Chapter 25: Confrontation

In the dawn of night.
She stalks her prey.

She lays a trap,
And sees the way.

Cynthia decided that enough was enough. It was time to learn who exactly this girl was. Twice now she had snuck her way onto the property. Twice now this girl had gone to spent time with Christina. The first time, there had been reason enough to worry, and the sorceress thought that she had done enough to make Christina be wary and even avoid the girl in the future. But this problem was proving to be slightly more stubborn. It was time to handle matters herself.

She was almost certainly nothing, and very certainly nothing that couldn't be handled. But despite that, Cynthia wanted to know exactly what kind of influence over Christina was had by this girl. It was important to know if she was a threat. Wanting to find out as much as she could about this girl, Cynthia decided to follow her away from the manor. Placing the same kind of enchantment on herself to help avoid detection as she did last time, Cynthia kept a recklessly short distance between herself and the mystery girl all the way back to the capital.

The girl was confident, Cynthia could tell that just from the way she walked. She navigated the twisting and winding roads of Lasceria with efficiency and ease. It was almost difficult for Cynthia to keep up. But keep up she did. She wasn't about to let this girl get away from her before learning what she needed to learn.

As she followed, her anticipation only grew. 'This was going to be fun.' She thought to herself. This was just another simple Silencian girl, foolish and overconfident. Nothing more than a fun exercise of her wit and talent. By the time Cynthia was done with her and had gotten answers to all her questions, she likely wouldn't even know what hit her, thought Cynthia. This would be fun.

That was until the tables turned, and Cynthia was the one who wasn't entirely sure what was hitting her, as Hazel turned around suddenly to address her would-be stalker.

"You gonna tell me why you're following me, then?" Asked Hazel, completely unfazed.

Cynthia was for a moment speechless. How on earth did this girl notice her? Did she cast her enchantment wrong? No, checking herself for a moment, she could feel it now even, still in place. This girl must have gotten lucky, she thought to herself.

Conforming to her posture, she decided it didn't matter. She was about to reveal herself anyway. Cynthia smiled to herself, now it was time for the game of wits. "I'm someone you shouldn't have had to deal with. But now here we are."

Hazel all but snorted. Turning her chin up at the sorceress, Hazel studied her. In her mind she thought to herself how confident this admittedly domineering woman was. This was Cynthia, the one that Christina was so terrified of. The way she stood, her posture, her words, the way she looked at Hazel even now. It was almost intriguing. But more than anything, to Hazel, it was a challenge she couldn't turn down.

Cynthia, in turn, was increasingly able to read this mystery girl. Nothing more than an overconfident street rat, out of her league. This would be fun, indeed.

"You know, it's not a very good idea to trespass on powerful figures' properties. You're only Crevician, so I don't blame you for not understanding, but the Southgard family isn't one to be trifled with." Cynthia pontificated. Posturing herself to demonstrate to this girl just how in over her head she was. Cynthia wanted to make her uncomfortable before she started really probing. "And you didn't even get lucky, instead you got me."

A twinge of a smirk rose from Hazel's lips.

"Oh? And who do I have the unlucky pleasure of currently speaking to then?" Hazel asked, her tone just barely mocking the sorceress's grandstanding.

Cynthia kept up her own signature smirk in kind. "Cynthia Arkinian. And you would be?"

Hazel's eyes barely shifted, giving no reaction from which her adversary could pry. "Just some Crevician, aren't I?"

It was then that something started to sparkle in Cynthia's eye. 'Interesting.'

She chuckled. "You might be, but you know who isn't? Christina. She's under the direct protection of the Southgards, and by extension, the Silencian crown. So why don't you save yourself the trouble and tell me what you've been doing when you were secretly visiting her. Both times." Cynthia said, hoping to catch the girl off guard with her knowledge of her visit the previous time.

Hazel, on the other hand, let out an amused chuckle. "Protection? That's fucking rich." Said the girl, having no interest in playing this woman's game. "Only way you're protecting her is the same way you'd protect a prize."

It was at this point that something about this girl started to irk Cynthia. She wasn't sure if it was how annoyingly evasive she was being, or if it was something about the suggestion that Hazel had just made. Either way, Cynthia wasn't going to let her win. "Oh, darling." She spoke with soft, sweet condescension. "You think you understand something, but you don't. You don't understand anything. You don't even understand how in over your head you really are, inserting yourself into our Christina's life."

Cynthia wanted to make this street rat feel small. She wanted her to second-guess every word before she spoke it. She wanted to make her feel like her ward.

Hazel, however, couldn't care less what Cynthia wanted.

"Your Christina, eh? Is that what she is? Your doll? You get to dress her up and then show her off to make you feel good about how big and powerful you are?" Said Hazel, accusations oozing out of every pore. "Or maybe you just do that as a way to wear her defenses down."

Cynthia even had to stop herself from recoiling back, genuinely surprised at how much this punk girl seemed to know. She spoke with such certainty, despite being so vague. There wasn't any chance this girl actually knew any of those things she suggested, thought Cynthia. Was there?

Starting to near the end of her rope, Cynthia put on a much darker face. Her smile gone, she looked at the girl with a sadistic warning, looking deep into her eyes. "Do you want to find out exactly how 'big and powerful' we really are? Because if you don't want to instead just be a doll and answer my question, then I can happily oblige." The sorceress said, her lips leaking out a smile for a single calculated moment near the end. Her look one that would unnerve and worry almost anyone unlucky enough to cross her.

But once more, Hazel saw right through.

There was something else in Hazel's eyes now, something she couldn't hold back. Just the tiniest bit of rage. "Oh, you think that convincing a lost and scared girl that she's broken, and needs to completely change herself in order to be loved, is powerful? Nah . . . that sounds like cowardice to me."

That was the last straw for Cynthia. She didn't know if or what information this girl really could say she knew, but she was done playing this stupid game. This girl was acting like she was so above her, but she had no idea who she was really dealing with. It was time she learned.

Cynthia's fingers twitched delicately back and forth by her side, as she started to weave an enchantment into her words and influence Hazel's mind.

"I think it's time for you to listen."

But as Cynthia spoke, Hazel saw something that to which even the sorceress was blind. Faint, yet visible in the late sunsetting light, small pins of purple light started to shine from Cynthia's dominant hand, as she played with the weave of the Arkane. But then, as the words left the sorceress's lips, for Hazel at least, so too did thin violet tendrils of smoke, flowing towards her. The glowing wisps were so thin that even in the moment, Hazel couldn't be sure if they were real or a trick of the light. But as in a near instant they got closer and closer, Hazel realized that they were coming directly at her.

Flinching suddenly with a step back, washing the purple smoke away with a wave of her hand, Hazel, for the first time in the interaction, felt like she was on the back foot. "What in the hell was that purple shit coming out of your mouth?" She exclaimed in cautious fear.

. . . At least, Hazel thought she was on the back foot, but Cynthia, who couldn't see anything that Hazel had just seen, only saw that this infuriating girl somehow was unaffected by her mental magic. Worse, she seemed to realize that something magical was happening.

'That's not possible.'

 Cynthia was stunned into silence. She couldn't quite believe what the evidence before her suggested. Cynthia knew that all magic was conjured from latent Arkane energy that existed within the world. But certain kinds of magic did so in such a way that left those Arkane currents invisible to the eye. Mental magic, as rare a gift as it was for Cynthia to have, was one of those kinds. But . . . this girl, whoever she was, clearly saw it. She reacted perfectly to her enchantment, and somehow even avoided its effects. Cynthia didn't know who this girl was, or why she was meeting up with Christina, but one thing was undeniably clear, this girl could see the Arkane.

The magic faded away from Cynthia's fingertips, as suddenly she was of a singular mind. "How did you do that? Tell me, who are you?" Cynthia demanded, stepping closer toward Hazel in a near manic state. "What you just did is impossible, did some kind of mage send you?"

Hazel, ever the quick study, picked up on exactly what kind of advantage she had instantly. She had thought that in the moment of getting caught up with some kind of magic that she was going to find herself on the back foot. But now in some way, Hazel even being aware of this woman's magic had sent her completely spiraling. The tone and pacing of her words were night and day from her calculated taunts she had been slinging before.

'Now's the time to push the advantage.'

Hazel smiled from ear to ear, not even giving Cynthia the decency of her full attention as she let her eye contact wander away. "Oh, so all this time you've been taunting me, telling me I don't know shit, basically boasting about what you turned Chris into . . . but look who's the scared little girl now." Hazel stung, giving Cynthia only a glancing look from the corner of her eyes.

Cynthia was red hot and refused to have it. Lunging forward, she grabbed Hazel by the wrist, intending to force some answers. "Okay, street rat. You listen, and you listen wel-"

The second that Cynthia laid a hand on Hazel was the same moment she realized that she had made a very bad mistake.

Expertly twisting her wrist free, Hazel demonstrated the full extent of Cynthia's error. She smoothly grabbed the sorceress's own wrist and used her other hand to push up behind the elbow. Taking a step to guide the way that everything was going to twist, Hazel expertly applied pressure in such a way that resulted in Cynthia getting forcibly spun around as she found her own arm painfully jammed up into her back.

Wincing and letting out a gasp of pain, Cynthia felt a small shove from behind her as Hazel let go that left her momentarily unbalanced. It took Cynthia a moment to gather herself, as she grasped at her slightly burning wrist and felt the ache from her shoulder being pushed past its natural stopping point. But when she turned back around to confront her attacker, all she saw was a flash of Hazel darting around a nearby corner. Cynthia's blood boiled. The chase was on.

Cynthia sprinted off on the balls of her toes, rushing after the mystery girl as fast as she possibly could. It wasn't until this moment as she was chasing her that Cynthia realized, this was a very deliberate place that the girl had led her to before deciding to stop and chat. Rounded corner after corner after hidden alley. Each time it was only because of that of Hazel's figure that led Cynthia in the right direction. She thought that she had been the one following this girl, but now she realized that this girl had been leading her all along.

Finally after a few more minutes of exhausting running, Hazel reached a dead end. Seeing the approaching wall ahead, Cynthia finally smiled. She was out of breath, but she wouldn't underestimate this girl any longer. She had already seen her magic, there wasn't any more need for Cynthia to try to be subtle.

But even within that line of thought, Cynthia underestimated Hazel once again. Still sprinting toward the wall full tilt, Hazel jumped up, reaching to grab the smallest ledge of brick, and then vaulting herself up off that wall onto the adjacent corner, where another better handhold a little higher up gave her clean access to somewhere to plant her feet. She continued this and other different series of maneuvers until she had climbed a full three stories high.

Cynthia stood motionless in awe of the girl who scaled the wall in front of her with ease. Finally pulling herself up over the roof edge, Hazel twisted herself around and let her legs dangle off the ledge.

Hazel had won, even if she could tell from the way she glared at her from down there that this magical bitch didn't realize it yet. Knowing that, she couldn't help one last taunt. "I guess you're not so scary when you don't get to cheat, huh?" Hazel laughed at her own jab, only rubbing salt further into the wound. "And cheating like that, all to bully that poor kid . . . I guess your parents raised you even worse than Christina's did, huh? You should be ashamed of yourself."

There were no words in Cynthia's mind, only white-hot rage, as the taunting set her over the edge. She saw the street rat's legs flip back over the ledge as the girl disappeared from view. But it wasn't over. Far from it. Cynthia mustered pure channels of Arkane energy from all around her in the palms of both of her hands, pulling the force in and in and in. Until finally she let them all burst. In that moment her entire body launched upwards, dozens of feet in the air. Reaching the same height infinitely faster than Hazel needed to climb.

As Cynthia started to descend back down, she mustered just a bit more Arkane power to steady and slow her fall, so she touched down on the roof that Hazel had just reached, she landed gently on her feet. But as Cynthia looked around for her mark, Hazel was somehow nowhere to be seen.

'How on earth?' She thought to herself. No idea how it was even possible for Hazel to have disappeared, Cynthia tried to center herself. She could tell if she didn't find the space to calm down now, she would completely burst.

Taking deep breaths in and out, Cynthia started to calm down. Letting her anger get the better of her was one of the reasons that the mystery girl even got away. Trying to get physical with her only ended in an escape route. Cynthia was better than resorting to violence, she reminded herself. She was better than this. The sorceress sighed, finally admitting defeat. She summoned one more burst of Arkane energy, this time to get herself safely down.

Cynthia had a lot to think about. That girl, their entire conversation, the last few things that the girl had said to her. How she could see her magic . . . There was a lot on her mind. She had followed that girl here to get answers, but now she was left with only more questions.

'How cliché . . .' Thought Cynthia to herself, rolling her eyes. Either way, regardless of whether or not it was cliché, it was getting late, she needed to get back home. It was her night to take care of Christina.

Hazel, on the other hand, watched Cynthia propel herself back down and wander off, safely from another hidden roof a few stories above. She smiled to herself, confident in the victory she achieved. She had never faced off with a magic user before. It was exhilarating . . . but also, she couldn't help but wonder that with all that she imagined would be possible with magic, it didn't make any sense for her to really win. Which either meant there was something about magic that Hazel didn't understand, or that Cynthia woman wasn't giving it her best. Maybe both.

Either way, there was one thing that she was certain of; she had a tiny bit more information on what exactly was going on with her friend, Christina. That, and she knew even less about seeing those purple smoke-like tendrils, why she could see them, and why that woman reacted to that information the way that she did.