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The day had been long and Brint and Mish had been annoying.

So I went straight home and packed my things. But it was difficult to decide what to take and what to leave.

Any kind of comfort item would likely be replaced with a better version once I was ensconced in whatever Estate I was meant to live in. I didn't really have sentimental effects aside from a handful of scented candles from my aunt and maybe this pendant my mother had given me because it belonged to grandma.

She'd basically tossed it at me after gran passed, saying it was worthless and she couldn't even pawn it for a good price. And when I wore it, she got to brag about it.

Cracked my neck when I was feeling a bit... iffy, about the past. My knuckles, my back, anything. If it could be cracked and there was a satisfying cracking noise, it felt... like I'd broken the feeling or something. I don't know.

Handy trick to have when one is so often bedeviled by memories.

I'd never really needed a reason to lock my door. But I did. Every night.

I locked it with the standard lever and the bolt. No one was coming in unless they battered the whole door down.

And yet still, he got in.

Just as I'd been packing the last of my bags, dressed in my nightgown- a silken robe that was a balm to my nerves -he slammed into the door.

There was no chance I'd be able to call for help before he got in, though at the time of course, I hadn't known WHO he was.

I'd simply grabbed my stiletto and gotten under the bed before he finally broke my door down. Knowing he'd likely see me hiding, but not see the stiletto.

My thought was, well. I could surprise him.

I didn't account for him surprising me.

When he lifted the bed and basically tossed it over to lay on its side, sending my mattress and everything atop it tipping over- I stabbed his foot with the stiletto.

The scream he unleashed was what surprised me into looking up. But his face was what surprised me into loosening my grip.

It was Brint. I had a moment of confusion over it, too. Did he come here in concern? Did someone tell him they'd seen the marks on me? Did he see someone lurking around and think I was in danger?

I wanted to think the best of Brint, because he'd never given me reason to do otherwise. He was a bit annoying, but he was never outright violent.

He kicked my hand holding the stiletto, when it was clear I was frozen in shock. And then he grabbed me by the hair.

I knew what would come next. Every woman does when a man grabs her like that. Good men who are angry might snap or even grab you by the shoulders and shake you a bit. But a man who grabs you by the hair and drags you across the floor for being frightened and defending yourself...

Is not a 'good' man.

And bad men who grab you by the hair are going to do one of two things, though he usually ends up doing both.

"Little fucking tease!" He shouted at me as he threw me to the ground.

I'd been trying to claw at his hands, but it was difficult. And when he threw me, my head hit the floor hard and it was difficult to even get my bearings, let alone get up.

Which is when he grabbed my hands and pinned my wrists, wrapping them with some twine from what I assumed was the work supplies he kept in his house.

Everything was quite detached for me, usually. But the apathy became extreme when something 'bad' was happening.

I was able to think around my fear, because I knew I was going to die tonight anyway if I did nothing. So if I did nothing and died, I would be a wretched soul.

But if I at least tried to live, that would be different.

It came to mind that he couldn't see the Diadem or the markings on my wrists because it was dark and I had only one candle burning on the other side of the room.

I could've called for the Blade before, but when he shoved a ball of cloth in my mouth and tied a cloth around THAT... I was unable to.

Cursed myself for that. I could've gotten out of all this if I'd just remembered to call out for him.

So I had to get myself out, as usual. Even though there was an easier path, someone had put an obstacle in my way, yet again.

There was an option, but I hadn't really considered it until he cut open my robe down the front. He had to let go with one hand on my bound arms, so used the leverage to grab his arm holding mine down. Not really much of a grab- more of a tap.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Nothing was happening, but he was putting the scissors he'd used aside and looking at my chest, so I had a few seconds.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I thought very hard about the old legends. They had no instructions for using the power. It was just supposed to come easy!

I just want him to die. He's committing a crime that deserves the death penalty, after all. If this is a death penalty power, why isn't it killing him?

But... there was nothing. Except some dust that made me sneeze... and a sudden lightness...?

Nothing happened. Nothing was moving. There was more dust and I sneezed again. But there was no touching... and it felt like Brint had gotten off of me.

Has he changed his mind? I wondered and opened my eyes.

But Brint was gone.

Instead, I was covered in black dust. I frowned and sat up slowly, looking around. My vision swam, so I had to scoot back and lean on the wall.

Black dust? I felt fuzzy and unfocused. I knew I couldn't pass out with something in my mouth, so I slowly worked the strap aside enough to spit out the cloth and...

"Blade," I croaked. "Come to me."

The words felt weirdly heavy. But so did my eyelids.

As I fell deep into darkness, there were a pair of hands I could feel wrapping around my shoulders and a voice murmuring to me.

But I had no sense left to figure out what it was saying or why they were touching me.

I just fell into the nothing for an indeterminate amount of time. And it was cool and soothing and I felt like I had nowhere to be.

Slowly I regained my awareness, but it took a while. And I knew it was a while because I became more and more aware of my surroundings as I dozed. And soon I was dozing on the surface of my consciousness, merely lying in bed and feeling comfortable.

...until my head twinged with pain and I flung myself upward into a sitting position to grab at it.

I saw the shape in the chair next to my bed almost instantly, but pretended I hadn't, as I squeezed at my head with my hands.

Something had happened, but what? What what what-?

The memories were murky, but I remember someone attacked me. When I saw the bandages around my wrists, I thought they were likely for burns and cuts from the twine as I struggled and strained.

But I had no idea what happened next.

"Sceptarch," a low, somewhat gravelly voice addressed me. "Won't you greet your Blade?"

It was unexpected, but then I'd been expecting him to show up at some point, yes? So it didn't shock me, but... it was a surprise.

"How..." I croaked and coughed. "What."

I reached up and gripped my throat. Why did it hurt?

An image flashed through my mind of my hair being pulled and screaming. I didn't realize at the time that I was. I don't know how I could've missed it.

He was holding out a mug of tea when I finally glanced over and I took it.

The Blade was no danger to their Sceptarch. Their lives were inexplicably twined. If he'd wanted me dead, he could just kill me with that Saber on his belt.

It was long, too. Curved enough it didn't hit the floor, though. Even in the sheathe, that wasn't advised. So the fact that he knew how to care for his sword and how to sit with it right- probably meant he was pretty good with it.

What surprised me most, though, was his face.

I'd been told my whole life that the Vireld were grotesqueries. They looked undead because they worked death magic and all. They were surrounded by it. They weren't like Liches, but they were close enough by many people's reckoning.

Still, though he lacked a nose and had only a cavity there- the rest of his face was fairly normal aside from the black sclera.

He did have gold and silver heterochromia, but most death magic practitioners and their families, did. It was representative of the balance between life and death. Killing and Healing. The line they walked.

That's also why the brambles on my wrist and forehead were both gold and silver.

Though the Sceptarch's eyes usually remained what color they were at birth, because the power may've flowed through them but they didn't claim it. As they were forced to carry the Diadem, I supposed that meant they weren't 'true' practicioners.

He did appear to have some sort of scarification on his lips. Like he'd had them split with a dagger and then sewn back together and healed in at least four or five places on each lip. But it was a subtle thing.

What he didn't look like, was a grotesquerie. He was just a man without a nose, with special eyes... and greenish skin. There was also the long, pointed ears with several tears and cuts battering them and the bright silver spill of hair over one side of his face. But those were fairly normal features.

Elves usually had silver or blonde hair of some kind, after all. Even the darker tones usually contained a silvery glint. The Vireld were no different, simply because they were dedicated to death, rather than nature or some particular aspect of said nature.

He looked like a perfectly ordinary elf, missing his nose and with black sclera. Who'd been through a war perhaps and had green skin... but he wasn't ugly.

I've never really been able to judge that though, so perhaps I'm wrong.

As we sat in silence, I simply sipped the warm tea that I usually kept for special occasions, until it was gone and my throat felt better.

"What happened?" I asked. It grated a bit. Not as much as before.

"No memory?" he asked as he sat back in the rickety wooden chair with a creak, crossing his arms. "Shame. It was a beautiful kill. He thought he had you dead to rights. You turned the tables on him in spectacular fashion."

There was a smile on his face, but it was cold and cruel. Or it would be, if it were on a human face. I had no idea how the Vireld smiled, usually. He was certainly taunting, but I assumed he meant to taunt Brint and not-

I inhaled sharply.

Brint.

The memory was hazy and faraway, but I recalled what he was trying to do, at least. And that he'd died. Maybe? The Blade said so.

"How did you find me?" I asked in a gritty tone.

"You called for me," he replied. The smile was smaller. I'd call it a 'businessman' smile. It was faint and pleasant, but it said nothing about his thoughts or feelings. "After you dusted him. I found you slumped against the wall."

It came back slowly, but I could recall most of that.

"Dusted?" the image of me fending off Brint with a featherduster almost had me in hysterics. Mostly because I knew that couldn't be what he meant, but-

"Your power of death," he leaned forward, unfolded his arms and reached for my right hand. He lifted it and flipped it over, slowly unwinding the gauze until I could see the burns and cuts from the twine... and the fluctuating energy that appeared to be filling up the silver brambles that were embossed in my skin.

"I... I couldn't get it to work," I whispered, swallowing hard and wincing. "How..."

"You needn't do anything," he replied. "But want the person you are touching... dead." His expression was the same as he looked at me. "That is the gift of the Sceptarch. A perfectly controlled power of death. You will only kill if you want to. If you do not, even if you must, you cannot."

That seemed annoying. What if you needed to kill a family member and your psychology said you didn't want to, because it was your mother or brother or something? What if they came at you with a knife? What if they tried to poison you? Would it still not work?

I didn't want to ask, though. Not now. My voice needed to be saved for the important questions.

"Are we going?" I asked.

"Soon enough," he replied. "Rest and heal, until you are strong enough to shout again, and we'll be off." But he didn't say it with warmth. Or kindness.

It was the cold logic of someone whose job it was, to keep you hale and whole.

Comforting. Maybe to no one else... but to me... it was comforting.