Chapter Forty Six
The room around them faded and she stood before a wall, the same sickly green she’d seen before. This time she didn’t even bother neutralizing it, she just sent a bolt of gold blasting through it. The green energy wreathed and burned, falling away from the area of the wall that she had destroyed. She walked through and into his mind.
All around her, sterile white and grey made up the walls and floors while more of the sick green energy moved past her. Jars and books lay neatly about her. She chuckled and called playfully, “Where are you?”
A pale green beast came at her. Half ape, half cat, stitched together in the middle it looked dead. She flung more gold energy at it and it disintegrated. “Have it your way then,” she called and flung more energy at a group of jars by the wall. They exploded along with part of the wall behind them, revealing the color of rot behind. His physical screams reverberated through the rooms like an echo.
Dahlia laughed again in delight and spun up a construct like the scythe she’d found in the soldiers heads. “I had hoped for a clean fight but I suppose this will do.” Then she released it and left, the sound of shattering jars and screeching beasts behind her.
Back in her body, she looked down at the screaming man she held by the hair. He began to tear at his skull, trying to rip it open.
“Pathetic. I really shouldn’t take pity on you.” She watched him apathetically for a moment. “I suppose I’ll show you the mercy you couldn’t show others.”
She dropped him to the floor, took her axes her puppets had collected for her, and brought one down through his neck. His screams stopped as blood poured out, a clean death he didn’t deserve.
She turned back to see Horan stirring. “What, that didn’t break you?” she asked rhetorically, walking over and placing an ax against his neck.
Eyes still trying to regain focus looked at her. “Mercy,” rolled brokenly from his lips.
“Fresh out,” she said, pulled back, and swung. The former captain’s blood joined his fellow conspirator’s on the floor.
She dropped to her knees by the wounded lieutenant. Blood was trickling down from his mouth but he was still able to hold himself up on hands and knees. He pulled his head up to meet her gaze.
“Dahlia, your eyes…” he choked out.
“Shhh...just stay quiet,” she told him. Two puppets came and picked him up. “They’ll take you to the infirmary.”
She watched as they carried him out, his red mane, the ends slick with blood, caught against his neck as his head rolled back into unconsciousness.
She walked over to where Genji lay. He was bloody and had been badly hurt. Horan’s work, she imagined. She put a hand up to his nose and mouth and stayed still. After a moment she felt a weak breath against her palm. She pulled him up to her.
“Oh Genji, please stay alive for me,” she whispered as she held him for a moment.
She thought she felt his presence strengthen and then fade back. Two more puppets gathered him up from her and followed Traedon to the infirmary. Dahlia allowed the last two to wrap her wounds with clean cloth she found near the table. Then she stood up, went to Ahriman’s body, and pulled out the draconite he’d placed in his pocket. She couldn’t think of anywhere safer for the moment so she put it in her own pocket and left the room, the two headless bodies remaining as testament to the deal she’d made.
It had been a hell of a deal and she still had more to do.