Infliction
("Don't leave me, Kai." Nya's wide eyes looked into his, panicked and full of pain. She reached up with a trembling hand, dripping with red droplets of blood.
Kai reached for the hand, to hold her close, to give her comfort, to give her warmth and security.
...But his hand found only emptiness. Cold, numb darkness that went straight to his heart.)
Kai's eyes shot open and he gasped, exhaling a shout. "Nya!" He sat upright and groped for her hand again. He eventually gave up and clutched his chest, panting for breath. "Nya," he whispered, blinking in the darkness.
He heard shuffling next to him and remembered where he was. He let out a growl and went rigid, peering into the gloom intently as the hairs on the back of his neck rose.
"Easy, Kai." A gentle voice said. A silhouette seemingly floated over to his side and sat down next to him in a rustle of cloak and boots. "It's just me."
Kai let out a sigh and leaned his head against the unseen wall. "Sorry, Zane." He said quietly. "Did I wake you up?"
"No," Zane replied. "I have been awake for hours, watching you sleep."
Kai suddenly felt awkward. "Umm..." He wondered what he was supposed to say. Way to go, Cole, he thought. Put us both in the same cell. That'll work out swell. He felt like slapping himself when he found the rhyme.
Zane quickly found his mistake. "My apologies, that came out wrong." He cleared his throat. "I was gathering information about how you got here by watching your movements as you slept. You moved around a lot. Stressful day?"
Kai raised his eyebrows, even though he knew that Zane couldn't see the gesture. "One of the worst," he rolled his eyes and shut them tightly. I'm boarding with a crazy sociopath. Great job, Dark Knight.
"Why did you roll your eyes at me?" Zane asked in a voice that was, as usual, nonchalant and fairly monotonous.
Kai's eyes flew open and he looked at the silhouette. "How did you see that?"
"Night vision," the man replied frankly. There was a long moment of silence, then he got to his feet. "Are you hungry?"
Kai called to mind the bowl, which was probably still sitting on the floor with that noxious glop in it. "I...I guess so." He heeded the cries of his stomach and bruised body, and decided to accept the bowl offered to him in the dark. "Is there a candle in here you can light?" He asked, though he wasn't sure he actually wanted to see the stuff that would be entering his mouth in just a moment...unless common sense overtook him again...
"No," Zane said. "But I have a light in me, if you would like to use some."
Kai found himself wondering what had caused Zane's words to sound so jumbled. "Sure, thanks." He said eventually.
A warm light instantly filled the room, covering everything in its yellow rays.
"Better?" Zane asked.
Kai looked up at his fellow captive and was about to nod, when he realized that the light did not come from a flashlight or lantern. He let out a gasp of alarm and dropped the bowl with a clatter, it's contents spilling on the floor next to him, and he clutched his chest again. "Zane!" He shouted, slumping to the floor, certain he would faint.
The man ran to his side and tried to help him up, thinking that something was physically wrong with Kai. "What?" He asked. "What's wrong?"
Kai scooted away in fright and backed against the wall furthest from the creature. He pointed with a finger. "You're glowing, Zane! Your face is glowing!"
Zane nodded, obviously perplexed by his companion's sudden outburst. "Yes, I am." He said, reaching down to pick up the bowl. "Please be more careful, Kai. The Dark Knight would not be pleased if you broke his dishes, I am sure."
Kai slowly calmed himself enough to speak without shouting. He took deep breaths, relaxing his rigid muscles enough to think straight. "Zane, what are you?" He slowly inched further away from the man.
Zane looked at him strangely, the now glowing yellow eyes drilling into Kai with bemusement. "A Nindroid, did you not know that already?" He sighed and ran his fingers through his blond hair. "I'm sorry." He strode over to Kai and offered him a hand. A normal, non-glowing hand. Kai noted that the yellow light seemed to only emanate from his head and part of his neck. The rest of him remained as it had been before the change.
Kai hesitantly took the hand and allowed Zane to pull him to his feet. "What's a Nindroid?" A name reserved for only the juiciest fruitcakes, perhaps.
Zane put his hands in the folds of his cloak and wrapped it around his body, looking now like a lighthouse, tall and narrow, with a glowing head that illuminated everything in the bare room. "I can turn it off if you would prefer, Kai." He said politely. "I can see just fine in the darkness."
Kai shook his head, captivated by the oddity before him. "No, you're fine. Thank you."
Zane nodded and slowly sat down, patting the floorboards next to him. "To answer your question, Kai," he said as the young man sat down next to him. "A Nindroid is an advanced android. I am one of only two ever built by my father, Lord Julien. The other Nindroid would be my sister, Pixal. She is a beautiful girl. I am proud to have her as a part of my family." A short grin spread across his face. "I helped program her AI system."
Kai raised his notched left eyebrow and hugged his knees to his chest, as if it would help him keep calm. "Go on." He sensed that the topic of conversation was getting derailed quickly, and tried to get is straight again.
Zane twiddled with the hem of his cloak and continued with a shrug. "There's not much to tell. I am the older one, created about thirty years ago. Pixal is younger, being about ten years old. Lord Julien treats us like his children, and gives us the luxuries of being the son and daughter of a Lord."
Kai was perplexed. "A robot as heir to the Northern realm's lordship?" He had known that Zane and Pixal were the heirs, but had never heard that they were not of organic origins. Is it prejudiced to think differently now? He wondered vaguely.
Zane dropped the hem and looked at him with a mutual feeling of perplexity on his face. "And why not?"
Kai cleared his throat, his face flushing with embarrassment. "Forgive me, Zane." He said quickly. "It just caught me off guard, is all." Everything had caught him off guard. His own capture, this man's strange demeanor, his glowing head, and now this. "What does Sir Cole want with an android?" He asked, trying to change the subject and ease his mortification.
Zane rubbed the back of his neck. "He believes that I am one of the prophesied knights who will destroy his master. What about you?"
Kai shrugged, his mind growing more befuddled by the minute. "Same here, I guess. First time I've ever heard of this prophesy, though. I don't trust it."
"The prophecy is real, Kai." Zane said insistently. "You should not doubt it. The Overlord would not be after us if it was not a legitimate thing. Besides," he cleared his throat loudly, "I have seen the scroll."
Kai's eyebrow raised again. "You've seen it." He was incredulous, still inclined to believe that he was in the presence of a madman. "Where?"
Zane gave him an exasperated look, wondering why this man refused to believe it. "Queen Misako showed it to us when we visited about four months ago."
Though Kai didn't want to, he saw a seed of truth in Zane's words. Misako was definitely one for old scrolls and prophesies. She was wise, as was her husband. Lloyd, their son, had the makings of becoming a good ruler when his time came. He was about nineteen years old, stronger than most men twice his size, and was a great man to be around because of his pleasant demeanor.
Kai had visited Ninjago's Middle Province many times with his family, on visits to the Garmadon castle for parties and meetings, and both Nya and himself had hit it off well with the young man.
"Okay, I believe you." Kai said through clenched teeth. "But how would the Overlord know if we were the chosen ones?"
"I am at a loss," Zane said. "Perhaps-" He stopped mid-sentence and stared at the door. A faint clicking sound emanated from Zane's body, and the room was once again clothed in black. "He can't know, Kai." He whispered quickly. "When in his presence, I am human, understood?"
Kai blinked in the darkness and nodded, assuming that Zane could see the gesture with his night vision.
"Good," Zane continued in a whisper. "Now, we are sleeping." A quiet rustling sound, and the faint movement of the air told Kai that Zane had rolled across the floor to feign sleeping from a distance. Kai leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes, nerves too on edge to actually think about sleeping. Judging by Zane's behavior, he could assume that Sir Cole was coming, which meant that there would be no sleep. Not until the next round of beatings was over, at least.
A thudding sound came from the hallway, and a loud click a moment later. A bright light filled the room, and Kai opened his eyes to see Cole shuffling into the room with a large lantern in his hand, which he held away from his body as if it were possessed. He held a set of keys in his other hand, and was twiddling with them in his fingers.
He looked behind him nervously, glancing up and down the hallway before setting the lantern on the floor a distance from his feet. He pressed his hand against the door to help muffle the sound of it closing. He locked the door and let out a sigh of relief as he turned his back to the door and slid to the floor. He hugged his knees to his chest and let his shoulders slump as he buried his head in his arms.
Kai looked at him strangely, wondering why the great Sir Cole was behaving in such a way. Then he glanced at Zane, who was lying with his back to the door and Cole, with his eyes closed as if asleep. Kai had to give credit when due, and say that the Nindroid was a great actor.
"I just wanted to say," Cole's voice was muffled by his arms, "I'm sorry about your sister, Kai."
Kai simply glared at the man, silently observing. Cole's head was now lacking the hat, and his hair was no longer held back by a string. It now hung in a tangled mess around his back and shoulders. He looked so much smaller, and so much weaker, without his normal garb. A slug who has tried to live a life in a snail's shell, only to find that it didn't fit. Kai thought with growing hate.
He glanced at Zane again, wishing that the man would get up and help him out. He looked back up at Cole and scowled. "Why did you come?" He asked sharply.
Cole lifted his head and looked at him, desperation glinting in his eyes. "I have a few reasons," his voice had lost the harsh, commanding tone of several hours ago, and was now soft and slightly hoarse. "One reason being that I wanted to see if I could at least put my apology in the open air." He glanced at the lantern nervously, inching away from the tiny, flickering light a few inches before relaxing a bit.
Kai's eyebrows came dangerously close to his hazel eyes. "But this air isn't open," he growled. "In case you've forgotten, O Dark Knight, we are in prison." He put emphasis on the last few words.
Cole got to his feet, staying a good distance from the lantern, and stepped around Zane's supposedly sleeping form, his long cloak dragging on the floorboards and creating a small rustling sound as he strode to his prisoner's side.
Kai stared into Cole's piercing green eyes challengingly, unwavering in his resolve to bring this short man to his knees. He now noticed that Cole was not wearing the same clothing he had been wearing the night before. Instead, he wore a loose outfit, entirely black, that Kai assumed was his nightly wear. His supple leather boots were still on his feet, but were sagging and lopsided, as if he had just pulled them on after climbing out of bed, and had done it in the dark carelessly. Had a bad dream, and is running to his captives for comfort? Kai wouldn't put it past the man.
"It was merely a play on words, Kai." Cole said patiently, stuffing the keys into his pocket and sitting on the wall next to his captive. He looked over at the figure wrapped in the white cloak. "I know you're awake, Zane," he said in a quiet tone, "please get up so we can talk."
Zane almost immediately opened his eyes and sat upright. "Yes sir," he said obediently before crawling the couple of paces over to Kai's other side and sitting down.
Cole frowned at him. "Just call me Cole, please." He held Zane's gaze evenly. "Only around the stone warriors must you call me 'sir,' understood?"
"Why?" Kai asked tersely. Not because he wanted to know, but because he felt like being especially difficult tonight.
Cole looked at him with benign eyes. "Because they cannot think I have gone soft," he said grimly. "Contrary to popular belief, Kai, I am not the one in charge of this blasted ship. I am a puppet of the Overlord. If I screw up, Kozu will give my head to our master on a dark, cold stone platter when I get back. Wouldn't be the first time it's happened to someone, let me tell you."
"Why don't you run away?" Zane asked. "Surely there is someplace where the Overlord would not be able to reach you."
"It's not that easy, Zane." Cole's voice was suddenly fast, hushed and fringed with panic. "There is nowhere to hide, if the Overlord wants you caught. I am his slave, and he is my master." His eyes darted between the two captives nervously. "So I ask again, can I receive forgiveness, Kai?"
"No," Kai said shortly, not even hesitating to answer. "Most certainly not. My sister may be dead at this moment because of your little show of power to appease your 'master.'" His fingers clenched as he spat out the last word. "And on behalf of most every person in the Southern realm, I say you deserve to have your head on that stone platter."
Cole looked at the ground. "I don't blame you. If it were my sister's life, I would not forgive whoever hurt her."
"You have a sister?" Zane asked politely.
"Had," Cole's voice became harsh and rueful. "I had a sister, until I messed up and lost her, and my entire family to Kozu."
Dead silence for several seconds, ticking by like hours in Kai's head. He was growing impatient of this intolerable man.
"I'm sorry," Zane's voice was soft and sympathetic. "That must have been hard."
"Still is," Cole started tracing the wood with his finger. "They only died six months ago." His nose twitched, and he rubbed it with the back of his unoccupied hand. "I was kidnapped two years ago by Kozu and his men. They told me that if I didn't do what they said, they would kill my family." He paused for a long moment. "Kozu is the leader of Overlord's stone army, in case you didn't already know."
Kai scowled and hugged his knees to his chest. "What does this have to do with us, Cole?" He spoke the name with all the rage and aggravation he could muster, just to make sure all three of them knew beyond a doubt that he was by no means of friendly terms with the man who was, for no good reason, pouring his life story out on the table for guests who just wanted to go home.
Cole merely blinked, showing no outward concern for Kai's behavior. He ignored the question entirely as he continued the story, his emotions undeniably remorseful and vexed. "Kozu always has me do his dirty work. I'm the one who kills to get what his master wants and...I am the one who tortures those who resist." His voice was forced and hoarse as he stared blankly into the lantern...Singing whips... A terrible, perverse chant that cried for supposed vengeance... It rang through Cole's mind senselessly.
Kai felt a chill run down his back as he thought about it. Torture? He wondered if Cole would be torturing him on the Dark Island in just a few hours.
Cole's eyes shook tremendously as he averted his gaze from the fire as if it had slapped him across the cheek. "One week, about six months ago," his voice became even more hoarse and stressed, if such a thing were possible. "Kozu brought in a couple from a small village in the Northern realm. Normally, he'd have us kidnap for information. But this one..." His lips were sucked into his mouth as he fought back his emotions. "It was wholly for sport. For the Overlord's entertainment, I suppose. Kozu told me to hurt the girl...simply to break the man's heart as he listened from the other room." A lump formed in his throat.
"I refused," he said eventually. "The Overlord was furious...the amount of wrath that poured out of his purplish orb of floating light brought on a terror like I'd never felt before in my life...and I prayed that I would never go through it again." He grew silent, the flashbacks growing unbearably hard to bear. "Even the stone warriors were trembling, just from the sound of his voice."
Zane put a hand on the trembling man's shoulder, to give him comfort. "What happened next, my friend?"
Kai was repulsed. Zane should not be touching that man, let alone be calling him his friend. A fruitcake indeed. The whole bloody lot of them.
Cole's pulse spiked as he lashed out at Zane's hand, his green irises nearly swallowing his pupils in his sudden fear-A hard, cold hand, pushing, regulating, micromanaging,controlling...dominating. He would always come up on top.-
Cole blinked his gaze into normalcy and cleared his throat loudly, expelling the lump. He continued in a somewhat stronger voice as Zane scooted away a few inches. "Kozu killed them, and made me watch. Then..." He trembled harder, the next words no more than a whisper as the lump returned. "I became a part of their games." His voice was so tense, Kai though it might snap. Not that he cared, of course. Cole wouldn't be able to give the stone warriors orders if his voice were to snap.
The Dark Knight's hand, which had been clenched tightly at his side, suddenly went limp. "They killed my family and hurt me..." He swallowed hard. "In more than one way, they hurt me." He looked at Kai and flinched at the man's hard stare, then averted his gaze to Zane's compassionate eyes. "I have a reason for telling you all of this," he said, drawing his strength solely from the Nindroid's stare. "I was thinking I might..." He hesitated. "We are almost to the ocean, and escape will be impossible after that. But if we go within the next hour or so, we could, through some wild chance, go unnoticed."
"Escape?" Zane stared at his captor, blinking once in the silence.
"Whoa, wait a minute." Kai said, holding up a hand. "If we are caught, wouldn't that mean that we'd get the same treatment as you?"
"Worse," Cole replied shortly. "All I did was refuse to hurt a girl for sport. If we were caught, there would be nothing too violent in Kozu's eyes for our punishment."
Kai sighed, wondering why on earth he felt so much like a cornered mouse, with the hungry cat staring down at him tauntingly with an open spot between its legs to escape through. But anyone could tell you that the cat knew about the chink, and would pounce on you as soon as you dared try to escape through it.
Cole controlled his trembling a bit. "If we were to escape, we would need to do it soon."
Zane held up his hand in a casual sign that he was about to speak. "And on a side note, we need to find the blue knight."
"Blue?" Kai asked. "Why would we need to do that?"
Cole pointed at himself, then at the two captives. "I am the Black Knight, you are the Red Knight, and Zane is the White Knight."
Kai looked at Cole and raised his notched eyebrow. "Why on earth would you assume that you're the Black Knight?"
"Because I met a man who told me so." Cole said in a harsh, impatient tone. "I don't know who he was, or where he came from, but he told me about a week after my..." His face went into a tight, controlled mask. "After my torture...that I was the Black Knight."
He ran his fingers through his hair and tried to comb it out. "I was in my tent resting, because I was still weak from my injuries. He came in the middle of the night and told me who I was destined to be, then he just...left. Silent as a shadow, sneaky as a fox. In and out, under a minute." He grabbed a lock of hair and started twirling it in his fingers in front of his face. "He told me to be strong, and train hard for the day I would meet my other three teammates, and fight for the King, Prince, and all of Ninjago. I never told anyone, for fear of what the Overlord might do to me. And don't ask me why I believed the old man," he said quickly. "People with no hope will hold onto the tiniest shreds of promise they can find in the darkness, I suppose."
Zane nodded. "So you see? We need to find the Blue Knight."
Kai rolled his eyes. "What's with the color scheme? Why can't we all be black? Or maybe red?"
"Perhaps to show that you don't need to be exactly the same to work on a team." Zane suggested. "We are all different, and should be proud to show it."
Cole leaned in and spoke in a low voice. "So, you two in?"
Zane nodded and spoke in an equally soft tone. "Yes, I'll help."
"What have we got to lose?" Kai said with a shrug. "Not much, at this point in your master's 'game.'"
Cole chuckled in a low tone, blinking away the vision. "That's where you're wrong. We've got everything to lose." He got to his feet. "Stay here. I'll be back within the hour to get you. Be ready for my return, I will be back."
Cole reached for the door handle, then retracted his hand in surprise and stomped on the floor, mumbling something under his breath before walking back to the others and sighing. He flashed them an apologetic look before pulling Kai to his feet and punching him in the jaw. Not very hard, just enough to make a surprised and pained sound come out of his captive's mouth.
"Don't do that again, prisoner." Cole shouted angrily. "You just wait. Overlord will fix that snarky wit of yours. Don't insult my cooking." He leaned in and whispered in Kai's ear. "Play along, you fool. They're listening."
Kai fell to the floor as Cole let go of his shirt. "Who taught you how to cook, anyway?" He flashed a rebellious smile and rubbed his jaw, which now had another bruise to show for a day of fun and daisy picking. "Don't tell me," he held up a hand. "It was one of those hunky stone dudes, wasn't it? Go figure. They don't need to eat anyway, how would they know how to cook?"
Cole gave him a look somewhere between a smile and exasperated frown and put his hands on his hips. He kicked Kai's leg playfully, making the man cry out again. "Maybe." His reply was short and curt, but a humored smile tugged at a corner of his mouth. "Stay put, or else you'll never see my food again.
"What a relief." Zane said, earning him a loud slap. But Cole made sure that he hit his prisoner's cheek in a way that made his calloused hand take the brunt of the pain instead of Zane's face.
Cole flashed a snarky smile and turned on his heel, unlocking the door and leaving in a huff, staying clear of the lantern.
"I am sensing the beginning of a wonderful friendship between the three of us," Zane said as he fell to the floor and wrapped himself in his cloak.
Kai rolled his eyes and let out a low growl, nursing his new wounds in the ever-growing list without bothering to answer.
Nya lifted her head and shoulders off of the furs, trying to calm her pounding heart as she attempted to stand up for the umpteenth time since her captor had first fallen asleep over an hour ago. She slumped back into the furs with a final grunt of defeat.
I'm not going anywhere... Her head pulsed, and stars danced in her vision as she tried to focus on the cave walls, which were turning a shade orange from the rays of morning sun. A chorus of birds chirped pleasantly outside in the trees, as if trying to lift her out of her dread and absolute terror. A load too large for those small songbirds, she thought to herself.
A single chirp rang out in the entrance to the cave, making Nya raise her head in surprise and alarm as the sound echoed down the long tunnel.
"Cheeky," she whispered with a relieved smile as a tiny black bird flitted around above her head. "Nice to see you again." She held out a hand and let the bird climb onto her finger. It made a happy dance and spread its wings as it chirped again.
Nya stroked it fondly. "You were trying to find me and Kai, weren't you?" She asked, her face darkening. "Well, Kai isn't here. And I wouldn't recommend trying to find him, either."
Cheeky trilled loudly, making Nya wince as the sound echoed loudly through the cave for several seconds before finally escaping through the mouth of the cave.
Nya's eyes widened. "Jay is sleeping, you've got to be quiet or you'll wake him." The bird let out another chirp and flew into her hair, unconcerned about Nya's warning.
She heard a soft moan, and her head shot in the direction as her pulse spiked again. "Now you've done it." She reprimanded the bird softly, unable to speak above a whisper.
Jay rolled to his knees and yawned quietly, then got to his feet and looked at Nya strangely. "Are you talking to yourself, Natalie?" He raised his eyebrow questioningly.
Nya shook her head quickly, forcing herself to keep his gaze.
Jay looked frightened. "Ahh...a voice in your head, perhaps?" Cole has driven the poor girl over the deep end...
Nya gave him a strange look, pondering what he had just said. Her eyes widened in understanding, and her lips curled into a nervous smile. "No," she laughed once, trying to ease her own discomfort.
Jay opened his mouth, then shut it again. He scratched the back of his head nervously. Why does that smile have to belong to a lunatic? He looked at her face and was somewhat disappointed to find that the smile was gone. A single breath of wind in the desert, a shadow in the trees. The smile was gone as fast as it had come.
Cheeks jumped out of Nya's hair and landed on her arm, chirping reproachfully at the young man. Nya was grateful for the interruption, because it gave her a chance to come up with something to say to her captor. "There's no voice, its just my bird."
Jay relaxed a bit, but still was not entirely convinced that she was not a screwball. "Okay." He walked over to Nya and got on his knees to examine the bird. "He's pretty. Is it domesticated?"
Nya's mouth opened in a gasp, her hand reaching up to hit his extended arm out of reflex.
Jay jumped backwards, his eyebrows rising almost into his hair as he dodged her flying hand. "Sorry," he said slowly. "I'll be more careful in the future." He stared into her eyes with shock.
Oh, Natalie... His heart ached with compassion for the broken girl.
Nya started breathing heavily as her eyes traveled to his belt, where he held a weapon... A sword, its blade concealed in a leather sheath. Pain and death, capture and defeat. That was all she could see in the sword for herself. For Jay, on the other hand, the blade meant exactly the opposite. Comfort, life, freedom and victory, quite possibly secured by...my death? The notion was completely absurd, and she wondered if her imagination was possibly getting the better of her.
"Hello?" A feminine voice carried through the tunnel, knocking both captive and captor out of their eye lock. "Are you in there, Nya?"
"Who's there?" Jay shouted, his face becoming sharp and alert as he drew his sword soundlessly from its stiff leather sheath.
"I am Pixal." The voice shouted back. "May I inquire as to what your name is?"
Jay's knees started to shake. How on earth did I get into this mess? Caught between a cave wall and a powerful noblewoman who, with one wave of her hand, could have him hanging from a tree. He was only hiding out in the Southern realm because of all the charges against him in the Northerns. Everyone knew his name up there, and most would recognize his face from wanted posters. The South was supposed to be safe!
"That's not important," Jay snapped eventually. "Who is this Nya, and why would you think she was here?"
A shadow came into the mouth of the cave, elongated and dark from the light of the early morning sun. "Nya is of the Kaytake family, you complete imbecile," she snapped. "Stop testing my patience."
Jay looked over his shoulder at Nya, who still laid in the bed of furs, holding the bird with a look of panic on her face that made him feel an insurmountable desire to protect her. She had made it sound like she was running from the law the day before, so he would help her to the best of his abilities until she was able to support herself again.
Jay poised himself to strike, his sword held between white knuckles. The noblewoman was walking forward with slow, purposeful strides, as if inviting an attack.
He held up his sword up and jumped out in front of her, bringing his weapon in a wide arch toward her head, intending to kill.
Murder? The thought went through his head like a bolt of both thunder lightning at once, fast and resonating. You're no murderer, Jay.
Pixal reached into her pocket and drew out a small, flat disc. She tossed it straight at her assailant's blade. The weapon flew with such speed and precision that Jay's weapon was knocked out of his hand, and fell to the ground near Nya's feet with a clatter.
Jay let out a gasp of surprise. Run, you fool! He told himself. Let Pixal take Natalie away. His feet shuffled hesitantly for a moment as he realized that he didn't want to leave the girl. He wanted to keep her safe, not run like a coward from this spoiled noblewoman.
The hesitation was just enough for Pixal to take out another small disk and toss it at Jay's head, making him duck in surprise. The move left an opening for the lady to grab a weighted rope from the folds of her cloak and swing it around Jay's neck. She pulled it tight and held a knife to his neck with a laugh.
"It seems I have finally found him." She said, releasing the knife and loosening the rope. She let the bewildered thief fall to the floor. "Jay Walker, this is a new low. Kidnapping Kai and Nya?" She crossed her arms over her loose white tunic, which had a decorative leather belt wrapped around her midsection to keep it in place. She planted a brown leather boot on Jay's chest and leaned in, clearly pleased with her work.
Kai and Nya? Jay's eyes widened in understanding. What in the name of all that is good have I gotten myself into? That woman is Nya!
Pixal stared at him harshly, her green eyes boring into his. "Where is Kai?"