Isaura stayed up through the night, her eyes easily seeing in the darkness. The night wore on, but the men didn't make any moves. In the silence and stillness, it was clear that they were just as fearful as the rest of the prisoners in the cells. And that was what she knew better than most, that all men were just men. She had never known true evil, nor true good, just men reacting as they must in order to survive. Some knew how to do it better than others, and those were the men who were considered good.
The night was always darkest before dawn broke. Always coldest, too. She distantly remembered a time when she had seen men struggle to tame their demons during such an hour. She could remember men at sea battling to maintain their sanity against the unending night, men abandoned and without hope amidst the sands, and men who fought through the night to see the sunlight once more. These memories, she knew, came from a time before her indentured servitude to the Aruds, because these memories were of places cold and merciless.
During this time, she knew the men would try their luck. This was the time men were most vulnerable, most desperate. It was when she was at her strongest, and it was during the short handful of minutes before the dawn that she felt her old powers return. The first time it had happened after she had become mortal, it had only been for half a minute. Now she had command for just over a minute.
And so when she felt the moment overwhelm her, she stood and silently stepped over Tobias. The men rose to meet her, spitting at the ground by her feet. Gray eyes flashed black, and her voice came out in a dark whisper, one which sounded more like the piercing cold wind over the tundra, than it did her own soft, feminine voice. "You will both die soon." The words she spoke struck, not a threat, but with certainty. "You, Karim Fallos, will die at the hands of a guard named Jareth Heron, who you have wronged. His dagger will strike you down before the sun has reached its peak once more." She turned to the other man, "And you Rand Ilros, will suffer the more. Before the moon has waxed again, you will be bought and sold as a beast to fight, and will die like a beast." She could feel her power begin to wane again, but she took hold of the moment. "And for the ill will you have bore me and this man, neither of you will travel to the lands of the dead for one-hundred years yet. You will have no rest, no freedom, no peace. You shall serve me if the time shall come, and only then will you be released from your bonds."
She felt her power leave her again, like the last bit of water being sucked down the drain. The men, pale and quaking, backed towards their portion of the cell. Isaura returned to her position behind Tobias, again weak and vulnerable, mostly defenseless. As the sun rose, she began to hear the doors of the cells a few down from theirs begin to swing open. He had only had a few hours to sleep, but she gently shook Tobias to wake him. "I believe our time is coming."
