12.2 || A Task of Death and Savagery
Bile rose in Ilyana's throat which she spat on the ground, tears flooding her eyes.
This wasn't meant to happen. They were meant to succeed in taking down the vermin from the Lost Abyss and interrogate them for information about Silas and the Necromancer's Curse.
They couldn't fail and let them complete their task of death and savagery.
Ilyana pressed her sleeves to her eyes to soak up the tears and forced her attention back to the battle.
As much as she wanted to watch the rest of the guards who were now outnumbered, she couldn't stop watching Clove.
Even though the Ogre was double her size, the captain still held her own.
A split lip and a bruised eye that would swell later were the only marks of her battle so far.
Her punches were nothing to the thick, green skin of her opponent, so all she could rely on were her daggers.
The Ogre had punctures littering his legs and lower torso, but they appeared to be mere nuisances more than wounds that would debilitate.
A scream ripped from the princess' throat as a guard was thrown on top of the bench she hid behind.
Her helmet was long gone, revealing twisting agony in her features.
Two assassins attacked her at once, the one with claws shredding her armour to pearlescent ribbons and another delving a sword between her ribs.
Ilyana reached out with a hand and pushed her magic into her through the wood, gripping onto the strands of life that slipped away with every moment that passed.
As the wound began to seal, a burst of energy being fuelled into the guard's veins, another blade dived into her stomach, dragging upwards until it met bone.
"Please," the princess sobbed to herself as a spray of blood coating her dress and face.
As the assassins left to deal with the remaining three guards, she pulled out some gauze from her bag and rushed around the bench to reach the guard who still clung to life.
"Your Highness," she began, coughing up blood. Too much blood. "Please hide."
Ilyana could only shake her head, blonde stands of hair falling into her face.
There was so much death and injury around her that her magic didn't know where to focus, the panic it brought making her unable to form words.
Her necklace twisted in several directions as she thrust everything she could summon into the gutting wound, but it wasn't enough.
The threads of life she needed to weave the flesh back together faded too quickly.
Her lower lip wobbled as colour faded from the guard's face, her eyes devoid of any soul.
"You should do as you're told and hide," a cloaked figure warned as he approached the princess from behind.
Underneath the darkness of the hood, a small, singular horn stuck out.
"Just because the boss would like you alive doesn't mean you can't be a little damaged.
" He reached out for the glowing, azure gem but Ilyana shuffled backwards before he could touch it.
"Silas will be interested in the magic necklace of yours, that's for sure.
He wants to get his hands on another, but I'm sure yours will do too. "
"Illy!" Clove yelled as the assassin picked up an axe from the ground. The danger that she put herself in distracted the captain from the Ogre. As she sprinted toward the assassin who raised the weapon high above Ilyana's head, she didn't notice the sage fist headed toward her.
Thick fingers wrapped around her throat, lifting Clove high into the air, before she was flung across the street. The resounding crack that she landed with and her limp form that slid down a wall was a nightmare that replayed over and over in Ilyana's mind.
"Clove!" She dodged the axe as the assassin swung overhead, missing the sharpened blade with mere inches away from her arm, and raced toward the captain.
"Some Wyrith guards you are." The Ogre cracked his knuckles, preparing his next move.
No matter how much Ilyana shook her, Clove wouldn't move. Her eyes were open, yet an eerie stillness was present. The only sign of life Ilyana could find was the faint rise and fall of her chest. There was no chance she could put up a fight now.
Turning to the other guards with the remaining piece of hope she had left, the princess only found more death awaiting her.
Three corpses crumpled in a pool of mixed blood — two guards and one cloaked assassin — was the sight that greeted her.
The remaining guard wasn't far behind in joining them.
He sat on his knees pleading, begging between sobs to spare his life.
"How cute," an assassin remarked with a split tongue before slitting a dagger across his throat.
There was nobody left to help them now.
Swallowing back her own cries of defeat, Ilyana gripped onto every fibre of her power and pushed it into Clove, letting it spread across her body. Bones snapped back into place and rejoined, yet she remained unconscious.
"You've done enough damage already," the princess began. "Any more and you'll be sentenced to death instead of imprisonment."
"Princess," the Ogre scoffed, his tusks covered with flecks of blood. "Who here is going to detain us? You?"
Behind her, Clove murmured something intangible — a slurred string of words that didn't quite make sense. Relief washed through Ilyana to hear her voice once more, but it was short-lived. She wouldn't be alive for much longer if she couldn't come up with a plan to save them.
The cerulean crystal of her necklace tugged against her throat, pulling her toward an exit so she could save herself. Ilyana nearly unclasped it to stop it from forcing its plan in her mind. In no world would she abandon Clove.
"Illy." The captain coughed, crimson staining her lips. "Run. Go back to the castle."
"It's a bit late for that now." The Ogre grinned, leaning closer. He was so close now that the princess could smell his putrid breath. "If you flee, you'll be knocked unconscious before you can move more than three feet."
She couldn't stop her hands from trembling, her heart from pounding and leaping into her mouth.
This was it. She had been so stubborn in wanting to help her kingdom that now she was going to be captured.
Her actions were going to get Clove killed.
She should have listened when people warned her it was going to be dangerous.
Instead of rushing headfirst into a plan her father had mentioned, she should have given it more thought.
If it was the last thing she could do, she would give Clove more time to gather any strength she could, give her a chance to be able to save herself.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Ilyana braced herself for an impact. However, it never arrived.
Her necklace wrenched against her, fighting for dominance and pinching her skin until it bled.
She knew it wasn't its intention, but the more its chain twisted, the tighter her throat became.
With one final jerk, her magic screamed in scorning fury and released a dark sliver of power that had lurked at the bottom of its well.
It escaped in the air and a loud thud followed suit, making the princess open her eyes.
The Ogre had fallen to his knees, hunched over on the cobbled ground heaving up a viscous, black liquid — the same substance that the girl in the infirmary had been infected with too.
As she blinked to clear the tears in her vision, she realised it wasn't just the green, towering giant.
The assassins were crying out in pain too.
A burst of threads extended from Ilyana's chest, the same kind that she used to heal others, yet these were darker in nature.
They were tinted purple, the vibrant blue she was used to completely wiped away.
Instead of the life that they used to thrum with and the desire to extend it, these strings wanted to steal it and claim it for itself.
And they came from her.
The princess could do nothing but watch as their opponents withered away.
The Ogre's skin moulted into a sickening onyx, parts of his body crumbling into dust. One assassin ripped off their cloak with their claws, revealing half-wolven features.
They mauled at their body, but nothing could stop them from meeting the same fate as the Ogre.
All of them did until there was nothing left but the sound of Ilyana's ragged breathing.
They were all dead. The Necromancer's Curse had saved them.
She spun around to find Clove, crouching beside her to search for any signs of the curse claiming her too.
Ilyana cupped her face, gently turning it from side to side to assess what damage had been done.
Aside from half-healed bruises and cuts, no darkness or strange liquid tarnished her. Her skin was still soft and smooth.
Ilyana reached out with her magic to continue the job she started, yet she hesitated. The darkness that had caused those deaths came from the Necromancer's Curse, right? It couldn't have come from her. She wasn't capable of such evil — of death.
Pushing her worries aside and ignoring the creep of exhaustion her body urged her about, she started searching Clove for injuries with her magic once more and started healing them.
Broken bones she had missed before, surface-level wounds, bruises that had only just begun to bloom — everything she could find.
Once the task was complete, the energy that she had used to hold herself upright vanished. The princess slumped against the wall next to Clove, resting her head on her chest so she could hear her heartbeat.
Black spots danced in her eyes, circling around the dead guards that her decisions had made. The guards that her father had ordered for extra protection were now lifeless. She closed her eyes as the tears she had been holding back broke free from their cage.
It was all her fault.