~ Unwilling ~

Begin Again

In a tiny village in southern Pyre, lit by the soft blue light of the moon and the warm orange glow of flame, two girls stood close together, one looking worriedly at the other.

"This doesn't seem right."

"What the hell ain't right about it, it's Fin's damn carriage, we're just taking it back—and, hey, are you here gabbing at me about what's right or are you keeping lookout?"

"Sorry, Ash."

Maya ran off to look out at the quiet night street, and Ashley returned to the task at hand—the padlock on the door was small, but she just couldn't seem to get her flame hot enough to melt or warp it.

"Come on," she muttered, gritting her teeth as she pushed heat into the lock. "Come ON!"

No luck. Ashley grunted and slammed her hand against the door, then stood, her shoulders tense, reaching back to squeeze at her sore muscles.

"Having trouble?"

"Really not in the mood for you, Princess."

Selene shrugged. "I thought you might need some help. Fin has the horses ready. We just need the carriage."

"Yeah, well, I dunno what they made this lock out of, but it ain't giving."

Selene glanced at it. "The locks at the church were much higher quality than this one."

Ashley grunted. "Maybe they looked it, but this thing—"

"I think you have changed. You're weaker."

"What? Wanna say that again?"

"You used a lot of your energy yesterday. You've yet to recover. Although Fin hasn't said anything, I think you're the weakest of any of us."

"Do you WANT a broken nose?"

"I wasn't trying to provoke you," Selene said. "I'm not picking a fight, Ashley."

"Sure as hell could've fooled me!"

Selene sighed. "I know we're not ... friends—"

"So what, huh? Here to help, what, you gonna pip the lock off with your little bow?"

Selene stepped towards Ashley and slapped her, leaving her hand pushed against her cheek. Ashley growled and tried to pull away, but Selene moved with her, her palm pressed cool and firm against Ashley's skin.

"What—"

"Focus," Selene murmured.

Ashley's instinct was to fight against Selene's touch, to try to pull away again, but something in the girl's voice and her eyes made her hesitate, and she found herself listening to the words that she spoke:

"Your mistake," Selene said, her eyes locked with Ashley's, "is in treating your energy as if it's something separate from you. You don't trust it. You don't accept it. You don't believe in it. That's why you're weak."

Ashley was silent. Her cheek stung from where Selene had slapped her, but she barely noticed that. Despite the dullness of the light she could see, so sharply and in such detail, every part of Selene's face; her thin, dark eyebrows; her large, calm eyes, brown with rings of dark grey; her nose, short and straight, with a tiny scar on its left side, near the bridge; her small mouth, lips thin and serious; the curve of her cheeks, angular yet soft—

Ashley pulled away from Selene, staggered, then doubled over, retching.

"What," she gasped, before spitting on to the ground. "What the HELL was THAT?"

"Focus," said Selene. "Obviously you weren't ready for it. Next time—"

"What in all this hells-damned world makes you think there's gonna be a next time?" Ashley glared up at Selene. "You EVER do ANYTHING like that to me again and I'll have your damned throat, you creepy little witch."

"Ash?"

Maya had appeared around the side of the building. She took a hesitant step forward.

"Get back to looking out for trouble!" Ashley snarled at her. Maya stared at her sister, then she turned and ran back towards the street.

"I was trying to help," said Selene. "It's not my fault that—"

"You still standing here?" Ashley growled. "Make yourself gone, Princess, or you're really gonna regret it."

Selene made a little 'hm' noise, then she turned and walked away.

For a moment Ashley just stood, breathing hard, all her concentration on keeping herself from exploding. She felt hot, horribly hot, but she knew how to deal with this; she stumbled over to the door and she gripped the lock tight, and with a vicious snarl she sent everything she had into it.

There was a small sound, and a sharp pain against her palm, and Ashley opened her hand to let the twisted and blackened chunk of scrap that had once been a padlock fall to the ground.

"Weak, huh," she muttered, before kicking the door open. "I'll show that prissy little wench 'weak'."

Felony leapt joyfully through the air, her feet against a wall for the slightest fraction of a second before she launched herself off it once more, grabbing at a window still to steady and redirect herself before falling, a controlled fall that ended with her crouched on the cracked stone tiles below. It was dark, but the glow of a lantern in the street beyond cast a dull light on the alleyway.

She straightened, grinning.

"Tal," she said, "any time you wanna give me a job like that, don't even hesitate."

"Were there any problems?"

"Ran into guards a couple of times, they didn't come close to even touching me but hell and damn, they're tenacious! Fast, too!"

"While I'm happy you had fun, I'll be more happy if the next words out of your mouth are 'I know exactly where they're going'."

"Sorry, couldn't tell you. I caught up to them, though, saw 'em leave the city. They're on foot, heading down south, back the same way we came."

Talise considered this. "Hm," she said. "That's ... acceptable."

"I have a question," Zivah said. She raised her head, so that her face could be seen beneath her hood. "When are we leaving this city? You promised me—"

"I know," said Talise, not looking at Zivah, "and I apologise. Things have become more complicated than I expected. We'll be leaving soon."

"Don't worry, Zivah," Kyle said. "We'll keep you safe."

Zivah looked at Kyle, then nodded.

"I put my trust in you," she said. Felony rolled her eyes.

"So, we moving now?" she asked. Talise didn't reply; she was fiddling with a small metal pocket watch. "What's that?"

"It," said Talise, not looking up, "is a device."

"Come on, Tal, I'm just curious. Let me in, girl."

Talise sighed. "It allows me communication with Armand and Edward." She looked up at Felony, then held the device up for her to see. It had a face like a watch, but instead of numbers it was covered in tiny symbols. One of the symbols, a curly circle inside an even curlier circle, clicked down, then up, then down again, then once more up. Talise responded to this by pressing down the circle, then pushing a button at the side of the device that made the circle pop up again, then pressing it down once more. She followed this with a rapid sequence of symbols, Felony forgotten as she concentrated on the message.

After a minute she snapped the device shut and looked up at the others.

"Apparently I was right to send you after those adepts," she said to Felony. "Although just as apparently we were wrong to let them go—"

"We didn't have much choice," Kyle said. "That girl would've killed you if we'd tried anything."

"Probably," said Talise, her voice tight. "Even so, it was a mistake not to follow and attempt to ambush them—"

"Yeah, but, again," Kyle argued, "if they've got a perception adept AND a pure adept they'd have us coming and going, and who knows what those other two were—"

"Yes, THANK you Kyle, but you're not saying anything that I haven't already considered."

"What's so important about them?" Felony asked.

"They have something Mr Garnett wants."

"Yeah? What?"

Talise turned her cold eyes on Felony.

"Something," she said, her voice crisp, "that your employer desires. Do you really need to know more than that?"

"Just asking, is all."

"In any case we have a new assignment. Find them, and take the item." Talise rubbed her forehead then let her arm drop. "If no one has any more questions then I think it's far past the time we left this place."