Head of the House

It wasn't that dark outside, yet Anita felt as though her vision was blurred. The hedges and stone paths where she played countless times as a child were suddenly unfamiliar. Without thought, she ran around the yard, towards the main pavilion nestled behind a row of tall shrubbery. There were little dancing fairy lights that her mother had put along the hedges to make their garden more charming and aesthetically pleasing. Her father's form in the pavilion could be made out against the dark of the night.

"Father!" Her voice cracked, threatening to break out into a sob. The muddled mess of emotions broke free when she saw him.

He immediately rose to his feet, alarmed at his daughter's disheveled appearance. Anita immediately discarded. the wine bottle that she had clasped tightly in her hands to hug him as though she were a lost child.

"Anita, what's wrong?" His commanding voice was full of alarm and concern.

A jumbled mess of words left her lips as she pulled away from him, "He found something in your office. I didn't know Father, oh Solas I truly did not know. I'm so sorry. It's all my fault."

"Slow down." A steady wide hand gripped her shoulder, drawing her focus away from what sounded like odd distant noises coming from inside the mansion.

"It's Gabriel. I'm so sorry I didn't think… He's here for work, father. I think it's a raid."

Her father's frown was set in deep and be it any other day she would be quick to poke fun at the number of wrinkles showing on his brows. Only now the look of concern on his face did nothing but speed up her already anxious heart.

"Listen to me, Anita." He tried as he could to keep his voice steady, "I need you to get your mother and Luelle and get out of here. Do you hear me?"

Anita blinked, the tears made it difficult to discern her father's countenance in the dark. "Mother and Luelle," she repeated.

Footsteps and rustling foliage interrupted their conversation. Gabriel was never one for stealth.

His sword edge glimmered in the low light, reflecting onto the soft edges in his face. Others had described him as a soulless brute but Anita always saw a dutiful and handsome man. Even now, sword in hand his dark locks mused by the night wind and visage stern and cold. He gazed upon them and for the moment, didn't say a word.

She fought back a sob as she looked upon his expressionless face, appearing even more stony than usual. "You know why I'm here." His voice was a cutting chill, sword raised and pointed their way, "Stand down. Cooperation will do you well."

Lord Theodran scoffed, putting himself between his daughter and the High Paladin. "Cooperation will do me nothing. I know what kind of fate awaits us at the hands of Imperial laws and I am not about to lose all that I love without a fight, Lord High Paladin."

"That is regrettable."

For a moment everyone froze and Anita was could only hear the rustling of wind and the violent thumping of her heart, threatening to rupture her chest.

"Anita," her father whispered, grabbing her attention. The ground began to rumble under their feet as mana saturated around the nobleman, "I need you to find your mother and Luelle. Get them to safety."

Tendrils of electricity began to gather around the High Paladin. "That is ill-advised," he warned, stance steady and ready to strike.

"Go!" her father commanded before bringing forth a stone wall from the ground, "I will join you later."

Stupid and wide-eyed, Anita nodded and ran back to the mansion, trying to ignore the rumbling and crashing behind her. What had she done? Left her own father to die? No. She couldn't think like that. Lord Theoran was not someone that could be easily bested in battle, not even by Gabriel.

At least, she desperately prayed for it to be so.

The stone wall before him rumbled with magic before sinking back into the ground. Anita's retreating form already made it to the entrance by then. Slowly, Gabriel turned around.

The entire ground was saturated with mana as Theoran crouched down into a fighting stance. Did the head of House Javanis always had this high quality of a resonance core? Gabriel leveled his sword towards his new foe.

Lord Theoran wasn't a man he'd crossed blades with before but each member of the house was well-profiled before the raid. Like most members of the nobility, Theoran spent some years in his youth as part of the Imperial Knights, only to have left after a short career in pursuit of the family business. Though his resonance core was mediocre in quality, Lord Theoran was described to have superb control of his power and a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

Still, Gabriel held the title of High Paladin for a reason.

The wind flew by softly, everything appeared still. But beneath their sever gazes and frozen expression, mana bubbled and snaked beneath the earth and in the air.

"You will regret this," Lord Theoran's voice was harsh, if not a little sad.

Gabriel scoffed, "Likewise."

An explosion of mana cackled and lightning danced at Gabriel's heels as he surged force. Theoran stomped his foot, a wall of earth rising from where he stood, his wife's carefully attended hedges tore from their roots.

But the High Paladin was faster, quickly twisted away from the obstacle to attack Theoran's unguarded flank. He was met with an arm that reached for wrist and another aimed at his face.

Gabriel had only a split second to react, electricity bursting against the high-density mana expelled from Theoran's palm. He was blown away, rolling on the ground and back onto his feet the break the fall. But aside from a few scrapes, Gabriel was unharmed.

A deep breath of air was inhaled through Theoran's nose and then out through his mouth, his composure steady. But even in the low glow of twilight and the flickering fairy lights hanging around the garden, Gabriel could see the small beads of sweat already forming on the man's brow. Blood trickled down from his nose.

"Yield," he commanded, sword pointed once more at his opponent.

Lord Theoran chuckled, voice strained, "And then what? Lay down so you may better cleave my head off my shoulders?"

Again, Gabriel rushed forth, meeting another wall of earth head-on. He jumped up this time, vaulting over the wall to get Theoran from above. The wall of earth followed and Gabriel thrust the edge of his sword forward, his mana pouring into the magicite veins within the steel of his blade. A thunderous sound assaulted their ears as the earthen wall shattered and crumbled from the surge of mana-infused lightning.

But when the wall broke away again he was met with thrusting palms with explosive power. This time, Gabriel was prepared. When the wall crumbled in front of him, he used an extra burst of lightning to propel himself backward, just out of reach. Or so he thought.

The force of the mana expelled from Theoran's palm was smacked him straight in the chest. If it wasn't for the last minute electric force field he cast as protection his ribs would surely have suffered more than a little bruising. He was knocked even farther away in the air. Gabriel gritted his teeth in annoyance as his patience began to wear.

When he looked down, he could see Theoran's concentrated visage just below and how easy would it be, to simply shoot out a ray of lightning and then slice into his shoulder with wild abandon.

No, but those would be the actions of a feral beast and Gabriel was no such thing. He instead twisted his body, with a little mana steering his momentum, Gabriel slashed downwards, cleaving through more earth that Theoran had summoned from below his feet. Just as his blade cut through mud and rock, Gabriel ejected an absurd about his own mana into the structure. Lightning danced and crackled as earth shattered into dust and dirt, glittering like gold.

Gabriel's blade now pointed at the old lord's jugular, his palms this time not even close to posing a threat to Gabriel's body.

"Yield," he repeated, cutting and cold.

Proud stubborn eyes glared at him until lips curved upwards into a sneer, and then a full-on grin. "Did you think you've won, Lord Gabriel?" Theoran laughed, something desperate danced in his wide eyes.

Gabriel frowned, "Yield now, or I really will be cleaving your head off your shoulders," he warned one last time.

"Heh."

A small, low, unnatural reddish glow appeared beneath the fabric of Theoran's shirt at his collar.

Gabriel's couldn't hide his shock. "What?" he barely even had time to question as the mana within the ground around them multiplied and transformed. Instantly, the High Paladin was hit with a feeling of nausea which distracted him long enough for the soil around them ripple and a large block of earth shot out so quickly, not even Gabriel had enough time to fully dodge the attack.