Jace was livid, and he only just kept himself from shattering Kay’rin’s head like a melon when he bashed it from behind. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he broke her skull or even her neck with a force he used. Without pausing he knelt down and put a hand on her should then stood again, still watching the slack jawed Karius.

“Karius, I know you like Kay’rin so I’m going to tell you good news. I did not kill her. Now I’m going to tell you bad news. I spelled her. It’s a cute little ward I invented to protect me when I was working. If you try to heal her from this injury or even cast a spell on her in the next… oh… half a day or so, you probably won’t survive the backlash. This is my warning to you. As for Kay’rin I think she’ll recover on her own from these injuries. At the worse she’ll die, but it won’t be for a few days yet I think. Now, you have two choices. One you can fight me, and get her caught up in our battle, or you can take her someplace to make sure she recovers well. Remember try not to heal her before dawn tomorrow. I suggest you take the second option because I’m not in the mood to spare too many people today.”

Jace was hoping he’d take his offer of peace, partially because he didn’t want too many of his tricks seen before he confronted the kindred. Partially because he knew at heart these two weren’t bad people. He really didn’t want to make the first person he killed be someone he liked. Time seemed to stretch then Karius nodded his surrender, and walked over to take Kay’rin somewhere else. As he passed Jace he warned in a whispering tone “The emissary is a famous sorcerer, you’re doing yourself no favors right now.”

Jace stood up, and lead the girls past the roadblock. Now that blood had been spilled Jace raised his pace. It was important to get to the gathering hall as quickly as possible. His concern for Sam starting to war with his reason as his pace became a near run. He could tell the girls couldn’t keep up. He no longer could care if they did or not. As he closed in on the hall he heard a cry of pain that stabbed him in the heart. He knew that voice. His near run turned into a full sprint, he fed varies body reinforcement glyphs into his muscles and unleashed inhuman speed to reach the entrance.

He thought he was prepaired to see anything, he was wrong. What he saw as he entered the hall nearly drove him insane.

Sa’manatha felt like she was dying. Her body was in more pain then she should be possible to feel. Nothing that old Sage ever did during her training hurt like this. She was terrified and knew tears were falling down her face. But she refused to scream out again. Part of her wanted to just die for this to end. But she didn’t want the baby to die, so she struggled fitfully to breath, and prayed desperately to Manatha for help.

She never told Jace why she chose the name she did. Manatha was the goddess of the skies, and of flying things. Part of her heart always envied the Shar which flew in the sky. It always looked so free. She yearned for that freedom to go where she wanted to go. To see new things, to not be weighed down by these chains. It was a deep seeded yearning which she never gave up deep in her dreams, she couldn’t help but want to fly free. It was a childish dream born when she was terrified, sad and in pain, wishing for escape from her bondage, for her parents to come and rescue her.

So for her, none of the other gods or goddesses had anything she really wanted. Just that unspoken wish for Manatha. She wanted to fly free just once; to see the world from the sky, and see new things without worry, to live free of the chains. When she took the name the ‘Sa’ part of the name was an ancient human way of saying “daughter of” so she knew she was being very presumptuous with the name. She was claiming something which probably should insult Manatha. She was a cursed, pathetic human slave girl, what right did she have to claim kinship with the goddess Manatha?

Still how could she ever forget that dream? When Verna asked her what her dreams where she had to admit she had no real dreams. Just that one fanciful one. A dream she’d never see. An impossible dream. She now prayed two prayers to Manatha that she knew weren’t impossible. She prayed that Jace abandoned her. She prayed that he ran away. What these people would do to him was far worse then what they were doing to her. There was no way to fight them. She prayed and hoped that the goddess who’s name she took could at least hide what was happening from Jace long enough that these people gave up looking for him

She also prayed that her child would make it through this without harm. She already knew she probably was far too damaged to heal back to being whole, even if this was to end. She just wanted to live long enough for the child to be born, for him to have a chance at life. Maybe he would be blessed and able to fly free for his mother who never would.

So she sobbed silently, and prayed fervently, she wished she could stop trembling, she was so cold, it was so hard to breath.

Jace almost didn’t recognize the woman they had strapped to that vertical board, though he knew deep dark in his heart who it was instantly.

‘It can’t be’

Her long beautiful hair was burnt off her head, leaving her skin cracked and burnt, charred black.

‘Too late’

One of her eyes, her beautiful eyes was milky white from the heat, likely destroyed.

‘No more’

The side of her face showed blisters from the heat, and burns.

‘I can’t do this anymore

I can’t do this…’

She had a number of strips of flesh torn from her body, making her almost look as if she had been painted in red paint.

‘Too LATE. TOO LATE

OH GOD WHY? WHY? TOO LATE TOO FUCKING LATE’

Her toes, the big toes on each foot were ripped or cut off.

‘Oh god Sam

Sam, no… please.’

Her arms and legs were broken. Swollen and purple. Twisted in unnatural angles. This would have taken hours to do to someone.

His rage evaporated in the desperate need to vomit, as he felt his heart shatter. He was too late. There was no way any one human could live through this. Seeing her body desiccated like this was too much, the emotional impact was too much and he collapsed to the ground. He saw nothing but Sam. He couldn’t even tell who else was in the Hall. How many people there was, what they were doing, all he could see was Sam, dangling from a board in the middle of the hall as if to display just how awful people could be to one another. He knew he was screaming. He couldn’t stop if he wanted to.

He started to stand up, he needed to reach her. Had to reach her.

A Sharp pain accompanied by a heavy blow to the back of his head dropped him face first into the ground. His own screams echoing in his ears as the world faded to black. Blessed black.