A Lady In A Maze

[Mazeryl Xiron]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Breaker Of Chains​

In the hand…
Of a woman…
Rests a weapon.
The hilt of a sword.
For a lady so forged.
And a lady can swing.
She can block or parry.
She can slash and stab.
She is proven so deadly.
Or at least…a lady thinks.

You are NOTHING, MAZE!
Go! Go away! GO AWAY!

Her own voice is in pain.
Agony in a spoken name.
In a mirror, sees her face.
Reflects on edge of blade.

“You are a silly girl, Mazeryl…”
She whispers within darkness.
Her gaze penetrates a distance.
Between eyes and sword in a fist.

I'm sorry, Ryssa Kalayli.
Maze is remembering.
As a steel blade sheens.
She sees eyes glimmering.
Golden irises were Ryssa’s.
I failed you. It is all…undone.

The hedges that flank her dare not disagree with their Protector.
Tall bushes, a brilliant red, hedges connected in a maze of earth.
A bush as red as her blood, the rossatine, budding from nature.
In a maze, a woman walks, lost, helpless, if in her house colors.

A black leather jacket, collar tall and sharp, covering her red skirts.
Blazoned at jacket’s back, black red emblem, with orange embers.
Like fire, tendrils of curling flame, but in truth it is that golden mane.
On a red circle, flanked by blades shaped in an A, no dragon, a lion.

With a sigh, she sheathes her sword.
Steel sings back within its scabbard.
Above that world is that black canvas.
Bright stars but Maze's place is Karazak.

One's own soul, a Karazakan's blade.
A breeze tickles black hair that drapes.
Black seas for irises are dark as death.
“A fool calling herself Breaker of Chains.”

But what chains has Mazeryl Xiron broken?
No, she did not free, she enslaved victims.
Lady Protector, they call her, her citizens.
Yet she failed to protect just one woman.

On broken boat, the sea is not the enemy.
Oh drowning woe, you are your worst foe.
For upon yourself you cannot place faith.
A ship sinks when her captain hesitates.

What was a ruler who ruled through stupidity?
Back then and there upon her own city streets.
Karazak’s first visitor in years at a Lady’s back.
So the Lady Protector could go have her attack.

Just a stupid foolish girl who thinks herself a warrior.
To defend her home, she charged her challengers.
On instinct, without thinking, stormed that lady.
Enemies, the Karazakan knew, they had to bleed.

Who bled? Who burned? She claimed a head. Hur’s.
Hur of House Terel, a warrior, who dared oppose her.
His Lady Protector. He died for it. Who truly suffered?
Vadrian… Kalayli… And all my soldiers… My…my warriors.

They were dead too. They died for her. Died for Maze.
For my mistakes. Her heart quakes right there in a maze.
A maze beneath the stars, underneath that galactic arc.
She glides her feet, walking gracefully, holding her arms.

There is not much dignity in this woman’s walk, so lonely.
Not a proud stance, hands not clasped behind her back.
Hand not on sword hilt at hip like the day it had been.
When one Ryssa was strolling before her kidnapping.

Two women walking along, oblivious to whispers in the wind.
Even amid her Shades, Maze had been betrayed by a woman.
Just one, a lone little lady, who made Maze into a blind idiot.
It isn’t Ryssa, it wasn’t her, it was Maze herself who's foolish.

“They call me a young girl, Father.”
Mazeryl Xiron speaks into thin air.
It would seem, but he hears her.
“That I know so little of warfare.”

Talking to herself, the woman shrugs.
To her father as well, a daughter does.
Day and night, Johteuge Xiron lives on.
In heart, head. “I’m a ticking time bomb.”

She takes a left at the corner bordered by scarlet bush.
A labyrinth of thickets is paved in paths and at junctions.
A wall of shrubbery as red as the blood in her house sigil.
A lady walks, a lady in a maze, outside her palace of vigil.

 

[Mazeryl Xiron]

Spoiler: Music OOC

A lady, a lady in a maze.
This maze is lost on Maze.
She wandered night and day.
The maze…she has lost her way.
Today is different from yesterday.
Tonight she’s forgotten how to play.
In this maze, this is a different game.

Father…

There’s no answer.
So a woman wanders.
Walks along, as lost as dawn.
Ambles onward, left, she’s gone.
Takes a right, and up, like a ladder.
Climbing for her exit, she ponders.

Hedge after hedge, bush after bush.
One by one, the flanks, the ambush.
Red leaves, sanguine, bloody shrub.
Walked these walls, knew their mud.

Those roots beneath earth and crete.
Twisted limbs within a web of seeds.
A lattice of bushes above the streets.
Like Oregina, like Karazak’s own city.

Maze has walked this maze before.
Lost in time, escaping her very reality.
It’s different now, with different doors.
She is utterly lost, afraid, with frail feet.

How long had it been? When would she eat? Drink? Not by her own design did the Lady Protector of Karazak enter this maze with a hidden exit. This was the same maze but somehow…different.

This was her father’s garden, she knew it like she knew her father, Johteuge Xiron. She discovered the nooks and remembered the crannies; but the turns are suddenly uncanny, the twists so foreign, and each hedge is like a tombstone, like her death.

Ryssa…

To feel such remorse, such regret, such pangs of guilt and stabs that kill. Open doors, close doors, a governor’s death could have O so swiftly taken the floor.

Because of me. Because I’m weak.

The maze tells her, that wandering warrior, that Karazakan with a katana at her hip. A kiss of death, she’d given it, delivered it to him, to her, to them. She was no killer, she killed killers, men like Hur of House Terel. Or so a girl tells herself.

Farewell to his head, that’s what they get for messing with the best, with the black and red of House Xiron. A woman may reassure herself, a lady in a maze, as she paces a labyrinth like purgatory.

A punishment, built for a lady to feel as eyes peel back vines and leaves to try and see; left or right, this twist or that turn, sword hilt in grip of fist—but it’s weak. When last did she sleep?

A little girl with foolish dreams.

Up ahead, the maze junctions, splitting either way, but it’s just the illusion of choice. In the quiet, with the noise of a nighttime breeze, Maze decides to go left, no, right, no, left again—she can’t make up her mind.

Her breath is tested, the air in her lungs so cold on a cool night, her heart wrapped in a blanket of needles that poke and prod every beat. She moves her feet, such small things, black leather boots suddenly so heavy and too big for a girl so small.

Father…you said I would grow tall…how can a leader stand if she falls?

Red leaves, bleeding heartbeats, a woman knows her father’s answer. He would tell her to get back up again, that she isn’t dead, that the blood pumping between her ears is what drums back her fears.

The fear of death…what is worse? That the Vadrians and the Kalaylis should die because of a lady who cannot protect them.

A -ping!- just then, like the sky whose stars were so far had just sent her a sign, a signal, to stay alive and if only to kill her enemies, to make them bleed, to bring them to their knees. The Canton Higurhs and the Hurs.

If only it was that simple. However, the world, the galaxy, had a way of unfurling reality. Taking tiny fingers off her sword, she retrieves her comlink, spies three words that curve in her mind like the convex of a blade, as a wind takes the maze and the scarlet heart of the Maze.

“We found him.”

And a lady’s fist squeezes a comlink. Digits tap, slow and delicate, a crow’s talon, a raven’s instrument, her response to Roener.

“I am coming.”

Father...I am lost in the maze...I don't want to go on...I want to stay...

We can't stay, daughter. You must go.

Yes...Father...

 

[Mazeryl Xiron]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Rain.
Rain in a maze.
RAIN.
RAIN IS THE MAZE.

…A lady…a lady in the maze…
…A maze…paved with hate…
…Rain…I can make it rain…
…Reign…Xiron. Will. Reign.

Rain.
Dripping.
Blades.
Falling.
Like knives.
Like daggers.
Bleeding lies.
Blood spatters.

Rainy night.
A lady’s might.
Put her to the test.
Just die like the rest.
A lady is a woman.
A woman is of Xiron.
Daughter of Johteuge.
Enemies learn that too.
Them, all of them—dead.
Yes, each one, take heads!
Foes, they’ll know their death.
Rivals, she will take their breath!

Tonight, there are some wrongs to right.
Right, here she comes, there she is, the Maze.
Her opponents shall not survive this night.
Emotions, bloody heartbeats stuck in the maze.

Raining. Raining! RAINING ON MY ENEMIES.
In the rain, there she stands, she knows her name.
More than words—Mazeryl Xiron—her reputation at stake.
Tonight, she’s a tower in rooftop rain, and her enemies will bleed.

Raindrops, falling like blades, slashing, slanted by a sharp wind.
On the roof of a building, a tower in the city, there looms a woman.
Black is the night, red is her coat, and both are the lady’s own colors.
The sigil of her house, bloody teardrop—‘Pride Of Legacy’—their words.

House Xiron, that is the woman’s name today and tonight.
That is who fools attack when upon her they wage a fight.
In the cold rain, as it hammers her coat, she’ll remind them.
With the heat of her blade, she shall unsheathe their death.

Blades. Shades. They serve their Maze. They stand beside her.
Warriors, they’d die for her, and she for them, for swords curve.
Hand on hilt, scabbard at hip, she stands before her loyal troop.
They all stand staring at three souls on knees: him, him, her too.

“Vomayr. Tarion. Lestra.”
The Maze speaks above.
His name, his, and hers.
Lips still—her eyes burn.

“Each one of you is a Shade, formerly sworn to House Xiron, but you betrayed my family.”
They do not dispute this, gazing up, knees on duracrete, but their eyes are not so fearless.
“You abandoned both oath and home to serve yourselves, selling your sword as assassins.”
Fire in her eyes, a volcano is her voice, not yet erupted. She’s burning—but she’s no dragon.

“We caught Lestra’s hand trying to bleed Lord Andrin. We kidnapped Tarion. Vomayr was last.”
A split at the corner of her lips, beginning of a satisfied grin, their Lady Protector, but no laugh.
She would no longer protect these three souls, they forfeited that privilege, and could only burn.
Hand on hilt, Maze twists it, doesn’t release it, head tilt to her enemy. “Where is Canton Higurh?”

 

[Mazeryl Xiron]

Spoiler: Music OOC [Recurring]

A question. It lingers in the air. It hangs in the rain like a dangling blade.
A blade in the rain. A blade… A name… A maze… My name! MAZE.
Lady Protector, they called her, but what has she protected? Or who?
Lady Protector, they call me, but I don’t know why. Am I a lie? Truth?

A question, it’s a pang in her mind, lingering, ever asking her why.
Why was she born to a lord, why did she ever become governor?
Why, Mazeryl Xiron, with the world looking on, did you give this life?
A woman, a lady, can't escape reality. Tonight, a Lady’s eyes burn.

“I asked you a question.” Her gaze between him and her and him, eyes into eyes.
Left and right, unfazed by the rain, appreciating the cold blades against her hair.
Against her skin where it is bare, where black and red does not cover her guise.
“I will not ask you again.” Simple question, simple answer. Or are you so scared?

“I am Vomayr Sogawa.” Oh, I know your name, you fool. He lifts his head in grave defiance.
“I bid my blade to House Xiron…when your house was strong!” He spits noncompliance.
That much was obvious in his eyes. On his knees, the assassin sits, with bittersweet lips.
“Kill me if you will, Lady Protector, but know that—” -SHING!- A blade finally quiets him.

From her sheath, in one single motion, swift was the swing, sword gleaming beneath the rain.
Too bad for him, Vomayr Sogawa, couldn’t keep his tongue where it is, so he just had to pay.
Treachery, the Breaker of Chains knows what that costs, like slavery, so there was no delay.
“He picked the wrong night to piss off the roof.” In the rain. On my name. My house! MAZE.

Silence again, quiet are the tongues, each of the two ones, upon traitors kneeling, her enemies.
He looks up, she looks down, both uncertain, not knowing what to say, whether to even speak.
“Speaking of roofs.” Shuts up, flicks her wrist, whips blood into the rain and sheathes her blade.
Tilts her head, gestures toward them, two Shades of her own to pick up two cutthroats off knees.

Quiet, no need for speech, Maze says nothing as she watches her warriors carry the others over.
Beneath her gaze, the headless man. Like Hur of House Terel. Not kneeling, laying, and bleeding.
He should have kept his tongue where it was. My enemies will BURN. She looks up at the others.
Her own, loyal to the bone, props each one on the rooftop’s edge, standing on the ledge, facing her.

“Canton Higurh,” reminds the Lady Protector of Karazak. No going back. “Tell me where he is.”
She wasn’t asking, she was demanding, and if Vomayr was any indication they would know it.
They would know how serious she is, that this is more than business, it’s personal. My name.
Canton, the assassin, had attacked a foreign dignitary on home soil. For that…you will all pay.

 

[Mazeryl Xiron]

Spoiler: Music OOC [Recurring]

On the roof. No one moves.
Not him or her, no, not those two.
On edge of death, like Canton Higurh.
Other woman, her troop, no movement.

On a roof…
Thinks a maze.
In the rain…
Thinks the Maze!

In the night, by water’s bite, that shadow’s blight.
Slanted, like a sword’s slash, that rain, that tide.
Cold, bare skin and hair, the rainfall that can fly.
A storm, a storm of swords, so frozen in time.

Words, words were wind, O so very meaningless.
To her, to a Maze, her words must be like blades.
On the roof, in that rain, stands her, him and her.
Assassins, two of them, before their executioner.

Maze… Maze… Maze…
Mazeryl can feel steel rain.
Maze… Maze… Maze…
Mazeryl can feel real pain.

In her scabbard, sheathed once again, was the Maze’s blade that had slain the Shade.
Vomayr, a rogue assassin, whose braid of hair was alone in a puddle of blood and rain.
His had been a quick death, slit neck, skin and head, dead, but his killer stood in agony.
Still as stone, chill in bone, a woman can kill, as shown, but a lady is living in a fantasy.

Father…help me…please…
Upon her, hell has unleashed.
All she sees are her enemies.
Help me…help me to…see…

Her eyes are open, black seas, entrapping the gazes of the man and woman on the ledge.
Right and left in an ocean falling from the sky; droplets in a haze before the vision of Maze.
Her sight is obscured, she needs her father to help her, show her inside those on the edge.
Tarion and Lestra, those two fallen Shades that were left, yet to fall from the roof and break.

“I don’t know where he is!” Came the voice of the man, Tarion.
He’s scared. Less of a swordsman, preferred to poison, that one.
“I’ve never met him! We only talked on comm! Just for one job!”
Fear in his eyes…but is there a lie? “This bitch is the one you want!”

He gestured his head to his left where stood that woman, Lestra.
Maze looked between them, stepped forward, toward the others.
Murderers for hire, severed their tie to the throne, as did Higurh.
These two Shades, assassins, were the remnants of a bygone era.

“Ask her! She worked for him more than once! I know that much!”
“Coward!” Lestra spat, did not attack, the cold ground at her back.
“Let me go, Lady Xiron, and I promise to help you find your target.”
“Thank you.” So Maze stepped forth, lifted her foot and let him go.

The kick was quick, followed by a yell as Tarion fell, fading into silence.
Two women’s eyes met just then. “He helped enough. He gave you up.”
Lestra looks unafraid as she gazes into the maze, with no reason to hide.
“I saw no lies in his eyes, only useless secrets, but yours are worth more.”

Both dead and alive is a soul of violence. Eyes into eyes, neither is vibrant.
Lestra killed from afar, a sniper, and without her visor was a gaze so far away.
Cold as ice... Quite like this rain... “Give me what I need or you share his fate.”
“If I do, will you let me go the same way? I’m dead whether I talk or keep quiet.”

“Unless you’re cooperative. Those two proved to be too rude for me to treat with.”
For a moment, silence. Your rage will make you lose yourself in the maze...Maze...
A voice in her head, Father’s again. They deserved it. Still one left. She will confess.
Lestra looked away, daring to spy the distance behind and below, with a slow breath.

“He has his lair but moves everywhere. I once found him on Zashi Mountain. He was my con—”
The woman was cut off just then as a flash emerged from her head, her eyes even farther gone.
Maze glimpsed a smoldering hole in her skull as a lifeless Lestra fell backward into the darkness.
With no time to think, there was a ring, something vibrating, and it was coming from her pocket.

“SNIPER!”
Cried a warrior.
A soldier behind her.
And others. “Take cover!”

Frantically, suddenly panicking, Maze swerved, turned into the distance, saw only rain.
She heard nothing, no one, all was silent, even as a hand grabbed her and led her away.
Past a turbine, behind the wall of the rooftop’s entrance, her own Shade spoke her name.
Referred to her as his Protector, he’d keep her safe, with such resolve burning on his face.

“No visual!”
I am a fool…
Her blood was rushing.
Maze…you are…nothing…

There were three prisoners, at least one could serve up some answers, but she was gone.
Maze heard the voices around her, her own Shades and Blades containing their little rooftop.
But all she really heard was her own voice over and over again, blaming her for her anger.
Had she been smarter, she’d have kept all three alive, but like a child she missed the danger.

And now I am the one being hunted...
No, wait, it wasn’t a blaster she heard.
It was her own person, it was that ring.
From her pocket. So out came a comlink.

She pressed a button but she heard nothing.
Not even breath coming from the other end.
“Who is this?” Mazeryl asked the stranger.
“This is Lestra’s killer. I am Canton Higurh.”

Then it wasn’t his voice, his blaster, the comlink’s fading ring she heard, but a drum.
It was the drum she had heard the moment a bolt burned through Lestra’s own skull.
It was the sound of a woman’s heartbeat, quickening and pounding, like boiling blood.
In that instant, she already knew it, wouldn’t admit it—that Ryssa’s attacker had come.

 

[Mazeryl Xiron]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Rain. It fell hard, it fell heavy, more than when she first came, before the night replaced the day.
They gathered there, on a roof in the city, in the open air, on a nameless building, above streets.
No ceremony, no reason to think their captives would be ferried to this location otherwise boring.
No following them to a guarded compound, they were discrete, shadows by the Blade and Shade.

No Maze to assassinate at the window of Harmonhal. No black cells to interrogate them all.
Those three, those assassins, she knew each would bleed, but the last was not her own call.
He found us. Was he watching all along? Him, their stalker, on the comlink, if no simple talker.
Lestra’s killer, and Kalayli’s kidnapper, a man with no known agenda; lifeless, corpse-walker.

A heartbeat, a heart bleeds, pounding between Mazeryl Xiron’s ears, a lady, if much the fool.
Vadrian would have warned her, she might have listened, might have given in, not to emotion.
Vadrian... She suddenly wished for him, he who died for her, for his world, while death closed in.
A warrior, he knew his path as did his Maze, gave his weapon, it was a creed, ever kept his cool.

“Are you there?”
A voice. She’s scared.
Rain falls, but she is crouched.
Hiding behind cover; inside she shouts.

“No contact. No direction.”
Her men and women searched.
Don’t play the leader. You must be her.
Her blood screams, but she’s just a woman.

Mazeryl Xiron, warrior and Protector, but how can she be both?
Her hand squeezed the comlink. Vengeance is all she really knows.
“I am here,” she answers simply, her eyes shifting across the darkness.
Night’s rain, high above the city of Oregina; nearby is a shark in the mist.

“Are you wondering how I knew? If I tailed you? Were your movements tracked? An informant?”
His voice was so calm and so collected, like this was just another conversation, as she wondered.
The Hands of the Protector have no traitors. Not for as long as this one could remember. You're a liar.
He had not said so outright. He was just toying with her. YOU are the traitor. A lone, rogue assassin.

Her blade had already taken one such scum’s head off his shoulders. And she would do it again.
“What do you want? Do you intend to pick us off? We’ll find you if you take just one more shot.”
Her question was met with silence. A Hand beside her was on a device searching for his head.
“The truth is, Lady Protector, I got here the same way the coin did. Like fate, we just roll along.”

“Do you know how crazy you sound?” He wants to play. Fair enough. Let’s play. I can wait. I can buy time.
“If the nature of this conversation is an indication of sanity, we’ll need more than a comlink to gauge it.”
“So spoke the lunatic. Just tell me what you want, you son of a bitch.” Eyes left, right, into night.
“People always say the same thing. ‘What do you want?’ ‘Just stop.’ ‘You don’t have to do this.’ “

Warriors around her, surround her, the Shades and Blades to shape the Lady Protector’s Hands.
More could come in an instant, hop across the rooftops, but Maze knows this man’s reputation.
One twitch, one flick, her own might suffer for it. Maze would not lose another, no, not like this.
She would not give him the reason. It was him who would give one to her. Her answers at last.

“Ask yourself…not how I have your number, not if your nights are numbered…because they are.”
He spoke cryptically, seamlessly, steadily, a pause between speech just enough for her to think.
“The question is how far are you willing to go to find your answer? How many streets? Or stars?”
“What does that even mean?” She grit her teeth. “Nothing. Ultimately the search means nothing.”

“Like your fucking words.” Blaster bolt came from that direction…but the Ninja is always...hidden…
“It isn’t about knowing where you’re going, or where you are, but accepting how you got there.”
“Justice brought me here.” Foolish, maybe, but vengeance is earned. “It serves me as it is bidden.”
“There is no justice,” the voice dictated. “Only fate. It is yet impartial. It is…dust…in the…air…”

Fate. Death was to be Ryssa Kalayli’s fate, Governor of Ryloth.
She remembered that moment, that poison, as her eyes were off.
Governor of Karazak, unwilling to sit back, she ran and moved along.
“Ask yourself: Did I kill Vadrian and the others or did you, Mazeryl Xiron?”

 

[Mazeryl Xiron]

Spoiler: Music OOC (Recurring)

A fool. This man took this woman for a fool. What happened to the last man who did that?
Oh. Right. He was lying on his back at the bottom of this building. Not the first. Not the last.
Did I kill Vadrian? A rhetorical question. Stupid. One designed to get into the woman’s mind.
This assassin was good at what he did, but for all his talk, he was proving to be a stupid guy.

Did I kill Vadrian? The woman bit her lip. ‘Accepting how you got there’, the twisted man said.
Canton Higurh. She would take his name to the grave. Here, on this world, amid all the death.
She had an obligation to see it through. Amid the civil war and chaos that plagued the streets.
She was still the Governor of Karazak, with her promise to restore order, whoever shall bleed.

“Does the blade take a life?” She breathed easily into her comlink. “Or the hand that holds it?”
“Isn’t it based on perspective?” That warranted a grin. “A weapon is lifeless. Yet not a person.”
She looked into the distance, into the darkness, while her Blades and Shades tried to find him.
“You pulled the trigger, Canton Higurh. You killed my soldiers. My men, my women. My Vadrian.”

A moment of silence, yet she wouldn’t put it past him that he was distracted as much as reflective.
“And I…” Voice raised. Eyes into night. “I am Mazeryl Xiron, Lady Protector, and you will have my blade.”
A lady in a maze. In the rain, as it fell on the foundations of hell as Karazak buckled, bent, as if to break.
Not yet. A father’s daughter promised. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. She won’t watch the end of her planet.

“Mazeryl Xiron,” a soulless voice echoed. “Governor of Karazak. Lady of Harmonhal.”
“Anything?” Maze spoke away from her comlink. “Nothing.” Came back one and all.
Fucking piece of shit. Where is he? “Head of House Xiron. And Breaker of Chains.”
“Congratulations. You’re a parrot.” No laughter. Silence. “Tell me…how is…Mave?”

Mave? It's a name anyone on this planet would know and then some. Her brother.
“Why does your snake’s tongue ask me?” Mave was offworld last sister had heard.
“Why is a snake mistaken for deceit and deception? Its tongue allows it to sense.”
“If I want a lesson, I’d turn to Karazak Geographic.” Venom dripped in her breath.

“Look to your friends and your enemies, Mazeryl Xiron.”
In every direction, searching, Mazeryl Xiron looked on.
“Most importantly, look to your family, and ask yourself.”
Here we go. “Would your own brother drag you into hell?”

 

[Mazeryl Xiron]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Coat of black. Jacket of red. Black and red. Those are her colors. The colors of the House of Xiron.
There she stands, there she stays, looking on upon the rooftop, gazing into the rain, in red and black.
Coat of red. Jacket of black. Water from dark skies falls on her, slides down leather, pitter-patter.
Clothed in both. Red for blood, family, courage. Black for strength, authority, fear. You bitter bastard.

No, he wasn’t even that. This man had no emotions. No sense of feeling. He was soulless. So empty.
He spoke of friends but he had no friends. He spoke of enemies though he was everybody’s enemy.
He mentioned family but he did not have any. How could he? Canton Higurh was a ghost. So broke.
He mentioned her brother who loved her. She loved him. Hell spits from his lips. You were spat from it.

No. He was trying to goad her. To provoke her to anger. Sociopaths did that. It was a tool. A technique.
If she followed his question with an answer, he would bait her, frustrate her, and drag her into the deep.
For, they say she is a young girl and knows little in the ways of war. How to rule and command. To lead.
Yet she leapt. From the very beginning. From the womb. From her chains. She broke them too. So free.

Don’t listen to him. Only a moment passed between this dead man’s question and ensuing silence.
A pause as Mazeryl Xiron just watched and listened, but not at him, not to him. Ignored his violence.
Yes, Father. She would not. Canton Higurh, the assassin, was already dead to her. Father was alive yet.
Not in flesh but spirit. Always with her. A voice in her head. You are but a void in comparison. Be quiet.

However, the audacity in the voice of this traitor, this former Shade who spoke to her, was rather infuriating.
His tone was pretty indifferent, plain as day, straight as rain. Contemptible fool. Silence on her phone though.
To not even refer to her by title. Only name. For her, name was title, title was name. Reputation is everything.
Breaker of Chains, they called her. A moniker. As far as she was concerned, her ancestors were the Breakers.

And Mazeryl Xiron was their Lady Protector.

“Lady,” responds Xiron. Finally. “I am the Protector of Karazak.” She gazed into the rain, into darkness.
Beyond the shadow and the blade by her, the Shades and the Blades beside her. Fingers arc into a fist.
She walks forward toward cliff and assassin. Her men and women try to call her back. She doesn’t listen.
He was hidden, but she can see him for who he truly is. “I am the Lady of Ashflower. Karazak’s President.”

She walks along the rooftop. Rain falls quicker, harder, stronger, although she is as calm as the very water.
Forget the monikers, however. And those other titles. Breaker of Chains. ISC Governor. Lady of Harmonhal.
Closer. Toward the edge her eyes might penetrate the night as flying daggers into Canton’s soul and heart.
The bastard had neither. “You will address me by full name.” Rain... RAIN... “As Lady Protector Mazeryl Xiron.”

Silence. She spat into the wind.
“You want me? Pull that trigger.”
The Lady ignored all the others.
“So go ahead…Canton Higurh…”