The door to the house was closed when she arrived, though the window was still broken. A courtesy from Miss Shelley, no doubt. She drew her key, unlocking the door and stepped inside.
There was something viscerally distressing about seeing the place damaged so. Vases and bowls had been broken, things overturned, the glass-fronted cabinet smashed and its content strewn about. The table had been overturned as well. She took her hand off her saber– when had she gripped it?– and took a moment to set the table upright.
The appearance of the room didn't really improve, but it helped.
Kill, the lady hissed.
KILL! the child screamed.
The hunter told both to sit down and shut up.
In her eyes, the room had been clear. For all the damage, the black smoke of Dark Magic lingered only at the doorway, but hadn't entered. Wind Magic? Or an accomplice?
Her eyes scanned the ground. There were footprints not shaped like her boots. Mother was careful never to track dirt inside. She knelt. Her eyes scanned the marks, noting the differences. One had a separate, raised heel. The other was all one piece, and Maria vaguely recognized the work of the town cobbler. She looked around. Despite the damage, nothing seemed missing. The accomplice?
She moved over to where the black smoke lingered, kneeling down. A third set of dirty footprints. The heeled ones had trodden over this one.
So. The Dark Magic wielder and an accomplice. Someone who lived in town, by the boot.
She turned toward the stairs. Spots of Dark Magic made black smoke. Had they been using dark magic the whole time they entered? What for? Manipulating their accomplice, perhaps? It gave evidence to the other party being some sort of helpless, innocent dupe.
Abruptly the child kicked forward a whole bunch of memories, of people whispering at them as they did the groceries, talking where they could be heard, of sneers out of nowhere. No one in the town is innocent. Venom and anger coated the thought.
The Hunter kicked the child back into place. This was no place for needless emotion, or twisted courtly thinking. This was a Hunt. And that was the Hunter's domain.
Maria climbed the stairs. She noted less was damaged here, as if however had been causing damaged had sated themselves with destroying what they could of the first floor. The door to her room was still closed and seemingly untouched, though a wisp of black smoke rose from the handcarved wooden nameplate that bore her name. The smoke was thick, either a surge of power or an intense emotion on the part of the Dark Magic wielder.
Father made that, the child hissed.
The door to her mother's room had been kicked open. There were several bootmarks on the lower third of the door, and the lock had shattered. Mother had tried to hide. Maria bent down and picked up the largest piece of the simple wooden bolt. Experimentally, she bent it in her hands, or tried it. It was a strong wood. Whoever had broken it had either had a very powerful soul or had been truly enraged. That would explain the wisps. The Dark Magic wielder must have been agitating their accomplice so they'd be able to break through the door.
Inside, the room was a mess. Paper was strewn everywhere. Some of them had dark brown spots Maria recognized. There was a patch of black smoke near a corner. Maria deduced it was where her mother had finally been subdued with Dark Magic.
There was blood in the corner.
The hunter dispassionately noted it wasn't very much, perhaps from someone's nose or lips being broke. There was a partial handprint on the wall, reinforcing this. Someone had beaten her mother's face, enough to draw some blood, but not enough to be life threatening. Clearly she had lived, for there was no reason to take away a corpse.
The child howled, in pain and fury and rage.
Distantly, Maria realized she was growling like a beast.
Outside, she passed the collapsed form of her horse, breathing hard even in unconsciousness. She had galloped all the way here, something the horse had objected too, but she had insisted. Light Magic had eased its pain, letting it run, and Dark Magic had made it ignore it's tiredness, its hunger and made it run. It had stumbled several times, breaking it's legs. Maria had healed them, and pushed it on.
Strangely, it was the lady who insisted they stop.
"Thank you for your service," she told the supine form, even as she took a moment to tie the reins, a silly gesture. "You have done well. If you live, you will be honored."
Then she strode towards the town, intending to speak to someone and see if anyone was missing. Had they even noticed her mother was gone? The coals banked in the fireplace had burned out, implying more than a day had passed.
Rage burned in her heart as the Hunter sought a trail and the child roared for blood.
Behind her, unseen, visible only to certain eyes, tall plumes of abyssal black smoke rose from her footprints.
Her plan was interrupted as she saw black smoke on the path leading to town. She hadn't noticed on the way to her house, but as she walked, she saw small, fading wisps rising from the dirt road. She followed the trail before her, the rode whipping past her as she ran and quickened.
She found herself standing before a house near the town's limits. She had never been here before. Even when she'd had friends, none of them had lived here and…
Maria frowned and called abyssal darkness to her hand, placing a hand on her head and forcing the memory to emerge.
… and her mother had told her to avoid this area. She had never really explained why, only that it was 'too far from home'.
As she stood there, a door opened and a young woman around her age she vaguely recognized from her time at the local school stepped out.
A small, thin plume of black smoke rose from the young woman's head.
She stopped as she saw Maria standing before the small gate in the fence in front of their house. The noonday sun was bright and hot and did not seem worth of praise as Maria pulled down the brim of her tricorne to shade her face.
"Excuse me," Maria said, wincing in pain at the hoarseness of her voice. Though she had healed herself with Light Magic on the ride here, Her voice was still a bit rough, mostly because of dryness. Still she pressed on. "Is this your house, young miss?"
The girl– Maria really couldn't recall her name and didn't care to use Dark Magic to draw it out– curtsied. Badly and incorrectly. She really should have stuck with bowing. "Y-yes, my lord." Lord? Wait, did she think Maria was a man? Clearly her eyes were weak. Maria sighed and decided not to correct her, not wanting to waste time with the apologies and getting flustered that were likely to ensue.
"Is anyone in your family missing, young miss?" Maria asked.
The young woman's eyes widened. "Y-yes, my lord!" she said. "My aunt Estella has been missing for two days. We thought she had simply slept in town with friends, but when we checked the tav– th-that is, her friends, she wasn't there. How did you know, my lord?"
Maria declined to answer that. "You have my thanks, young miss," she said. "Estella, you say?"
"Y-yes, my lord," the young woman said. "Estella Almera. I'm Nyneve, her niece."
"Noted. May I come in, young miss?" Maria said. "The day is hot and I need water."
"O-of course, my lord!" the just-named Nyneve, which Maria could now place, said. She turned back to the door, then turned back around to open the gate, then rushed back ahead to open the door as Maria stalked down the front walk.
As the young woman scrambled to get water for Maria, Maria looked about. The windows were open, filling the house with light and revealing plain, whitewashed walls. The windows had not glass, only wooden shutters, and there was only a single vase in sight, much plainer and clearly older than the ones that used to be in Maria's home. She would see the seam where a piece had been glued back.
Small plumes of dark smoke wafted from the stairs, so Maria followed it. The upper landing was narrow compared to her own home, with fewer decorations like drawers and vases. The plumes led to a closed door. Maria opened it.
It was a small room, much smaller than hers. There was a bed, several pegs along the wall, and a chest at the foot of the bed. There was a large plume rising from the bed.
"M-my lord! Th-this is my room! A man shouldn't be here!" Nyneve cried, coming up behind Maria, a wooden cup of water in her hand. Maria took the cup and drank it. The water was cool and fresh, though there was a strange taste. Maria reminded herself to use light magic lest she become sick.
Maria glanced once more at the bed, and at the plume of black smoke. "Miss Almera, did your family have a visitor recently? A young woman, about your age, possibly injured? "
"V-visitor?" the young woman said. "N-no my lord, no visitors, certainly.. not..?" She frowned slightly, raised a hand to her head. "No, of course not, I would remember?" The young woman looked at Maria, before following her gaze. She went crimson, and Maria realized she must have come to some sort of mistaken conclusion. Maria realized what it must seem like, a noble forcing their way into someone's house and staring intently at a young woman's bed.
Before she could excuse herself however, the woman, still crimson with outrage, sat down on the bed. "W-would you like to join me, my lord?" said. Her voice was a child's conception of seductive, and Maria realized the bloodtinge on her face was not from outrage. She looked down and blinked coquettishly at Maria. Badly, at that. "M-my family is a poor, and I have no prospects. If y-you could perhaps be generous, I would be very appreciative…" One hand clumsily pulled up at her skirt, showing leg.
Maria stared at her. A sudden vivid memory of the girl in front of her taunting her for her mother's infidelity came to her mind, and she had a sudden urge to strike this… this idiot, this hypocrite down where she stood.
Maria tossed the wooden cup at her, and the idiot just barely managed to catch it before it slammed into her face. "A generous offer," Maria said coldly. "I must decline, but I will be sure tell all whom I meet of your appreciativeness, even before I was generous. Good day you to you, Nyneve Almera. We will not meet again."
Maria left the house. And no one could prove she used dark magic to render the girl unconscious or forgetful in doing so.
She had her prey now. The Dark Magic wielder... and this Estella Almera.
Lady Maria Joins The Hunt
