Welcome back, good Reader, it's good to see you again. I hope you are well rested and ready to continue the rest of our story. I must warn you though, every adventure can have a dark turn, and I believe that it is the perfect time to have one in our adventure. It's not very often that you hear this happening to a child the same age as Ava. With that said, how about we continue her tale?

The fierce battle between Ava and Borin has come to an end, with the young girl coming out victorious, while the assassin was brought down to his knees. However, her victory came with a price, she has sustained injuries, and the most obvious one was the diagonal cut across her chest. She stares at her opponent, making sure that he isn't trying to do anything suspicious.

“You know, its kind of weird that you didn't try to speed up like I did. What, did you think it wasn't necessary?” asks Ava, but receives no response from Borin. “Well, doesn't matter, just stay there and I'll be on my way.” She starts to walk around him, while staying out of reach and having her weapons in hand. Once she was exactly to his right, Borin grabs something out of his pocket, and throws it at Ava's feet. Turns out to be a glass bottle, which shatters right after hitting the floor, and a screen of smoke envelopes her. The smell is horrible, causing Ava to have a coughing fit, and the smokes prevents her to see anything outside of it. That doesn't stop her from hearing the assassin's footsteps and looks right on time to see him ready to bring down his sword on Ava. She blocks it in time, but the weight behind it is enough to make her drop to one knee. Borin takes the opportunity to give her a knee to the face, which drops her to the floor. She can feel blood coming out of her nose, but isn't given time to check the damage because Borin is standing right in front of her, ready to stab her in the chest. She blocks it with her shield and tries to point her sword towards him, but he kicks it out of her hand.

Borin tries one more time to stab her in the chest, but she rolls out of the way, gets up as fast as she can, and runs for her sword. He sees this, pulls the sword back, grabs it by the blade, and tries to use the cross guard as a hook. It catches Ava's foot and she falls to the floor, but her hand manages to reach the hilt of her sword. She looks over her shoulder, finds Borin right behind her, and swings her sword while turning. It was one of desperation and fear, with the sole intention of keeping him away from her, but it does manage to make a shallow cut on his abdomen. Since it wasn't deep enough, there isn't enough blood to stain the outside of his clothes. Either way, it stops him in his tracks, giving Ava the opportunity to get back onher feet.

“Stop this already! You don't have enough mana to fight me!” yells Ava, barely able to hide her distress over the situation, but she can see that its futile. The cold and empty look in Borin's eyes show his desire to kill her, which doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. He strikes her sword away, grabs her by the throat, and throws her to the ground. Ava was getting used to it, so she recovers quicker than before, but remains kneeling on the floor. Borin cares little and prepares to attack her again, but she reacts without thinking.

“I said stop!” yells Ava once again, and thrusts her sword upward as she was getting up. She doesn't see her attack connect because she had her eyes closed, but she could feel it. Her sword felt stuck on something soft, and the knowledge makes her open her eyes, only to see something she shouldn't have. Ava could see her sword was half way into Borin's body, his blood started to flow along the edge of her weapon. Her eyes were wide open, taking it all in, the world around her go silent, until she notices movement coming from the assassin. He strikes her across the face with the back of his fist, which sends her back to the floor. Then, Borin pulls out her sword from his body, drops it to the floor, walks up to her, turns her so she's facing up, kneels on top of her, and starts to choke her with both hands.

Ava could feel her throat getting crushed, and tries to remove his hands, but is unable to do so. She immediately tries to reach for something with her right hand, anything that could be used against him, even if she has to look for it in his person. Her hand finds a knife that was in his belt, and doesn't hesitate to take it off of him. Out of desperation, she stabs him in the side of his head, which forces him off of her, and falls on his back. Its quite shocking that this doesn't stop her from kneeling next to him, and continues to attack him with his own knife. She's not even looking at what she's doing, her entire body is moving unconsciously. The only thing that could be heard are her grunts and the sounds of flesh being cut. She only stops when she got too tired to keep stabbing, which is the moment that she opens her eyes.

She can see the bloodied knife stuck on Borin's chest, and her right hand holding on to it, while her left is pushing him down. Ava gasps as she lets go of the weapon and falls back to the floor. She sits up, looks at the dead body of the assassin, blood coming out of his mouth, empty eyes open, and a small red pool starting to form around him. She hears nothing, except for a deafening ringing in her ears, and starts to hyperventilate. Tears were beginning to well in her eyes, her stomach heaves, turns around, gets on all four, and throws up on the floor. She stays like that for a moment before she uses her forearm to wipe away her tears and clean her mouth. Holding on to whatever shred of composure she still has left in her mind, she looks for her sword, gets back to her feet, and goes to pick up her weapon. She puts her equipment away, and starts dragging herself away from such a horrific scene. Once at the edge, she looks down, checks if she has enough mana for what she's about to do, and starts climbing down the building. There were windows alongside its wall, so she drops, catches the edge of the window, and keeps repeating this process until she finally lands to the bottom.

Her barrier dissipate, her speed goes back to normal, and falls to the ground on one knee, followed by the other. Ava's adrenaline has run its course, leaving nothing but exhaustion throughout her body. The signs are visible, with the sound of her panting, sweat on her forehead, and the poor posture of her body. Her fatigue is so extreme that she doesn't even hear the footsteps coming from behind her.

“Don't move,” says the familiar voice of Dorothy, who was carrying a big stick that she found on the ground. The reason that she's unharmed after being dropped from the roof, was that there's a cart full of wool next to the building, and Ava knew that it was there because she saw it. The princess didn't stay in the cart for long, but since she didn't know where she was, she decided to just hide somewhere else, and wait for a guard looking for her. However, no one came, except Ava herself, and Dorothy was still resentful about being pushed off. That all changes the moment Ava turns her face towards the princess, who gasps at the sight before her.

I think I'll stop it here for the moment, good Reader. I believe that this chapter of our story was heavier and darker than one could have expected in a world full of magic. It is interesting how a scene of action changes the moment the characters have no protection against real danger. Do not worry, I can assure you that there won't be anymore violence like this, for now.

Until next time, good Reader.