After party

It is deep in the night when the Priestess tosses the roiling masses from her tent; she pushes them out into the blackness to find their beds or folly. They wander off in pairs or more toward the still-burning fires throughout the war camp.

Aerona is pacing - rolling her shoulders, her hands raised up in a guard. She should be exhausted but she’s ravenous. Nothing: not sex, nor drink, nor food has quenched the electric buzz of her limbs. Nothing can sate the blaze in her belly. She’s the lioness rampant tonight.

The conflict is as yet unfinished - and the unbridled hunger of Cuiraécen flows through his Priestess. Aerona curses herself for encouraging Mara and Cuinn to ride off without her - choosing instead to march in with the infantry. She rages at her inability to have brought her confrontation with the Haelynite to its fateful conclusion. The Knights Hawk have been decimated, their leader Iseult Bennett remains close to death, and Laurentius has fallen; all these things she laments. If she were a devotee of Nesirie, she would sink her body to the neck into the river and wail for the fallen.

“Let my sword lance the wicked as the knife lances a wound, oh Lord Cuiraécen. Let me strip from myself that which is unworthy of your Favour.”    

There is naught she can do but avenge the exalted dead. Aerona had stood firm - the rock upon which the wave broke, but the infantry streamed behind, crushed between two lines of Anuireans. Her ghostly Shield Brothers - terrifying in their luminous ferocity - had struck down any who dared approach, isolating her at the front of the phalanx. But it wasn’t enough. She knew without doubt that the Haelynite would have been forced to his knees before her: when the retreat was called, he’d slunk away heavily wounded. Her own infantry however had barely survived the fight.

Aerona lit incense and oiled herself before her altar. Eyes closed, she thanked the Protector of the Weak for protecting her - for sending her to Wilders Gorge, and saving her from herself. Cuinn and Mara, and the people of the Gorge, and of Taeghas herself had opened before Aerona like a gift. She’d discovered her passion in the people she’d left behind a long time ago. This kingdom had risen up to meet Cuinn’s ambitions with a fervor that surprised and delighted the Priestess. Surely the hand of Cuiraécen had guided Balros in sending her here - if only to bear witness to an army turning on itself at the order of the Lost Queen of Taeghas. Cuinn and Mara were so unimaginably powerful - everywhere they went the world reshaped around them. Aerona saw the hands of the gods in their wake.

There’s a shadow in the doorway.

Aerona is on her feet before the the intruder makes it through the tent flap but her punch is wide and is blocked by an elbow. The palm strike to her abdomen pushes her back further into the tent, but her attacker is just fending her off. It's a moment before Aerona connects the tall, dark-haired man with the Haelynite. He is dressed in plain clothes, and his shoulder length hair hangs free. Once inside the doorway, he stands silently before her. Aerona could yell, and the entire camp would be upon them. The Haelynite stares intently into her face, dark eyes smouldering.

Somewhere in the distance thunder rolls. Aerona rolls atop him as soon as they are able to tear his clothes from his body. They don't talk, not yet, but both are determined to outlast the other. Here too, Aerona sets out to prove her mettle.