Melody of Mana

It had taken me moments to find them through the absolute chaos that was this attack, but find them I did. I'd teleported myself to the roof they were on and was weaving spell after spell into place to make ready for my joining of the fight. Hopefully it wouldn't be needed, but if for some reason the emperor was pushed back, or ended it and needed aid, I'd be here for him.

For the moment however, there was little I could do to get involved. They were too fast, and while I was slowly approaching, getting too close to that would be like stepping into a human-sized blender. Their blades bounced and thrust at speeds I could hardly follow, driven by both physical speed, and skill that I lacked.

Then it came to its conclusion. Durin saw an opening, and with both hands thrust forward, his blade shining as it went. It was a trap though, an opening left by intent and I watched as in the space of a second the prince turned, his own sword sparking brightly as it skidded against the emperor's. Lief did a full rotation, spinning as his own two-handed blade turned, rose, and fell.

As the blade finished its arc, I watched Emperor Durin's head fall away from his body. The blow had been perfect, unexpected, and absolutely deadly. My heart sank, knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do to save him now, no help I could render. The headless corpse fell, blood spewing all over the golden dressed Lief, all over the rooftop, all over everything. It and the head slid slowly down, down the roof before falling into the flames that were consuming the courtyard below.

Lief stood there looking out like some kind of painting. The man in golden armor standing over the burning cityscape, stance proud, sword bloody under a full eclipse. As the moon was covered completely it seemed to almost glow red, a fitting shade for what had been done, and what was still to come.

I never stopped casting, I wanted to scream, to cry out as a man who I'd respected, and who'd led to so much good lay dead. There was no time for that though, spells were needed if I was to survive, if our country, in some form were to survive, if my family were to survive. Later I would mourn, for now I needed to act.

After a few seconds the man who would be a king turned to see me, and began slowly walking over.

"Alana?" He questioned.

"Yeah."

"If you surrender now I will grant you mercy. There is no need for any more blood to be spilled this day. The false ruler has fallen, let it end with him." I could see the cast of his gaze, softened, but still uncompromising in what he would demand.

"Do you even understand what you've done?"

"I have ended the monster that killed my parents and stole my home. Now I will have to go and fix things, to set them right," he declared.

"He was already fixing them. Perhaps you don't remember, perhaps you never understood, but under your father's rule the common folk suffered and died. The same under yours. Do you even care? Did the young man who seemed to enamored with justice die when we came up from beneath the city streets?"

"You've no idea what you are speaking of, and I have little patience for it," he said, gaze getting harder again.

"I've no idea? I've no idea!? I lived through your father's rule, through the uncaring and malevolent dictations that starved and tortured without need. I saw Ice's End, I saw the way those in lands you took over were treated, starved, frozen to death, beaten. Only one of the commoners sent after me survived, and he turned in an instant, singing the praises of the man you just killed."

"That's how it is then," Lief said, eyes dark. "So be it."

I couldn't respond before he lunged, blade whistling on the air. Physical magic users were fast, sometimes so fast it was near-impossible to see their movements, and Lief here was on the upper end of power. I didn't need to respond though, because he and I had different levels of knowledge.

His blade sliced through the air without resistance, the illusion barely wavering were it stood. Normally at this point I'd dispel it, but we weren't done yet.

"Did you think killing him would put things back the way they were, really?" I had the illusion ask while I was still unseen, unheard by my opponent. "All you did was destroy the proper method of succession, and cause more pain. Have no fear though, you won't have to see it."

He was still looking around when the bolt fell down from above. The lightning was to test his defenses, and if possible stun him, I honestly had worries though, so I wasn't putting my all into it. That was fortunate, as while the roof's tiles cracked and shattered under the blast of electrical might, the prince shrugged it off.

My enemy was winded, worse than myself if I were to guess, but there were problems for both of us. I could attack at range, and while most of what I could do probably wouldn't be good for harming him, I had one or two options. Mainly I could chip away at him from hiding until a finishing blow might land. That said, if he caught me, I was dead, the damage he could do would end me almost instantly, that was, if he could find me.

I danced away along the roof, weaving magic as I went. My steps made no sound, and my illusions reinforced my stealth. There was no need to be too close though, just in case he started doing something insane.

Something insane like spinning like a top, which he quickly began. Upon not catching me he dashed forwards and to the sides, blade lashing out randomly, trying to find my real body. I wove him up a few illusory targets, a mix of more images of my, and small wavering bits of air, hoping he'd think they were where my invisibility wasn't perfect. I moved them out from him in a radius, even as I got further away.

He took the bait with perfection, aiming at them for precious seconds while I tried to come up with a better plan. This was working, they were cheap, and he was still burning through his stamina to kill them, but I doubted it would be enough.

I ran through likely spells I knew, discarding some, putting others to the side for now as not right for the moment. Electricity was out, his ability to resist magic too high, or his armor too well warded for it to do more than superficial damage, and it wasn't cheap to use. Illusions were good, but not long term.

One of my newer creations seemed best for this, so I brought it to bear. It too was slow, but would serve far better to weaken him, perhaps even to death if I could manage it. Sadly it meant that I needed to let most of the illusions fade into nothingness while I directed my attention elsewhere.

"Come out and fight me like a man!" He yelled.

"Seriously? No," the one or two images I'd left replied.

He stopped aiming for them, seeming to realize it was pointless, and started bolting at the larger empty spaces between. That was going to be a problem soon, but first...

Lief slowed a bit, looking around as one hand moved to his neck, where his gorget was. His breathing was already getting heavier, strained. For only a moment he hesitated, then his eyes widened as he realized what was going on.

"What's wrong?" My nearest illusion asked. "Choking on your own desires?"

"This is you," he said, breath becoming labored.

It was working, but nowhere near as well as I'd hoped. He was just so resistant to magic that most things flowed off of him like water. I sensed it as he realized the spell that was on him and pushed his aura, or however he perceived it out to fight against the foreign magic. It pushed back my spell, but not completely. He was still losing air, and soon, he would still fall to it.

There was something slick under my foot and I nearly slipped, dancing as I was, still away, still back from the man who could very well kill me. My eyes looked down to see what I'd stepped in only to see Durin's blood there, a streak from where he'd fallen. There was really quite a lot of it and I'd missed it in my concentration on the battle.

As I tried to move a bit away from it I saw Lief's head snap in my direction, well the direction of the blood I was now tracking. Without hesitation I leapt to the side, trying to get low as well. It was fortunate that I did, because he became a blur in my direction, and a strange feeling blossomed along part of my arm.

It took me a moment to realize that his sword had cut me. It had been so fast, so quick that the pain didn't even register as such, just an oddness in the flesh there. I didn't have long though. Soon after I saw him slow his charge, using the sword pressed into the tiles like some kind of weird brake, and turn. My spell was still on him, and still working, he was still running out of time.

He pounced again, this time, stopping very near to me, his sword slamming down into the roof and sending debris up. There was no time for deceit now as he'd gotten too close. So I screamed, letting all but the choking spell drop, with the blood he could find me anyway so the illusions were pointless.

As I pushed my power into the sonic attack he flinched in pain, and jumped back. Perhaps he was intending to charge me again, perhaps he just wanted to get out of my scream in some sort of reflex. It didn't matter, he was in the air now, and slow enough for me to see, something I'd been hoping for.

I snapped a portal open behind him, and another off to the side of the rooftop, somewhere I could see easily enough. It went against my desires to use these too flippantly now, but I had to end this. Looking at me as he was he couldn't see the mouth of the gateway until he'd passed it, and began falling towards the ground.

Worn as he was he didn't manage to land cleanly, instead coming to a halt when he smashed into a bower in the flaming garden below. I'd been aiming for one of the more brightly burning bits, but my aim had been a little off, and he was still a good ten feet from it. That was less than optimal, but still something I could work with.

The warrior struggled to catch his breath and disentangle himself form the wood and vine structure he now found himself atop, but I was having none of it. If he got up he'd be back on this roof in moments, and I'd either have to run or die. No, this needed to end now, I needed to end it now.

I hastily opened another portal and pushed through one of my few spells I knew didn't care about magical resistance. It had been a long time since I'd summoned ethanol, but I still remembered how, I'd still practiced it until it came easily. It poured over the 'king' in a stream.

"What?" he blinked confused, still struggling to draw breath.

Then I tossed through a small flame to join it, and we were done.

Lief was covered in the flammable liquid, and in a second everything around him was a mixture of blue and red flame. He gasped in pain and surprise, a mistake as it only made him inhale more smoke and fire, not air which he desperately needed at this point. There was a brief scream, strong as his body was, this wasn't magic, and his resistance to it was much less.

In a panic he threw himself at the sky, another portal pair brought him back down. More alcohol, more fire, more choking, wash, rinse, repeat. I wasn't letting him out of the bed he'd made, and it didn't take long before I could see the last of his aura begin to fade, superhuman body unable to keep up with the abuse it was being subjected to.

I didn't stop though, keeping the fire going until his body started to blacken and crack and I was sure. There was no room for any more here, with the damage he'd done tonight, I wasn't going to let him get one more chance.