Marcus was swift over the snow, easily ducking and weaving between trees, his treads light enough that he did not risk sinking too far into the flakes coating the ground, deep in places but almost missing in others. Amalia suspected he was leading her somewhere specific, or at least somewhere far enough away to entail minimal interference. Perhaps he only wanted to wear her down as much as possible before they engaged. It wasnât a terrible strategy: he, after all, was not the one whoâd spent hours in a freezing cell, nor had he likely been in haste for the rest of the day, meaning he was fresh for this confrontation, and she was not. It was an advantage worth pressing.
At times, she was barely able to keep eyes on him, so suddenly would he turn or angle away from his previous trajectory. But she kept her arms pumping, kept her legs moving as quickly as they would propel her forward, until her muscles were nearly burning with the effort. She knew without having to look that Ithilian was some distance behind, though she sensed that he might not presently be able to keep up, considering the lingering effects of his poisoning. Still, neither Amalia nor her quarry were making any effort to conceal their tracksâhe would be able to follow.
She had to admit she was really counting on it.
The first impediment to her forward progress was a massive ball of fire, not unlike the one that had smote a pride demon several years before, only this time, there was no doubt it was aimed at her. Barreling forward as she was, she could not avoid it, not without losing too much speed and probably not even then, so she ducked, closed her eyes and ran right through it. Her armor was resistant, but she could feel her flesh blistering where it was exposed, the outermost layer of skin on her face turning a bright, livid red. Nothing that could not be fixed. Nothing she was unwilling to sacrifice.
The fact that heâd aimed the attack, however, made it evident that heâd at last come to a stop, and though Amalia could not so much as hear Ithilianâs footsteps anymore, she knew they had not gone too far for him to follow. For now, however, she was stuck fighting on Marcusâs terms, something she would do for as long as necessary. Not pausing to draw a weapon of any kind, she launched herself right for him.
He had clearly expected the magic to slow her down, because she managed to tackle him to the ground, after which it was a brutal tangle of limbs. She slammed her elbow into his clavicle, and she heard it fracture under the impact, though it did not break. He brought a knee up into her stomach, however, and it knocked the wind out of her for just long enough for him to flip them around, so that she was on her back in the snow, and he pummeled her with repeated hits to her center mass.
âYou should have stayed in the cell,â he hissed, his voice low, raspy, and considerably less collected than usual. Of course, they had just run nearly a mile as fast as they could, so she hadnât expected any different. Their breathing was labored, to be sure, but he definitely had the upper hand in terms of remaining strength.
Amalia bucked and scrabbled underneath the knee holding her in place, digging uncomfortably into her abdomen. âAnd you should have remained in Tevinter.â With a sharp jerk, she freed one of her wrists and jabbed upwards, blacking his eye and forcing him off her as he reeled backwards. Rolling away, she drew a knife, leaving her other hand free as she advanced towards him, struggling for breath but undeterred.
âTevinter? Where still they look at me and remember that I could not even bring one Qunari girl to heel? I think not.â In a move that was familiar to her, first as his and then later as belonging to another, he encased his right arm in stone, folding his jointed fingers into a fist. He lunged, and she spun aside, one of his knuckles barely clipping her hip. It almost threw her off-balance, but she recovered, propelling herself in close and swiping with the knife.
He deflected it off his stone limb, retaliating by attempting to grab her by the neck. He succeeded in catching her by the collar as she tried to bend backwards, yanking her forward and into the grip of the stone arm, lofting her a foot into the air with seemingly little effort, though she could see the perspiration gathering on his brow. Her breaths were wetâhis body blows had broken at least a rib or two, and her vision was starting to blur at the edges, made only worse by the fact that he was cutting off her air supply.
âI will go back, eventually, but only when I have what it will take to silence them all. I have Rasaanâs informationâall I need now is you.â She pulled ineffectually at his armored arm, his grip pressing keenly into her windpipe. âIt wasnât hard, once I knew she planned to meet the Duke. The Ariqun is such a foolâsheâd believe anything from the right source. Getting you here was a childâs gambit.â Amalia swung her legs up, wrapping them around his arm and twisting her whole body, taking them both back to the ground. His grip on her neck loosened just enough for her to take in a gulp of air, burning its way down her raw throat and into her perforated lungs. A cough wracked her frame, and she spit up a globule of blood.
Marcus, a malicious light in his black eyes, smirked at her, his own breaths already evening out. He shot an ice spike at her, which she had to roll to avoid. Without the strength to climb to her feet, however, she was left vulnerable when the bolt of lightning lanced into her side, and despite her every effort not to, she screamed.
Ithilian had quickly become aware that he was in no shape to be doing this. Their trail was an easy one to follow, but he found himself stumbling off of it several times, nearly falling against trees, the cold snow making for poor footing. He began to cough almost incessantly, disrupting his breathing, and very quickly he could not keep any wind at all. Whatever he'd been given by Amalia had helped, in that he was still alive, but undoubtedly he needed to rest to properly heal, not exert himself like this.
He tripped over a rock just buried beneath the snow, collapsing to his knees, drops of blood falling to the white ground beneath him. The taste of it was strong in his mouth, and he spat out a mouthful. His entire throat felt like it was ablaze, every inhale or exhale causing him great pain. The pull of the ground seemed too heavy to resist, at least until the sound of blasting lightning and an agonized scream pierced through the air.
Ithilian hauled himself to his feet once more, drawing his bow and taking far too long to nock an arrow. His sight had grown worse, to the point where he couldn't clearly make out the combatants before him, but he could see the source of the magic, and the grounded body it was targeted at. With the best aim he could muster, he pulled back an arrow and let fly, falling to his knees against the base of a tree immediately after.
The projectile caught Marcus in the lower back, eliciting an angry groan, and he quickly turned to send an attack back at the elf, in the form of a stonefist. Ithilian took cover behind the tree, which shattered when struck, the magic blowing through the entire trunk and knocking Ithilian back to face the stars, while the entire tree came crashing down next to him.
Marcus gripped the arrow in his back and tore it out, tossing it to the side with a soft scoff. He turned slightly, likely thinking that it would be best to just finish Ithilian off before he could interfere again, but unbeknownst to him, Amalia was already pushing herself back to her feet. Her limbs still trembled with the aftershocks of the lightningânot only was Marcus a mage, but a very powerful one, and sheâd been shocked by enough of them to know the difference. But the importance of such a fact paled in comparison to the importance of making her body move again, before he could make good on his threats to kill kadan.
She knew she would not be swift, not with knees like jelly. She knew she would not be strong, not with a grip so loose she was barely holding on to her knife. She knew she would not be precise, not with the involuntary spasms that still seized her muscles. All she had left in her favor was that she would not give up until she was dead. So sheâd have to find some way to win with that.
Marcusâs primary weakness was his pride. It always had been. That, and something of a flair for the dramatic, so it wasnât surprising that rather than simply hastening to sling another few spells at Ithilian, he had chosen to stalk towards him, at what amounted to no more than a brisk walk in pace. It, and his apparent belief that Amalia wouldnât be moving any time soon, were the only reasons she was able to actâjumping onto his back and trying to curve her knife around his throat. He managed to stop it in time, the blade biting into his palm instead, and he wrenched it out of her grip, tossing it aside. She held on after that, though, refusing to dislodge even as he tried to bend his way out from underneath her.
In the end, he simply let himself fall backwards, with Amalia taking most of the weight of their impact, the breath leaving her in a gust. Her vision briefly blacked out when she fell directly onto her broken ribs, and she felt rather than saw Marcus roll off her, her eyes clearing in just enough time to recognize what he was doing. With a muffled groan, she shoved herself to the side to avoid the lash of blood that followed. She was halfway back to her feet when the next one caught her in the arm, solidifying around it and forcibly tethering her to Marcus, who yanked and sent her sprawling facefirst into the snow.
Ithilian took time to rise. The stonefist spell had lodged several shards in his upper body like shrapnel rocks, and he pulled out two of the larger ones. Slowly, he clambered to his knees, fumbled for his bow. Somehow, it had come unstrung. A sharp piece of rock had to have cut it clean, he imagined. That limited his options. He pulled his sword free of the sheath and rose to shaky feet, shambling forward with as much speed as he could get.
A second lash of blood arced towards him, Marcus easily seeing his approach. Ithilian blocked it with his sword, but the magic whip coiled tightly around it, and it was pulled from his hand, sending him stumbling a few steps as well. The lash came quickly back around, snagging around his neck, cutting off any small breath he might've been able to take. With a forceful pull, he was drawn into close range with the magister.
But with his hands occupied, Marcus could not respond to Ithilian's first attack, Parshaara coming free from its sheath and slashing deep across his face, below the eyes. In addition to cutting into his cheek and nose on the right side, fire burst across that part of his face, stunning him from the pain and drawing a shriek. Ithilian tackled him to the ground on his back, a move that looked more like the pair of them collapsing in unity, and with magister straddled beneath him, Ithilian made to plunge his dagger down into his throat.
Marcus caught the blade in time, abandoning the blood whip in that hand to catch Ithilian's arm. The edge of it opened a small line of blood at the side of his throat, before his strength began to overmatch Ithilian's own, and he pushed the weapon away. With one hand still trying to restrain Amalia, and the other stuck holding Ithilian's arm, Marcus employed a spell that needed neither, arcane force bursting out from his mind, forcefully throwing the elf into the air. He twisted in the air, landed face down in the snow, and did not move.
Amalia had drawn herself to her knees, and with what little strength was left to her, she pulled on the lash constricting her arm, taking advantage of the fact that prone, Marcus would offer no resistance other than his body weight, which was greater than hers but not greater than what she was capable of dragging, even like this. It had the added benefit of keeping him away from Ithilian, and when she judged he was close enough, she half-lunged, half-fell the rest of the way, driving her elbow again into the place sheâd cracked his clavicle earlier.
That seemed to be enough to snap him out of the pain haze from the burn, and he retaliated, his hit to her ribcage weaker than it should have been given his broken collarbone. Well, that and he was tiring as well. No one could fend off a full assault this long without feeling the effects. Not her, not him. If there was one thing Amalia was better at than Marcus was, however, it was putting up with pain, and admittedly, what followed was little more than a contest in putting up with increasing amounts of pain. Their strikes were weaker than they would have otherwise been, though his sometimes had the benefit of being magical, but their bodies could only take so much.
Sheâd just driven a fist into the burn mark on his face when he disappeared, reappearing several feet to the left. Magic. Always magic. He was standing, if half bent over and listing slightly to the left, and she struggled to do the same, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth in an attempt to keep herself from hyperventilating. He was glaring at her, this fact somehow especially clear through her fogged vision. Maybe it was the contrast, between his fair complexion, the angry red of the burn mark, and the black of his eyes, she didnât know. Maybe it was just because she recognized the feeling conveyed by it so well.
âThis isnât over.â
Amalia could almost see the way he gathered the magic to him, as though he had to struggle for it, but then it wrapped around him, some kind of curtain of light, far too bright for her to look at, and she turned her face away, glancing back only when it disappeared. Marcus had disappeared with it. He was gone, again, and still alive.
She supposed she should have been enraged, or afraid, or something. But all Amalia felt was numb, and she turned around without looking back, staggering back towards where Ithilian had fallen. Dropping to her knees not a foot from him, she tried to shake off the incoming darkness. Just a little longerâŠ
âKaââ The word remained unfinished as Amalia finally lost consciousness, tipping slowly over and landing on her side in the snow.
At times, she was barely able to keep eyes on him, so suddenly would he turn or angle away from his previous trajectory. But she kept her arms pumping, kept her legs moving as quickly as they would propel her forward, until her muscles were nearly burning with the effort. She knew without having to look that Ithilian was some distance behind, though she sensed that he might not presently be able to keep up, considering the lingering effects of his poisoning. Still, neither Amalia nor her quarry were making any effort to conceal their tracksâhe would be able to follow.
She had to admit she was really counting on it.
The first impediment to her forward progress was a massive ball of fire, not unlike the one that had smote a pride demon several years before, only this time, there was no doubt it was aimed at her. Barreling forward as she was, she could not avoid it, not without losing too much speed and probably not even then, so she ducked, closed her eyes and ran right through it. Her armor was resistant, but she could feel her flesh blistering where it was exposed, the outermost layer of skin on her face turning a bright, livid red. Nothing that could not be fixed. Nothing she was unwilling to sacrifice.
The fact that heâd aimed the attack, however, made it evident that heâd at last come to a stop, and though Amalia could not so much as hear Ithilianâs footsteps anymore, she knew they had not gone too far for him to follow. For now, however, she was stuck fighting on Marcusâs terms, something she would do for as long as necessary. Not pausing to draw a weapon of any kind, she launched herself right for him.
He had clearly expected the magic to slow her down, because she managed to tackle him to the ground, after which it was a brutal tangle of limbs. She slammed her elbow into his clavicle, and she heard it fracture under the impact, though it did not break. He brought a knee up into her stomach, however, and it knocked the wind out of her for just long enough for him to flip them around, so that she was on her back in the snow, and he pummeled her with repeated hits to her center mass.
âYou should have stayed in the cell,â he hissed, his voice low, raspy, and considerably less collected than usual. Of course, they had just run nearly a mile as fast as they could, so she hadnât expected any different. Their breathing was labored, to be sure, but he definitely had the upper hand in terms of remaining strength.
Amalia bucked and scrabbled underneath the knee holding her in place, digging uncomfortably into her abdomen. âAnd you should have remained in Tevinter.â With a sharp jerk, she freed one of her wrists and jabbed upwards, blacking his eye and forcing him off her as he reeled backwards. Rolling away, she drew a knife, leaving her other hand free as she advanced towards him, struggling for breath but undeterred.
âTevinter? Where still they look at me and remember that I could not even bring one Qunari girl to heel? I think not.â In a move that was familiar to her, first as his and then later as belonging to another, he encased his right arm in stone, folding his jointed fingers into a fist. He lunged, and she spun aside, one of his knuckles barely clipping her hip. It almost threw her off-balance, but she recovered, propelling herself in close and swiping with the knife.
He deflected it off his stone limb, retaliating by attempting to grab her by the neck. He succeeded in catching her by the collar as she tried to bend backwards, yanking her forward and into the grip of the stone arm, lofting her a foot into the air with seemingly little effort, though she could see the perspiration gathering on his brow. Her breaths were wetâhis body blows had broken at least a rib or two, and her vision was starting to blur at the edges, made only worse by the fact that he was cutting off her air supply.
âI will go back, eventually, but only when I have what it will take to silence them all. I have Rasaanâs informationâall I need now is you.â She pulled ineffectually at his armored arm, his grip pressing keenly into her windpipe. âIt wasnât hard, once I knew she planned to meet the Duke. The Ariqun is such a foolâsheâd believe anything from the right source. Getting you here was a childâs gambit.â Amalia swung her legs up, wrapping them around his arm and twisting her whole body, taking them both back to the ground. His grip on her neck loosened just enough for her to take in a gulp of air, burning its way down her raw throat and into her perforated lungs. A cough wracked her frame, and she spit up a globule of blood.
Marcus, a malicious light in his black eyes, smirked at her, his own breaths already evening out. He shot an ice spike at her, which she had to roll to avoid. Without the strength to climb to her feet, however, she was left vulnerable when the bolt of lightning lanced into her side, and despite her every effort not to, she screamed.
Ithilian had quickly become aware that he was in no shape to be doing this. Their trail was an easy one to follow, but he found himself stumbling off of it several times, nearly falling against trees, the cold snow making for poor footing. He began to cough almost incessantly, disrupting his breathing, and very quickly he could not keep any wind at all. Whatever he'd been given by Amalia had helped, in that he was still alive, but undoubtedly he needed to rest to properly heal, not exert himself like this.
He tripped over a rock just buried beneath the snow, collapsing to his knees, drops of blood falling to the white ground beneath him. The taste of it was strong in his mouth, and he spat out a mouthful. His entire throat felt like it was ablaze, every inhale or exhale causing him great pain. The pull of the ground seemed too heavy to resist, at least until the sound of blasting lightning and an agonized scream pierced through the air.
Ithilian hauled himself to his feet once more, drawing his bow and taking far too long to nock an arrow. His sight had grown worse, to the point where he couldn't clearly make out the combatants before him, but he could see the source of the magic, and the grounded body it was targeted at. With the best aim he could muster, he pulled back an arrow and let fly, falling to his knees against the base of a tree immediately after.
The projectile caught Marcus in the lower back, eliciting an angry groan, and he quickly turned to send an attack back at the elf, in the form of a stonefist. Ithilian took cover behind the tree, which shattered when struck, the magic blowing through the entire trunk and knocking Ithilian back to face the stars, while the entire tree came crashing down next to him.
Marcus gripped the arrow in his back and tore it out, tossing it to the side with a soft scoff. He turned slightly, likely thinking that it would be best to just finish Ithilian off before he could interfere again, but unbeknownst to him, Amalia was already pushing herself back to her feet. Her limbs still trembled with the aftershocks of the lightningânot only was Marcus a mage, but a very powerful one, and sheâd been shocked by enough of them to know the difference. But the importance of such a fact paled in comparison to the importance of making her body move again, before he could make good on his threats to kill kadan.
She knew she would not be swift, not with knees like jelly. She knew she would not be strong, not with a grip so loose she was barely holding on to her knife. She knew she would not be precise, not with the involuntary spasms that still seized her muscles. All she had left in her favor was that she would not give up until she was dead. So sheâd have to find some way to win with that.
Marcusâs primary weakness was his pride. It always had been. That, and something of a flair for the dramatic, so it wasnât surprising that rather than simply hastening to sling another few spells at Ithilian, he had chosen to stalk towards him, at what amounted to no more than a brisk walk in pace. It, and his apparent belief that Amalia wouldnât be moving any time soon, were the only reasons she was able to actâjumping onto his back and trying to curve her knife around his throat. He managed to stop it in time, the blade biting into his palm instead, and he wrenched it out of her grip, tossing it aside. She held on after that, though, refusing to dislodge even as he tried to bend his way out from underneath her.
In the end, he simply let himself fall backwards, with Amalia taking most of the weight of their impact, the breath leaving her in a gust. Her vision briefly blacked out when she fell directly onto her broken ribs, and she felt rather than saw Marcus roll off her, her eyes clearing in just enough time to recognize what he was doing. With a muffled groan, she shoved herself to the side to avoid the lash of blood that followed. She was halfway back to her feet when the next one caught her in the arm, solidifying around it and forcibly tethering her to Marcus, who yanked and sent her sprawling facefirst into the snow.
Ithilian took time to rise. The stonefist spell had lodged several shards in his upper body like shrapnel rocks, and he pulled out two of the larger ones. Slowly, he clambered to his knees, fumbled for his bow. Somehow, it had come unstrung. A sharp piece of rock had to have cut it clean, he imagined. That limited his options. He pulled his sword free of the sheath and rose to shaky feet, shambling forward with as much speed as he could get.
A second lash of blood arced towards him, Marcus easily seeing his approach. Ithilian blocked it with his sword, but the magic whip coiled tightly around it, and it was pulled from his hand, sending him stumbling a few steps as well. The lash came quickly back around, snagging around his neck, cutting off any small breath he might've been able to take. With a forceful pull, he was drawn into close range with the magister.
But with his hands occupied, Marcus could not respond to Ithilian's first attack, Parshaara coming free from its sheath and slashing deep across his face, below the eyes. In addition to cutting into his cheek and nose on the right side, fire burst across that part of his face, stunning him from the pain and drawing a shriek. Ithilian tackled him to the ground on his back, a move that looked more like the pair of them collapsing in unity, and with magister straddled beneath him, Ithilian made to plunge his dagger down into his throat.
Marcus caught the blade in time, abandoning the blood whip in that hand to catch Ithilian's arm. The edge of it opened a small line of blood at the side of his throat, before his strength began to overmatch Ithilian's own, and he pushed the weapon away. With one hand still trying to restrain Amalia, and the other stuck holding Ithilian's arm, Marcus employed a spell that needed neither, arcane force bursting out from his mind, forcefully throwing the elf into the air. He twisted in the air, landed face down in the snow, and did not move.
Amalia had drawn herself to her knees, and with what little strength was left to her, she pulled on the lash constricting her arm, taking advantage of the fact that prone, Marcus would offer no resistance other than his body weight, which was greater than hers but not greater than what she was capable of dragging, even like this. It had the added benefit of keeping him away from Ithilian, and when she judged he was close enough, she half-lunged, half-fell the rest of the way, driving her elbow again into the place sheâd cracked his clavicle earlier.
That seemed to be enough to snap him out of the pain haze from the burn, and he retaliated, his hit to her ribcage weaker than it should have been given his broken collarbone. Well, that and he was tiring as well. No one could fend off a full assault this long without feeling the effects. Not her, not him. If there was one thing Amalia was better at than Marcus was, however, it was putting up with pain, and admittedly, what followed was little more than a contest in putting up with increasing amounts of pain. Their strikes were weaker than they would have otherwise been, though his sometimes had the benefit of being magical, but their bodies could only take so much.
Sheâd just driven a fist into the burn mark on his face when he disappeared, reappearing several feet to the left. Magic. Always magic. He was standing, if half bent over and listing slightly to the left, and she struggled to do the same, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth in an attempt to keep herself from hyperventilating. He was glaring at her, this fact somehow especially clear through her fogged vision. Maybe it was the contrast, between his fair complexion, the angry red of the burn mark, and the black of his eyes, she didnât know. Maybe it was just because she recognized the feeling conveyed by it so well.
âThis isnât over.â
Amalia could almost see the way he gathered the magic to him, as though he had to struggle for it, but then it wrapped around him, some kind of curtain of light, far too bright for her to look at, and she turned her face away, glancing back only when it disappeared. Marcus had disappeared with it. He was gone, again, and still alive.
She supposed she should have been enraged, or afraid, or something. But all Amalia felt was numb, and she turned around without looking back, staggering back towards where Ithilian had fallen. Dropping to her knees not a foot from him, she tried to shake off the incoming darkness. Just a little longerâŠ
âKaââ The word remained unfinished as Amalia finally lost consciousness, tipping slowly over and landing on her side in the snow.
The Chanter's Board has been updated. Heart of the One/A Matter of Principle has been completed.