Hiram was back in Lorendale. He wasn't a master planner, but there were some things he wanted to do. Visiting Honora was one of them.

He hadn't seen her since the debacle at the Allemeade farm. In truth, he was still debating whether to kill her for that. He'd certainly kill Remiel Allemeade if the little rat dared scurry into his path, but he wouldn't give the man the time of day to hunt him down.

It didn't take too long for Hiram to find Honora. He'd been perfecting his blood awareness. He sat and closed his eyes, meditating, feeling the blood throughout the kingdom, a perk of his teleportation, and before long he came upon a source that was just the right amount of powerful and in the right location to sensibly be Honora.

The horse she'd stolen had wandered away, not quickly enough to get home nor too far from the place where Honora stumbled and vomited. The beast cried out in agony as its form was ripped in two. Hiram stepped out of it, as bloody as was typical for him, and the blood of the animal obediently emptied from its body to follow its true master.

Hiram would appear at the top of the bank Honora pathetically attempted to climb. A figure of blood, of power. Surely a woman entuned with psychic energy shuddered at the force of a man Hiram was; he was a roar of chaos.

"Hmm." The golden eyes gleaming down at her midst the red were alive with interest and curiosity. His lips were curled in a soft smile.

Run, little one.

Run.

Honora felt him long before he arrived. His presence hummed in her mind like a deadly swarm of bees, writhing in a cloud with form but not direction. She stepped back from the bank, slowly, just in enough time to have her head tilted upward by the time Hiram appeared on the bank. The animal panic in her eyes was sharp and desperate; the look of a creature ready to fight for its life, even if it died while doing it. But even so...Honora did not run. Even with the muddied brown they’d dyed her hair, even with the wreck they’d made of her body, Honora was still very much herself. She stood tall, trying to summon whatever dignity she could as a breathy, strangled laugh left her lips.

She was fading, but Honora used Hiram's mind as a crutch to hold steady. She'd drag his psyche toward her just enough that she'd feel his strength and him the echos of her pain. 

“I don't think your memories did the collar justice,” Honora wheezed with a hollow chuckle. She seemed almost drunk—if blood loss and dehydration were their own special liquor. “But I suppose there’s no substitute for firsthand experience…” She started to sway a little, looking up at the Eldouir with increasingly hazy eyes.

It wasn't until Honora spoke that he receive the confirmation he needed. The dark hair really threw him off. He knew it was her, but when he didn't see her it took him a moment.

"If you dive into my head," he quietly warned her, "I will kill you." It was a warning. Hiram didn't give warnings in vain. He didn't want to have to kill her but he also wasn't about to be her victim. Not again. If Honora did do any snoopy then her fingers had better be light as a feather so that he could not feel her.

With that out of the way with, he looked her over slowly, taking in every sight she had to offer. He also sensed her blood, becoming fully aware of the state of her body, including where she bled from, quickly assessing why.

"Well you didn't do this to yourself." It was an invitation for an explanation.

She nodded once in acknowledgement. It was a warning Honora was happy to heed. Even without the threat, she hadn’t the strength for psychic warfare with Hiram as her opponent. She teetered from one foot to the other as she stood before him. It would take little more than a stiff wind to knock her down, but Honora intended to stay on her feet for as long as she could.

At his invitation, a single, mirthless bark of a laugh escaped Honora’s lips. The sound was cut off as pain shot through her side, originating from her broken ribs. She nearly doubled over and lost her balance, but for now managed to hold onto it as her dulled eyes returned to Hiram.

“We found the woman that killed my sister. Bryce killed her body but I took her mind. Once they discovered that…” Honora blinked to clear spots from her vision, another tiny chuckle tripping off her tongue, “I think they had intended to use me for sport, but once they knew I had her, their aim became getting her back. But one is dead now, and the other?” Honora laughed again, “I hope he’s still alive.”

Honora looked almost blissful at the thought.

Hiram's face contorted into a soundless snarl at the mention of Bryce. His memory of their last encounter sprang to mind, and in an instant he was a steaming tea kettle, all apathy when it came to Honora and her plight, only rage at Bryce. They had said they wouldn't leave again. He was the fool for thinking her character would make her trustworthy. He should have known better. Hiram could only trust Eldouir, and even then only as far as he could throw them. His glare down at Honora was mirthless and merciless.

During the course of her response he had decided he didn't care. They weren't allies. He wouldn't be handing out favors.

"Have you met the gifted looking for me?" So uncaring was he that his words started even before hers finished.

Honora didn't have to tug on Hiram's mind to feel his flash of anger at the mention of Bryce's name. The void inhaled it like a bitter but fortifying drink that shot adrenaline through her body and straightened her posture. As soon as Hiram interrupted, she'd stop speaking, the anger she unwillingly fed on lighting behind her own eyes. Nothing outside of her own hell mattered to her, and clearly, her hell didn't matter to Hiram. So, all that was left was to see this interaction to its end -- whatever that might be.

"No," Honora stated flatly, "But I wish them the best of luck." She'd then start to move for a different part of the embankment that looked more forgiving to climb.

Hiram's upper lip curled a little as he watched Honora shift away in her pathetic state. Pathetic, but he felt no pity. Perhaps if she asked, if she begged, he'd be inclined to do something for her. But Hiram wasn't a good man. He wasn't a good man, and he owed her no loyalty.

"You'll do more than that." He said it with unwavering confidence that would inspire even the most timid of creatures to balk. "You'll help me find them." And whether she wanted to hear it or not, there was a challenge in his voice. Did she have a choice?

Honora had started to try to make her way up, but even as she reached, she started to feel faint. The anger that had fed her was already starting to fade as it was eclipsed by creeping exhaustion. Resigned, she turned and slid down to sit with her back against the bank. She hissed with pain as she hit the ground, breaths shallow.

She looked up at Hiram, with the dull, glassy eyes of an animal led to slaughter. No, there was no choice. Idly, for a moment she wondered whether it would be better to just let Hiram kill her. Have it all over with. But no: the thought that Quinton would go on living while she did not was intolerable. Honora considered Hiram for a moment, before saying softly.

“I won’t do either of us good like this,” Honora dropped her head back against the embankment, voice so slurred with exhaustion she could barely be understood, “I’ll do whatever you want. Just let me live long enough to kill the man who did this. Please.”

Honora turned her gaze back to the Eldouir.

That was it. There it was. The request. The vengeance. The strength. Hiram’s anger was set to simmer as his interest became the focal point, stirring up in him, bringing a smile back to his arguably handsome face. He stepped off the peak he’d been standing on, sliding down the bank with the masterful precision of someone whose body had learned to dominate the earth it inhabited. He reached her and crouched before her, nostrils flaring as he inhaled her state, eyes glimmering with entertainment.

“I’d say you lost this fight, but you’re here and they aren’t.” His mouth parted for a toothy grin as his hand moved forward to pluck at her clothing—what still remained.

“I’ll heal you…but it will cost you.” He whispered the words, something dark and perverse in his tone. Not just helping him find a gifted. That wasn’t a cost. That didn’t call for sacrifice. Clearly he wanted more.

Though he was close, Honora tried to focus on Hiram as if seeing him at a great distance; a mirage on the horizon she was trying to bring into focus. No, he was no oasis in the desert, but at present Hiram was a path out of the wilderness—so long as she could stomach a deal with the devil.

Honora lay her life out in front of her; all the things she’d cared about in this world. Luna was gone, and now Bryce. She’d attacked Remiel, who’d rightfully turned her away. She had no position, no purpose now but one: vengeance. Quinton’s heat was still on her skin, his voice tickling in her ear. And she would not die with that as the last word.

She winced as Hiram reached for her, but her eyes didn’t leave him. Honora had walked the corridors of Hiram’s mind and couldn’t fathom what was hidden behind each closed door. But anything she conjured when tested against what she stood to gain seemed worth it.

“So long as he’s mine,” Honora replied, each word spoken as if it hurt to part with, “You can name your price.”

Hiram's hand hovered just before her, and at her words it moved forward to grasp at her jaw.

"It's a deal." And like all good deals, it needed to be sealed. Hiram was past the days of using a weapon to make himself bleed. He had much more sophisticated methods. He would guide her face towards his as he leaned in, mouth parted, and just a breath away from a kiss he would stop as blood came forth from deep within his person, gushing like an overturned pitcher into Honora. Not just her mouth, prying her lips apart to surge down her throat, but into her eyes, into her nose, even splashing down over her body. It would make its way onto and into every part of her; a washing by blood. With it, she would be made new.

Hiram would tightly grip her face, ensuring her closeness as she drowned, as she healed.

HE’LL KILL YOU.

US.

MAKE IT STOP.

Zahaela’s consciousness flung to the forefront with a jolt, but Honora threw herself back against it. Her hand raised to circle around Hiram’s wrist as he leaned toward her. What Zahaela intended as a move of self-defense Honora transformed into a gentle gesture, holding to the man who could give her life again. As Hiram’s blood flowed into her, Honora’s eyes fogged over before they were overrun by blood. The blood consumed her and, though her throat spasmed in protest of being drowned, she did not fight it.

Honora wouldn’t plunge into Hiram’s mind. Instead of dragging his memories forward her own would surface, either to be investigated or discarded. A mirage over reality, where past and present existed together. He'd see himself: Hiram, walking to meet her during her first appearance at the Eldouir estate. Hiram, spitting venom at her incompetence while she raged. Hiram, coming upon her in the forest and the metallic fear on her tongue. Every blow of her training, Jed’s death, and the surge of satisfaction that went along with it. The heat of the barn, Hiram’s steady hands and her ragged breath. The nuances of her hate, fear, envy, awe, and desire in all their complexity laid bare between them.

Hiram could easily brush away the visions. They hadn’t been given the form and focus the active use of Honora’s gift could usually provide. They simply were: drifting in and out one after another like phantoms in the darkness.

Hiram had always been a sucker for entertainment. Watching her body thrash against his magic would have sufficed, but the images, the feelings, cast haphazardly into his mind were a bonus. He could not help but be attentive to them, following what transpired as one tracks a mosquito with the eyes. He had faced the force of Honora's gift to know that this was a passive display, a lack of control on her part. Rather than feeling assaulted, he was thoroughly entertained. It was a glimpse into this woman's side of her relationship with him, something he never thought or worried about, but was curious enough to observe now.

"If I didn't know any better," Hiram drawled, quietly but sure to be heard by her, "I'd say you have quite the connection to me." As he was speaking the blood dripped away from its aggressive work in favor of the ground, pooling there beneath them.