Aarin flared in the sky.

Her whip, thrice as long as her with hundreds of sharp nails

sewn into it, curled around her body, mere centimeters away from her flesh. With a
deft flick she twisted the handle and a loud crack broke the silence that ruled the
upper atmosphere of Flaran. The whip lost its snakelike fluidity and turned taut
before deflecting the spears that were flying towards her back at their owners.

Then, she fainted.

Rakh isn’t afraid. She will make tea.

She sets down her book, marking the last line with a flarakskin bookmark, and
stretches herself. Her shawl creeps over her midriff as she does so, exposing the
dark skin tightly wrapping over her muscular abdomen. She strokes her stomach
and burps, the acidity of her breakfast reminding her that she had skipped her
lunch.

Not because she was worried. Or afraid. She is going to prove that to herself.

She will make tea.

Hundred, ninety, eighty, seventy, sixty, fifty, forty, thirty, twenty feet above the
marble courtyard Aarin felt oxygen flood her blood again. Her pale blue eyes
snapped open as she took a quick glance around her and flung out her whip
towards a falling merenot. The flerek leather twisted around the spear extending
from the creature’s temple, breaking Aarin’s fall and allowing her to gradually
descend towards the ground.

Her landing was unceremonious, partly because she didn’t care for flair and partly
because every use of the whip, Marakat, disgusted her. Each time she infused it
with her breath, making it temporarily come to life, she could feel every leather
cord that had left bruises over her back, every steel nail that had scarred her arms,
her legs, her face. But that wasn’t why she hated it. Five years as a slarak, a slave,
had destroyed any semblance of identity. She had forgotten pain, forgone dignity
and erased identity. The fact that she was using the tool of her tormentors, the
vessel that had brought about the near destruction and complete subjugation of her
race, made her stomach curdle.

Just one last time she thought, looking up amidst the last of the falling merenots.
She saw him approach, clad in dark silk that fluttered around him like smoke, with
a giant sword in his hand. Kalad Kirin, the former Shadow Master, the Emperor of
Flaran.

The bane of my people.

Flaring Marakat for the last time, Aarin charged towards her ruler.

One last time.