Breaking Point
Wards. It always came down to the Twelve-forsaken wards. The bitch was nothing more than a coward, always running, always hiding. But, she'd found a away to draw Kyra out of her self-inflicted cage before, and she'd do it again.
Avelyn knew at some point Kyra would see the trap closing in around her and run. She clung to things so tightly, with so much sentiment. Take them away, and she fell apart so easily. With nowhere left that was safe, she'd hide, isolate herself. It was her weakness.
Avelyn leaned against the bridge's rough wooden railing, watching the mill's wheel turning slowly, and toying with the dark crystal hung from the silver chain around her neck. Unlike Kyra, she'd learned from their prior encounters. She'd anticipated her retreat, anticipated the magical wards securing the cabin she'd chosen as her safe house, anticipated the way she clung instinctively to a hapless savior drawn into her plight. She'd even planted a beacon on the overgrown duskwight or whatever he was to breach her magical protections.
The one thing she hadn't counted on was Kyra leaving the sword behind in Meridian. She'd rarely, if ever, not kept the blade firmly in her possession, and now it was safe in the one Twelve-forsaken place she couldn't get into.
She didn't like stooping to this level. It felt, somehow, like Kyra had taken that much more from her, by pushing her these extremes. But, she saw little else in the way of options, and Kyra wasn't the only one who could use coin to solve a problem.
Elsewhere in the Twelveswood, while Avelyn stood in public view, watching the mill turn steadily along, ten hired blades used her planted beacon to breach the protections of Kyra's safe house.