Lira stared at the collapsed building, watching as gray ash settled over the ruins to mix with the red pools on the ground.
Her research was gone, the specimens were dead, and the months she had spent perfecting the procedure were wasted. She looked back at Reidar, who stood atop his raven surrounded by his army, and realized that he wasn't looking at her with anger; he looked bored.
Fear kicked in then, hitting her in the gut. She couldn't win, and her ammunition—the blood—was drying up or being washed away. She had to leave.
Lira gripped her staff, pulling every drop of mana she had available into a spell.
"Blood Mist."
She slammed the staff into a puddle of blood, which vaporized, exploding outward into a metallic-smelling crimson fog that expanded to cover the area.
Lira didn't wait to see if it worked. She turned and sprinted toward the breached wall, casting Haste on herself to speed herself up. If she could just reach the river, she could lose him in the water.
