Kiava fell asleep shortly after her confession, her body demanding rest. Her dreams were restless and full of shadowy figures of cold darkness chasing her through maze-like streets. It came as a relief when she woke up. It was dark out now and there was only a dim light in the corner. No one else was in the room with her and light shone through the gap of the door to Theon's office.
"Lord Arvenor?" she called, needing help with a biological function - other than hunger - pressing demands on her body.
The door opened swiftly and the handsome blonde entered the shadowy room. Not being able to see him clearly was a bit of a boon as she asked him to aid her trek to the water closet. In response he scooped her from the bed and carried her to the bathroom before setting her gently on her feet next.
"I'll be out here if you need help with anything," he said, and closed the door.
Kiava stared for a moment, she had been genuinely surprised at the strength of the healer when he was tossing the boy earlier, she still hadn't expected a princess carry. A similar night light that was in the infirmary was in this room and she was able to do her business using the handy rail that circled the room. After washing her hands she opened the door and within moments she was once again being carried across the room like she weighed nothing at all. Admittedly she had lost some weight during her travels. The food had been hit or miss on the journey and she ended up sick on more than one occasion after eating food at stations until she gave it up as a bad practice, but she was still healthy for her size.
Avenor set her back in the bed, which had been flat when she awoke but was now cranked to a reclined posture like earlier.
"How are you feeling?" he asked kindly, putting a hand to her forehead and frowning. "A slight fever, but that's not surprising. I'll hold off on healing you more until the morning. I've used three chants on you today and I don't want to push it."
"Everything still aches," Kiava confessed, "and going to the bathroom pretty much drained what little energy I had." She rubbed her eyes. "But all I had were nightmares when I was asleep."
Theon sat down and looked at her seriously. "You said before that you have never had a person try to kill you before?"
"Right, just monsters and they are driven by mad instinct. I've never had a person overtly threaten my life before. The borderlands may be full of criminals, but we all have big enough problems without going around killing each other." Kiava said, somewhat defensive of her home. People seemed to think the dangerous reputation of the borderlands was due to the people there, but that was not the case.
Theon raised his hands in a gesture of peace, "I spent some time at the border during the last Corruption King. I remember the people being as helpful as they could be in their circumstances, though most of the population avoided us." Kiava relaxed at his soothing words. "I wanted to ask, did you have black hair when you were younger?"
—
Silas did not even flinch as he cleaved his way through the thugs too foolish to throw down arms and lay on the ground with their hands on their heads, as they had been instructed. Archeus followed his friend at a safe distance with the knights who were shackling those men that had been sensible and thus lived to see another day. He had tracked the entropy spell to a warehouse near the southern docks where commerce vessels docked. There were cages lined up and stacked two tall, inside many of them were people, three to a cage so that it didn't allow them to sit or lay down. Despite the large number of people in the building, those confined were silent. All the noise came from death cries mixed with protestations of the uncaged criminals.
It was that silence that killed Archeus' sympathy for the dying men. Silas had explained to him the state that Miss Kiava had found the children, but it is one thing to be told something and another to face the reality of it. So many of the captives kept from even expressing their feelings on their face, much less vocalizing them. Other knights than Silas were now involved in skirmishes throughout the warehouse, but Archeus walked to where he felt the last traces of the forbidden magic.
The door was slightly ajar, but Archeus didn't walk through it, even though he would have only a few short weeks ago. No one could say he didn't learn from past mistakes. "Silas!" he called instead, and within two breaths his friend was beside him, eyes still alight with anger. "The spell was cast in that room. You first."
Silas rolled his eyes and walked into the room. The spell that was meant to incapacitate Archeus floated over Silas ineffectually. If Archeus had walked through that door his magic would have been bound, he could sense that it had been made for him specifically.
"What in the hells is this?" Silas spat as if he had spiderwebs in his mouth.
"Nothing you need to worry about," Archeus said cheerfully as he looked through the thoroughly open door and dispelled the attack spell being flung at the still sputtering Silas. He cast an attack in return, but as the spell sliced through the air the caster teleported using a spell bead.
"Damn." Silas growled, sniffing through the room. "They were wearing perfume. I'll recognize it if I come across it again."
"Well, that's something at least." If the other mage had actively cast the teleport Archeus could have traced it, which was likely why they had a bead ready. "Expensive or cheap?"
"Expensive and feminine."
"A woman again," Archeus sighed, "I wonder if it's the same one or just someone working for them? That spell you walked into would have left me a drooling mess on the floor."
"You had me walk into something that could do that?" Silas looked horrified.
"If it had worked on you I could have dispelled it, but if it worked on me she could have killed us all." Archeus explained with a shrug, feeling only slightly apologetic. "Besides, you're hardy."
"Sometimes I think you really don't like me that much."
"You're like a brother to me, of course sometimes I don't like you much," he returned cheerfully. "But generally I do love you and won't let you die."
"If we're like siblings why can't you treat me a bit more like Luka?" Silas griped.
"It is impossible to compare you to my sister, she is a delightful creature in every way," the mage countered readily, looking scandalized at the suggestion.
"Your bias is ridiculous," the knight gave up with a laugh. "Come on, it looks like we have a mountain of work ahead of us," he said as they turned back to the cages. The knights were sorting the criminals out by dead and alive, laying the former outside and keeping the latter in a clear space near the warehouse's main entry point.
Silas turned to Archeus and looked as if he was about to speak when the world exploded.