Darkness. Void without light. A world of silence and shadows.<br/><br/>There was nothing.<i>She</i>was nothing.<br/><br/>What had she been doing? She distantly remembered books and fire without warmth. The image of a tower pulsed briefly through her mind before fading out of reach. Yes, the Circle Tower. That was where she had been. Home.<br/><br/>Then why was she alone? Why was she not still curled up by the fireplace with a book in her hands? The darkness offered her no answer.<br/><br/><span style="color: magenta">“Aeons of depravity... blood and sacrifice... power unending... The lost art of Blood Magic is now yours... Luna. Through sacrifice, you shall be free...”</span><br/><br/>Luna... yes, that had been her name once, wasn’t it? And that voice... that soft, seductive voice... she knew that too.<span style="color: green"><i>Demon,</i></span>her mind cried, and she knew it to be true. What had she done?<br/><br/><span style="color: green"><i>I did what <b>had</b> to be done.</i></span>That too, was true. She had had no other choice. She had accepted the demon’s terms to save her own life... and to strike back at those would hurt her, would hurt others.<br/><br/><span style="color: green"><i><b>Maleficar.</b></i></span><br/><br/>There was<i>power</i>in that name. She’d found it repulsive once... and really, she still did. But it was too late for regrets, too late to turn back the pages of time. Now, there was only freedom. Freedom through<i>sacrifice</i>.<br/><br/>Her eyes shot open, teal eyes barely visible beneath the red glow of her power. A broken stone altar lay inches beneath her feet, disfigured corpses strewn around the room. She knew without a doubt that they had been touched by her power, but she did not pity them. They had tried to sacrifice her, an innocent; they had abandoned her to the Fade. From the looks of it, she had only been the first of what would have been many.<br/><br/>She eyed the two remaining sacrifices without saying a word, the thrum of her power thundering through her veins. A Kossith, muscular and strong. A human, young and lithe. Both were naked, bound. They were there to be consumed. They were there to be<i>sacrificed.</i><span style="color: green"><i>I will not kill them,</i></span>she thought distantly.<span style="color: green"><i>These are not my prey.</i></span><br/><br/>There were still more blood mages outside, lost amid the howl of the Fade. They, too, would suffer for what they had done. Only when they had fallen could she rest, could she go of the vortex whirling around her. She could not rest... not yet.<br/><br/>And so, silently, the naked elf, strewn with blood - her own or her enemies’, she did not know - floated out of the tent and danced with destruction. They would fall before her, in fire and in blood, and their end would be justified.<br/><br/>For now, she was not Luna Uthariel. She was Death.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>