[color=fff79a][center][h2]Edmund Silvaine[/h2][hr][/center][/color]

[color=7041A5]“Okay.”[/color]

Maya loosened her grip on the chandelier above, and the descent started off slow and gentle. Edmund's cloak seemed to billow around her, catching on currents of air. The symbol on the back of the Templar's hand glowed strong for the moment, but he watched in fear as the glow began to diminish. He looked up at Maya in horror for that moment, as a gunshot ricocheted off his shoulder and sent him stumbling a step forward. Turns out armor and a glowing symbol on his hand had made him the target of one of the reinforcement soldiers who had burst into the ballroom. Maya's descent began to speed up, as his focus grew divided. He had blown through a vast amount of the mana he had access to scrambling for control over his own descent, and that costly miscalculation was coming back to bite him. He heard another bullet whiz past his head, and simply closed his eyes. He muttered the same words that carried him through every grueling battle he had suffered in the frozen wilderness of Rodion. [color=fff79a]"mecum dea est, mortuus non sum."[/color]

Fifteen feet overhead, as Maya's descent grew more rapid, the weightlessness sensation once again returned as the speed was slowed. Edmund's sigil glowed weakly, but steadily. She lowered several feet over the span of a few seconds, as two more bullets came at Edmund. One connected with his lower back. Sweat dripped from his brow underneath his helmet as he strained to keep Maya floating just a little longer, readying his right arm. in place to catch her. At this point, Edmund shifted Maya's center of gravity slightly, tipping her feet more sideways. As Maya was seven feet above Edmund's head, the sigil grew dormant. She fell the last few feet, but her Templar was ready. He lifted his left hand to help catch her, and moved back his left leg. As she fell into his arms, his left leg buckled. The extra strain had forced Edmund to one knee, holding Maya in both his arms. He looked at her briefly, stifling his grunt of pain at catching her weight. He would much prefer another bullet than to deal with Maya's wrath to that reaction.

To his luck, another bullet did come, grazing across the side of his armor. This grunt was not stifled, but his grip around Maya tightened as he pulled her closer to him. [color=fff79a]"Keep the cloak wrapped tight, your holiness."[/color] With that, Edmund shakily lifted himself to his feet, turned his gaze towards the shattered open windows, and charged towards them as fast as his legs would carry him.

[hr][right][@Obscene Symphony][/right]