Impressions

Impressions
How long had they been up here?
"Do not deviate,” a woman said. “No arguments. I mean it. You shouldn’t even be here."
“I promise.”
Isorai followed the sound. Footsteps ran off, light and quick. 
Before Isorai could find any one, a loud, violent explosion rocked the Tree. Isorai rushed towards the sound, only to find a heavy wooden door of one of the building blown open and thrown inward.
"In here! I found one!" a harsh voice shouted, then laughed. “Quite the looker. Can I keep this one?”
A figure leaped out, firing a barrage of lighting bolts through the air, embedding themselves deeply into the chest of the loud man. 
“Go, Ezra!” A woman hissed.
“But—“
“Go! I’ll be right behind you. Remember your oaths!”
Footsteps scampered away again. Three men surged into the room, their dark-iron armor gleaming in the flash of light. Behind them stood a man in embroidered clothing, pointing at someone she couldn’t see. 
"The daughter lives!" He screamed, his face contorting in a mixture of shock and malice. "Take her alive!”
Isorai crept closer, lifting onto her toes to see inside, but all she saw was the glint of light on metal and a few sparks. Blades blades hissed as they cut through the dusty air.  A man cried out as he was thrown across the room. Someone choked then let out a roar before charging. 
A soldier raised a heavy broadsword and swung, but fumbled and choked on the returned strike. Whoever was fighting, she was lighter and far more agile.
The other two soldiers advanced together. The third man began to chant. Spell light flickered through the windows and ricocheted around. 
Then, an explosion of light and smoke filled the building. More grunts, more hisses of a blade. Then silence. 
Isorai waited, listening before leaning to see. 
The building was empty of people, though it did look like a fight had occured. There were still blood stains in the wood. 
Isorai swallowed. That… had to be an impression from when the Grove fell.
Isorai held her breath, pressing her back flat against the rough bark of the tree and went back the way she came. She peered around the edge, her eyes narrowing as she took in the three men coming down the path. They wore sleek, dark-iron plate armor that bore the stylized emblem of the a family she didn’t recognize. One of them had a broadsword, but all three of them had sort of vacant stares. 
Were they being controlled by the original fighter? Walking alongside them was a figure in the flowing, crimson robes of an ancient High Matron, but there was nothing about the woman that looked to be witch-like. She didn’t move like a witch, but maybe she was affecting a different posture because she had human guards?
Maybe she was just an imposter?
She frowned, noting how none of them cast shadows. 
This was an impression, the tree’s memory of how Moongrove had fallen. 
"They should have just cooperated,” the woman in red said. “They should have just given me what I wanted and it wouldn’t have come to this.”
She sighed, trailing a hand over the spear. 
“Any word otherwise?”
“The land is still drifting apart,” one of the men stated. “My apologie, Luna.”
Isorai’s stomach lurched. Luna? A fucking wolf shifter had brought down the Moongrove coven? No. She couldn’t believe that. 
The woman turned, revealing her face and Isorai’s heart lurched. The thick moonstone and crystal necklace around her neck glittered with unnatural light.
She wasn’t a shifter. She was a fallen witch. Her eyes were dark and hollow, but she reached out to one of the spears and hissed as it flashed and burned her. 
The way she’d reached for it spoke of familiarity.
This was the Moongrove, or rather… the Banegrove who was behind all of this.
“It will settle,” she said. “And the tree?”
"The roots are armored and the wells have all dried up. We need to increase the extraction rate somehow.”
One of the other soldiers, a tall warrior with a heavy broadsword strapped to his back, spat on the sacred marble floor. "The land can resist all it wants, but when the primary siphon is anchored to the heart-root, Tree will be taken, so is the Grove.”
She nodded. “Tell the men to work faster. I’d like my honeymoon to be uninterrupted.”
“What about the rebels?”
She laughed. “The survivors are a disorganized.” She gestured to the spears. “And so long as these are here and they can’t get in, then there is no hope for any of them to do much of anything.” She pulled out a dark blade and stabbed it into one of the spears. The wail of agony it let out, rattle Isorai’s bones. “Let that be a lesson for them to behave.”
The woman waved them away and remained. 
Isorai felt a cold fury ignite in her chest, burning away the residual exhaustion of her journey as she stared at the woman’s back. 
The urge to strike her was unbearable. She darted forward, but the memory didn’t change. Instead, she caught a glimpse of someone high in the boughs, looking down. 
She was young, whoever she was. She conjured the black spear, bearing twelve of the thirteen rings. She reared back and struck. The woman choked as it skewered her. The thirteenth spear shimmered into place.
The young woman dropped down,  eyes burning with ghost light. 
“Impossible,” the woman choked out, holding onto the spear as she bled out.
“What’s the matter? Afraid to join the creatures you’ve created?” The young woman asked and withdrew the spear. She grabbed the woman by the hair. 
“Don’t worry. I’ll be sending your boyfriend after you soon.”
She turned and dragged the woman, leaving a long bloody trail behind her. She took the spear and walked to the edge of the tree’s bough. Below was a dark cliff stretching down into the earth. The Moongrove tossed the woman in red into the chasm like trash, then turned away. 
She ducked into the shadows as the tree absorbed the blood. Isorai crossed the area to join her against the wall.
She looked exhausted, but her eyes were focused ahead. 
“I can’t free them, nor can I carry out the Ascension.” She turned back and looked at Isorai as if she knew she would be here. “But I will cleanse the Great Tree so that you may restore us… our Keros Isorai.”
Her heart leaped and the woman pressed her back to the limb before darting forward. She cut towards another building and paused as the patrol moved past her position, heading toward the lower tier. 
She waited until the rhythmic clanking of their armor faded into the distance before she stepped out from the shadows.
She was alone and exhausted, taking the chance to show Isorai the way across time. She turned toward a short squat building near the edge of the buildings. They walked in and slipped into the interior of the Tree, down through the dark.