Feather

Sephir’s nails dug into the soft flesh of her arm but his face remained impassive. Leylia cast a wild look at the shore where a man dragged himself out of the lake leaving a trail of blood in his wake. The man coughed and spluttered and a slow smile crept into Sephir’s features as he watched him.

Leylia’s eyes widened as she grasped his intent.

“No! Don’t! He’s scared enough; he won’t return.” She tried to wriggle out of grasp but today she felt particularly weak. Sephir had drained her strength for the malicious illusion he’s concocted.

Sephir ignored her and threw her aside surprising them both with his strength. He looked down, delighted, at her and then back at the man who’s back stiffened as he sensed someone’s scrutiny.

I don’t have the willpower to oppose him in moments like these just before he’s about to take out another one, Leylia thought staring grimly at the man as well.

But Sephir hadn’t been tight with security; Leylia had managed to sneak into the illusion and so had another conscience near the end. Leylia had only briefly felt the nudging curious sensation of her mind being brushed before the presence had vanished.

Seeing how the man had fought to win the fake her over had gripped a part of her in such a way that instead of the usual nostalgic sadness over washing her when Sephir went in for the kill, she watched with dawning horror.

Something, she knew not what, made her get up and cry hoarsely, choked up with years of useless crying, “Stop Sephir!”

Sephir looked around, total shock written plain on his features. She felt another pair of eyes swing in her direction, such a dark blue they were almost lost in the darkness of the night. For a few seconds the three of them stood looking at each other. The dark elf, the first one who had ever truly come to save her, the white haired sorcerer that had made her existence a torture, and herself, teetering on the edge of indecision.

“Take one step closer to him and you’ll have me to deal with,” Leylia took an uncertain step closer to Sephir who cocked his head, hawklike, in her direction, and grinned noticing the little strength in her legs.

“You’re weak, Leylia. You always have been. Mind and body.” Sephir said this quite loudly, enough that two long limbed dryads perched on a branch above her actually tittered and giggled.

“Leylia?” The voice was soft, written with disbelief and awe.

She turned and not ten paces from her stood the dark elf, Kian was his name, she now recalled. He had limped up from the shore a few metres behind him towards the line of trees he now stood before. Sephir still had his back to the boy but his shocked expression was replaced by one of utter spite.

He advanced upon Leylia and slammed her into the ground littered with sharp stones and rocks that dug into her back. He sat slightly on top of her but his gaze was directed at the boy.

“Behold, your people’s mighty saviour,” he barked. He lifted Leylia’s face to his. “Look how she whimpers at the mere sight of me, the coward. You will not be the first she’s let die while hiding in fear.” He laughed manically, his nails once again digging into her flesh adding to the countless of scars already on the soft translucent skin of her cheeks.

“She’s not weak,” came the assured bold voice of the dark elf not taking his eyes off Sephir’s.

“Oh?” Sephir stood bringing Leylia with him until finally he was holding her by her throat with one hand in the air as she tried kicking and clawing him to get free. “She looks pretty weak to me.”

The boy gave a barely audible growl, the moon catching his sharp dark elf canines in its light and for a second Sephir and Leylia beheld a terrible sight of a creature of old, its fur bristled on end, the skin around its mouth taut in a silent snarl exposing elongated canines, and its eyes giving off a strange light of it’s own picking them out like prey in the night.
Sephir dropped her and took a step back, but the vision, or whatever it had been, was gone, replaced by the set, benevolent and youthful face of a tired boy on the brink of manhood with too much on his shoulders.

“Even as we speak, the forest is trying to get rid of you and it is slowly giving over control to Leylia. You know this Sephir, you’ve known it for so long that you can barely keep your fear from showing. I’m of a hunter race, I know when something is scared, even terrified.” Kian brushed wet ink black hair from his face, his hair so dark that it seemed he was brushing away shadows.
“I’ve come to deliver a message, and I won’t let anyone stop me.” Leylia saw his fists clenched around the curved handle of a delicate looking bow. His fingers were poised on the string and his other hand had slipped out an arrow unnoticed and he held it aloft for a split second before transferring it in the blink of an eye to the bowstring, notching it in place, ready to draw back and let fly.

“You think a simple huntsman can hurt me? A sorcerer?” Sephir gave a mocking laugh taking confident strides towards Kian.

“Who said anything about trying to hurt you?” Kian muttered as the muscles in his arm tensed and drew the bowstring back with one powerful stroke. His fingers released and the wind whistled as the dagger like arrow sped through the air seeming to slice open the very night.