Chapter 1990: Kidnapped

"Black! Let me live or your healer is dead!"

Marielle aimed her staff at Seraphiel’s back on the sheltered balcony, waiting for Black to look at her. If he wanted his healer alive, he would have to let them leave.

Seraphiel glanced over her shoulder at the staff, then turned toward the woman holding it. Her bow of light hung loosely from one hand.

"Oh~ You picked me?"

"Stay still!" Marielle jabbed the staff toward her chest. "Black! Are you listening?! Tell your women to move away!"

The elf looked down at the staff’s tip with a spreading smile.

"You thought I was the weak one? Oh, Quin, did you hear that? Your hopeless little healer has been taken hostage~"

She sounded delighted. Marielle pressed the tip against her, desperate to make the laughing bitch understand that her life was being threatened.

"I’ll burn a hole through you!"

"Okay." Seraphiel’s smile widened, baring her teeth. The cruelty on her delicate face made Marielle want to snatch the staff back.

"Try me, bitch."

The Dawnbringer’s bow contracted into a dagger as she stepped past the staff with staggering speed, slicing Marielle’s wrist on the way in.

"What?!"

Before the mage could pull back, an elbow smashed into her mouth and a knee drove up beneath her ribs, folding her over the blow.

The scream caught in Marielle’s empty lungs. Seraphiel closed her free hand around the mage’s throat and slammed her against the wall hard enough to knock dust from the blocks.

Only when her staff clattered to the floor did Marielle look down. Blood was running over fingers that no longer obeyed her, dripping from the deep cut across her wrist. She’d been looking straight at Seraphiel and still hadn’t seen the blade coming.

"A-AAAH!"

The cry broke into a strangled squeal as the blonde elf lifted her. Marielle’s boots scraped up the wall, searching for a foothold until even their tips hung clear of the paving.

All her weight dangled from the delicate fingers around her throat.

She grabbed Seraphiel’s wrist with her good hand, trying to force it down. The curvaceous woman watched her struggle with a delighted smile, her dagger hanging idly beside her hip. Marielle pulled harder, kicking against the wall, but couldn’t make the elf’s arm bend.

"There it is." The Dawnbringer smiled with extreme cruelty. "You’re finally singing after all the terrible things you said about my friends and husband."

Her fingers tightened, cutting the next breath into a thin, desperate whistle. Marielle dug her nails into the hand holding her, and the Dawnbringer laughed at the effort.

"Keep going~ It’s a beautiful tune I longed to hear~"

A shake of Seraphiel’s arm tore Marielle’s grip loose and sent her legs swinging. Before she could catch the wrist again, the elf shook her harder, knocking the back of her head against the wall.

"Still trying to tell us what to do?"

Marielle’s mouth worked around a reply that wouldn’t come. She could hear the wet choking sounds she was making, could feel the blood from her split lip running over the fingers buried in her throat. The woman holding her only looked happier as she struggled.

Seraphiel was enjoying every kick. All day she’d listened to this bitch insult her family, and now she could feel Marielle’s frantic attempts to breathe against her palm. She kept her suspended a little longer, savouring the terror in the eyes that had looked down on them.

Through [Empowerment], the Magic that fed Seraphiel’s healing also strengthened her body and accelerated her movements. Marielle had felt the blows one after another without managing to raise her free hand against any of them.

When the mage’s kicks began to falter, the Dawnbringer eased her fingers enough to let her drag in a ragged breath. Marielle coughed blood down her chin, clutching at the wrist again while her boots swung above the floor.

"You’re... a healer..."

"Yes~ But waiting for someone to hurt my family so I can be useful got old quick. Now I kill the bastards before they can do it. Aren’t I smart?"

Marielle tried to brace her heels against the wall and lift some of her weight off her throat. She’d chosen the woman tending the wounded, the one whose hands had been so gentle opening their cocoons. Now she hung from one of those hands while the elf mocked her.

"No! Please, no!"

"Aww. But you were being so brave a moment ago."

The blonde beauty drew her away from the wall, taking even that support from her. Marielle’s legs thrashed in empty air as Seraphiel brought them face-to-face, inspecting her tear-streaked features with shameless pleasure.

"There. That’s a much nicer expression on you."

"Nyxara’s influence is clear on you..." Behind the blonde elf, Aurora sighed as she sealed the patients beneath a second barrier.

"What do you mean? I always was a vicious woman~ I can just hide it better than some."

Marielle tried to look toward Andre. Seraphiel followed her gaze, then turned the mage in her grip and drove her face into the wall.

*CRACK!*

Released from the elf’s hand, Marielle dropped into a heap at its foot. The blow left her staring at the paving through swimming patches of light, unable to make sense of the blood dripping beneath her face.

"Marielle!"

Andre charged the Dawnbringer with his sword in his good hand.

"Let her go!"

His next step faltered. Before he could bring his sword down, a surge of mana from the open cavern bore against him, filling him with such sudden dread that he stopped short of the elf.

*KRRZZZT!*

The sharp crackle drew his head around. White-blue light flared across his blade as Quinlan’s lightning gathered beyond the balcony, and the hatred pouring through that mana made Andre recoil.

He could feel how badly its owner wanted to hurt him. Under that crushing malice, reaching Marielle ceased to matter for one terrified instant; he needed his sword between himself and the light.

"Shit-!"

Andre hauled the blade across his chest as the bolt tore toward him. Lightning burst against the steel before he could brace his feet.

The impact flung him backward. He hit the paving with his sword still clenched in a smoking hand, his injured arm trapped beneath him, and screamed as another bolt ripped through the spot beside his head.

Searching across the hollow for the man attacking him, Andre found Black still facing the monster.

Her hook hammered against his raised saber while a torrent of his water drove her supporting legs down the ledge. Lightning branched from the air behind his shoulders, crossing the cavern through the gap Aurora opened in her outer shield.

Andre dragged his ruined arm free and rolled before the next strike blasted chips across his face.

"He isn’t even looking?!"

He’d heard no incantation. Black’s hands were occupied with the monster trying to tear him apart, yet every attempt Andre made to rise brought another white-blue flash aimed straight at him.

"He’s casting without a chant or a gesture... while looking the other way?!"

Quinlan drove a blade of wind through the queen’s burned foreleg, peeling the damaged shell back from its joint. Her shriek rang through the hollow as another bolt struck Andre’s raised sword and hurled him back onto his side.

Marielle had threatened to burn through his wife’s body, and now her husband was raising a sword at that same woman.