Chapter Text
My infiltration of the resistance group had been successful. My non-human features were relatively subtle — grey-toned skin, tall stature, slightly pointed ears and enlarged lower canines. These were overlooked by those who knew me as the severe enforcer of the Way. But here, in the underworld of illegal magic, these markers, as well as my knowledge of my criminal parents' warlock practices, bought me credibility. Not so much credibility, however, to prevent a halfling street urchin from recognizing me just before my sabotage was complete. I was tied with a rope around my neck connecting to my hands behind my back, and for good measure I was made partially immobile with some primitive magic that made my jaw ache. If that's how it ends for me, that's how it ends. I accepted my fate and felt satisfied in my contribution to public order. Waiting for my death, I felt only impatience.
Some time later, I saw her. I was not surprised. Val was a criminal, of course she would get involved in such activities. She served decades in prison, most of it for escape attempts. "Reformed," she was released on parole with a strict zero-tolerance policy for magical activity. She was unnaturally strong and perceptive, but the full extent of her powers went unnoticed at the time. She broke parole almost immediately and could not be found. I discovered her living covertly as a businesswoman in a smaller city south of the capital where she had successfully been hiding herself for years before I'd unmasked her. Did I unmask her? She unmasked herself in the end, but I do not wish to think of that time any longer. Suffice it to say that she was found and arrested, but managed to escape once again.
She couldn't hide forever, and I had last seen her roaming the streets only months before my infiltration. My supervisors had not believed me, thinking she was dead, but I knew what I'd seen. And I knew her again immediately. She had aged. Though she was my elder by over a decade, she had retained her dark hair longer than I had. We were now both greying, both our faces were creased by time. She must have been playing the same game as me, for she wore the uniform of a city guard and came with knowledge of the knights' movements toward this hideaway (the very movements I had sought to conceal).
She conferred with the group’s leaders. I could not help but lift my head as I heard her ask for the right to end my life. “That is just,” I muttered and lowered my head again. So, she had seen me, then. I had thought for a moment that her perception had failed her.
“No objections,” the young leader said. “Take the spy.” She did, indeed, take possession of me. I felt the magic previously holding me quickly fade. A new, more skilled and surely more sinister magic replaced it. A trumpet sounded and all but Val vacated the area, no doubt evading the knights and making progress toward the counsel. They wouldn’t last the night. Silent laughter erupted through my chest, knowing their fate was the same as my own.
Val pulled me to my feet by the rope at my chest, hauling me up like a beast of burden. She met my gaze for the first time, as if to say, “It is I,” and I smiled at her in return. “Take your revenge.”
She unsheathed a long knife and I cackled. Of course, why kill me painlessly, as I know she could, when she could slit my throat instead? “You are right. That suits you better.”
Val pulled at the rope around my neck. I felt her breath on my ear and suppressed a shiver, and did not understand for a moment that the rope had fallen to the floor. She stepped behind me to cut the rope at my wrists, then the ropes binding my ankles. Finally, I felt her drop the spell as well.
“You are free,” she said. I am not easily astonished. Still, master of myself though I am, I could not repress a start. I remained open-mouthed and astonished as she informed me of her current alias and place of residence in the off chance that she made it out alive.
“Number 7?”
“Number 7.”
I brushed the dust off my coat and rebuttoned it, then set out the route I expected to be clearest. As the distance between us grew, I could still feel her looking at me, and some uncomfortable and unfamiliar energy welling up in me. Unable to stop myself, I turned and shouted to her, “You annoy me. Kill me, rather.”
“Be off with you.”