Will rushed through the castle with a spread that left windows cracked and maids holding down their skirts as his wake tried to blow them up. After a week, they had finally found something. The King summoned Will, stating that he had a lead. So he was headed to the audience hall.
When he arrived, he found an angry, red-faced king facing a man wearing the colors of the Kingdom of Herzinia; this man also bore the official courier pouch of a diplomatic envoy. Will ignored the man and spoke to the King. "What is the news?"
The King, not taking his eyes off of the Envoy, who looked even more nervous about his situation, spoke, "Repeat what you just said to me, Envoy."
The Envoy cleared his throat, "My liege lord wonders why you would have a third party peddling the sale of your daughter, and if you needed the funds that bad, why you did not approach him directly."
Will's head, his eyes radiating cold intensity, snapped onto the Envoy, who stumbled backward. Will stepped forward, "Explain."
The Envoy stuttered before finally getting words out, "Roughly a week ago now, someone approached the King of Herzinia asking if he had need of a royal concubine. I..."
"No!" The King barked, "You say exactly what was said, say it to this man; you clearly fear him more than you fear me. Say it."
The Envoy gulped, then lowered his eyes, unable to Will in the face, "My King was offered a well-trained royal slut by someone claiming to represent Thief King Mardok. This message was sent to confirm if it was Illicia as the man claimed."
The room grew physically colder as waves of wrath and mana rolled off of Will. He roared mightily, and several of the fine windows in the hall shattered. Will seized the Envoy by his neck. "You will contact your King using whatever means you can; tell him that he has only a short time before I arrive there and that if the man who is selling Illicia is not there, I will kill him instead. Tell him that any of his men that attempt to stop me at the border, or the castle gates, or anywhere along the route will be killed. Pray that he listens."
Will tossed the man in the direction of the door and then turned to the King. The King smiled the smile of a man who wanted vengeance. "Bring her back to me, Will. I can not go with you, but I promise you this, even if you have to raise the world to cinders, I will back your play."
"Understood," Will said, turning to leave; he rushed through the castle, getting what he needed and turning down offers of assistance. Within twenty minutes, Will was at the edge of the city and knew where he was going. He remembered lessons with his father about air resistance, and so he stood for a moment, gathering mana in a rush. He began; as he ran, he forced a cone of air to begin rotating in front of him; he added mass and gravity magics to the cone, pulling himself along behind it. Then he channeled mana at levels that would kill most, pushed it into his body, and called upon the earth around him. The world seemed to respond and push him along. Suddenly, Will was moving faster than he ever had before. His only thoughts were of pulling more and more mana into his spells as he continued to increase in speed.
[Mardok]
Thief King Mardok was perplexed. He had hoped that getting this pampered princess to agree to be his plaything would be simple. On the third night, he had tried to push the matter, and she had very nearly castrated him with a knife that he had no idea where she got it from. So, he decided to give her an ultimatum. Every day, he went to the princess and made her an offer: come to his bed or the bed of one of his officers or fight.
The princess had chosen to fight every single time. And that was what had him so perplexed; she was winning. The first fight had been a give for the princess to build her confidence; some random boy from the streets had been tossed into a ring with her, stating that if he fought her for five minutes and then lost, he would get a gold. The boy had done as told.
Then Mardok asked one of his better fighters to crush her will and make her realize that warming his bed might not be so bad. She had carved the fighter's eye from his head with her fingernails and thrown it at Mardok. This continued; each day, she got to choose fuck or fight, and with every day, she chose to fight. Today was her fourth fight, and she was quickly working toward victory using a fire poker that she had somehow gotten her hands on. Yesterday, on the day of her third fight, Mardok had begun to wonder if she was worth the effort and sent a message via his network of spies and criminals to several kings that he would be auctioning the princess off. He expected to hear from them soon, but in the meantime, he wondered once again why a princess was fighting using an orcish style of combat that was only taught in the Gob'Ran collective.
[Illicia]
Illicia panted as she drove the fire poker forward once more, killing the man in front of her. She would fight every day. She had lost yesterday, but she had taken at least one of the man's testicles with her as she faded into unconsciousness. She knew that she could not win forever. Eventually, they would get sick of her and simply kill her with numbers, no more one-on-one battles.
"Hurry up, Will. But know that I will fight till I die until you get here." Illicia thought as she was led back to the cell she had been given. Illicia smiled and tossed the bloody fire poker towards Mardok. She walked with the guard to her cell, sank down to eat her meager meal, and then passed out to sleep until her next fight.
