Syraleth smiles meekly as Vexena looms over her, staring at her own hand like it has personally betrayed her.
Vexena's face contorts into pure, unrestrained fury.
"So…" Syraleth starts, her voice as soft and unthreatening as she can make it. "I know this looks ba—"
"HERETIC!"
Syraleth's explanation is cut short by Vexena's thundering roar of accusation, a sound that rattles loose stone, shakes birds from trees a full mile away, and sends every one of her soldiers across the field dropping instinctively to one knee, a sound that seems to press at the very fabric of reality itself.
"Vexena," Syraleth pleads, voice cracking under the strain of the Demon Queen's magical pressure. "let's not do anything—"
Vexena rips her frozen hand clean through the temporal bubble like it's wet paper, magic shattering around her wrist in a spray of glittering, dying sparks as she snatches Syraleth by the throat before the shock can even register across the baroness's own face.
