Three is company, two is murder - Sorrel, Nessa, Corrila

The steps of the Temple of Selûne, dawn.

Nessa finishes the mourning ritual for the passing of the moon in front of the high temple door, her heart lurching as it always does when the first brutal rays of the sun tear into the soft blanket of night.

Her voice holds the low melody with crisp perfection, but a deceptive bass lurks ready to blare its wrath against the upstart day.

“Gloir dhuit fein gu bràth,
A ghealach gheal, a nochd;
Is tu fein gu bràth
Lòchran àigh nam bochd.”

She hears a coarser voice join her for the final line and lowers her head to see Sorrel, the wayward child, staring out into the distance as the gold creeps over the horizon.

“You have a good voice,” Nessa says softly.

Sorrel laughs, turns to face her. “You are kind or deaf, but thank you,” she twists her mouth in a smile as she watches the young cleric’s arms fall at her sides, then reach down to pick up her mail coat.

“It has not been long since we met, Nessa, and yet – you rarely wore mail even when you held me against the hunger spirit. Does the temple fear any fresh intrusion?”

“No,” Nessa looks at her shield arm. “I do. I am having the innocence torn from my eyes. This is a strange and brutal place, although it is filled with kindness and sacrifice.”

“War zones will usually do that,” Sorrel sits on the temple stairs, eyeing the priest philosophically.

“You think Kantas is a war zone?”

“It’s a frontier outpost of what may become a mighty empire, may become a trading hub, may become nothing – but the walls between here and other planes, other kingdoms, are so thin the frontier isn’t just what we can see out there,” she gestures vaguely. “It’s between here and the shadowfell, here and the abyss, here and the goddess knows where. Reality is permeable here. Have you seen the maps? Even the mountains go walkabout. Things will always attack.”

“Is this why you are always so prompt for your lessons?”

Sorrel blushed.

“Or are we always so early because Sorrel Darkfire prefers that her embrace of the Moonmaiden is less public than her deadly eye?”

“Sorrel Darkfire hardly knows what she prefers. What are we learning today?”

“Today, you are teaching me something. How to use the rapier.”

Sorrel is astonished. “But you carry no weapons?”

“And I intend to keep it that way,” Nessa wraps her tabard and surcoat over her dented armour. “It’s what it tells me about you that interests me.”

Sorrel stares at her dubiously, then hold out her blade.

“Well, so the First thing to accept is that you should not treat the rapier as something new,” she offers Nessa the handle, but the Assimar shakes her head. Sorrel shrugs and holds the sword gracefully balanced. Her voice takes on a hint of the fencing master.

“Too many competent warriors begin the practice of the rapier by treating it as something wholly alien, a dainty thing. But the rapier is the same as the longsword, the sabre, and most other sword forms. It is not a flowery implement, it is a brutal and ruthless weapon, and should be used and treated as such. Perhaps the stringer block is novel, a pre-parry with blade forte, just so...”

Sorrel moves with grace and speed, her blade flashing in the dawn rays as she disarms an imaginary opponent. “And there are subtleties. The blade is sharp edged and can slash like longsword, but it is a waste. The longsword is fine for thundering across an open field swinging wildly left to right. Against that, use a long bow. Plate armour cannot withstand the yew and the arrow. But the rapier is an urban instrument.”

She turns and slashes sideways, the arc of the steel sweeping towards Nessa who takes two sharp steps back so that the sword tip whistles past in front of her. Sorrel smiles. “The slashing longsword is easily avoided. But the rapier…”

She lunges forward. Nessa steps back once, twice, but Sorrel’s arm keeps coming as she gracefully falls into the Agrippa measure, her right knee bent, her weight powering forward. Nessa almost stumbles, tries to step aside, to raise her shield but the lunge is too fast until it stops, half finished, the sword tip an inch away from her breast.

She observes Sorrel’s face, concentration so fierce that her eyes shine with the ecstasy of the sublimated ego. She is at prayer in the temple of the body.

“So, you have rituals,” Nessa nods. “You move through patterns of movements and create an outcome. You connect inside with your training and your skill – it is about connecting with your life force, your desire to live.”

Sorrel stands slowly, scratches her nose. “I s’pose.”

“With the goddess it is the same. The movements, the rituals are about connecting with her life force, that’s the only difference. You are too locked in here,” she taps Sorrel’s temples. “This is why you struggle. You can’t see that it is the same. That through our movement and our intention we unlock power in both practices.”

Sorrel falls silent.

Suddenly there’s a loud crash from the street below.

Both spin towards the sound, Sorrel’s blade slicing into position and Nessa whispering simple incantations that shine moonlight into the square.

The body of a young man sprawls lifeless at foot of the stairs, his head torn to pieces and spread across the cobbles and over the tight white dress of the weeping young woman whose body lies against his as she weeps in despair.

Above the fallen youth stands a slim, graceful and heartbreakingly beautiful half-drow girl, her large, soft brown eyes like limpid pools, her cheeks warm with the soft blush of youth.

“Fuck, soz, that’s my bad,” the girl looks briefly stricken, then lets out a brief snort of laughter. “But did you see his face?”

“This is my brother, you monster!” the young woman screams. “How could you…? When we were…?”

The half-drow’s head snaps to one side as she hears Nessa and Sorrel clatter down the stairs.

“Shit. Five-O. Let’s bounce,” she reaches for the young woman’s hair to drag her to her feet when Nessa barks “Hold!”

The girl with the ocean eyes freezes, her body rigid, her mouth wide open.

The young woman stares, looks desperately around the square then falls to her knees beside her brother. “Hercules, my sweet kinsman,” she cries, the tears looking fetching as they trickle down her cheek, and she holds her face so the dawn light glints like fire against her alabaster skin.

“Fine figure of a woman,” Sorrel mutters appreciatively.

“Which one?” Nessa tries to follow her gaze.

“Both,” Sorrel shrugs.

“So will you do the honours?”

Sorrel turns, surprised. “Me? I didn’t bring my diamond.”

“You can borrow mine.”

“Well, not really,” Sorrel steps back. “I mean, it gets destroyed.”

“What is that compared to a human life?”

“Possibly a half-elf,” Sorrel hazards.

“Darkfire,” Nessa’s voice darkens. “Your fear is unbecoming. We have just a few seconds left. I admit, it is earlier than I had planned in your training but trust the power she lends you.”

Sorrel takes Nessa’s proffered diamond and bounds down the final few steps to kneel beside the headless corpse. She starts a soft chant, the words spiralling around her senselessly until she thinks about Nessa’s lesson and tries to open herself to the pattern and the rhythm, to find the memory of the Moonmaiden’s kiss.

The young man’s body twitches. Nessa hurriedly mutters a few words and the flesh scattered across the square seems to flow gently back towards the body until, as both of Selûne’s followers finish their prayers, the young man sits up suddenly with a gasp.

“The fuck?” the girl with the knife blade cheekbones stumbles forward, Nessa’s enchantment no longer holding her. She struggles to right herself, fails and flops into the young man’s lap.

“This is awkward,” she gives a weak smile. “Herc, honestly, I tripped, it was an accident.”

“You monster!” the young woman howls. “How can that have been an accident? You killed him!”

“Honestly, it’s not my fault,” the girl with the pouting lips gazes into the young man’s eyes. “When I get carried away these things can go off,” she raises her hands as if they held crossbows. “And I was looking at your arse and got so over excited.”

The young man’s breathing quickens. Technically, of course, it’s already a lot faster than it was 30 seconds ago but still it has pace to gather.

“Hercules!” the young woman’s voice rises. “You can’t still be thinking of sleeping with her? She killed you.”

"He got better," the willowy beauty points out.

“Dear, you’ll be surprised at how strong the life force is in the recently resurrected,” Nessa calls across.

Hercules is clearly a well-built young man, and he rises easily to his feet carrying the girl whose brow furrows like angels weeping. “I mean, why not? Are you still coming Hermiana? That’s if the offer is still…?”

The girl with the perfect chin shrugs, looks at the sky.

“Dusk or dawn?” she calls to Nessa and Sorrel.

“Dawn,” they reply in unison.

“Then it’s early yet,” the girl beams. “We should get a drink first. I know just the place.”

She slips easily from his arms and almost dances over to the women on the stairs. “Thanks for that, do I owe you anything?”

Nessa starts to gather her wrath and Sorrel cuts in quickly. “It’s a gift to us from the goddess to be able to save a life,” she says. “We should be thanking you.”

The girl looks warily at her for a second. “What sort of place is this?”

“The Temple of Selûne. I am Sorrel Darkfire, at your service and your family’s, and this is Nessa al-Kiram, my teacher and confessor.”

The girl looks at both of them carefully then offers her hand. “Corrila Daevion'lyr,” she still seems wary. “But don’t put yourself at my family’s service. Then we really will fall out.”

The three of them take each other in for a moment.

“Anyway, thanks awfully, as I say, but I have to go fuck this pair,” Corrila says eventually. “I might pop by later. Are either of you single?”