Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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Before Riff could send his chains at her, she traced a small spell on her palm and blades of sharpened sand and glass rained down on him. There was nowhere to go within the vortex to escape the barrage except for where she stood, and that's exactly where Riff appeared. Close enough to breathe on her, Riff met her eyes with a dark smirk, but it fell as Talamayas tackled him. They struggled in the sand, Vice reaching for the shackles hung on the back of his pants, but Riff saw them and threw sand in his eyes before he rolled out down a dune.
The decline took Riff out from under her wind spell, and Helia slid down in chase, trailing her hand back with a spell of water magics. There was little moisture in the desert, but she dug deep to find an aquifer not too far and lift the mass of water up and over the dune down into the natural valley at its base. It swallowed Riff as Helia grabbed Talamayas' hand and reached for another wind spell to keep them on the surface. It was shaky at best and more so when she realized that the water hadn't buried Riff as much as she wanted. Using his chains, he ran a whirlpool around him, commanding and controlling magic that should not be his, and she had to abandon her position for another dune as the churning waves threatened to take her under.
With the spell magic gone, the water soaked into the sands like water into a sponge, dampening everything at their feet to a steaming mess as the sun fought for dryness. Riff didn't even look like he'd gotten a drop on him, but Helia's use of such powerful magics had him now focusing on her more than Talamayas. One of them had predictable magic, flames and brute strength, while the other could reach into an endless bag of the unknown. That made her more dangerous than Talamayas, and Riff changed focus to cut her down.
One would think Riff would use more caution when he was unsure of her skills, but he didn't. The man came at her like a meteor ready to crush and burn the earth beneath regardless of terrain, slashing for her throat. It was only a sledgehammer of fire magic from Vice and several earthen shields thrusting up from the sands that kept her head attached to her shoulders. And there was no break in Riff's assault. When one of her spells fell, he forced another, shields of earth, clashes of water and wind to try and throw him away, blades of sand and glass, but Riff just kept coming.
It was unreal, like a nightmare.
For some reason, she'd thought she could be useful in a fight against a legendary mage like the first general of the Songs, and she couldn't have been more wrong. Even with powerful magic, she wasn't quicker than him, nor did she know how to fight in close combat situations against a man twice her body mass. That was where Riff liked to be too, so in her space that any missed shield or stumble in the sand would be her death. No one was pulling any punches here, so if Riff hit her, she would be on a one way trip to the void.
Several times, it was only Vice's fist in place of Riff's head that save her, or his torso stopping a blow that would have cracked her head open. The more tired she grew from moving the more the panic set in. Riff sensed it too, his prey floundering, and he took it as a sign to ramp his assault up, like stamina wasn't even a thing to him. Riff never tired, only got faster, stronger, and more lethal.
