After that, Thalia couldn't bring herself to say much. Her cheeks were flush with color through the entire first act. The second act proved little better, as any attempt to start a conversation with Hal ended as soon as she glanced over. He'd been even more surprised than she was. Every now and then she spotted him begin to say something, then stop and look away. It was a complete disaster, and she'd never felt so strong a desire to throw herself off the balcony in her life. Not that it would have made any difference, it would take more than a forty foot drop to kill an immortal. Besides, the audience folk below her were all very cushion shaped, and would have broken her fall without even suffering more than indignity. She glanced over and saw Hal's grip on the railing and knew he wasn't thinking about the mediocre performance either.
And it was mediocre. No one forgot their lines, but to anyone who spoke a romance language, you could hear pick up the way the primarily Nieldic cast was tripping over the syntax. They were singing right, if not especially well. But they seemed to have to focus harder on the words than the emotions they should have been conveying. It was kind of a shame really; and it made Thalia wonder if they'd been given enough time to practice their parts. The little brochure they'd handed out at the entrance, which she'd been reading discreetly so that Hal didn't get the impression she was bored, said that the Opera's troupe presented a new Opera every month. Anyone could have told you that wasn't much time to commit a two to three hour play to memory, let alone an opera. You needed at least twice that; three months would be desirable. Its not as though there were that many avid opera goers on Krove. Immortals found their own entertainment, or often as not inflicted upon others. And Mages were more of the party hard or boring scholar types. The Opera was just not to their interests. And since the only other group of people on Krove were craftsmen catering to the needs of the first two groups; there wasn't really much of an audience present in the area.
Oh, but there was another group. The one who's meeting room they'd used earlier. The sort of people that existed anywhere that things were illegal. The most pervasive force in the universe; corrupt officials and criminals dedicated to controlling them. Which meant that someone in the audience was guaranteed to be on her 'to hit' list. She scanned the other boxes for any familiar face. There were politicians and upper bureaucrats in no short supply, most of them probably deserved it, but none high enough to be worth the time. Then she spotted a real prize; a man she recognized from wanted posters as being a top U'kown operative. His moniker was 'chill', and he was a graduate of the Academy. He was one of the most powerful hydromancers in the universe, and in any other room the most dangerous. But in this one, he was outmatched.
"Didn't know he'd be here; and look, he bought a date." Hal was talking very quietly, and clearly not to anyone in particular. Still, only Thalia was close enough to hear so that made her the audience.
"The blonde, short hair, check the back of her dress."
"Welts; she's not here because she wants to be. And that cut is far too low for a girl her age; what's she, like fifteen?"
"I vote we liberate her, and leave him out to dry."
"I vote we kill him, and help her get back to her family."
"He's a hydromancer. I've seen him on the school registry; even then he had a pretty rough reputation. Let me do it, you should take her and run."
"And leave with a strange girl. That would be rather ungracious of me; especially after dinner." They were both quiet and struggled to meet each other's gaze for a few minutes. Finally Hal reached across the table and brushed his hand across her cheek gently. "Don't get the wrong idea about it; I'd been hoping the night would end like that. Just, I was expecting to have to wait until the end of the night." She reached up and caught his hand and held it there.
"Sorry, I did say I've only ever been on one date before. I guess I need to work on my timing a bit."
"No, well, maybe a little. But that's irrelevant now, you stole my kiss and that's that."
"You mean that was?"
He nodded and stood up. "I'll sneak up behind him. You should distract him. Try a speech, your oratory is always captivating. And dare I say, you won't find it hard to out-project the folks on stage. Once I kill him, you should vanish and meet up with us at the Fuzzy Librarian. Have someone meet us there who can get the girl to safety. Then I'll walk you home, maybe show you how to kiss properly." He smiled and turned the handle to leave.
"Wait!" She flicked her wrist and caught the cloak that appeared. A heavy brown travelling cloak, like the one he'd been wearing the first time they'd met. Then she spun it over his shoulders and draped it there, fastening it with a clasp of purple crystal fitted in a gold setting. "Keep the hood up, and don't make eye contact. I don't want you to bewitch her the way you did me. And no side tracks, I don't like to be kept waiting."
"You have my word, it shall be so milady." He gave a mock bow and pulled the hood up as the door closed behind him.
She waited a few tense minutes, considering everything she knew about Chill's track record. Anything she could use to make this moment truly show stopping. There were cameras around, recording the show. Stage lights, and spotlights, even a few colored lights just for the mood. The spotlight operators would do their job on their own once she started talking, but the stage lights would need to be disabled to drop focus from the performance. The mood lights she'd keep to add tension, but she needed to make them a harsh blue; that way the ice she'd be using to reset the background would stand out better.
As the actress portraying Rosina began a particularly long note, Thalia jumped across the audience, snapping the stage lights into darkness. She rolled to her feet and snapped again to change the color of the remaining lights. Then as her final preparation, a wall of ice, formed from icicles the size of a grown man, bridged the space between the curtains; with several additional icicles of equal size scattered before it. Dozens screamed, many began to panic, and one very heavyset individual lounging towards the back fainted melodramatically.
"Behold!" Always a good way to set the tone for this sort of thing. "I am Thalia, Dark Lady of Krove. I am come to judge the quick in the name of the dead. Lamesh, son of Calcion, cries out to me for vengeance. He cries out for all those who's lives you have stolen; Alernon 'Chill' Rodericio."
She pointed across the crowds at Chill, the second spotlight following the cue and settling on his box. She could see the mark of the U'kown on the front of the box from here, and realized why the actors had been glancing this way more often than not. The performance was for him.
"Blood shall be had for your misdeeds. And in the name of the dead, I shall take it from you."
Chill stood up, throwing the chair to the ground and knocking the poor girl aside. He hurled a shard of ice at the spotlight, rendering it inoperable and darkened. So he didn't want to be seen? That would work just fine for Hal.
"Coward! Face Destiny! Face Justice! Face Truth! Face Death!" She hurled a pittance of frost bolts, all impacting harmlessly within the box. He'd shielded himself anyways; but only to the front. He was focused then. And Thalia knew she was doing her job right if he hadn't even considered the possibility that she was not working alone. She saw the door swing open behind him as he unleashed a blast of hail, which she easily brushed aside with but a wave of her hand. She pulled shutters of ice over the opening of the balcony, then pulled harshly towards herself. There was no spell in her last motion, but to the audience watching as a spurt of blood stained the cold barrier she'd erected, it was her doing. She let two beats pass then released the barrier.
"Justice, justice for all your victims." And she pulled a cloak of her own from the ground, putting it on with a spinning motion that also teleported her to the home of the only person she knew to be impulsive enough to take a total stranger in and help them escape, without asking a lot of questions along the way. And as she spun to a stop, Thalia found herself on the singed welcome mat of Liane, the Ashwalker; her mother.
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