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The Forsworn Retribution	By : Samson Category: +A through F > Elder Scrolls - Skyrim Views: 60892 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
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Vengeance's Final Reward, Part Two

The Forsworn Retribution
Part IX - "Crownless Kings"
By: Jesse Racine AKA Samson
Original Date Written: May 29, 2016

While Bunny’s confrontation with Sun Eater was just beginning, and likewise Maximus was just then getting to Gabriella, Sabrina’s confrontation with Felix continued. As the two closed in on one another, the Briarheart cast some sort of Mage Armour from his left hand before risking melee range with Sabrina, coating his body in a familiar cyan glow. Sabrina responded by immediately throwing up an arm, launching a casting of Dispel at him. When the orb of Mysticism Magicka struck him, a brief cloud of pink mist swept down across his body, cancelling out his Stoneflesh in the process. Felix angrily curled a lip up at his opponent, throwing out a quick Burden spell just before the two came to blows.
Although the Burden spell successfully slowed Sabrina down, the spell wasn’t potent enough to render her immobile, especially considering she was not a combatant who carried much in the way of gear. Still, suddenly finding herself torpid opened her up enough for Felix to capitalize upon. Coming to a quick stop in front of her, he threw out an arm in a wicked cross, cracking his fist into the side of Sabrina’s jaw hard enough to jolt her head to the side. He struck her again over the opposite side of her face, then thrust his fist straight into her gut, blowing the wind from her lungs hard enough that she nearly doubled over in pain. A normal man might not have been able to harm her to this extent this easily, but a Briarheart had the unnatural strength of a deathless warrior, making him an easy match for Sabrina’s endurance.
Sabrina stumbled back a couple steps, and Felix attempted to press his advantage, advancing to continue his brutalizing barrage. Fury flared in Sabrina’s eyes as she recovered faster than he had expected, subtly gesticulating by her side. The geyser of electricity that erupted from the palm of her hand momentarily stunned Felix, making the Briarheart grunt in annoyance as he shielded his face with an arm. Sabrina was quick to cast Dispel upon herself, breaking Felix’s Burden spell in an instant, returning her mobility to her. This time, she advanced upon him, and when he tried to defend himself with a Winter’s Grasp spell, she swatted his arm away, causing the short-range spell to harmlessly fill the air towards her left.
When she rushed into him, she went low and grabbed him behind his thighs, pulling him right off of his feet before sending him slamming down into the dirt, over his back. She almost dropped over him when she noticed him sticking his arms up towards her, and in a split-second, she pulled her shoulders back. Felix unleashed a thick Lightning Bolt with a shout of annoyance, narrowly missing Sabrina’s chest and face as the electricity whipped off into the sky, above. Felix kicked off from the ground in a backwards roll, throwing himself over his shoulder until he could land on a knee. Before jumping to his feet, he threw down a Fire Rune directly between the two of them, expecting Sabrina to blindly chase after him in an instant and get herself incinerated.
Instead, Sabrina cast upon herself a quick application of Spell Reflection, giving herself enough time to notice the Fire Rune before moving, allowing herself time to simply walk around it. Having his trap simply avoided was no doubt annoying to the Briarheart, but when he attempted to push Sabrina back into it with an Icy Spear, a brief cloud of pink mist swirled about the sorceress’ body, promptly redirecting the spell right back around in Felix’s direction. When the lance of ice ripped through his stomach, he grunted, hard, and stumbled backwards, suddenly breathing heavy.
He had walked into her trap. His own Icy Spear had impaled clear through him, rendering the far end jutting from the small of his back a wet crimson. He began to lean over, holding one thigh as he tried to overcome the shock of an attack that would ordinarily be lethal. Before Sabrina could finish him off with another Icy Spear to the crown of his skull, he raised his free arm and flicked his hand, tossing the purple-black glow of Conjuration Magicka, somewhere behind Sabrina. She sighed with annoyance, turned around, and waited for the Frost Atronach to finish materializing in Mundus before she was throwing an Expel Daedra spell at it, promptly ejecting it back out of the mortal plane.
When she turned around, she and Felix locked eyes on each other, each having a sizzling, vibrant green spell waiting in a hand. Sabrina’s eyes widened at the realization that she had allowed herself to be distracted, thereby walking into a surprise attack. She threw out her Paralyze spell as quick as she could, but it merely failed to immobilize Felix. In nearly the same instant, he threw his potent Silence spell, which her Spell Reflection failed to rebound back towards him. In an instant, Sabrina’s weighty pools of Magicka were severed from her control, leaving her utterly unable to cast anything, no matter how doggedly she may have tried. Felix grinned as the glow of Magicka vanished from Sabrina’s hands, the Briarheart quick to stand tall on his feet.
Sabrina was ready to resort to unarmed combat when she and Felix both heard footsteps racing over from the side, pounding into the dirt. Felix looked over just as Maximus came dashing in, sweeping his sword for the Briarheart’s head. Felix ducked and gave a vicious uppercut to Max’s gut, hitting him so hard that a visible ripple nearly washed out across the Imperial’s scalemail vest. The force of the punch was so brutal that it made Max cough and wheeze, grabbing his stomach as he stumbled a step back, barely keeping to his feet instead of falling to his knees. Sabrina came rushing in to prevent Felix from following through on the opening, throwing out a right for the man’s temple. Felix nimbly avoided the swing, but when Sabrina threw out a left, she was quicker, rocking her knuckles into Felix’s jaw hard enough to crack bone, throwing his head to the side in a brief twist before he recovered.
Felix bared his teeth in rage, pulling back and unleashing a wild straight into Sabrina’s chin. One of his knuckles immediately split one of her inflated, beestung lips, causing blood to run down her chin as her head recoiled backwards. He thought to follow up with a Touch spell, but with Sabrina’s Spell Reflection application still protecting her, he had no choice but to anticipate that any potential Magicka he cast at her could be redirected back towards him. Maximus, by then recovered, moved in, noticing the way Felix was beginning to wheeze with exertion. The blood running from his stomach wound had coursed down his groin and legs, and it wouldn’t be long before the Briarheart lost the strength to go on.
Felix tried to defend himself by thrusting a Shock Touch spell into Max’s chest, and when Sabrina saw that the spell had connected, she nearly cried out. The electricity blasted through Max’s body, visibly coursing in wild arcs across his armour, blowing through his legs and into the dirt - yet leaving him unharmed. Under his helmet-like hood, Felix’s eyes widened. Aside from a brief vibration in his facial muscles, the electricity had seemed to utterly fail to even so much as faze the Imperial. Felix didn’t have time to comprehend the notion that Maximus had an enchanted piece of jewellery, gifting him with great resistance to Shock Magicka, before the man was slashing him across the chest, trying to catch him over the heart cavity.
When Sabrina remembered the ring she had gifted to Max, adrenaline ran through her. Felix pulled away from Max so suddenly that he nearly collapsed, desperately casting a Close Wounds application upon himself. The Restoration Magicka succeeded in breaking apart the Icy Spear impaled through his abdomen, but it barely sealed the wound at all, allowing even more blood to spill free now that the obstructing material had been removed. When Sabrina looked over her shoulder and checked in on Bunny, her eyes subtly widened in determination. Sun Eater was holding Bunny up by the throat, using his unnatural strength to immobilize her, choking her to death. Sabrina felt Felix’s Silence spell subside at precisely the right moment.
Without hesitation, Sabrina launched a thick blast of Lightning into Sun Eater’s side, immediately causing the man to yell as he broke into wild convulsions. Bunny collapsed, quickly noticing Sabrina before the sorceress was turning back to Felix, rushing over to finish the fight. Felix tried Shock Magicka again, blasting a Thunderbolt into Maximus from point-blank range, an attack which should’ve stopped Maximus’ heart from beating, at the very least. Instead, it visibly pained the Imperial and sent him into a brief fit of convulsions, but it failed to even so much as char his flesh. If anything, the attack only infuriated him further, causing him to utterly ignore the Frost Cloak that Felix cast a moment later in an attempt to keep the berserk melee combatant at bay.
Maximus slashed Felix across the underside of his right arm, cutting him deep enough to strike bone. Although the swirling frost around Felix’s body immediately numbed Max’s hands and threatened to consume his arms with frostbite, he did not retreat. He swung again, catching Felix across the chest with the tip of his sword, nearly missing the man as he pulled back. Maximus advanced and attempted to run Felix through, but the Breton desperately slapped his hands down on either side of the blade, squeezing and pushing with all of his might. Not only did the reckless move succeed in saving him, but he nearly succeeded in knocking the sword straight out of Max’s hands, driving the Imperial’s arms backwards as he was forced to come to a quick stop.
He noticed the red glow in his peripheral vision, but not only was he forced to keep his grip on Max’s sword, he wouldn’t have been quick enough to pull away from the spell, anyway. When Sabrina’s Absorb Strength spell abruptly siphoned off a sizeable portion of Felix’s physical power over into Sabrina’s own body, Felix’s arms instantly began to quake. Maximus grinned as Felix’s hold loosened, and in seconds, Max was tearing his sword free, punishing the Briarheart with a deep laceration down his shoulder and across his chest. As he stumbled backwards, pulling back wildly to get his suddenly-feeble self away from Maximus, his fur hood fell from his head, exposing his face to his opponents.
The bald, heaving man retaliated to Sabrina’s interference by throwing an Absorb Intellect spell her way, hoping to stunt the potency of any further spells she may cast. His brown eyes, blazing with rage, were wide with satisfaction as the spell landed home, draining off some of Sabrina’s very intelligence, siphoning a good deal of her vast intellect into his own through a vibrant red tendril connecting the two. Unfortunately, in her sapped state, Sabrina didn’t think to cast Dispel upon herself, and instead decided to make the best use of her now-stupendous physical strength, rushing towards Felix.
Felix’s eyes went wide as he fully comprehended the situation he was in store for, should Sabrina be allowed to close in to melee range. He had just created for himself a horrific problem. A vampire’s physical prowess, topped off with strength stolen from a Briarheart? She could tear him limb from limb without even breaking a sweat. In a panic, he left himself open to Maximus, instead prioritizing hitting Sabrina with a potent application of Rebuke Undead. The golden, almost fiery Restoration Magicka struck Sabrina resolutely, however, even in her stuporous state, Sabrina possessed too much strength of will to be sent fleeing. Instead, the spell only succeeded in immobilizing her, leaving her compelled to keep put and not continue on any closer towards him.
Maximus took full advantage of the opening. Gripping his sword with both hands, he threw himself straight into Felix’s Frost Cloak without any hesitation, plunging his blade straight into the man’s abdominal wound. Felix’s eyes widened, his body locking up as the wound was reopened to it’s full extent, made worse by the slicing length of metal now ripping through it. Felix tried to fight the wound, at first, but when Maximus began pulling his sword to the side, tearing the wound open even wider, Felix’s innards began to spill. Blood vomited from his mouth in a brief, uncontrollable spurt until Max raised up an arm, pulled it back over his shoulder, and delivered a resounding hammer blow straight to Felix’s Adam’s apple, sending the man stumbling backwards off of his sword.
He and Sabrina both watched as Felix regained his balance, visibly struggling to keep his eyes open as more and more blood coursed from his mouth and abdomen. He stumbled a step forwards towards Maximus, raising his left arm, flame flickering between his fingers. Maximus simply stood his ground and stared, breathing hard from the combat. He watched as some of Felix’s innards finally began falling free, and a moment later, the man followed suit, dropping to a knee before swiftly collapsing, dropping down into the dirt so hard that his head lightly bounced back up, an inch. As soon as Felix had perished, his Magicka connection with Sabrina subsided, bringing about a return to her normal intellect, as well as her normal strength.
He and Sabrina both looked over at the one remaining threat: Sun Eater, himself. Bunny had obviously been fighting the man tooth and nail, ever since Sabrina had bought her a chance. Still, she was just one woman fighting a Briarheart, her father no less, using tools in a manner she was not accustomed to fighting with. Max and Sabrina both immediately began racing over, and just past Bunny, they could see Anya and Svetlana rising to the top of the mountain slot, themselves entering the apex of the brooding grounds. Maximus immediately shouted Svetlana’s name, then thrust out an arm towards his side, directing her towards Gabriella. When Svetlana looked over and noticed her Dunmeri friend, she promptly changed course, turning towards the side.
Just as Max, Sabrina, and Anya were all about to close in on Sun Eater and leave him surrounded, Felix’s orbs of Magelight scattered about the brooding grounds faded, leaving everyone in complete darkness, once again. That didn’t last longer than a couple seconds, however, before a new source of light began to fill the area. Sun Eater, his pools of Magicka having replenished by that point, did not hesitate to surround himself with his intense Flame Cloak, turning himself into a fiery beacon in the darkness.
Bunny, standing the closest to him, did not let his flames deter her from plunging both her arrows into his stomach for the, by then, third time. Immediately, the arrows were ignited from arrowhead to flight, and the young woman screamed as the flames surrounded her hands, forcing her to instantly let go of them and pull herself out of the fire before the blistering escalated into charred meat. Sun Eater answered his daughter’s attack by thrusting out his leg, stomping the underside of his foot into her stomach so hard that he threw her off of her feet, knocking her down to her back so powerfully that she rolled up over her shoulder, dropping to her front side with a painful thud. With a hard cough and a wheeze for air, she slowly pushed herself up with a burnt hand, trying not to curl herself up as the other hand protectively clutched her abdomen.
Sabrina threw an Ice Storm her enemy’s way, and when the Magicka swept over him, half of his Flame Cloak was instantly stifled, leaving the upper half of his body wet, frostbitten, and vulnerable. Sun Eater actually shouted in pain, at that. He stumbled to the side, but caught himself with surprising swiftness. When he retaliated, Sabrina didn’t see it coming. Sun Eater twisted to the side, a large globe of flame firing off from his hand as he thrust his arm out. Sabrina came to a skidding stop, her eyes going wide with terror. She twisted and dove to the side, but still, the Incinerate spell erupted against the ground behind her, billowing around her body. If not for her own piece of enchanted jewellery, that spell could very well have been the end of her.
Instead, she rolled into the ground, screaming, urgently flailing against the dirt as her dress and skin went up like kindling, threatening to engulf her from head to toe. When Sun Eater saw the grievous reaction Sabrina had to flame, he started to grin - did someone have a weakness he could exploit? Bunny, alerted by Sabrina’s screams, hastily crawled on all fours towards her discarded Glass bow. Sun Eater turned his attention away from Sabrina, glaring down at his daughter. He thought to stomp her face down into the dirt, but was forced to acknowledge Anya’s presence, instead, as the soldier came racing in, ready to run him through on her sword. He sidestepped her thrust, but before he could thrust his palm into her face and shatter her nose, she was ducking and pulling to the side, dragging the length of her blade across his abdomen. Sun Eater was quick to bare his teeth and thrust his knee upwards, catching Anya in the gut so hard that he nearly dented the woman’s breastplate, stopping her dead in her tracks as the wind was torn from her lungs.
Before he could grasp her by the back of her neck and snap her head back, Maximus was slamming into him from behind, running the man through the small of his back. Sun Eater’s eyes jolted wide open at the unexpected attack, his breathing turning short and sharp. When Anya opened her eyes, Max’s sword was sticking out just a few inches below her face, having narrowly missed her nose. With a roar, Anya stood back up straight, grabbing her sword halfway down the length of the blade with her second hand. She slammed the tip into Sun Eater’s chest, just next to his heart cavity, pounding her right hand against the pommel of the sword’s handle in order to hammer it in, cracking the sword in between a couple ribs.
Sun Eater gave a furious shout of his own, his Flame Cloak violently expanding in an eruption. The brooding grounds were lit up with hellfire as a small nova of ash-hot flames exploded out from around the man, scorching a large circle of grass around him. Sabrina and Bunny both watched as Anya went stumbling backwards from Sun Eater, her gauntlets having been scorched red-hot, smoke billowing off of the metal as Anya collapsed, trying desperately to pry the metal off of herself. When they saw that Max hadn’t budged an inch, however, they screamed his name.
Like Anya, his armour had gone discoloured with heat, causing the leather parts to ignite. The two blades impaled into Sun Eater, his and Anya’s, were both white-hot at the blades, but still, Maximus refused to unhand his weapon. Maximus, shouting in anger and pain, tore his sword out of Sun Eater’s back, prompting the man to spin around and face him. Sun Eater’s bared teeth were beginning to go red with the foam bubbling up from his throat, but his eyes were as sharp as ever. Bunny lifted up her bow, pulled one last arrow from her quiver, and notched it. She sprinted out from behind Sun Eater, blistered hands trembling like mad as she slowly pulled at the drawstring, bringing it as far back as she could. Maximus, half of his face burned raw, swung for Sun Eater’s chest, but the man fearlessly deflected the blows with his forearms, choosing that arm lacerations were better than yet more torso wounds.
Gabriella, sitting up in Svetlana’s arms as the priestess tended to her wounds, silently watched her lover, her eyes wide as her mouth hung open just a crack. Maximus ducked a punch from Sun Eater, but then the man was preparing to engulf Maximus in a gout of Flames, thrusting out his arm. Bunny, biting on her lip so hard that she nearly cut through herself, arms shaking and tears in her eyes from the pain in her hands, finally let the arrow loose, now that she had an opening. The arrow whipped past Max’s ducked head and struck Sun Eater directly in his heart cavity, busting open the poor stitch-work that had been sealing his replacement heart inside. Gabriella gasped, her eyes widening further.
When Max raised his head and saw what had happened, his eyes widened, too. Sun Eater, himself, took in a surprised wheeze, stumbling back, a step, as he looked down at his own chest. He raised a hand to his heart cavity, trying to cover it up. Slowly, he dropped to a knee, his face going even more pallid than usual. Bunny saw his eyes shift to her’s, locking with his daughter’s. Without warning, Anya lunged at him from behind, furiously snarling as she wrapped her bare arms around the man’s neck, trapping him in a headlock. Maximus, staring resolutely down at the man, raised his sword, thrusting the tip down into the dirt until the sword was standing erect, on it’s own. Sun Eater glared up at Maximus and, voice choked by Anya’s hold, didn’t hesitate to taunt “My people...Will always resist! Our struggle will never end! Until we have our land, chk...We will always fight!”
Maximus planted one hand on Sun Eater’s shoulder, reared back the other arm, and thrust it forwards. Sun Eater’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates, his mouth falling completely agape as he stopped breathing. Through grit teeth, Maximus muttered “Then we’ll continue this in Oblivion, you son of a bitch!” With a brutal yank, Maximus tore his arm back out, clutching the prickly Briarheart in his fist. The instant that the replacement heart had left his chest cavity, Sun Eater’s eyes rolled back into his skull. The bright fire surrounding his body vanished, leaving everyone in the dark. His body went limp, and when Anya released him, he simply collapsed, falling over until his chest thudded into the ground.
It was over. The last of the clan had been slain. The last of the present veterans of the Markarth Rebellion had been felled. Sabrina was quick to jump to her feet, running closer to Max before raising her hands, briefly breathing his name to let him know she was there before momentarily engulfing him with Frostbite, blowing the arctic gale across his body for naught but a second in order to quell the fires still clinging to his armour. Maximus, breathing heavy, dropped himself to the ground, clumsily seating himself with a weary groan. It really was over. By the gods, what a night.
Maximus slowly fell to his back, giving another exhausted groan. The battle was finally over. Markarth would be safe, from this plot, at least. There were other clans, more Forsworn, that would in all likelihood come up with schemes of their own. Maximus would love to be the one to put them to the blade, but...He knew he couldn’t. This had to be the end of it. Bunny stared at where her father’s corpse lay, unable to actually see him in the dark. Her jaw tightened up as she drew in a breath, and as she slowly sighed it back out, she eased herself down to her knees, laying her bow across the ground, in front of herself. She closed her eyes, bringing a blistered hand to her face, covering an eye as she gingerly touched her cheek.
For her, this was the end of a chapter in her life, and the start of a new one. She had helped wipe out her past. She had helped save the people who should’ve been her enemies. She thought for a moment that, perhaps, right at the end, she had proven to her father that she was stronger than he had always assumed. In the end, however, she decided that it didn’t so much matter, proving it to him. It was more important to prove it to herself. She knew who she was. She wasn’t the coward Straight Arrow had thought her to be, nor was she the weakling that Sun Eater had thought her to be. She was not the embarrassment that Moira had always claimed her to be. She was not the naive, meek girl she had been when she had first met Maximus. She was her own person now, better than all of those things. She knew it, and that’s all that mattered. Others would see.
Sabrina hurriedly called Svetlana over, pleading that Maximus was in bad shape. Gabriella echoed the sentiment, insisting Svetlana go and tend to him. Svetlana created an orb of Candlelight with an audible pop, and with new light to guide everyone’s way, she hurried to Max’s side. Maximus smiled at her, even when his condition put tears in her eyes. Whether he liked it or not, he couldn’t keep doing this. As much as he wanted to keep fighting, the Thalmor meant an end, to that. The imminent war Ulfric had no doubt initiated meant an end to that. If he had any consideration for his own life or the lives of his lady friends, it meant an end to his crusade. How close had they cut it, this time? How many more huge battles, like this, did he think they had in them before tragedy struck?
He held up his arm, opened his hand, and gave the rigid, spiny Briarheart a heavy-lidded gaze. He had to smile at the sight. As Svetlana gave him her Healing Hands, trying her best to heal the awful burns he had taken from head to toe, he groaned out “You know...This thing would make for a pretty good trophy, too.” Svetlana gave a terse chuckle. Blinking the moisture from her eyes, she answered “Yeah, well, you want another one, there’s another dead Briarheart, just over there.” Maximus smiled more, sighing hard as he closed his fist around the Briarheart and dropped his arm back to his side. His eyes shifted as more of his lady friends came into view, under Svetlana’s Candlelight.
First, Sabrina appeared, standing to the left of his head. Then, Anya appeared down by his legs, stripped out of most of her armour. Bunny crawled into view from behind him, and lastly, Gabby limped into view, towards the right of his head. Still smiling, Maximus wearily asked “So?...Everyone alright? No worse for wear, right? I told you we could pull it off.” Gabby gave a sniffle, but she was beginning to smile. The temptation was just too much for her to resist. “Sure, Max, you don’t look any different, at all. In fact, you look better.” “Sit and spin, Gabby,” he remarked back, which ended up making everyone break out into a brief fit of laughter, killing the escalating sense of tension that had been brewing around the women.
“I can’t believe you were able to withstand Sun Eater’s fire,” Sabrina quietly stated, easing herself down to her knees, by his left shoulder. He turned his eyes in her direction. At this point, her dress was practically in tatters, barely holding on to her body by thin strips, here and there. “Don’t think it was fun,” Max croaked back. He held up his arm, and she reached out, taking his hand in both of her’s. He slipped the Briarheart into her hands, then let his hand slip free, allowing his arm to fall to his stomach. “Hold on to that for me, would you?” He asked, giving a fatigued sigh as he closed his eyes. Gabby said something in Dunmeri, then switched back to common Cyrodilic as she muttered “Don’t you fucking dare, Max. Don’t even think about it.”
“I’m not thinkin’ nothin’,” was his lackadaisical answer. She quickly dropped to her knees, one hand going under his jaw, the other going to the side of his head. “Then keep your eyes open,” she quietly demanded. He opened his eyes, again. There were tears in her’s. “Just give Lana time, she can heal you. Your burns aren’t much worse than mine,” she casually lied. He grinned. “Yeah, right. I feel like my armour’s become a second skin. I don’t think that that’s healthy.” “By Auri-El, I’m sorry,” Anya blurted out, dropping to her knees as she set about carefully easing off his charred boots. Sabrina, too, eased herself down to her knees. Dark streaks of mascara riddled her cheeks as she quietly said “...I should’ve given you the ring for fire protection.”
“Gods, no. You needed it more than I did,” he answered, lip momentarily curling up in a wince. Starting to smile, again, he added “Besides, it looks better on you than it would on me, I think,” which ended up making Sabrina chortle, a short-lived smile growing on her face. “Thank you, Max,” Bunny murmured. His eyes shifted upwards, meeting her’s, bloody and smudged with dirt. “I never would’ve been able to do this without you, or any of you,” she added, quickly glancing around at the others. Looking down at him in a tender gaze, her one visible eye going half-closed, she murmured “It’s because of you that I can say my dad was wrong about me. You’re the reason why I’m a different person...Thank you.” “Don’t mention it, Tiger,” he answered, which immediately made her smile.
Anya gave a quiet grunt as she got off his second boot, crawling upwards as she said “Sabrina, help me take off his bracers, then we can open up his vest...” “Hey, Anya?” Max asked. She paused, even as Sabrina gently set about taking off his left steel bracer. With a bit of a groan, he remarked “Feel free to take that carriage to Riften, now. Job’s done.” Anya’s brow lightly furrowed, and she began easing off his right bracer. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she firmly murmured. “I’m not leaving you, in this state. I’m already late for my appointment in Riften, I can stand to wait a couple more days.” Raising an eyebrow, he commented “You sure?” She lightly rested a hand over his stomach, leaning over until he could see her face. Raising her eyebrows back at him, she, a little more forcefully, insisted “I’m not leaving you, like this.”
“If you say so,” he mumbled. Svetlana upped the ante on her healing, advancing to multiple quick applications of Heal Other rather than the slower, steadier Healing Hands. Quietly, more for the other women than Maximus himself, she said “I don’t think I can afford to cast Grand Healing, it might not be enough, plus it’d wipe me out...I think Heal Other will be enough...” “Please, whatever works,” Sabrina murmured, her throat audibly tightening. Bunny leaned over, pressing a kiss to Max’s forehead, then another to his lips. Gabriella lightly stroked her fingers through his hair. Raising her eyebrows, she quietly warned “I swear to Azura, Max, don’t do this to us...” “I’m not doing anything,” he answered, his eyes slowly shifting in her direction.
She leaned over and kissed him, slowly, delicately. She kissed him again, then touched her forehead to his. She shifted her hand from his jaw to his chest, resting flat over the scorched metal. Based on the way she trembled against him, he knew she was crying. Her hair blocked out Svetlana’s Candlelight, turning his vision dark and restful. He let his eyes close. Gabby smelled as good as she always did. The agony was excruciating, he didn’t think he had ever felt anything that hurt quite like these burns did, but slowly, the pain was fading. Svetlana’s healing, he supposed, was working. The night had been long, and he was tired.
If this was the end to his story, he couldn’t argue that it hadn’t come to a good close. None of the people important to him had died. He had accomplished his goal, or at least as close to it as he could realistically hope for. He had saved lives, back in Markarth. He and his companions had saved up a small trove of wealth, and he was glad to leave his share to them. Had he proven himself worthy of Sovngarde? If a grand deed occurred and nobody would know of it, was it still glorious? He gave a sleepy sigh, shifting his hand across his chest until he found Gabriella’s. She threaded fingers with him, squeezing tight. Surrounded by his loved ones? There were worse ways for a warrior to die, on the battlefield. Right now, this stretch of ground was more comfortable than the softest bed, back on the farm. He fell asleep.
When light peered through his eyelids, he vaguely thought he was entering Aetherius. Then, however, he noticed the crackling of a small fire. Slowly, he raised his eyelids. He was faced with an expanse of turquoise, tinged with red near the bottom. He stared for several long moments before he finally blinked. He was...Cold. With a sleepy sigh, he raised his head, trying to look around. Then, he was trying to sit up, giving a groan as he looked down at himself. He was naked and, surprisingly, his body was not a black and crimson hunk of burnt meat. He was still alive? Why? Was this a dream? Everything had been perfect, he could’ve slipped away and everything would’ve been alright. He wasn’t dead? He heard someone give a gasp, and then Sabrina was breathing out “Oh, gods!”
He looked to his left. Not far from where he was lying, a few meters away from Sun Eater’s corpse, a small fire pit had been dug, with all of his lady friends seated around it. A few cooking implements, obviously scavenged from the encampment below the brooding grounds, had been set up over the unimpressive fire, and if he had to offer a guess, Svetlana had been trying to cook some breakfast. When Sabrina was the first to hurry over to him, he wasn’t expecting to see she had some sort of burnt hide wrapped around herself, covering her entirely from head to toe. He thought it was a little entertaining, the way she looked like an overgrown caterpillar, a vaguely cylindrical shape that only slightly resembled a human. Only a tiny opening at the face allowed her to be visible, and poorly, at that.
It wasn’t until she was dropping to her knees beside him and throwing her arms around him, swallowing him up inside the protective hide, did he realize what she had been doing. Obviously, she had been planning on remaining by his side until he awoke, sun be damned. To protect herself, she had found an intact piece of a Forsworn tent large enough to wrap herself up in, shielding herself from the sunrise. Hugging herself to his side so tightly that she swallowed his entire upper arm and some of his shoulder into her cleavage, she pressed an earnest kiss to the side of his neck, then breathed out “Oh, thank Julianos, Lana wasn’t sure if you’d wake up!” Maximus broke into an easy smile as she squeezed him tight, then released him, easing back before quickly shutting the tenting around herself, shielding her body from the escalating sunrise.
The rest of the girls expressed the same relief, starting with Bunny and Svetlana. Anya was a little more restrained with her relief, until Max grabbed her by the hand, pulled her down to her knees in front of himself, and kissed her. Although he was nude and she would’ve been, if not for her heat-warped underwear, the kiss dismantled her business-like facade. In front of everyone, she threw her arms around him and hugged him tight, embracing the Imperial tight to her breast. When Anya released him and dismounted from his lap, Max looked up. Gabriella was standing there, staring down at him, an aloof look on her face. She, too, was unabashedly nude, having some time in the night stripped out of her wrecked leather armour.
Slowly, Max stood up, smiling more as he casually remarked “See? I told you I wasn’t doing anything.” She didn’t say anything. Her expression didn’t shift, although her eyes momentarily drifted away from his before returning. The rest of the girls watched, keeping their silence. Max walked over towards her, and while she didn’t turn away from him, she eventually stopped looking into his eyes, quite clearly giving him the silent treatment. He gave a chuckle, reaching out and taking her by her hips. She tried to turn herself away from him, but he kept her facing him. “Hey, c’mon. Why’re you angry?” Her eyes shifted over to his. Slowly, she reached up, reluctantly putting her hands on his shoulders. “I’m right here, aren’t I?” He asked, smiling more.
In an instant, her bottom lip quivered. Finally, her stoic act crumbled. Tears flooding her eyes, she weakly protested “Yeah, but...!” He silenced her by pulling her against him, bringing his arms around her waist. She locked her arms around his neck, hugging him tight. She closed her eyes, giving a shudder as she fought a sob. The other girls began smiling. Max gave a little chuckle, raising a hand to the middle of her back. She brought a hand to the back of his neck, burying half of her face into his neck and shoulder, trying to hide her tears from everyone. He was still alive. It hadn’t been his time, after all. For better or worse, he had another chance. Perhaps this was for the best, after all, he supposed. There was still some work to be done...
The sunrise passed in a placid, restful haze. Breakfast was made from supplies taken from the encampment, and for the first time in a long while, everyone ate until they were fit to burst. The chatter was surprisingly light, for a little while. Eventually, however, everyone’s outlook inevitably turned to the future. What would they do, now? Maximus, again, made it clear that this was the end of his struggle against the Forsworn. He had no choice in the matter, and, if he were being honest, that had started to sit well, with him. Perhaps he had finally been satisfied. Perhaps, the lives of himself and his companions had finally become too valuable to throw away, even for revenge.
Looking around at everyone, he slowly added that if the Thalmor would be hunting for them, it might be for the best if they spread themselves as far apart as possible. That way, the Thalmor would have a more difficult time catching them. Individuals were less easily noticed than groups, individuals could hide more effectively than teams. Out of a mixture of curiosity and disbelief, Bunny repeated his statement, asking if he meant that the team should disband. Gabriella simply stared at him. Maximus stated that they could all still keep in touch, but that he knew each of them likely had goals of their own that they would like to return to, now that they had helped him with his. Svetlana, he pointed out, would probably like to return to service in a temple, somewhere. Anya was ready to begin a new life, in Skyrim. Sabrina likely was looking forward to a return to her library and Magicka experimentation.
“Not without you,” Sabrina was quick to offer, still wrapped up, snug like a bug, in her cocoon. Bunny ruminated on the idea for a few moments, but it was clear to see by the dew in her eye that she wasn’t in favour of it. “...Do we have to?” She softly asked, looking back over at Max. After a moment of hesitation, he answered “...Well, we don’t really have to, but it would probably be safest. I just assumed you’d all like to get back to your own lives, is all.” “I won’t be able to leave Skyrim,” Gabby coolly offered. “I still have business, here.” “I don’t know if I want to leave, either,” Max answered, with a little shrug. “If finding me is as simple as checking all the temples in Skyrim,” Svetlana quietly pondered aloud, “then maybe I should leave. I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. Might be safer to stay, somewhere quiet.”
Bunny gave a long, slow sigh. Turning her head, she looked off down at the nearby descent out of the brooding grounds, then stated “Well...Either way, I think I should go and take one last look around at this place, now that the sun’s up. Whether I like it or not, this used to be my home. I’ve spent all my life, here. I might as well see it off, and...Find some water to wash off my face, with. I shouldn’t be long.” She left her Glass bow where it lay, and for the first time in days, she shucked off her quiver, leaving it behind as she stood up with a groaning stretch. Everyone watched her go. Once she was out of earshot, Svetlana murmured “...She’s taking the idea hard, you know. Us all splitting up, I mean. I can understand where she’s coming from. It won’t be easy to say goodbyes, not at this point.” With a smile, she looked around at everyone, adding “You guys are my family, now. I don’t want to see any of you go. If there’s trouble, I want to be there and help.”
Anya deflated, eyebrows arching decidedly sadly. “I have no choice,” she quietly protested. “I need to leave everything and everyone behind. I’d advise you all to do the same, if you can stomach it.” “One day, we’ll all be able to meet up again, I’m sure,” Max offered, rising to his feet with a stretch, a groan, and a shiver, in that order. Walking over to the side, he found the pile the girls had made of his scorched armour and, although the scalemail had been wrecked, he pulled it on for modesty’s sake, hoping it might help keep him warm during the departure from the mountain. Once he was finished dressing himself, he turned around to look at his lady friends with a smile, then commented “Well, if nothing else, Markarth will be better off-”
Sabrina perked up. Svetlana hastily reached for her axe. Anya’s jaw tightened as she hurried to rise to her feet. Gabriella’s eyes widened as she blurted out “Behind you!” Time seemed to slow, for Max. His hand shot for his sheathed sword as he spun around, pivoting on a heel as he sidestepped. He had barely drawn his blade before a sizeable battleaxe came crashing down into the space he had been standing in, not a second before. His eyes widened as an earsplitting ringing filled the air, the battleaxe crashing right into and shattering his sword into two halves: a jagged shard still jutting from the crossguard, a large section of the far end, and numerous shards of the middle, scattered throughout the air.
Maximus quickly stumbled backwards, dropping the broken handle of his sword as he put distance between himself and his attacker. He was still appraising his assailant when he found his trophy-blade, Stonearm’s sword, still stuck point-first into the dirt where he had left it, the night before. When his lady friends stood up and moved to his sides, they were just as surprised as he was to see who their new opponent was: a mere child, dressed in pelt rags. The boy looked no older than nine or ten, and was currently desperately attempting to yank the battleaxe, fit for a man twice his size, back out of the dirt. His hair, a messy mop of orange, did nothing to conceal his eyes, a deep brown broiling with a mixture of terror and absolute hatred.
Anya lowered her sword. Svetlana lowered her axe. The boy looked muscular for his age, but it was clear that the battleaxe not only wasn’t his weapon, but that it likely wouldn’t have been for another six or seven years, at least. Gods only knew what he had been doing, with it. The blue tattoo across his forehead and cheeks twisted up as he snarled at them, yelling “You killed him! You killed them all! You...You sons of bitches, I’ll kill all of you!” Max’s eyes subtly widened. The tip of his sword wavered, then dropped, an inch. The boy, huffing and panting, worked himself into a sweat before he finally managed to pull the battleaxe back out of the dirt. He ended up nearly collapsing backwards from the force of his pull, but just barely, he regained his balance, then grunted as he brought the back of the relatively enormous weapon to his shoulder.
“You killed my dad, you bastard! You and that lady! You’re both dead! Y-You hear me? You’re dead!” “Who was your father? Sun Eater?” Max ventured to ask. The boy, struggling to keep his balance, took a few unsteady steps towards Max, neck visibly tensing up as he fought to heft the weapon over his head. “F...Felix Amarine!” The boy loudly grunted, raising the head of the weapon up high. Max took a quick step back, avoiding the swing before the boy had even started his forwards momentum, dropping the battleaxe with a crash back into the dirt. Maximus promptly stepped forward, planted his hand against the boy’s chest, and shoved him straight off of his feet, sending him crashing down to his back with a hard thud.
When the boy looked up, Max’s brow had furrowed. The tip of Stonearm’s sword was inches from his face, warning him to stay put. “Max-“ Anya interjected, a protest Svetlana echoed, chiming in “He’s just a pup, Max!” “So was I,” Max replied, cold eyes locked on the boy’s. Gabriella’s eyes shifted around as she worked out an understanding of the situation. Felix must have been trying to hide his son from the fighting, hoping to protect him in the event of a massacre. The boy had to have been hiding behind the stone monument, at the rear of the brooding grounds. If so, when she had snuck into the area, she must have unwittingly come within spitting distance of the child. He had been hiding there the whole night, either biding his time for a sneak attack or praying that they’d all leave without discovering him. Hard to tell which possibility was more likely.
The boy’s eyes shifted to Sabrina’s form, just then managing to rise to her feet by the fire pit. With her entire body needing shielding from the sun, she was forced to move ponderously, careful in every step, and had been thus forced to keep her distance during the sudden excitement of the boy’s appearance. Thrusting out his arm at her, he pointed accusingly and shouted “You! You think you’re so tough, ganging up on my dad?! Fight me, just you and me, and we’ll see how tough you are! Coward!” “Hey,” Max abruptly snapped, raising his voice loud enough that the boy nearly gave a start. Eyes wide with anger, his teeth clenched, his lips barely moved as he ordered “Eyes on me, kid. I killed your dad.”
“I know you did,” the boy hissed back, between clenched teeth. Max raised his eyebrows as he said “I’m gonna do for you what nobody did for me, back in the day. I’m gonna tell you why.” “I don’t care, you fuck! You’re dead!” The boy snapped, bolting further upright, hands going for the battleaxe. Max gave a quick flick with the sword, making the boy gasp in pain. Svetlana gave a start, arching her eyebrows. The boy glared up at the Imperial, a small nick stretching from his cheekbone to the bridge of his nose, just below his right eye. Max’s expression never changed, but his voice dropped to a low, dangerous mutter.
“When I was a pup, your people killed my family. They cut my father down in the streets. They butchered my mother with axes. They left me to the wolves. You think you’re angry now? Try living your entire life, like that. You’re damn right, I swore revenge. You think this was bad? I was just getting started with you people, kid. I was just hitting my fuckin’ stride.” “Max...” Gabriella murmured, watching his face. The boy wouldn’t stop staring at Max, especially as he continued. The Imperial started raising his voice, meeting the boy’s furious, unblinking stare with one of his own. “Maximus Iron-Heart. You hear me? This was my idea. All of it, this was my idea. I wasn’t being paid by the Nords or the Empire to do it. I wasn’t being paid, at all. This was personal, because all of you, including your dad, had it coming. This was my idea. Nobody else here cared.”
Max briefly frowned, shaking his head a little, glancing left and right. “These people? Forget about them. This was my choice. My idea, because your people had this coming. I don’t regret a thing. History lesson, kid: you have any idea how many innocent people the Forsworn butchered in Markarth, some twenty odd years ago? Any idea how many innocent travellers your people chop up on the roads, for no damn reason? A whole lot more than this pissing clan. Don’t like the hard truth? Remember my name: Maximus Iron-Heart. You wanna continue this fight, just you and me? Find me when you’re old enough to actually pick up this damn axe, and we’ll see what happens. I won’t be hiding. I’ll be waiting, kid.”
The women realized what Maximus was doing. He didn’t mean half of what he said, he just didn’t want history to repeat itself. It wasn’t the Imperials, the Nords, the Empire, or anyone else. It was one person: him. Nobody else needed to go on a crusade. If the kid wanted revenge, he had a name and a face to blame. Nobody else needed to get caught in the crossfire. The boy, tears in his eyes by that point, coldly snapped “I will.” Maximus quickly sheathed his sword. Finally blinking, the look in his eyes softened. “...If you’re smart, kid, you won’t. Don’t do like I did. Be the better man. Have the better life.”
Maximus turned around and started walking away. The boy watched him go until he had begun descending the mountain, exiting the brooding grounds. Then, he sniffled, looking down at the battleaxe in pointless rage. The rest of them slowly turned away and began to depart, Sabrina and Gabriella, slowest of all. Gabriella stopped to dress herself in her cooked leather armour, while Sabrina, huddled up in the tenting like she was, could only shuffle at such a pace without endangering herself to exposure. When Maximus was half-way down the path from the brooding grounds, he spotted something in the distance that made him pick up his pace, the man racing down towards the encampment.
Minutes earlier, Bunny had departed down the pathway, passing by the plethora of corpses on her way to the encampment, below. She gave a heavy sigh, one hand to her hip, the other rising to her forehead. She tried not to look at the faces, but it was difficult to avoid some of their blank, denunciatory stares, especially that of her own mother. When she entered the encampment, she crossed her arms over her chest, mouth ajar as she took in the scope of the damage. Sabre’s pyromaniac outburst, combined with Sabrina’s bombardment, had burned down half of the tents in the encampment, and many of the rest weren’t much better off. Gods, what a mess.
She headed towards her right, towards the south, towards the initial conflict zone. Bodies littered the ground, twisted this way and that. Blood and viscera soaked the dirt in wide swaths. Bunny stared for several seconds, forcing herself to witness. This was the end of her clan, of her birth family, and she had played a direct role in bringing this to be. Right or wrong, she needed to see. It wouldn’t be right to just walk away without ever feeling the extent of what she had helped do. She turned and left, heading to the northern edge of the camp, past the tents Sabre had burned down, arriving at the site of the second assault. Many more bodies littered the ground here, in worse condition than those at the first.
Bunny’s eyes drifted around the corpses until they landed on Stonearm’s mangled, decapitated body, then shifted far to the left, finding Elsa Oaken Heart’s corpse, riddled with arrows. Her eyes drifted to the sparring arena, not far ahead. Her eyes narrowed. Oh, the way they’d throw her in there against her will at all times of day, ganging up on her in packs of four or five, all together stomping her face into the dirt with wild laughter - yes, and she was supposed to be the weak coward, of course. Her father had been wrong. The lot of them had just been a pack of bullies, no more, no less. She was glad to be rid of them. Skyrim would be glad to be rid of them.
When something stirred in the distance, Bunny’s eye keenly darted up. Wolves. Just a pack of wolves, sniffing out carrion, come to fill their bellies. The lead wolf stopped and stared at her from a distance, perhaps wondering if she was a threat, or not. Bunny’s brow furrowed, bitterly. She turned and walked away. At least as carrion, these people would serve some purpose, she thought. They didn’t deserve burials. She returned to the base of the ascent into the brooding grounds, sighing as little else besides more corpses greeted her. Wearily, she set about searching the nearby tents, and eventually, she lucked out and found a small bucket of emergency water, likely intended for use on the tents that had been burning, during the night.
Bunny sat herself down on the grass, dunked a hand into the water, and gingerly brought it to her face. Very carefully, she experimented, trying to touch the area around her blood-caked eye. By that point, Svetlana had already healed Bunny’s burned hands, making it much less of a chore to try and clean her eye than it would’ve been, the night before. When she touched her face, she found herself surprisingly less tender than she had expected herself to be, and bringing her hand back showed that, already, quite a lot of dried blood had flaked off onto her hand. She dunked her hand back into the bucket of water, touched her face, and noticed footsteps hastily making their way towards her, from behind. “Max?” Bunny asked, raising her eyebrows, slowly looking over her shoulder. “I found a bucket of water, here, I should be able to clean o...”
When she saw who was approaching, her eye went as wide as a dinner plate. “Sh...Shit,” she muttered aloud, breathless and panicking. She scrambled forwards, knocking aside the bucket in the process, spilling the water across the grass. When she got to her feet, she ran off as quickly as she could, but the figure quickly gained on her. A hand grabbed her left arm, pulling on her, tripping her up until the hard-breathing figure crashed into her, sending the both of them straight down into the dirt. Bunny clawed at the dirt, trying to free herself. A hand grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanked back, and slammed her face into the ground, nearly breaking her nose in an instant. Bunny, dazed, couldn’t fight back as the figure rolled her over, putting her to her back.
Her eyes sharpened. Straight Arrow was straddling her waist, the arrow still impaled through the one side of her neck. Dried blood stained her neck and shoulder. Blood had caked around one side of her mouth and nostrils. The whites of her left eye had gone red with blood. Her eyes were ablaze as she thrust her arms down, grabbing Bunny by the throat with both hands, squeezing, mercilessly cramming her thumbs down into Bunny’s windpipe. Straight, her teeth clenched, barked “You were supposed to die! I was supposed to save everyone!!” Bunny’s eyes widened as she lost her ability to breathe, entirely. Straight, out of sheer rage, yanked Bunny’s head up, then slammed her back down, cracking the rear of her skull against the hard dirt.
Bunny kicked her legs, trying to knee her older sister in the back. She flailed her arms, at first slapping Straight across the face, then punching her. When Bunny tried twisting her body against the ground, trying to violently corkscrew herself out from under Straight, her sister put a stop to the escape attempt by shifting a leg, brutally slamming one knee down across Bunny’s thighs, pinning her legs in place. Bunny’s mouth went agape as she tried to shout, managing little more than a strangled squeak. Straight callously stared down into her eyes, giving her head another few rappings against the ground, trying to knock her insensate. Bunny’s vision slowly began to blur, her head quickly throbbing harder and harder with her own terrified heartbeat. In a hoarse whisper, Straight hissed “I’m gonna watch the light leave your eyes, you little cunt!”
Bunny planted her left hand against the right side of Straight’s face. She began digging her thumb into her sister’s eye, which quickly had Straight giving a ragged, breathless shout of pain, but blood had barely begun running down Straight’s cheek before she jerked her head up, found Bunny’s thumb with her mouth, and bit down on the digit hard enough to split skin, trapping the hand and preventing Bunny from trying the attack, again. Bunny could see the sky around Straight’s head darkening to black. Spittle helplessly ran from the corner of her mouth.
She desperately reached her right hand out, grabbed the arrow embedded in Straight’s neck, and twisted it, tearing it to the side. Straight’s eyes went confused as the wound reopened, wider this time, a fresh spurt of blood flowing free down her chest. Footsteps became audible to Bunny’s dulled senses. She broke off the arrow in Straight’s neck, then raised it higher, slamming the broken shaft down into Straight’s other eye like a dagger, punching the wooden shaft straight in. Straight finally opened her mouth, screaming. She took her hands off of Bunny just as Maximus came barging into her from behind, throwing her off of Bunny so violently that the young woman nearly gave a somersault.
Bunny took in a wild gasp of air, then descended into a coughing fit as she held her bruised throat, struggling to rise in spite of her light head. “I thought she was dead,” Max remarked, staring down at the writhing young woman. “So did I!” Bunny gasped, similarly staring daggers at her sibling as she got up to her feet. The blinded Straight got her screaming under control and stopped jerking around, panting wildly as she raised a fist to her face. She grabbed the arrow embedded into her eye and, slowly, started pulling, blood running from between her teeth as the stress made her neck wound even worse. Without warning, Bunny pulled free Max’s sword from his scabbard, stepped forward, and held it ready. Face going red with anger, she silently thrust the sword down into Straight’s chest, running her through. Straight tensed up, screwing her eyes shut, her mouth hanging ajar. She stopped breathing.
A moment later, Bunny had pulled the sword back. Straight wobbled for a moment, took in a gurgling gasp, then finished pulling the arrow free from her eye. This time, Bunny gave a frustrated cry as she plunged the blade into her sister’s torso, for a second time. When Bunny withdrew the blade, Straight collapsed, but Bunny wouldn’t stop. She impaled her sister’s corpse a third time, then a fourth, then a fifth. It eventually became clear to Maximus that she wouldn’t stop unless she was made to, and finally, he rested his hand over his shoulder, remarking “Stop. She’s dead, Bunny. It’s over.” Bunny nearly pushed the blade in a sixth time, but hesitated at his words. She looked down into Straight’s eyes. There was no mistaking it, this time. The empty, glassy look gave it away. This time, she wasn’t playing possum.
Bunny didn’t move for several long, tense moments. Eventually, she gave a weak, feeble sob, her arms falling to her sides until Max’s sword fell from her fingers, landing in the dirt. Bunny fell to her knees by Straight’s side, trying to keep quiet as she stared at the body. Max slowly eased himself down to a knee beside her, slipping his arm around her shoulders. Bunny couldn’t stop shaking as she wept. Tears ran from the broken seal of her injured eye, the girl eventually hanging her head down and giving a shake. The rest of the women watched from a distance, keeping silent. Eventually, Bunny blubbered “You were wrong, Max...” He looked over at her, raising an eyebrow. She was trying to smile, her lips quivering around. “Now it’s over,” she asserted. He gave a subtle sigh through his nose, smiling, himself. He leaned over and kissed her temple. She was right. Now it was over.
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The Forsworn Retribution