The bounty hunters moved with a practiced, brutal efficiency that spoke of countless captures, of lives ruined for coin.
Before Leonotis could even summon his nascent green magic, a net of thick, dark fibers – magically reinforced, he realized with a sinking heart – dropped over him with startling, suffocating speed.
It tangled his limbs, knocked the root-sword from his grasp, and stifled his cry of alarm. Rough hands, calloused and strong as iron bands, hauled him off his feet, the world tilting crazily as he was dragged like a caught animal.
Jacqueline's reaction was immediate and explosive.
A cry of pure rage, a sound more elemental than human, tore from her throat, and the very air around her shimmered and crackled with power.
Water, drawn from unseen springs within the mountain, from the damp earth, from the moisture in the air itself, erupted in a swirling, furious torrent. It lashed out at the bounty hunters like a colossal, enraged serpent, the sheer force of the water blast knocking two of them – the wiry one and a third, hulking brute – off their feet, sending them sprawling and gasping amongst the slick, rocky terrain.
Geysers of water shot upwards from the ground, creating a chaotic, disorienting screen of hissing spray and churning mist.
"Let him go!" Jacqueline's voice was a raw, thundering command, laced with the untamed power of the ocean.
Her blue eyes blazed with an icy fire. But even as her magic created pandemonium, throwing the ambush into disarray, a different, more calculating glint flickered deep within those stormy eyes.
The mountain, the shrine, the urgent, echoing call of her destiny – her true purpose lay upwards, towards the whispered promises of ancient, forgotten power.
The capture of the boy, while infuriating, presented an undeniable, stark opportunity. With the bounty hunters momentarily disoriented, their attention divided, the steep path upwards, towards the shrine, was clear.
Without a word, without a single backward glance at the struggling, netted Leonotis or the furious, embattled Low, Jacqueline turned.
Her form, wreathed in the swirling mists of her own conjuration, seemed to melt into the rugged landscape.
Her movements were fluid and impossibly swift, like a creature of water and air perfectly adapted to the unforgiving terrain.
She scaled the treacherous rocks with an almost ethereal grace, the spray from her own diminishing water magic seeming to propel her upwards, away from the chaos, away from them. Her focus was singular, absolute: the shrine.
Low watched Jacqueline's swift, silent departure through the dissipating mist, her jaw tight with a fury that burned hotter and more bitter than any fire elemental's magic.
Betrayal, sharp and unexpected, clawed at her throat, leaving a taste like ash. They had fought together, shared their meager meals, even, tentatively, begun to trust.
And now, at the first real sign of overwhelming trouble, Jacqueline had abandoned them, prioritizing her own selfish, mysterious quest over their lives.
The memory of Jacqueline's earlier pronouncements about solitude and self-reliance now seemed less like philosophical musings and more like a cold, calculated justification.
Her gaze then snapped back to Leonotis, who was struggling futilely in the constricting net, his face pale with a mixture of fear and dawning despair as the bounty hunters, recovering with grim speed, tightened their hold, dragging him towards their horses.
The sight of his helplessness, his vulnerability, coupled with Jacqueline's callous abandonment, solidified Low's decision in a heartbeat.
Caution, the ingrained survival instinct that had kept her alive through the harsh, unforgiving years at the orphanage, warred briefly, desperately, with a burgeoning, unfamiliar loyalty, a fierce, almost maternal protectiveness she hadn't realized she possessed for the exasperating, magic-wielding boy.
Loyalty, raw and unexpected, won.
Ignoring the lingering, chilling spray of Jacqueline's magic and the overwhelming danger posed by the regrouping bounty hunters, Low launched herself forward.
Her small frame moved with an explosive burst of speed, a miniature whirlwind of focused fury, her eyes fixed on Leonotis.
Jacqueline might prioritize her sacred mountain, but Low would prioritize the boy who had, in his own clumsy, earnest way, offered her a glimpse of something beyond the cold, brutal indifference of the world she knew.
She wouldn't let these thugs take him without a fight, even if it meant facing them utterly, hopelessly alone.
Her heart hammered in her chest, a furious, defiant drumbeat against the backdrop of the rushing water from the distant falls and the silent, rapidly receding figure of Jacqueline, already a mere smudge against the vast, uncaring face of the Water Mountain.