With a horrendous crash that was far more than the sound of glass breaking, the mirror shattered. Emriana could feel a powerful emanation burst forth from the ruined object, a wall of arcane force that had been bound in the reflecting glass however long before. It rushed over and past the girl, leaving her feeling breathless.
Lobra dropped like a stone, settling among the shards and fragments that skittered across the floor, finally coming to rest in a heap in the midst of the wreckage.
Beside the woman, Xaphira flopped to the floor, as naked as Emriana. Her body was covered in purplish bruises.
"Aunt Xaphira!" Emriana yelled in delight, rushing across the space toward her. Barely mindful of the jagged glass strewn everywhere, Emriana reached the woman and clenched her gingerly in a hug, feeling tears begin to well up in her eyes. She hadn't realized how alone she had felt until then.
Xaphira gave a soft, muffled groan at the girl's touch and stirred. "Em?" she said softly, her voice dazed. "Is that you?"
Emriana was crying in delight when she answered, "Yes, it's me." Then she hugged the woman even tighter, unwilling to let go.
Xaphira groaned in pain and the girl released her, realizing she was hurting her aunt. She scanned the marks all over the older woman's body, horrified.
"What happened?" she mumbled, feeling more tears welling up. "What did they do to you?"
Xaphira rolled to her knees and tried to sit up. "I'm all right," she said, looking around, her dark hair damp and plastered to her face. "Where are we?"
Emriana scowled over at Lobra's still form. "House Pharaboldi," she said. "That's Lobra there. She had Denrick-Denrick, he-" and Emriana shuddered.
"Denrick's dead," Xaphira said, looking at Emriana with concern in her eyes. "It couldn't have been real."
"It was," Emriana insisted. I did not just imagine what happened, she silently added. She wasn't sure if she wanted to explain or not. Blinking back a few tears that she hoped Xaphira didn't see, she held up her hand. "Later," she said. "We have to get out of here." As if to punctuate the girl's words, the muted sounds of someone shouting erupted beyond the door.
"How did we get here? I thought we were in the Generon." Xaphira's voice sounded weak, dazed.
"I don't know," Emriana replied, standing and looking about for anything she could use to cover herself. "Lobra had something to do-"
The girl's sentence was interrupted as the door leading into the hall slammed open. "Lady Lobra, come quick. It's your-" It was a woman, a servant, and as she dashed into the bedroom and spotted her mistress lying on the floor, along with two unclad intruders, she froze, her words dying in her throat.
"Grab her!" Xaphira hissed, trying to rise on wobbly legs in the midst of the broken glass. "Don't let her get away!"
The servant let out a startled squeak and tried to flee, but Emriana managed to bound across the room and seize her by one wrist. Using the woman's own momentum against her, Emriana managed to sling the servant around and back into the room, flinging her across the floor in the direction of the bed. As the woman lost her balance and sprawled across the mattress, Emriana shut the door, careful not to slam it, and turned to face the woman.
By that time, Xaphira had managed to get to her feet and tiptoe her way out of the multitude of glass shards. As the servant flopped on the bed, Emriana's aunt half fell and half pounced, landing on top of the woman and pinning her arms to her sides. She clamped a hand over the servant's mouth. "Find something to tie her with," Xaphira commanded, looking unsteady. "Hurry, before I pass out."
Instead of complying with her aunt's instructions, Emriana moved around to face the bucking, struggling woman. "Patimi," she said, believing she recognized her. She got down close to the servant's face to be certain. At the sound of her own name, the servant stopped struggling and eyed Emriana, her expression wary. "It's Emriana Matrell. Do you remember me?" she asked.
Patimi's eyes took on a puzzled expression, then they widened and she nodded.
"Good," Emriana replied. "I know this seems suspicious, but you need to hear what we have to say."
"You know her?" Xaphira asked her niece. "Can we trust her?"
"Yes to the first question," Emriana answered, "and I don't know to the second. We'll see." She got down in Patimi's face again and said, "I'm sure that Lady Lobra has said all sorts of terrible things about me and my entire House, but I suspect most of them are not true. Now," she warned, "you can either sit quietly and listen to us, or we can tie you up as my aunt suggested and lock you in a closet. Which do you prefer?" The woman grunted and nodded again, and Emriana took that for acquiescence. She looked up at her aunt. "Let her up."
"Em," Xaphira started to argue, "one sound from her and we're caught all over again."
"I know, but if we're asking her to trust us, don't you think we should return the favor?" Emriana asked.
Sighing, Xaphira fell off the woman, who quickly sat up and rubbed her arms where her captor had pinned them down. Emriana grabbed the chair Denrick had used and slid it in front of the bed. She pointed to it. "Sit," she commanded, and Patimi moved to comply. "Good," the girl said. "Now, I really would like to put some clothes on. Will you sit there quietly while we make ourselves decent?"
"Yes, ma'am," Patimi answered, looking at the floor as though she were embarrassed at the women's naked condition.
"All right, then," Emriana said, looking around. "Since our own clothes don't seem to be here…" she said, leaving the thought hanging. She walked over to a wardrobe in the corner, the same one from which Patimi had helped her find a riding outfit months before.
Before I found out what a fiend Denrick was, Emriana thought.
The girl rummaged through the clothing in the closet and pulled out two dark outfits that would aid them in hiding, if necessary. "Here," she said, turning to toss the garments to her aunt.
Xaphira was bent over Lobra, checking on the woman. "She's still alive," she said. "No major cuts, just a lot of scratches. She was lucky," the woman added, looking down at all the broken glass.
"Too bad," Emriana snapped, wishing Lobra had been impaled on a particularly long and nasty shard. "She doesn't deserve to be lucky." She saw Patimi flinch at her comment, and she almost wished she hadn't said it aloud. Grabbing up two pairs of riding boots from the closet, Emriana turned back.
Xaphira was giving her niece a single concerned look, but Emriana simply handed the boots she had chosen to her aunt and they dressed silently and quickly.
Donning clothes seemed to aid Emriana's courage, and once she was finished, she went to the doorway and opened it a crack, peering into the hall. No one stood near, and no sounds arose from elsewhere in the house. "It's clear," she whispered to Xaphira, who had come up behind the girl.
"We can't go out that way," her aunt replied. "Too many people will see us. Whatever you want to say to this one, do it quickly. We've got to leave before someone starts missing them."
Emriana nodded and turned back to Patimi. "Do you remember what we talked about the last time I was here?"
"Yes, ma'am," the servant answered, looking sorrowful. "You were one of Denrick's lady friends. But I told you that Jithele was carrying his baby when the city watch killed her, and you got pretty upset. Did you really murder him, Lady Emriana? Over a serving girl?" She sounded horrified at the prospect.