All I have to say is this: sometimes, the plot bunnies hit, and they just don't quit.

Disclaimer: the usual.

There were few things that Lilah feared these days, she mused as she battled a quad of D'Haran men.

Soldiers of the Dragon Corps were not among them.

They were men. Just men. She knew how they operated. They had swords and crossbows, and they would try to kill her. That was all. And it was comforting. Just men. No magic. No tricks. No motive except to stop her. It was a simple, clean confrontation. Just men.

Lilah had been through much. Too much to let these mere men keep her from escaping the People's Palace once and for all. So she fought hard.

Her dagger had taken the first man when she threw it clean through his leather hauberk. She had then taken his broadsword from his dead hands and was using it against its former master's comrades. She was doing rather well.

Lilah was not surprised by this. After all, she had learned from a very skilled teacher.

Lilah had learned many things. Good things and bad things. Things that were wondrous and things that nobody should ever have to learn, often within a few moments of each other. She had had her soul torn in two directions until she thought it was going to tear in two. She had been forced to make the most difficult decision of her life.

And now she was fighting to see her decision carried to its completion. Which meant getting out of this hellhole. The People's Palace. Her prison.

Her paradise.

As the last man fell, Lilah looked down at him with a small measure of remorse. Before it could blossom into guilt, she took his crossbow, and started running.

She had approximately ten minutes before Darken Rahl would wake to find her missing. She needed to be as far away as possible by then.