Ayela fought hard, throwing everything she had at Tallie. The witch didn’t back down or make it easy, but the dancer wasn’t tired in the slightest. Every so often, her adversary would unleash a barrage of violet blasts that matched the color of Ayela’s eyes, but she would defend herself with a shield of invisible energy.
She maintained a continued stream of routines and martial artist’s moves that flowed perfectly into each other, flexing the entirety of her life’s training as she fought against the leader of the Towl?lites, but she was matched in every way. It was fitting; the new leader of the Tribes head-to-head against the leader of the Kult. It was a test of might, a duel of light and dark to see who would forever remain victorious.
But in their fighting, Ayela had lost herself to her bitter rage. Every wound reopened. Every painful memory came to the surface, and vengeance drove her actions rather than a heart of justice and mercy. She was out for blood, and each wild toss and kick she made was a testimony of her bloodlust.
“You fancy yourself a hero, Aylea? Your kind terrorized my people throughout all of thaerv’s history!” Tallie shouted above the winds. They paused their fighting to catch their breaths. The fires from the destroyed buildings all around kept their battlefield illuminated, and Ayela was too enraged to notice the soldiers fighting some unseen force off in the distance. The ships above remained perfectly in place, as if to oversee the battles below and ensure everything went in their favor, and Kacyn stood to her feet, yelling something at her that she couldn’t understand. It wasn’t because she couldn’t hear the farseer, though; it was because she was too angry to listen.
“Your order terrorized the world! There isn’t a catastrophe in history that doesn’t have your people’s involvement, Tallie! Death and destruction is all that you’ve wrought on remankind!” Ayela barked. “You want to preach about being the hero?! You killed an entire town because of superstition! You enslaved a god because of a hunger for power! It’s like you people can’t get enough!”
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“You don’t understand, blood elf!”
“Stop fucking calling me that!” Ayela screamed. She threw her hand out in anger and clenched her fist, and Tallie’s body tightened up as if ropes had wrapped around her. She yelped and grunted as she struggled to break free, but the more she struggled, the tighter Ayela’s ethereal grip clenched. Her fist began to shake with how hard she squeezed, and then Tallie started to levitate off the ground.
“Ayela, NO!!!” Kacyn panicked.
Tallie shrieked from the pain, and it only pushed Ayela to crush her harder and harder. She could hear the cracking sounds above the winds. “I. Will. Make. You. PAY!!!” She growled.
“AYELA!!!” Kacyn shrieked before tackling into the red-haired Songrivan. Tallie dropped to the ground and coughed up blood. As the ivory witch tried to stand up, though, she grunted and fell back to her knees, clenching her side as she coughed up more blood. If Kacyn hadn’t stopped her, Ayela would have broken more than her ribs. “This is not our way!”
“But she took everything from me! She took my Rhaja, she took my gods, my religion… She stole everything from me!” Ayela shouted as she stood to her feet. She marched over to the Towl?lite and lifted a palm into the air with every one of her muscles tensed. Tallie cried in pain as she was suspended into the air, and then Ayela saw it…
The fear in Tallie’s eyes.
For once in her life, someone was terrified of Ayela. Someone feared her power. She suddenly became exactly what the empire said she was. She became aware of the town’s destruction around her, and worried for her friends’ safety. Rage had consumed her and turned her into something she was not, and an entire town of people could have been saved when they weren’t. The soldiers continued to fire at something in the distance, and it gave her hope that not everything was lost.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, gently setting Tallie on the ground.
Before she could do anything else, though, Kacyn placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know how to stop the aethril!” She yelled over the winds. She turned and looked up at the black clouds and stared into the glowing eyes that once stood over her wrecked home in Sümol.
“Let’s take down a god…”
