Somewhere far, where the light of the Warmaiden can't reach.

I don’t rightly know how long I ran for.

Hours, days, it didn't matter. I was consumed by the need to flee. I abandoned my pride, I abandoned my slaves, I even abandoned the roads and with them any knowledge of where I was.

At first, I fled with the speed of a demon but in time (too little time) I was **** to abandon my strength and run as a pale and pathetic human.

"Fuck!" I spat out the curse, an unyielding hate and rage boiling in me. My blood pulsed with every beat of my heart, a violent drumming that pounded in my ears.

Every night my dreams had been plaugued by the figure of that woman; black-cloaked and flame-haired, blazing with light. Every night I died on her sword, every night I dreamed of giving her mine.

I wanted my **** on her.

I wanted to kill her.

I wanted to take her.

I wanted to ruin her.

I wanted to break her.

I wanted to fuck her.

I wanted her to bow.

I wanted her to hang.

I wanted her to love it.

I wanted, and wanted and wanted and wanted until I'd thought I'd gone mad. There were so many burning, swirling, half-defined, feelings as I thought on her and imagined her dead or broken. In the end, I even asked myself if it were 'love' that I felt. If that incandescent need, that endless obsession, could be defined as such.

In the end, three months into the wilderness, I came upon a realization.

I needed power. I needed wealth, and influence, and knowledge above all.

I would not be caught by her again. I would weave my web and ensnare her, and reclaim my dreams.

And I knew just where to go.