It was the bitterest night that one could remember ever since the King marched against the short ones. The sky was too cold. The city was too still. There was smoke in the air, but not voices in the streets.
A light burns in the top of the tower where the King resides. He is watching, as far as he can.
The hunter and the woman walked towards the place where the city ended and the forests began, moving like two spies, one sent to kill the other.
They walked for hours.
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Korinna had made a nuisance of herself, deliberately tripping over every tree branches and roots that she could find, until they came to a clearing within the forest. Her hands were bound by living magical wards of Xanthus's own enchantments. Moonlight filtered down from the darkness.
"We had a deal," Korinna said. "I made a safe place for myself up north. Unbind me, and we shall go there together."
The hunter thought about this. The king had called upon him before he was tasked to ensure that Korinna left the realm. He had told her what she had done... The hunter had three hounds, which he often used to hunt down the deers that lived in the forest. They were found exsanguinated few days before Xanthus announced that Korinna was to be exiled forever. Bloodless. All of them.
"So why did the King decide to exile you, Atorana? I have served the King for many years, but I have never seen an Atorana exiled from the courts," the hunter said. He waved at Korinna's alabaster skin, which seemed to slightly glow in the dark. There was a sudden red glint in Korinna's eyes that quickly disappeared.
"I am not an Atorana," Korinna said. She seemed visibly angered by the hunter's change of subject. "I am a member of the Dark Council. Do not compare me to Xanthus's sycophants."
"The Dark Council? Impossible. They seemed eager to get rid of you as well as the Atorani. The King himself..."
"The Dark Council despise me for I shall not share with them the secrets of the shoddy ritual that Xanthus created and I replicated. Atorani deem me a threat for I criticize their methods and their brutality. The King fears me for he knows that I am his equal, so he must cast me out. I do not owe anything to anyone, so I am a threat to everyone. Now, unbind me."
The hunter thought about this once more. He once saw an Atoranus, in his cold fury, rip a leg off of a slave and then throw the poor soul across the room and into a stone wall, where he became instantly pulverized by the sheer force of the blow. Korinna, if what the King told her was true, was even more powerful than that. The bindings were probably the only thing that kept her from running away on her own or... perhaps... kill him.
"No, not yet," the hunter said. Korinna frowned. The hunter thought about the King's orders and the knife and the box that were given to him. He knew what he had to do... and if he had to do it, he would have to do it quickly, before Korinna could react. He knew that she was powerful, despite her bindings.
"So why have you decided to...uhh...rebel... against the king?" the hunter asked.
Korinna rolled her eyes. "Because he is a brutal man who believes that he has found the apex of the revival arts, and focuses his arts on maiming and killing with his mind using stolen magic instead," she said. She leaned against a tree. "Judging from your attitudes, I am guessing that he told you to kill me."
The hunter felt his heart drop. "No, I don't think..."
"You know I'll resist," Korinna said. "Do you think you can survive that?"
The hunter took a deep breath. "No," he said.
"Unbind me. Nobody has to suffer," Korinna said. "I'll leave this nation. You will never see me again for your life."
"I..." the hunter said. "I need proof. That you are dead."
"I shall kill a hart for you," Korinna said, rising from the tree. She was a giant woman, easily towering over the hunter. "You will carve out its heart... and then claim that it was mine."
The hunter drew his knife. "I shall decide what must be done, not you," he said. Korinna laughed and leaned back on the tree once more. "And what? Kill me, with that knife? You must jest." The cogs in her mind, meanwhile, was spinning extremely rapidly. She still had much of her power from before, surely, but the bindings restricted some and prevented her from moving as well. And the Hunter was not a weak man. It would be difficult, even for her, to overtake him.
"Tell me..." the hunter said. "What will you do once you are free?"
"Oh, maybe wander around the barbaric lands up north," she said smugly. "I know that there was magic in this world before we arrived here. It was hidden in the land and the plants and the animals themselves. I had experimented on this extensively before the King declared my exile."
The hunter thought about his dogs. They were stupid but loyal animals. Just how much magic was hidden in their blood? He thought. They were boring creatures, honestly.
"The barbaric hordes of other lands...despite their... lack of elegance or morals... may know these secrets. I must learn it for myself," Korinna continued.
"Why?" the hunter interjected. "Why would you want to do that?"
"Do you know," Korinna said. "That Xanthus was once a kindly man? He always helped those in more desperation than he was, back in the Between. He made poetry. He never stood by and allow a crime to occur."
Hunter thought about Xanthus impaling an entire village of the short ones with sharpened sticks. He also thought of Xanthus draining an entire village full of people of their life essence in a single spell. "No, I.... did not know that," the hunter said.
"He was," Korinna said. "And I shall have him back. I must only prove to him that there is an alternative. That there is another way to attain his immortality than murder..."
The hunter could not help but think that this was incredibly naive. The expression on Korinna's face told him that she had read what he had been thinking. "I will prove," Korinna said. "That there is no need for brutality in this world."
The hunter sighed. The King had told him to kill her...but he never did wish to carry it out. Besides, he had lost the element of surprise. "I shall unbind you," the hunter said. "You will help me catch a hart... then you shall be on your way. You better be true to your words."
Korrina nodded. "I keep my words, human. Always."
"Good," the hunter said, smiling. He approached her with the knife...
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"My Lord," the hunter said, addressing the figure in the center of the room. King Xanthus the White sat upon the high throne, overlooking his court of monsters and angels. "I have killed the witch, as you have demanded."
A man within a purple robe and an alabaster skin descended from next to King Xanthus and took a small box from the hunter's arms. Then the man presented the box to King Xanthus.
King Xanthus wordlessly opened the box, revealing a small heart within it. "So, it is finally done," Xanthus muttered. "But it is strange... for this does not seem to be a human heart. Nay, it looks too large, too perfect, to have belonged to that witch, for she had no heart. This, on the other hand, seems to be heart of hearts."
The hunter felt as if his heart had stopped. He was found out. He was sure of it. He quickly glanced up at the King to realize that the King was staring at the hunter meaningfully.
"Leave," the King said. His voice was that of a calculated and cold fury.
The hunter raised his head. "My Lord?"
"All of you!" Xanthus shouted at the assembled lords of the realm. "Leave my court, NOW! I am in no mood for any of you," sounds of shuffling feet. Councilors and Atorani alike all muttered amongst themselves as they left, leaving the stunned hunter alone with the King in the court.
"You too," Xanthus said, more softly this time. "Leave. Or I shall burn down your home."
The hunter decided that he did not need any more encouragements. He had allowed Korinna to live... and the King had found out. But strangely, the expected punishments never came. While he saw the King again and again, the King would simply acknowledge his presence with a nod, and never with anger.
Korinna kept her words. The hunter never saw her again in his life.
very fun 
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, well I guess I didn't look at that part. Thanks Tecknojock!
