Tilaria might not have the will to form something as dangerous as blood crystal, but she was still making Daris work to keep control of his circle. It meant he had to focus on that instead of on his magic, so he wasn't able to use spells. This fight was going to be decided with blades. While Crow snarled softly at Tilaria's untimely interference and went to check to make sure Eragon was dead at least, the two of them fought.
Tilaria ducked under Daris's swing, tssking softly when he cut her shoulder. The pain was worth it for the move put her behind Daris, and she was able to slam her foot behind the traitor's knees. Something made a very satisfying snap sound and Tilaria slashed one of her sabers at him with the intent to tear his back open. Her saber rang as some of the extra blood floating in the magic circle appeared in front of her blade and crystallized. Rather than hit Daris, she hit the blood and Daris was left unharmed.
She hissed and had to jump backwards as the blood tried to strike at her as if it were a cobra. This was still Daris's magic circle, so the blood still answered to him. It didn't matter how badly she distracted him.
Daris took a few swipes at her, but was infuriated to discover that he was not able to land a hit. She was able to dance away from each blow, weaving between his strikes, hopping aside, even doing a sideways somersault over his blade without letting her hands touch the ground. He couldn't understand why he was unable to land a hit.
Certainly her preferred fighting style was duel-wielding meant that she couldn't use a shield, heavy armor, or even leave a hand empty so she could rapidly use spells. Her sabers were her only defense and her only weapon, and if she was injured then she could not effectively use them. Evasion was how she fought, but she should not be nearly this good.
Her strikes were accurate as well, but with the blood getting in the way it was impossible for her to land a hit. She was just too good Daris thought as the blood blocked her blade as it got past his guard again and the two of them hopped away from each other. How was the telepath staying a step ahead of him? His answer was in the question and he might slapped a hand over his forehead at how obvious it was if he hadn't been holding his blood crystal blades.
"How are you reading me?" Daris demanded instead, and their blades clashed as they hit each other in a blur of quick strikes.
"Finally noticed?" Tilaria asked with a smile that might be described as cheeky. "I wasn't able to read Arlen, but I can read your thoughts with my telepathy. I know what you're going to do before you do it."
As if to prove her point, she was able to sidestep and parry every blow Daris threw at her before it touched her. She had to jump back to avoid the blood as it crystallized to block a blow and then struck at her. Daris narrowed his eyes.
"I see," he said softly. "We are both blood mages so our auras are resonating on the same frequency, and since I am the one who helped teach you blood magic there is an overlap."
"Which I can take advantage of to read your moves," Tilaria finished. "Arlen wasn't a blood mage and Hallien's blood is sealed, but you a different matter."
"We are at a standoff then," Daris grumbled. "My blood gives me the ultimate defense and your telepathy the ultimate offense. They cancel out."
That suited Tilaria fine since she didn't need to defeat Daris, merely stall him long enough for Hallien to help Eragon. Suddenly she was almost dragged off her feet by the blood. Her eyes widened as the blood wrapped itself around the blades of her sabers like a snake coiling around a branch. She dropped them before the blood could also wrap around her arms and skittered back. The blood held the sabers in midair and then turned to crystal and contracted. The force of the blood crystal shattered the blade of her stolen sabers and Tilaria looked away as the useless hilts were dropped to the ground.
"Mostly anyway," Daris smiled, "Even Ljósálfr mythril is no match for blood crystal. Unless I am mistaken my dear, your technique that you're doing to read me is also taxing your stamina."
Daris was right on both points, and her breathing was starting to become ragged, sweat slicking her bangs and a few stray strands of hair to her face. Her cheeks were flushed. She tensed and drew her dagger, ready for another attack from Daris now that she had lost her primary weapon.
The blood that had destroyed her sabers sank back into the glowing lines of the circle as if becoming two-dimensional. As long as she was in Daris's magic circle she was at a severe disadvantage, and the circle was no longer swaying between Tilaria and Daris. It was fully under Daris's control again, although it didn't seem to be doing much other than providing a nest for the blood.
Daris smiled softly, "I have enjoyed sparring with you my dear, but I do have someone I need to kill."
Tilaria hesitated, unsure what he was talking about. She had stepped perilously close to one of the circle's drawn lines where the blood was nesting, and the blood now lifted from the ground and wrapped around her right leg. The blood surprised Tilaria and she tried to jump back and tear herself free, but it crystallized around her leg up to her knee and then contracted.
The sound of Tilaria's howl of pain echoed by the cracking sound as her bones were crushed and her lower leg into a pulp made Daris smile. It was the sound of blood magic at its peak. Unlike most magic, which could best be compared to a scalpel, blood magic was a hammer. It was a blunt force weapon capable of smashing through anything in its way and it was far too capable at doing that.
Tilaria fell to the ground on her side, dagger landing out of her reach. She managed to stifle another scream and tried to move her injured leg, but could feel nothing below her knee. Looking at an injury had a tendency to make a body still in shock as hers was notice the injury and make the person feel pain. The pain after an injury like that would be extreme so rather she looked up at Daris.
Daris shrugged at her, "sorry my dear but as I said you have outlived your usefulness."
"If Hallien's Set," Tilaria managed to say and then swallowed to gather strength to finish her sentence through the pain that was starting to be felt, "you've got to be Chthon. Personally, I like Set better."
Daris shook his head as Tilaria coughed up a mouthful of blood and it splattered to the ground. "You never learn do you? I suppose you are certainly your father's daughter."
Tilaria looked back up at Hallien through blurred vision. "My father?"
"That is right," Daris smiled, "you do not know your parents. Well, I would love to tell you, but as I said I am in something of a rush. Once I get done with you I will move on to Eragon and Hallien, and Alfheim's life if possible. The power of a planet, oh I truly want to have that strengthening me. You may have stopped me this time, but you won't be around to stop me again."
Another tail-like tendril of the blood wrapped itself around her right arm and Tilaria stared at it in horror, freezing.
"I was actually planning to start my coup in a month, but I had to start ahead of schedule," Daris looked down at her. "Hallien's escape will delay me and so will Eragon if he survives, but I doubt more than a few weeks. I will still be ahead of schedule. Your death will be for nothing in the end. With you gone and Hallien's blood magic sealed I will not have any trouble the next time I try to kill them."
"Asgard," Tilaria managed to say and her features clenched in pain from her leg.
"Asgard will not interfere," Daris assured her. "I am a member of Alfheim's royal family so this is an internal affair. As long as I do not take my fight to other realms or attempt to disrupt Asgard's power they won't care. They never care what happens to the other realms as long as their position of power is not threatened."
Daris was right about both Asgard and him having the chance to strike again. In order to protect someone's life you had to stop the assassin every time without fail, but the assassin only had to succeed once. He had the advantage, and without her blood magic to counter his she feared for Eragon. She had to do something to stop him here and now, for Eragon's safety. Every problem had a solution and perhaps it was the clarity of knowing what was about to happen to her, but she saw it.
Hallien's disruptor had been reduced to a pile of scrap by Daris earlier in the fight, and the scrap was still sitting there along with the disruptor's power cell. She held out a hand and magicked the power cell over to her hand as the blood crystallized around her arm. Daris crushed her arm just as badly as her leg before she could get ahold of it, and her scream echoed again.
He didn't notice the power cell had moved positions as he tssked softly. "So loud, you will hurt my ears."
Tilaria didn't manage a response through the pain this time and Daris looked a little disappointed that she didn't, although not surprised. He looked her over with a sigh, wondering if he should crush another of her limbs or kill her already. The sound of her pain was surprisingly musical to him though, so maybe he shouldn't kill her right away. It wasn't like she could do much at this point.
"As I am sure you remember," Daris mused, "the damage inflicted by blood crystal is impossible to heal and strikes at a cellular level. When blood crystal strikes it shatters itself into innumerable shards and those shards severe the nerve channels that connect the cells. Magic flows through the blood stream, but it is transferred by cells by the nerve channels. Reattaching severed nerve channels are impossible for any healing magic, and it is for this ability that blood magic is forbidden. You can never channel magic through your right arm or leg again."
A little bit of the blood danced around his fingers almost playfully.
"This is blood crystal," Daris laughed with a grin, "or Erve Gov as the Dökkálfr called it. Erve Gov in the Dökkálfr's native language of Shiväisith translated into poison blood. It's a fitting name for it."
Tilaria's lips moved as she tried to say something, but Daris didn't hear it.
"You will have to repeat yourself my dear," Daris told her.
Tilaria raised her head from the ground, and Daris was stunned to see that she was somehow managing a smile. She raised her left hand as she braced herself on her left elbow. A handful of golden magic crackled around it. Daris detected it was just a stun-hex, and the blood hovered around him protectively just in case. What did she think to accomplish with something as weak as a stun-hex?
"Overload," Tilaria repeated with a smile and cast her stunhex, collapsing onto the ground again.
Daris didn't comprehend what was going on until he turned towards her target. By then it was too late and the stunhex hit the Dökkálfr disruptor's power cell. For a moment the power cell looked like an innocent little gloworb. Then its power imploded to a single point, and then it exploded.
"No!" Daris howled.
Tilaria smiled as white light wiped away her vision.
When she had begun to learn blood magic, the first thing Daris had told her was the blood crystal's ability to permanently cripple the flow of lifeforce. It was a skill more like poison then a physical wound, and why it was forbidden. Another thing she had learned was a little about Dökkálfr technology.
In the distant past, before the Dark Elves made themselves extinct, they took care of what settings their disruptors were on. They did not often set them to overload, building the flow of power in an endless loop until explosion. Overloading their disruptor was dangerous, but shattering the power cell itself with a hex was even more dangerous. The large amount of volatile blood magic surrounding them amplified the explosion, for Dökkálfr and blood magic had long gone hand in hand.
The shockwave of pure light and power from the power cell shattered Daris's magic circle instantly and scattered the blood magic. A huge amount of energy was mashed into even the smallest fragment of matter, and when a disruptor overloaded the matter was converted back into energy. This time the blood gave it a little more destructive edge.
Daris took the shockwave straight to his chest, and was thrown back inside the building. He crashed through one of the support pillars and stayed where he fell, breathing ragged. His sight returned and he opened his eyes to see that the base was spinning. Although he assumed all was silent he couldn't hear anything over the ringing in his ears.
With a little trouble he managed to coax his body to sit up, and unexpectedly hacked up blood. Daris stared at the new stain on the floor in confusion and looked down at his chest. It was lacerated open and when he held out a hand to the wound he realized that his organs had been liquefied. His magic was the only thing keeping him alive and that wouldn't last long.
Blood and dust had caked itself onto Daris's otherwise neat and smudge free clothes. The blood that had been hovering around him had exploded outward onto the clearing so it looked as if a giant paintball war or water balloon fight with red paint had been fought. That girl was more insane then her father! Purposely blowing up a power cell!
There was movement and Daris looked up as he gasped to try and breathe, using his magic to oxygenize his blood stream in place of lungs. His twilight blue eyes, stained as red as the blood splattered on his clothes, widened. Standing over him was Tilaria. Her destroyed arm hung limp, and somehow she was managing to stand on her one leg. She curled her left hand as if grabbing the hilt of a blade and a saber made of blood crystallized in her palm.
Daris actually smiled at the irony as he tried to work out how to breathe and keep his blood flowing with just his magic. Tilaria had long been skilled enough, but for some reason she had simply never been able to forge a blood crystal blade. It seemed that at long last Tilaria had found the will to fabricate an Erve Gov blade.
It is ironic that it's only after the damage Daris does to her with blood crystal that she can form a blade made out of the same. Tilaria managed to level the field pretty well. Not only has she scattered Daris's blood when she shattered his magic circle, Daris has lost most of the organs in his chest. Like he said Tilaria can't use her right arm or leg either. Daris should have just shut up and killed her, but no he had to make her realize how futile her efforts were and have her find the will to fight on.
If you are looking for a story where everything's sunshiney happiness and rainbows, or pure fluff, you better look elsewhere. Real life is not perfect, and usually it's pretty unfair. My stories are like real life and i am mean to my characters in more ways then one. Sorry.