The sliver of metal she turned over in her fingers, looking down at it as if it held her future. Finely crafted, exquisite in its simplicity, precious in that it was a gift.
Soft eyes then rose, slow, blinking once. As if, for a moment she could change the very nature of the world with just the force of her will, make that which was, somehow wasn’t.
That was foolish. And she knew it. From the door her gaze rose further, knowing what she would see before the night proved it true. The windows more than dark. Empty. The blackness within the polished frames like eyes blinded, never to see again.
She turned her hand
The key fell and then bounced down the cobbles of Murder Row.
Homecoming.
No longer.
Just a door with the locks changed.
“No Kree …”
The warlock sat, in the twilight, that gray quiet between the sun’s light and the moon’s darkness. The big red demon’s head rested in her lap and she slipped her fingers along fine scales and dangerous bone. Many scalawags have called the fierce felhunter some manner of puppy. Now might prove those words, the simple demon trying to comfort its mistress. For the warlock, it didn’t matter if the great beast understood what she said; in truth she knew the demon probably didn’t.
“It wasn’t my choice …
“And it was not the choice I would have made.
“It was just the one I was told I would make.”
A breath taken. And then eyes closed.
“Its strange, Kree. I have been cut and mauled and torn, felt the slash of a sword, the tear of fangs, the burn of magic’s fair and foul.
“But of them all, the only one who managed to hurt me, was the one I cared for.”
Again, there was a long moment’s silence, heavy as death.
“No Kree. No. I won’t let you bite and rend. What ever path lead from here, I hope it is one that is happy and fulfilled. Come the end of the day and the fall of night, that’s all I ever wished. For me and you, well, we get the twilight, alone again between light and shadow.”
Her head shifted, resting her cheek against a polished horn, one normally used for gutting someone who would bring her harm. A beat, and then two, was held before she continued.
“I don’t think so Kree. I really don’t.
“I think maybe the minstrels are right about that too.
“That it only happens once.
“It is true for me.
“But it takes two.”
A petty vandalism.
On an abandoned door in Silvermoon, upon Murder Row.
A pair of initials.
A simple heart.
A second set of initials.
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