The door slams open!

With a great BANG! and a rush of air, the oak doors swing inward, and in that moment your attention is drawn away from Corinne. It is only for half a heartbeat, but it is enough! She leaps down upon you, knocking you backwards, and though you try to roll up onto your feet it is too late. Corrine has you by the hair, pulling your head back with her knife at your throat!

"STOP!!" comes the voice from the doorway - and even in the position you are in, it is a voice which fills you with relief! Before you stands Lady Trina of Sarawynn, still unclothed, her hair blowing in the wind and a bloodied sword in her hands. She advances into the room, holding the weapon at the ready, her eyes fixed over your shoulder at Corinne.

Corinne holds the dagger tight against your neck, just below your jawline. She is much smaller than you, of course, and you could throw her off easily enough - but not before she could slice open the vein there which lies so close to the skin. "How did you escape your chains?" she spits at Trina.

"I am Sworn Protector of the Crown," Trina replies as she slowly approaches. "When my King is threatened, the fires of Hell would not serve to keep me at bay!"

"If we cannot be together in life, we shall be together in ****!" Corinne cries, and you feel the blade press tighter still, the sharp sting as it cuts the skin and the trickle of blood running down your neck... a warning of what she will do if pushed further!

"Take his life, and you will NOT die beside him," Trina says, and the hair rises at the back of your neck; you have never imagined her voice so low and cold, and her eyes blaze like the blue ice of the high mountain glaciers set aflame. "No, you will live... but before I am through with you, Corinne, you will wish you had died while still in your mother's womb. I will carve your flesh into a mangled ruin, and leave nothing unscathed, bleeding you to within an inch of your life. When you scream for mercy, I will cut out your tongue; when you drop to your knees and pray to me for the release of ****, I will slice off your hands. And when I can find no place upon you not drenched in your own blood, I will drag you before the looking-glass to show you the flayed horror that I have made of you - and then with my bare hands I will tear out your eyes, so that your own slaughtered body is the last thing you see upon this Earth. That is where your torment will begin; it will end only when I can find no way to keep you alive any longer. By my soul, I swear this to be true: Take his life, and I will bring vengeance down upon you with a fury you could never begin to imagine! Or, Corinne... you will yield."

The time between two heartbeats passes - and then, Corinne jerks the knife once, not across your throat, but away from it! Even as she turns it to use upon herself, you spin around and strike at her hand, sending the dagger flying across the room. She pulls back her hand, cradling it in the other, looking at you in shocked horror... then collapses into a sobbing heap upon the floor. You back up out of her reach, to Trina's side.

"Are you hurt, Xavier?" she asks softly.

"A scratch, no more," you reply, touching the side of your neck and pulling away a reddened fingertip. You glance at Trina's face, and see that she has calmed, the storm in her eyes abated. You wonder for a brief moment if she would have made good on her terrible threats had Corinne cut your throat... and then decide that such a question should be left unspoken, as you would rather not hear the answer. "What of the giant?"

"He refused to step aside," Trina says grimly, and your eyes flicker to the bloodstained blade of her sword. "And, what of Corinne?"

The simple question holds a deep meaning, it is clear. If Corinne is to live, then once again you must decide her fate; and this time you must be certain she is sent to a place from which she cannot return. The simpler path is the one you did not take before... but if she will indeed face execution, it would in truth be a kindness to do it now rather than make her live out her final days in the dungeon, consumed by her own madness.