[i]The knife reflected light from the candle into her eyes for a moment before she drew it across the man's neck. Blood rushed down his front turning his ridiculous fancy clothes – who did he think he was, a noble? - red and spurting out to catch her in the face. She didn't care. He was already dead as he fell backwards....[/i] No. [i]She sunk the knife into his chest, her eyes were fixed on his face but a hiss of air let her know she'd hit a lung. Good, this would last longer then. She caught him as he began to fall and lowered him to the floor as gently as she could. 

“You're going to die a lot slower and in a lot more pain than she did, only seems right.” She told him almost conversationally, still watching his face intently as he coughed and gasped trying in vain to fill his lungs. She almost wished she'd left him able to talk, but no, his face was enough. It expressed the shock, fear and pain just right. She...[/i]

“Kyara!” A shout interrupted her train of thought and she looked up from the knife she had been stroking absentmindedly with an irritated frown on her face. She quickly changed it to a smile when she saw the young man running up to her. Aaron was a fairly new addition to the band, and he'd begun trying to impress her soon after he joined. She was still unsure whether it was worth the risk to use his interest to her advantage; he was young, inexperienced, not much of a fighter from what she'd heard, he'd barely made it into the band. It would be a lot of work and risk to get him to the point of being willing to kill his boss for her if it was even possible, and she couldn't see him succeeding where a trained soldier and assassin had both failed. Still, she had failed to come up with anything else in the months following her latest failure so it wouldn't do to burn her bridges with him before she'd reached a decision.

“Doug bet me two gold pieces he could beat me in a fight, want to come watch?” Aaron was grinning eagerly at her. Idiot. Doug was a good fighter and apparently taking part in the old tradition of parting foolish new recruits from more than they could spare. 

“Sure, sounds like fun.” She gave him a warm smile and stood up, it would be an opportunity to see if she was completely wasting her time with him at least.

Aaron lead her to where Doug and about ten other men were waiting. They formed a rough circle and Aaron stepped into it after asking Kyara to wish him luck, which she did with forced enthusiasm. One of the men turned to her with a sneer as Aaron and Doug were getting ready, “Come to support your new man? Does he know how the last one ended up?” She spared him a glare then turned her attention back to the fight that was about to start. She had done her best to keep her relationship with Peter as quiet as possible to keep his actions from leading back to her. It had worked enough to stop Rafford suspecting her as being behind the attack, but inevitably some of the men knew about it. At first she had worried about their talk but if it hadn't got Rafford's attention by now, over a year after the attack, there was little danger now.

Aaron was the first to move, throwing a punch that was easily dodged by Doug. The two circled each other for awhile, exchanging blows with no one getting the upper hand. Aaron looked like he was enjoying himself, but Kyara could tell Doug wasn't really trying. Aaron managed to land a punch to Doug's shoulder that made him stagger back a few steps. He whooped and turned away from Doug to wink at Kyara. Doug used his distraction to step in and hit Aaron in the stomach, hard. Aaron dropped to the ground, groaning in pain while the onlookers laughed at him. Kyara turned away in disgust, resisting the urge to throw a knife at him. Useless. 

She clenched her fists as she walked away, willing away the magic that surged up in response to her anger. Her mother, Melia, had taught her to control it well, but she was finding it harder and harder these days. Two years of obeying the man who killed her mother in front of her, two years of fake smiles and pretending to agree with every idiotic plan he came up with so that he would believe she was still loyal. Two years of trying to persuade or buy others to carry out her revenge for her, thanks to that cursed spell. Rafford might be a poor leader but he wasn't as useless when it came to his own personal safety. He had hired her mother out of greed for the extra money he could make with a sorcerer's power on his side but he was also afraid of a power he couldn't defend against with sword or armour. So he had hired a wizard to cast a spell that would cause any damage done to him by Melia or Kyara to be done to them as well. It must have cost a fortune but it had saved his life when he had killed Melia for disobeying him. She wanted nothing more than to take her revenge herself, but instead she was reduced to acting through others and she couldn't even get that right. If only she could get the spell removed. Perhaps that should be her next move, pay a wizard to remove the spell. It would require a lot more time to save the money and she didn't like the idea of trusting her life to a wizard, there would be no way of knowing whether it had worked until she put it to the test. Besides, though she refused to admit it to herself, the thought of leaving the band she had been with her whole life and surviving on her own was... intimidating.