Then she closed her eyes, feeling the dark urge within her breast move away from the dying Glancer with her.
“But you,” she said to the dark patches behind her eyes. “You’re no child. You’re something else. You might think you know what I want. But I guarantee that I know what you want. And I also know what you’re afraid of.”
The claws of the darkling grasped at her hands. She could almost see it, this time. She could taste its desperation.
“I’m going below, Remiel,” she said as she jumped from the smoke-filled roof back into the Hall below. “And you’re coming with me.”