of Sword and Flame

Prologue: Justice

 Five guards. Five nuisances. How had he forgotten to tell her? Or was this just another foolish, petty jab?

Kyra shifted her blades in hand as she felt another blow to the back of her head. The force sent her rolling, dark hair falling in her face, but she could manage. Adjusting, she leaped to her feet instantly, arms out wide and blades swinging as she maintained her distance from the enemy. Her dark red coat spun with her.

All be damned to hell, she thought as she tore her gloves off bitterly. In an instant, flame burst from her hands, flowing continuously to her daggers as she grabbed them once more and recalculated. Five guards. Only one target. She'd already jammed the bolts of the exits; all that was left was to pick off the five guards. Difficult? For anyone ordinary, perhaps.

But Kyra was anything but ordinary. As she jumped out of the way of another swing, she yelled over the swords' clanking.

"I've got a question for you, Leid!" She grabbed onto a ceiling beam of the shed-like room, swinging toward an empty space on the floor, avoiding the clutter surrounding it. Duke Leid stood at attention, keen, penetrating dark eyes following Kyra wherever she went. Two guards defended him, eyes sharp as an eagle's, unlike the last three after Kyra on the offense. Those three had dull eyes and clunky movements. Fools who didn't know what they were getting into. This, coupled with their poor abilities, almost made Kyra pity them.

"As if I'd amuse you, you psycho!" Leid spat, voice forcing itself through the sounds of battle. He twiddled an elaborate brooch between his pointer and index, frowning. It was the color of the forests that filled Vorin.

"What do you get—" she grunted as her twin daggers met the enemy's swords "—when you put five guards and a trained killer in a room?"

Duke Leid only glared at her, and she returned the stare with a glower of equal ferocity, her stormy silver eyes flashing. They were two dark slivers that no one wanted to look into.

Two guards circled behind Kyra as one kept her concentration, eyeing her like vultures, starving for a fight like it would be their last. They pounced on her, and before long, her blades flew from her hands, throwing Kyra to the ground with them. But she wasn't in any danger. She waited patiently, long, thin limbs stretched out. She stared up at them with a frown. From the outside, she was trapped. From the inside, she was counting.

One, two...

As one finally lunged, Kyra pushed her weight up into her hands for a kick, shoving her foot up into the guard's jaw in the process.

Three, four...

Flipping to her feet, Kyra disarmed another guard by faking him out on a swing, jamming her elbow into his back, and sending him face-first into the floorboards. Picking up her daggers with the bit of spare time she had, Kyra whirled around and brought her hilts to the ear of the last offensive guard, slamming her daggers' handles into his head. The hilts were perfectly weighted, clanging his skull to dizzy him and render him senseless for a few precious seconds. As the man keeled over and clutched his head, she brought her blade up, shoving it into his back with a final blow. As his warm crimson blood dripped from Kyra's blade and spilled onto her fingers, she turned to Duke Leid.

"You get a lot of blood."

"That's not a very good riddle," Leid scoffed. He barely flinched at the sight of the dead guards, but as Kyra moved, his feet slid back cautiously, his lanky form curved like the string of a bow.

How odd, Kyra figured, that he wouldn't bat an eye at a corpse. But see death come for him next, and suddenly it matters, she thought to herself. What selfish fear he has.