A discarded crown, a final ultimatum, a chance for glory.
Long live the guild.
________
Seraphine Eirian is among the lowest red-blooded human rank with her family, poised to marry well and inherit her father's guild of sellswords alongside her elde...
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ɪsʟᴇ ʙʀʏɴɴ
Becoming one with the sand meant dying to it.
Seizing all self-imposed thoughts, forgetting the sound of one's own breath, and neglecting the confines of a physical body to be nothing--to listen and feel the whispers of shifting earth. To never consider the sharp lines and angles of the limbs, but to heed the song and spread the mind until the conscience blanketed the ground. Until the wind carrying loose grains went through the being rather than around.
Becoming one with the sand was spiritual and intimate and challenging. Yet, as Sylfia adjusted to the shift of cloth settled over her eyelids and as she calmed her breathing and thus relaxed her mind, she sank into silence as though she'd been born from it. Twirling her rodula--her circular blade--around her wrist, every ounce of self melted into the light humidity of the wind, the tinge of incense and herbs that scented the night, the chilled sensation of powder enveloping her bare feet.
That was when she felt her first shift.
A shadow of motion cast her eyes open even if she could not see. In one flick of her hand, the rodula was between her fingers and thrown in the direction of her assailant. Iron slicing through flesh echoed through the path, a ghastly groan escaping the fallen man's mouth.
Two more vibrations hummed through her ankles from behind, both of them with faster pulse than the first. Grunting, she hailed her blade back by the invisible string of mana connecting her to it, ducking at the time the weapon crossed over her frame and into the chests of two other golems.
Another vibration shrouded their screams, three from her left and one approaching quick from her right.
Sidestepping and twirling her arm around her head, she used the sound of her blade's fury as reference to command it about the space. The arc was just wide enough to clip those approaching, the rewarding snips of contact enough to know she'd just made it. But if she'd only barely cut them, were they still coming?
The thought's split second stole her concentration, the ambience of nothingness withering to reveal the haggard rhythm of her breathing, the subtle burn of mana simmering beneath the skin of her arms.
Fighting to cling to her enlightened state, the faintest touch of a vibration surged at her toes, a strong hand clasping her throat. The sensation was too physical, too dynamic for her to maintain harmony. Gasping, she struggled against the pull of her weapon and the pressure crushing her windpipes. She fought to conjure the rodula, the connection getting interrupted yet again as her feet left the floor.
She shoved her knee into whatever held her, wincing to find the surface solid rather than soft. Still, the hand released, supplying just enough time to swallow a handful of air and collect her blade as soon as she hit the ground. The rodula soared past her cheek and into the creature, her fingers and arms spinning with it as though she wielded a sharp wheel.
