"We cannot contend against something like that..."

Henrik smiled and walked up to her with slow steps. If he wasn't wearing his battle armor most people would assume it was a frail maiden under there.

He reached out and grabbed both of her hands. She tried to pull back saying, "No they're filthy-"

"No, they aren't. I told you, nothing about you is filthy," he said in his usual gentle voice.

"Take a deep breath, focus only on me."

She followed his instructions and breathed in and out several times before meeting his gaze once more.

"Will you listen to me please? Just this once?" she implored again, "This is not like any of the times before. I can feel something terrible is going to happen here and there is nothing any of us can do to stop it."

Henrik chuckled, "Oh really? Are you sure Ms. Empath is not being led by her emotions once again? Maybe overreacting just a little bit? You can feel things others can't which when mixed with an overall nervous atmosphere can easily make one think the worst."

"No! I am not, not this time. You can't feel what I am feeling. This sense of impending doom...it's...like a great big shadow is covering everything around us. The longer we stay here the harder it will become for us to leave."

Henrik brought her hands together and rubbed his along the outside to warm her up.

"There is no other choice. These people need our help, I can't just turn a blind eye to them," he said looking down at Hazel's hands which were covered in cuts and bruises.

She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.

"Again, you're doing it again. Why can't you just let things go? If only you hadn't come back that time you wouldn't have gotten hurt. Even now..."

He smiled without looking up, "But if I didn't go back that time then you wouldn't be here right now to yell at me, and how could I let such an opportunity go to waste?"

She forcefully pulled away and turned around to leave.

"You should have left me there, just like you should leave these people now. You are not responsible for every living being in existence."

She stomped her way down the stone platform in a huff, leaving Henrik wondering, "Hey, where are you going?!"

"TO FIGHT! Where else!?" she shouted back, "Someone needs to protect you when things go bad. Even though there is no reason it should ever come to that..."

Henrik watched her back which was now wider than his own vanish from view behind the slew of barricades and walls erected after every few steps.

He let out a deep sigh while muttering under his breath.

"It's already been 10 years since I first picked her up from those slavers. She was barely a teen back then, even smaller than me and look at her now. She has grown bold enough to yell at me to my face, haha."

Herik returned to the same spot to pick from where he left off and finish the inscriptions when his face turned a deathly shade of blue.

*COUGH*COUGH*COUGH*

He coughed several mouthfuls of blood into the palm of his hand, trying his best not to make too much noise.

*Cough*Cough*

His face drained of all color as he fell onto his knees in labored breathing.

"Argh, damn it, not now....I...don't have time for this right now..."

He grabbed his chest as a dull aching pain began to spread throughout.

Hazel who was already near the city gates more than a hundred meters away froze midstride at the same time. She looked back in the direction of the stone platform with gritted teeth, "Why won't you ever listen to me?"

As an empath, she was able to feel the emotions of others and the closer she was to someone the stronger it was felt. She could feel Henrik's pain even from so far away because of their close bond.

He had saved her from a life of slavery, and incurred injuries in the process that had still not healed even more than a decade later. How could she not feel responsible for it?

"Damn it all to hell!"

She peered outwards, beyond the city gates to what laid far in the distance behind the old forest.

She could feel it in the air, that terrible feeling of death and ruin looming ever so closely over her head. It was like a sixth sense to her, unmistakable in its capacity of destruction.

And not just one either. As far as her senses could reach out, there was no light in the darkness.

"We are surrounded on all sides and we don't even know it yet.. I can't see a way out at all."

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