Kahlé awoke to soft sobbing, she opened her eyes and stared straight forward. Her lungs expanded against the hard wood of the floor and shrunk back in a slow rhythm.
"What are we going to do?" Someone said in between ragged breaths, Ka sat up and remembered why they were in the fortress. She looked around for Shianni's blood red hair, but only shades of brown and black were in the room with her. She stood and surveyed the expressions of fear and despair, and they all looked back hopefully to Kahlé. Almost immediately Soris busted through the oak door, gasping for air, covered in what Ka hoped wasn't his blood.
"Me and Nelaros snuck in through the servants quarters, we're here to get everyone out!" Kahlé sighed in relief, she planned on fighting her way out with her own two hands but six hands is definitely an improvement. "It's a good thing you can fight cousin," he tosses her a dagger and short sword, "Shianni always beat me when we pretended." Down the hall, a guard's voice boomed off the walls. "We gotta go. Stay here until we clear the way." Soris and Ka nodded in silent agreement and darted off in different directions. Numbers weren't going to save them here, strategy was, and their best option was flanking the enemy.
As the two rogues fought and snuck their way through the fort, they worked towards the rendezvous point Nelaros planned to wait at. Shrill cries rang through the stone corridor, and Kahlé again felt her heart begin to beat out of her chest. The cries turned to pleading, and Ka began to sprint towards the voice. Skidding around the final corner, she stopped abruptly. Her stomach turned as she witnessed a guard plunge his sword clean through the abandon of another man. Except it wasn't a man, it was an elf. Her entire body began to shake,
"Nelaros?" Her legs fell out from under her, "I'm too late." Soris rounded the corner behind her and stopped immediately behind her, watching as the man he came here with bled out on the ground. Kahlé stood, still shaking, feeling as if a small piece inside her was now cracked and damaged. She began walking slow, baby steps towards the group of men. As she neared them, her footsteps were without hesitation and with increasing vigor.
A soldier shouted towards her, "get back to work," and she pulled her arm back to hurl her dagger with as much force as she could muster. Within seconds it made contact with his eye and his body dropped. Before the rest could process what had happened, she threw herself onto another one and began slashing at any skin not covered in chain mail. The last of the men drew his broadsword and went to strike, but Soris's arrow reached the guard's shoulder blade and prevented him from him making a complete swing. Kahlé finally stood as the last two guard's blood soaked into the Antivan rug. She wiped splatter from the corner of her mouth and around her eyes, rubbing it onto the remaining shreds of her orange stained wedding dress.
Soris and Kahlé made a sweep of almost every room, which would have been faster if they didn't need to back track to retrieve the alienage women again and again. Anxiety fueled her continuing search, and the rest lagged behind her. Her hand rested on the last door, she prayed to anything that would listen for Shi to be behind the door. Slowly she pushed it open and on the floor she saw a shivering mass of rags and vibrant crimson hair. Kahlé stood in the threshold, afraid to know what her cousin endured in the time it took to find her. Before she could arouse any bravery left inside her, a man emerged from a back room. His clothes were fitted loosely, buttons undone and belt unbuckled. She shifted her gaze from him to a destroyed Shianni on the floor, her dress in tatters strewn across the floor. She felt the cracked thing inside of her finally break, the crumbling pieces shifting around and cutting her up.
When Kahlé returned to reality, she felt multiple hands pulling her body back. She struggled first, then looked down to find a shredded noble beneath her. Her mouth tasted like metal, and with each spit more and more red blood came up. Ka screamed when she touched her own face, only smearing more brown scabby plasma onto her own skin. Chunks of flesh were lodged underneath her cracked fingernails, her breathing became quicker and shallower. Every touch or sound pushed her farther into despair. Her lungs felt like they were on fire, and her chest ached with each pulse of her heart trying to escape its cage. Again her vision faded into shadows, and her only thought was if she would survive another black out.