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The door opens and closes quietly, Zane doesn’t turn to face his teammate. They were leaving the Never Realm soon, the final preparations being made, Grimfax and the elders testing the Realm Tree’s properties to see how it worked in practice. Zane is sitting on the edge of a grand, ornate bed. They’d been given a few rooms to stay in after Zane had shattered the scroll and ended his reign. There were too many loose ends and stories to wrap up, his actions put on trial amongst the king and the nobles. They had decided on his innocence, but still banished him completely from the realm. He was never allowed back here on punishment of death.
It was too light a sentence, but perhaps he’d favored cruelty too much these years.
The punishment also stung in a way that was hard to form into words. This had been his home for a lifetime- to be banished… he would miss it. He had his chance to walk the palace ground once more, but he’d chosen to skip it and keep himself holed away in he and his friends room, skipping breakfast and lunch completely. The people here were afraid and scared of him, and it was the least he could do to stay out of sight and out of mind until he left this place in peace for good.
A shuffle of feet, unsure. It must be time to go.
The deadbolt locks. It’s blunt and stark in the empty and silent bedroom.
Oh, Zane thinks, I understand.
He wouldn't be making it out of this realm alive, would he? It’s almost comical, to survive all those years alone in that cave, to endure the agony of losing himself again, only to die when freedom was hours away. Maybe it’s poetic. Maybe there would be a song or an epic told about this, one day- and the climax would be his death, here in his bedchamber, and scholars would teach their students that even someone with the power of the gods was mortal in the end. It sounds interesting. It’s a good ending, if he has to have one here.
He turns and faces the assassin, hiking one leg up on the bed so he can see them.
It’s a girl, Lloyds age. He remembers her from the throne room, she’d attacked him with a knife and he’d frozen her solid. She's got red marks across her cheeks, and she's wearing a wolf cloak around her shoulders.
A formling. She has the right.
“Hello.” He says quietly. Her name is Akita, he knows. She hates him, he knows.
She reaches into the folds of her clothes, trembling, and pulls out a dagger in its sheath. She holds it out so he can see it. It’s a plain little thing, brown leather and wood handle. She yanks it from it’s sheath and throws it aside. The Blade is wickedly sharp.
It looks meticulously maintained and sharpened. She must have heard the rumors of his skin, told by spooked men who’d barely managed to flee his ice, who recalled how only the sharpest blades struck home. Who whispered how ordinary spears skidded and fell away without a scratch. He knows the stories told about him. There were people he did not freeze- there were towns that chose to cooperate.
It is sharp enough.
She holds the blade out, the shake in her hands vanishing as pure resolve pours into her eyes, “My name is Akita. You stole my childhood. You imprisoned my brother and my people. You killed countless innocents. Your reign deserves to end here, permanently.” she tells him, voice stone and steel, each word clearly practiced over and over again in anticipation for this moment.
He dips his head, and out of respect for his adversary, he rises to his feet. To face her as an equal, on even ground, is to see her as a worthy opponent.
She swallows visibly, tightening her grip on her blade.
“I won’t fight you, Akita.” He says plainly, moving around the edge of the bed so she has a clean attack, “Your revenge is yours to take.”
There’s a knock on the door, Lloyds voice filtering through hesitant and worried, “Hey, Zane? You nearly ready? It’s almost time to go.” The doorknob wiggles. She's running out of time.
Akita tilts her head, listening to Lloyd but refusing to take her eyes off Zane. She hesitates, and he remembers that Lloyd and Akita had come to his throne room together. To get her revenge is to hurt her friend terribly. Zane could freeze her here, if he wanted to- he’s stopped better assassins than this over the years, but he won’t touch her.
“Zane?” Lloyds voice takes an edge of panic, worry bleeding into every syllable. Akita doesn’t move for a long moment, and the regret in her eyes dies. Sacrifices must be made. She had made this decision a long time before she met Lloyd.
“Answer me one question.” She licks her lips, keeps her eyes laser-focused on his every movement, “Did it mean anything to you? When you slaughtered the Kraag, when you destroyed crops and tore apart families, did it mean a damn thing?”
He thinks about the scroll in his hands, about Vex’s words seeping into his mind. He thinks about days upon days going through the motions, empty headed and lost and broken.
“No.” he answers truthfully and draws himself up to his full height. he will not die cowering and small. He’s the Ice Emperor, after all.
A heartbeat passes.
She lunges.