Aisslyn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Aisslyn had not slept in two days. The wound from the demon fight ached, but the wound did not keep her awake. Something else did. A pull under her skin, low and steady, like a second heartbeat that was not hers. Illidan's blood knew something was near. It had known since dusk. Each time she lay down inside the fortress walls, the red crept into her sight, and her hands curled toward her blades. She could not heal. She could not even rest. She found Maiev in the stone forecourt, sharpening her glaive by torchlight. Maiev had chained her to a wall once, deep in the Vault, and left her in the dark. Now they served the same order. Aisslyn still did not trust the woman's hard pale eyes, but she had no one else to ask. "There's a fugitive loose," Aisslyn said. "Close. My blood feels it." Maiev did not look up. "How close." "Close enough that I can't sleep. It keeps waking the rage." Maiev stood. "Then you don't sleep until it's dead." She said it plain, like a fact about weather. "Rest won't come while the blood answers a demon. Kill the demon, and the pull stops." "And if I lose myself out there? Tired, no flower left?" "Then you find a new anchor tonight." Maiev handed her the glaive. "You said a scent runs out. Fine. Use the thing that doesn't." They tracked it past the walls, into the trees below the bastion. The pull grew stronger with every step. Aisslyn's vision began to shift red before she even saw the demon. It crouched over something dead. A traveler, maybe. It turned, all teeth and smoke, and charged. The rage took her fast this time. Faster than the training fight. She had no bloom to reach for. Her mind slid toward the red edge, and she grabbed for anything to hold. She found the dark. The Vault. The cold wall against her back and the sound of her own breath in the black. The thing Maiev had done to her. It was hers. No one could take that memory or crush it in a fist. She held it and she held herself. Her blade found the demon's throat. Its blood hit her hands and roared through her, but the memory held her down under the roar. She cut once more, clean, and the demon fell still. Aisslyn stood over the body. The pull under her skin was gone. The red faded, and this time it faded fast. Her hands stopped shaking. Maiev watched from the trees. "You held." "I did." Aisslyn wiped her blade. The anchor had cost her nothing to carry, and it would never run dry. But it was made of the worst hour of her life, and she would have to reach for it every fight. She could sleep now. She was not sure what that would cost her later. Maiev regards her with concern, and perhaps something more.