In the silence that enshrouds them, covers them, she sees. She sees the rumbling quake beneath the swelling of his jaw, the echoing ache in her hand. She sees the blackened, coagulation of the blades of her words jutting out of him at sickening angles.

She sees a corpse in the twilight of his eyes. Sees the lifeless form, withered and shriveled and nothing like it used to be. Skin as thin and stretched and dull as paper, crags and protruding bones that should never be seen, verdigris pools emptied and hollowed.

She sees herself.

And it's enough to scatter - even for a moment - the venom tearing through her body. Lucidity, in an instant - her mind grasps it like a vice, pleading for it to stay as her gaze flickers, like a dying bulb, looking to the discoloration on his jaw, then down to the trembling purple of her hand. Had she done that? Did she -

No, she couldn't have -

There's recognition in her eyes for a breath, until it's blackened out - extinguished, with nothing but coils of smoke left behind.

She's never killed a civilian. She'd made that pact with herself long ago. This wasn't their fight, they didn't need to be dragged into a conflict between forces larger than themselves. Was this man simply one of them? Not an enemy, not a hostile, not intending to drag her off to a shallow grave and bury her alive?

She flicks her head in the direction of the inn, turns on her heel without uttering a word - a surge of guilt choking her - as she walks towards the building.