Scarlet paced the room nervously, her breakfast still untouched. During the speeches, she was even more guarded than usual—despite the fact this one was far south in Topaz. She was currently in a guest room in the Crystal Palace, her meals delivered and her every weapon close to hand.
Scarlet had gone to war and back a thousand times over, and yet now she was being locked in a tower like a damsel princess.
She'd said this to Myra, but her queen had only replied that she'd had an army at her back the last time she'd been to war, and she'd certainly have an army at her back now.
Of course she understood why Myra was worried. Diaz was most certainly
a threat—and next on Scarlet's to-kill list. But she was a capable warrior, lack of elkor and a left eye be dammed. And when she'd been presented this argument...Myra had simply replied that Diaz had served alongside Scarlet when they'd both been Unit Generals and would prepare accordingly.
They'd then spent the next hour bickering until at last Myra had told her that she was going to stay in the Crystal Palace under heavy guard and if she wouldn't take her queen's orders about it then she was just as happy to make her guards her jailers.
So Scarlet was in her rooms in the magnificent Crystal Palace of Azul, pacing as Myra and Kestra made their speeches in Topaz and desperately hoping that Diaz would take the bait. She'd been at it for a good hour now; her food would be cold—it had been delivered at nine. She sighed and lifted the tea to her mouth.
It tasted...strange. Oddly familiar. Scarlet sniffed the drink and a flash of recognition struck her. She spat out the tea, spraying it everywhere. Goddesses above, Myra had been right. She was in danger. Just not from the warriors she'd imagined. That sly traitor had planned on eliminating her the coward's way.
A muffled thud. The clash of steel on steel.
She could see Diaz's plan as though she'd laid it all out in front of her: drug or kill her with whatever poison they'd administered, deal with the guards and then slit her throat to be sure. She'd bet a reasonable amount of money that some, if not all, of her security had been poisoned as well.
Just as the rage at that thought hit her, Scarlet grabbed four throwing daggers and her favourite blade, walked out the door and threw herself into the fray.
———
The corridor was chaos. Crimson blood splattered across the blue glass. Half her guards had slumped to the floor, drugged. The other half were fighting against twenty odd assassins.
Scarlet's daggers were flying the moment she stalked into the corridor. Three blades found new homes in the hearts of Diaz's followers—one of which was in wolf elkor—and the other stayed in her belt for later use. She flung herself into the battle with abandon, sword flashing and landing in two chests before their owners could so much as shift. The others were harder.
Her attackers were constantly switching between valkyrie and animal forms, but as far she could make out there were two wolves, a cheetah, a panther and several birds of prey. The remainder were either dead or hadn't shifted in front of Scarlet. And of the eight guards who hadn't been drugged only four remained: three elves and a fellow valkyrie.
Where are the others? Scarlet wondered. Surely they'd have heard the commotion. Unless they're already dead.
They needed these reinforcements. The valkyries they were facing had clearly had their forms and war-gift enchanced. They each fought seamlessly, each Scarlet's match despite her two hundred year advantage on them. Even with her disabilities—a missing animal elkor and eye—warriors who could fight like that so young...And they were only the first generation, with only a few years to get used to their gifts. What might happen when hundreds more of Diaz's warriors had powers like Myra's and Scarlet's? Or when those warriors had decades' more experience?
Scarlet didn't give herself the luxury of contemplating it further.
With every swing, her energy sapped away. What little poison she hadn't managed to spit out was taking its toll.
A FireBreather was consumed in a (literal) blaze of glory, engulfing three of their opponents in flame before another killed him. The other two elves were slaughtered moments later. She tucked their names away in her heart and kept fighting, the other surviving valkyrie alongside her. No others came to aid them.
Scarlet and her ally lost ground with every attack from their opponents until they
were at the end of the corridor. They fell back to the stairs and forced the others on lower ground.
The advantage was fleeting. Two valkyries shifted into bird elkor and attacked her companionScarlet's guard killed one but at last succumbed to the other. She was alone.
But in the distraction of their momentary triumph, she managed to land her
last dagger in one of their hearts.
Six remained. Scarlet was outnumbered and surrounded with no allies on the way. So she did the only thing she could.
She ran.
Glass staircases and opulent rooms flashed past her as she bolted through hallways and up staircases. The Crystal Palace was empty—most of the Keepers who resided there had left for various other events throughout Azul. Those still here were likely sheltering from the fight. She was alone, and no one was coming to save her.
Up the stairs. She took them in twos and threes, each breath a dagger in her lungs.
Faster and faster. She passed glimmering ballrooms and glorious crystal chandeliers, and halted only briefly to cross blades with the others before rushing up the towers again.
She had no plan, no hope of escape, no chance of aid. No hope remained of some impossible rescue, some daring feat to defeat her assassins.
But she was still sprinting through the endless corridors.
Scarlet ran through the next passageway and found a dead end. The others advanced and lunged for her. With no other hope of distraction, she flung her sword at her pursuers, and reached for the shorter blade strapped across her chest. It lodged home in the closest valkyrie's chest. The others still followed, more vengeful than ever, but the distraction gave her a chance to lose them.
"Keep running, coward!" One called out. "Keep running, traitor! We'll find you, wherever you go." She kept going anyway, until she at last emerged from the tower and onto a balcony.
The balcony of the highest tower in the Crystal Palace. Her five assassins arrived moments after her, blood-soaked blades gleaming in the sunlight.
"I'm going to enjoy this," one of them—the leader, perhaps— grinned.
She was trapped. The Observation Tower was the highest point in the palace, hundreds of metres above the ground. To make matters worse, the circular balconey's only exit was the same staircase her assassins now guarded.
There was no escaping. There was no survival. After two hundred years, this was her end at last.
"You can never win," one of her assassins drawled. "Do you know why? You are not chosen. You are not blessed. Not like us. We, who have been fed by the Embers." The valkyries pulled out a locket from underneath her shirt. "See this?" She asked. "This contains the holy grail of our goddesses. This is what you will
never have. We stole it from right under Diaz's nose."
"So you're a traitor amongst traitors?" She asked, mocking.
"We are the chosen ones." The other replied. "You may have slain our foolish sisters but unlike them, we serve no master. Diaz is nothing but a tool, and when the goddesses are finished with her, we shall turn on her and build the throne of the Mirasen Empire from her bones."
Scarlet let the woman babble on, still as death and fury as she waited for the right moment.
Scarlet lunged, fast as an asp. Her assassins started and their blades danced. But with every strike, Scarlet fell back and back. She could have taken on one of them, maybe even two or three, but all five at once...
She realised she now stood on the lip of the balcony, death beckoning inches behind her.
"Give up and die honourably, elf-lover." The assassin demanded. "You cannot escape us."
"You sure about that?" She grinned, climbing onto the wide balusters.
Granting her assassins a rather rude gesture, Scarlet Isidore leapt off the uppermost tower of the Crystal Palace and begun her three-hundred meter plummet to the unforgiving earth below.