Halana was cold. The knife in her chest was a spike of ice that pierced the entirety of her existence, but the wound itself was numb. The utter absence of physical pain was almost pleasant, except for the soul crushing chill that accompanied it. Lying motionless on the table, Halana’s life passed before her mind’s eye.
Or rather, the last hours she could remember. Staring sightlessly at the ceiling, Halana relived her failed assault on Vessadial’s castle. The ghoul who would not burn, and being battered unconscious. Waking, and being helpless. Helpless, in the hands of Vessadial, and all that followed.
The potion that she’d been forced to drink. Being held down against the table. Clawed, dead hands tearing open her robe and mauling her flesh. The agony of helplessness, and trying to fight again when Winia distracted the lich.
Failing.
Blind, held down beneath Vessadial. And the pain of the knife. The pain that was gone now, hidden behind a friendly numbness that did nothing to dull the frozen shard of evil stabbed into her soul.
It was the potion that was keeping her alive. Halana had recognized the satchel Vessadial brought it out of. The lich had forced her to swallow one of Raekar’s most potent healing droughts, simply because the ghouls had cut the circulation to her arms and legs with their ropes. The excess of healing magic had filled her with a tingling energy, and now it kept her alive with an unholy dagger buried in her chest.
If she removed the blade, would the wound close? Would she live?
If she waited long enough, would the potion’s magic exhaust itself? Would she feel the pain of the knife again, before she died?
Halana remained limp on the table. She couldn’t make herself want to move. She had lived a good life. Heaven awaited her if she died; living in the grasp of Vessadial would be its own hell.
Unless the lich had been wrong. He’d prepared a feast from the flesh of her dead companions so that when she ate of it, the gods would turn their backs on her. But what if they had already forsaken her? In the dungeons below she had struck a ghoul with holy fire, and it had not burned. It was possible that the gods had abandoned her. That her failure in the face of this evil had caused them to turn away.
She stirred. Her fingers trembled weakly against the table’s surface. That was the crux. As long as she was alive and able to fight, she could redeem herself. Giving up; dying: that would make her failure truly absolute. If she lived and failed, Vessadial could create a hell for her – but if she gave up and died, the heavens would be barred to her. There was no solace offered in abandoning hope.
Halana breathed in deeply, and pain lashed her despite the potion’s numbing effect. The knife was like a malevolent thing, fighting her own resolution. And yet, Halana was not alone.
She felt it, the familiar sensation of a greater being, a spiritual force who’s will approved of her own. A strength to rely on when her own will failed. The gods could grant great favors to their faithful, but they could only act in the world through mortal hands.
This one she was not familiar with. It was powerful and warlike. It did not sooth her fears, but tempered them. Focused them. To fail was not an option for the righteous. That she feared him was proof Vessadial must be destroyed. He belonged in hell, and by the will of the gods, she would send him there!
Halana’s fingers curled around the hilt of Vessadial’s knife. It slid out of her flesh as easily as it would from a sheath, and Halana was hit by a sudden shock of warmth as the ice left her soul. And just as suddenly, she was again aware of the world beyond herself.
“Stop..stop..st-” Winnia’s begging was cut off by a scream of primal agony, such as Halana had never heard before. She snapped around, leaping down from the table. A stench of burnt flesh and hot metal filled the air, and Halana saw Vessadial fall back from the apprentice mage: he was so occupied with Winia, he hadn’t noticed her own recovery.
Winia was pinned against the wall, held there by an invisible force Halana was all too familiar with. She was sobbing, her good eye squeezed shut – and her eye patch was burning. The leather cover of the patch charred and cracked, dribbling molten silver down Wnia’s cheek before the burning ties snapped and the heavy patch tumbled to the ground. The eye behind it was open and staring.
“What infernal magic is this?” Vessadial snarled. “Answer me!”
Winia didn’t reply. Tears squeezed out of the corner of her good eye, while the open one stared at Vessadial and burned with an inner fury. The presence of something more than human grew. Eyes were said to be windows to the soul, and souls were the stuff of gods. Through Winia’s Eye, another intelligence stared into the world.
At Vessadial.
Judging him.
The lich took another step back. “Stop staring at me!” he screamed.
Halana put aside the knife and hefted one of the heavy candlesticks from the table. Stabbing a corpse would be meaningless, but she had heard that note of hysteria in Vessadial’s voice before. He needed to be killed, now.
“Stop! Stop it,” Vessadial snarled, battering Winia against the wall with his telekinesis. She cried out in pain. Bones splintered and flesh tore when he flung her into one of the torch bearing sconces, but the Gaze of her unnatural Eye never wavered.
And then Halana was behind the lich. He was shouting something else, still oblivious to her. The world never heard his last words: with both hands and all of her strength, Halana swung the base of her improvised mace into the back of Vessadial’s skull.
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