(A short something for my Warlock Deiala)
Dei promised Eli that she would wait for someone to watch her back, but she had work to do that couldn’t be done with others around. So she slipped from the bookstore and doubled the runic locks she had crafted over the years.
She felt bad lying to her friend, yet, the young woman had more resources than books and research, and that power wasn’t anything anyone knew about her, except Saxori, the demon had watched her growth in power.
The night air was thick with the scents of the city: wet stone, smoke from hearthfires, and the faint acrid note of alchemical runoff. Deiala’s low-heeled boots clicked softly against the cobbled road, her cloak drawn tight against her shoulders. She walked swiftly, but not fast enough to show fear. Not fast enough to tip her hand.
The shield that wove invisibly around her, a bubble of runic magic and ancient power hummed a warning into her mind.
You are being followed.
She didn’t flinch, but her breath hitched the tiniest fraction. Her magic tightened like a noose around her ribs. She didn’t need her shielding to tell her; she'd felt it too. A presence, soft-footed, too deliberate. She’d caught the whisper of breath where none should have been, the faintest glint of eyes where shadows should have ruled.
But it wasn’t him. Not the man tormenting the crew. The eyes that watched her were wrong, murky, not violet.
Nor was it Kharon.The void signature almost matched… but it wasn’t the same. Not quite. A mimic. A lie.
She ducked into narrower alleys, weaving like a rabbit trying to lead a wolf from the den. Step by step, she lured the figure out of the city, onto the trail that curled toward her secluded home. No more lanterns here. Just moonlight bleeding through skeletal branches.
And still he followed.
Her shield twitched against her back like a living thing, sensing permission. Deiala’s lips curled.
She stopped.
No words. Just a snap of her fingers.
Runes flared in her sight, they responded and encircled her follower, catching him unaware. Binding the man, ensuring he was not going to escape.
Deiala didn’t wait.
Her eyes shone with fel green as she summoned.
From the space between moments, between realms, they came.
The first were the imps she had rescued from World’s Faire, then bound with a contract that she would transfer when she found a new master for them, but right now? They were hers.
Then came the felhunter it was massive, a hound of malevolent intent. It was the first demon she called, the first she bound, and it was her guard dog in some ways. She took good care of it, and it her.
Still she wasn’t done.
Deiala stepped closer, boots silent now on the earth, her magic thickening the air like smoke. Her mind reached forward, pressing past the surface of his terror, slipping into his thoughts like a knife under a fingernail.
She planted fear. True fear. Not just the instinctive dread of being hunted or hurt. But existential fear. The kind that unravels a man’s sense of self.
The fear of oblivion. The fear of her.
He screamed again, longer, higher. The imps danced, shrieking with glee, One shot a fireball by his ear, they seemed playful, but they, like any demon, would happily destroy him if she told them to.
One imp giggled and mimed tearing out its own heart, then did so, flinging the illusory muscle at the man's face. He screamed again, not knowing what was real anymore.
Deiala made no move to stop them, just stared, unblinking.
She could taste the void magic of the cultist, the signature trying to mimic Kharon’s so perfectly. Trying to convince her that he was the man that abused her, the man that lived as a monster in her head still.
And he wasn’t the new monster in her life, this new violet eyed hunter who had been in her shop the day before, then attacked people she cared about.
That news was the final straw, Dei was wound too tight, fear had woven through her with the unknown, but this fool had picked the wrong day to try her.
A slow smile curved the plain young woman’s lips, it was a smile that would be burned in this man’s soul. The imps continued to torment him, dancing a flashing fire in his face. Claws raked flesh. A few stacked atop one another to leer into his face. One leaned in close, its fetid breath inches from his nose as it whispered unspeakable things in a language that made blood weep from his ears.
He sobbed. He tried to speak. He gagged.
And Deiala finally moved again.
She walked toward him like a queen through carnage, and the demons stilled as if the world itself held its breath. Her expression was cold, regal, untouched.
The man, blinked down at her.
“Tell your master,” she said softly, voice like the softest silk, “that if he desires me so much, he should come and beg in person. I’m tired of fucking around with his little toys.”
Then, with a flick of her wrist, everything vanished.
The runes. The demons. The fear.
He collapsed fully, gasping, broken, but alive.
~~~~~~~~~~
Kyeanadril was perched in a tree, fel-sight flaring hot as he spotted the collapsed body on the ground and the faint smolder of void magic in the air. His demon surged inside him but halted mid-lunge, snarling and confused, as Dei shut her magic down.
Then he saw her, Deiala had made it to her door, but there she stood, death-still beneath the moonlight, shoulders squared, hands limp at her sides. Fel magic still clung to her like smoke, her aura dancing in strands of residual magic.
He jumped and glided towards her, voice rough, alarmed. “What the fel did you do? My demon nearly tore free, I thought you were dying.”
Deiala turned her head toward him.
And collapsed.
Kyeanadril caught her before she hit the dirt, his arms wrapping instinctively around her trembling form. She coughed, her breath shallow but rapid like someone who had been holding it for far too long.
He lowered them both to their knees, one hand cradling the back of her head against his chest. “Dei, hey. It’s alright. I’ve got you.” His voice was lower now, urgent but steady, the way he’d spoken to broken soldiers on bloodied battlefields. “Breathe. Just breathe.”
Her fingers curled into his tunic, gripping tightly, as if anchoring herself to him. She didn’t speak,just shook once, a tremor that rippled through her body and into his arms.
He didn’t press. Not yet.
~~~~~~~~~~
Later, in the safety of her home.
Kyeanadril eased the door shut behind them and helped her sit on the edge of the divan near the hearth. Firelight played across her face, painting it in gold and shadow. She looked worn through, like she had at slept in a couple of days.
He knelt in front of her, hands resting on her knees. “Talk to me.”
She stared past him for a moment, then finally exhaled. “He felt like Kharon.”
Kyeanadril stiffened slightly, jaw tightening. “But it wasn’t.”
“No.” Her voice cracked on the word. “They mimicked him. The void signature was wrong, too clean. Close enough to trip my instinct. That’s what it was meant to do, make me hesitate. Make me vulnerable.” She laughed then. Cold. Bitter. “I didn’t.”
“I saw,” he said quietly. “I saw what was left of him.”
Deiala blinked, eyes narrowing faintly as if bracing for judgment.
But Kyeanadril didn’t flinch.
“I’ve seen demon hunters turn people into ash for less,” he said. “You didn’t go too far.”
“I wanted to.”
“I know.”
Deiala looked down at her hands, “I had enough, been on edge too long.” She would tell him of this new threat later, it was a priority, but for right now they were chatting over brandy. “My felhound nearly pissed on him.”
Kyeanadril choked on a laugh. “Please tell me it did.”
Deiala’s lips barely moved. “Almost. I stopped it.”
A beat.
“...I regret that now.”
He didn’t laugh this time, just shook his head with a grin. “That poor bastard. It’s terrifying. But, yeah, also funny.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You made your point, Dei. That kind of message? Kharon will feel it in whatever void-soaked hole he is cowering in.”
She leaned back, breath coming a little steadier now. “I told him to tell his master to come in person next time. I’m done playing games with lackeys.”
He studied her for a long moment, then reached out and took one of her hands in his. “You’re not alone in this.”
She looked down at their hands, then up at him. “I know.”
“Next time,” he said gently, “you let me be there for the storm. I’m good in a fight, you know.”
“I know.” Her lips quirked faintly, good in a fight was such an understatement for her Illidari friend. “But they need to know I am tired and willing to act.” She would talk about the new threat to the crew, and specifically her, later, the fear was magnified because of that. The hunter was the real reason she just left a man with nightmares on the road,
Kyean grinned at her, “I think I’m offended you didn’t wait for me.”
She sighed and leaned into him again, her forehead resting on his shoulder this time, this collapse softer. Slower. Trusting.
“I’m tired,” she whispered.
“You are a badass bitch, you know that right?” He brushed hair back off her cheek and settled her back so she could sleep, “I’ll watch the door.”
And he did, glaives across his lap, fel-sight sharp, while the firelight flickered and Deiala finally slept in safety, wrapped in silence, her demons quiet, for now.
