Later, at the gates of Lady Priscilla’s home…

Flanked at each side with walls easily twice her height, and kept shut and tight under lock and key, there was no way Isha was getting in by simply walking in. That, and there was no groundskeeper around tending to the gardens behind these gates that she could call out to, as was to be expected for such homes in the Upper City to have.

It was an obstacle, surely. Not for her, though. Bracing herself with a deep breath, she let her mortal façade melt away into a more fluid form of holy blood. She slid under those gates so tall and wide, shifting herself back into her mortal self behind them as though they had never been there in the first place, and she walked up to the front door.

But as she approached, a rather burly-looking elven bodyguard opened the door and placed himself between her and the house proper. Dressed in finery just like his recently-healed counterpart waiting on the other side of the wall, he was both tall and wide, and the scars on his face and the bloodied truncheon in his hand suggested to her, if anything, that his area of expertise lay beyond mere housekeeping duties.

“The Lady told me there was gonna be trouble outside…”

The bodyguard paused for a moment, unsheathing his truncheon as he looked Isha in the eye.

“But wait, just a blessed moment! How in Elicia’s Law did ya get past that gate?”

Before Isha could say anything, he brandished his truncheon menacingly at her.

“Nevermind. Doesn’t matter! The Lady ain’t taking visitors today. Scram, kid!”

Isha stood her ground and shook her head. The bodyguard’s lips curled into a wicked grin upon noticing this, and he sauntered menacingly towards her.

“Look, I don’t wanna hurt a child, but if you’re not gonna leave quietly…”

He reached in to grab Isha by the scruff of her neck, only to have his eyes widen when his hands found themselves pushing deep into crimson ichor both squishy and warm that stained his fingers a deep red as it rose up around and before him as a flowing and swirling simulacrum of an elven girl in shifting shades of red.

“What the…?”

“Get out of my way.”

The bodyguard answered by reaching for his truncheon. Before he could strike her, Isha pushed him aside, knocking him directly into the front door behind him with a resounding crash that left him unconscious. Without wasting any time, she propelled herself towards him, shifting back into her mortal façade, and began frantically searching his pockets for some kind of key that she found, soon enough.

“Lana… was it? Please be safe.”

With the door unlocked, Isha made her way into the house proper. Before she could properly appreciate the luxury of her surroundings, three more bodyguards, two humans and an elf, dressed in finery of similar quality confronted her atop the staircase leading to the upper floors. They looked down towards her with gritted teeth and wariness in their eyes.

“I’m looking for Lana.”

The bodyguards answered by brandishing their pistols. Before Isha could say anything else, they opened fire, unleashing a deafening salvo of bullets that whizzed directly through her body in splatters of crimson ichor that fell messily upon the nearby furniture in bolts of red. She shifted back into her true form, rushing up the staircase in a surge of blood, and upon closing in, she knocked two of them unconscious against the railings, and the third straight into the wall behind him.

“Aaaaah!”

Shifting back once again into her mortal façade, Isha looked up towards the third floor where the screams had come from, at a group of human servants and elven maids. Unlike the bodyguards lying unconscious around her amidst splatters of crimson ichor, they had no weapons, and only fear in their eyes.

“Elicia, help us…”

“Hello, um…” Isha said out loud, nervously as she eyed the array of fearful eyes all trained upon her and what she had wrought. “I’m looking for Lady Priscilla and Lana. Where are they?”

The servants and maids glanced at each other nervously as she watched on, waiting patiently for an answer. Finally, after a while’s worth of worried whispers, one of the elven maids raised her hand sheepishly.

“Um… right this way…”

Isha nodded. She walked up the stairs and followed the maid down the hallway of the third floor, their muffled footsteps upon the carpet the only sound audible throughout the house. They stopped at the end of the hallway, before a great door leading into what she could assume was the master bedroom high up its perch of this luxurious home, that room with those beautiful and curtained windows where the her gaze and that of the mistress of this house had seen each other, even if only for the briefest of moments.

 

---

 

Inside the master bedroom…

It was a ravishing and chandeliered room, luxurious like the rest of the house that was full of wealth worthy of belonging to the residents of the Upper City. There were all manner of furnishings, decorations, a great many things of exquisite beauty and fine taste that Isha could do naught but gawk at in silence as she entered.

There was a sense of mounting dread welling up slowly but surely within her, and she knew not what to make of it. And it slowed her down as she approached the mistress of this great house that she had entered uninvited, a human woman tall and elegant with long and flowing platinum hair like white gold, who remained with her back turned to her, this most unwelcome guest of hers. She, the one they called Lady Priscilla, the one behind the window who had set all of these events in this early afternoon into motion, towards this inevitable moment.

“Worthless mercenaries.”

Isha frowned as Lady Priscilla turned around to face her, her voice cold and bitter and her eyes a grim shade of violet as they stared at each other for the second time this early afternoon.

“They let the thief crawl away, and this happens…”

“I’m here for Lana,” Isha said, assertively. “Where is she?”

Lady Priscilla’s lips curled into a bitter grimace.

“What did Erin tell you, girl? That I’m at fault here?”

“He told me that Lana’s with you, and that she’s in danger.”

Upon hearing this, Lady Priscilla laughed. It was both cold and bitter like her voice, a mocking laughter that sent chills down Isha’s spine.

“What’s so funny?”

“The thief lies, even now! Even now, he lies some more, to cut a deal with a devil!”

Isha’s frown deepened.

“Yes,” Lady Priscilla added, coldly. “Girl, I don’t know what in Elicia’s grace that you are, but I’ve seen what you’ve done to my… attendants. I was right to tell them to kill you, to stop you at any cost…”

“Answer me,” Isha demanded curtly, as her hands balled up into fists. “Where is she?”

“You want so badly to know? Look over there.”

With a malicious smirk, Lady Priscila pointed to her right, towards a chair blanketed completely in the deep purple of a thick velvet cloth splattered with spots of red.

“Go on, girl. I won’t stop you. You came all the way up here, for him. For her.”

Isha grit her teeth and moved towards the chair. She could feel that feeling again as she approached it, that same sense of dread that came over her when she had first entered the room. And it grew stronger and stronger, to a fever pitch upon her senses as she reached for the cloth, heavy with the stench of blood, and removed it.

“No…”

There, sat motionless upon the exposed chair with her arms and legs shackled, was the bloodied and naked remains of a young human woman with long and flowing yellow hair, her eyes closed shut and her head leaned back. Each and every one of her fingers had been broken, twisted erratically into unnatural angles. And upon her skin, serrated cuts raw with blood marked her arms and legs and face like a mural of freshly-inflicted scabs. Destroying, what might have once been very beautiful, now forever marred with violence.

“You’re too late, monster.”

Isha ignored Lady Priscilla, and shifted into her true form. Quickly, she fell upon Lana, transfusing her holy blood into her lifeless frame, mending her bloody wounds and broken bones. But even then, it was far too late to save her life.

“She’s dead, isn’t she? You look like you can confirm it in that monstrous form of yours,” Lady Priscilla stated curtly. “Whoever you are, whatever you are…”

Upon hearing this, Isha seethed. She could feel herself boiling as her crimson gaze looked up towards Lady Priscilla’s, deep into the malice set into the human’s violet eyes.

“They’re thieves, the both of them. They thought to work for me as servants, to wait for that perfect opportunity to steal from me. But no, I found out before they could!”

“You killed her!” Isha roared, her voice wracked with pain and confusion. “You killed her!”

“I only gave them what they deserved.”

“You’re insane!”

“And you meddle in affairs you barely understand!” Lady Priscilla taunted in reply. “Let me be clear about this, girl. They’re scum, just like you!”

“What?”

“You heard me!”

Wordlessly, Isha advanced towards her in a swirling storm of holy blood. With every space slithered forth, she seethed with growing anger as she thought of her parents and her Clan. In that life that was once hers, they were killed, just as Lana had been, for the sake of unthinking, bitter hatred. For the sake of vengeance, and just because they simply could. And it hurt, it hurt so very much, and she hated this feeling, hated Orcus, hated such people for what they could do so callously without a second thought, without consideration for anyone else but their own selfishness, for what they thought to be right and good for themselves and their ideal world, where people like her and hers were unwelcome and expendable and beneath notice.

But then, with this power of hers, she could show them their folly. By her hand, and hers alone. Born of holy blood, its crimson ichor embodied her thoughts, forming itself into a large blade of blood bearing the wicked edge of a barbarous blade. Vengeance, after all, was still an option.

“Hold it! Stop this craziness, you…” Lady Priscilla rasped, grimacing uneasily as she backed herself against the window behind her. “Don’t you dare touch me, or I’ll…”

“Isha!”

Isha froze in place at the sound of Ari’s voice. Wordlessly, slowly, her blade of blood dissipated away, and she shifted back into her mortal façade, tears in her blue eyes as she turned around to look at both her and Ellie, accompanied by two Lightsworn guardsmen with Erin in their custody.

“Ari, Ellie. I…”

Before she could finish her sentence, her friends ran up to her and embraced her. And all she could do while the Lightsworn guardsmen took Lady Priscilla away, was cry.