She looked behind her. Even though she had relaxed there was something that was making her feel uneasy, like an axe hanging above her head, ready to lop it off the moment she stopped focussing. She could not shake it, so instead she picked up her pace and made her way to the gateway back into the Tower.
As she pushed open the doorway, she was momentarily blinded by the difference in luminescence. She looked around, squinting, and saw the battlefield. The corpses of the best and brightest from Avalon were strewn across the floor. Tomas and Mari were dead. Dayel was on his last legs, and Ayna was standing with her bone sword loosely hanging in her hand as Laurence’s companions looked on in horror.
Yveth walked over to Dayel while getting her bearings. She could see no bone piercings on either of her companions, so she trod carefully. That aura of danger had not eased up, in fact since she had returned, the feeling that she was dancing on the edge of a precipice had only intensified. She took Dayel’s hand as she stared at Quentin, standing with a bone blade that followed her step. They were all like traps, ready to spring at the slightest thought of a threat, but at the same time, nobody was willing to make the first move.
“Where’s master?” A child’s shrill cry broke the tense standoff as Fen stared angrily at Yveth. “Why hasn’t he come out with you?”
“Where are any of the rest of them?” Quentin interjected, “You coming out of there alone was not the result I was expecting”.
“I honestly don’t know,” Yveth replied, glancing behind her for a moment as her father’s broken toy moved close to the rest of them. Yveth was loath to admit that Ayna had any merit, but another pair of hands in this standoff was welcome. “That Peter, he was killed by the woman he revived. My father and your caretaker were fighting, but with the pocket dimension collapsing, I did not want to stay and be caught up in it.” She stopped and glared at Quentin, “They were both alive when I left, but I cannot say for sure now.”
“Wait, Peter revived Rose?” Quentin asked.
“Was that her name?” Yveth laughed. “The well could only be used one more time after your friend was done, so the two of them became even more ruthless with each other. I can only imagine that they both failed with their plans. Either way, the Doom of Avalon is gone, trapped in that collapsing pocket dimension!”
“The Doom isn’t gone,” Ayna replied. Yveth turned to face the woman, but before she could even completely turn her shoulders, Ayna’s blade struck. She cleaved through Yveth’s neck with gusto, before grabbing her severed head and throwing it away from her body. Yveth’s body stumbled, her arms outstretched, hands grabbing at air, desperately trying to find the head she had lost, but Ayna was not willing to give her any chance of recovery. Thrusting her sword through Yveth’s chest, she destroyed the woman’s heart and watched as the body of the supposed saviour of Avalon dessicated in seconds. All that was left was the corpse of the child of Gawayen.
“Kill him!” Ayna cried out to Quentin, before thrusting her blade at Dayel. Combat instincts kicking in, Quentin swung his own bone sword at Dayel’s legs, intending to cripple him if he managed to dodge Ayna’s strike. However, he did not budge. The strike landed and Ayna skewered him through the chest, while Quentin severed both of his legs at the knee. His body slipped off Ayna’s sword as he looked down at the wound that the young woman had ended him with. His hand tried to block the wound as he desperately tried to speak, but all that came out between his fingers and his lips was more blood. He turned and looked at the body of the woman he had devoted his life to, and sighed as the light faded from his eyes.
“What in the name of the mother is going on?” Quentin yelled as he processed what Ayna had done.
“I think I can explain that,” said a voice coming from the pile of rubble near the doorway. Two rocks rolled onto the ground and Jim stood up, rubbing his chest. He smiled at Ayna and laughed, “You really don’t pull your punches, do you?”
“Well I had to make it seem like I was killing you, otherwise they would not have let me anywhere near them. Yveth was always sensitive to things that could actually hurt her, because there was so little that could.” As Ayna spoke, Ruko and Fen both ran over to the rocks and leaped onto Jim, hugging him tight.
“What is going on, Jim?” Quentin repeated, louder and more desperately.
“I realised early on that Ayna wasn’t exactly happy about the situation she had been foisted into by Avalon, and Gawayen in particular. This only compounded when Yveth arrived and she was cast aside like an old toy. I just offered her the chance to work for the other side, and to make up for her cultural transgressions to the Tower.”
“I agreed,” Ayna sighed, “There was very little left for me in Avalon that I actually wanted, and instead I was chained to the Doom like a sacrifice. I just needed the help to make that step, and Jim gave it to me”. She turned and looked softly at the man who had freed her, but just as she was about to continue speaking there was a crack that echoed throughout the well. The group turned and watched as the gateway that had lead into the well for so many years crumbled, leaving a bare wall and chunks of rubble behind.
“It’s time we should leave,” Jim said as he looked at the wall that had sealed away his old friend.
“But what about master?” Fen asked as he held his sister’s hand.
“There’s nothing we can do for him here, we would just be waiting for no reason. And more to the point, he can get out if he wants to.” He raised his hand, revealing a simple ring with the Hephaistian crest printed on it. “Trust me, we don’t need to stay here anymore.”
“Well then,” Quentin said, sighing, “How are we getting out of here without dealing with all the Avalonians?”
“Simple,” Ayna said with a laugh. “I just walk us out”.
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