CLOSED | There's No Ethical Assassination in Late-Stage Vyrantium

[hassaran]

WHO: Yseult, Kostos, Loxley, Vanya
WHAT: Yseult takes a team to Tevinter to assassinate a magister targeted by the People of the Silent Plains
WHEN: What is time, really
WHERE: Thyrale, a Tevinter beach resort
NOTES: Violence, blood magic mind control, mentions of slavery

The spell hits Vanya a moment earlier, just long enough for Yseult to see the way he goes rigid and turns away from Cyrene and back toward Kostos with a strange, jerking, straining gait, as if his limbs are being manipulated by unseen hands—not turning, then, but turned. She recognizes it for what it is in the same moment she realizes she is not so far away, nearer than either of the others, and also that her forward progress has halted. She might think a curse, but doesn't get time to speak it.

The narrow passageway between the baths and the luxurious changing cavern had seemed an ideal place for an ambush, especially after they discovered Kyrus's penchant for lingering in the warm water late into the evening, until most other guests had departed to some banquet table or another. Easy enough to offer to take the late shifts from their fellow resort-slaves and to loiter around the robing station as if eager to see off a final client and be out of their uniforms (flimsy linen togas for the women, kilts of similar material for the men and strange leather gloves that encase arms, shoulders, and throat while leaving the torso bare). Easy enough to strike while Kyrus and his paramour were separated into the gendered changing areas (so she might be spared, if possible), while the bodyguard was isolated waiting for his master. The last, at least, really was easy—Yseult handing the big man a pile of towels and sliding a blade up into his heart from beneath them. He slid down the stone partition to land with a muted thump, blood spilling down his front.

That was the end of their good fortune. Kyrus and Cyrene emerged at once, too quickly to feign horrified discovery of the body, and Cyrene, rather than run screaming, set one delicately-sandaled foot into the pooling blood and raised her hands to take hold of their minds.

It isn't easy to conceal weapons of any size in a summer-weight toga, but Yseult draws a second knife from within the pleating just below her belt, and turns toward Kostos and Loxley. At first her movements are stiff and labored too, but not for long--she regains grace and speed as she covers the yards between them, feinting a high swipe at Loxley's chest only to drop low instead.