Tilnika crawled painfully across the blood-covered marble floor--covered in her blood, no less--to where Lornalid, master of the dark arts, stood smirking.

"You think you've won?" she asked him skeptically, if hoarsely.

"Little hedgewitch, you've no spells left that could possibly harm me." He sounded confident, although he glanced involuntarily at his bloody left arm where her dagger-spell had found its mark.

Dismayed, Tilnika thought that he was probably right. Since all the spells in her repertoire had barely made him flinch, and she was very nearly tapped, she was limited to useless or frivolous spells now.

But there is one, she realized somewhere in the back of her mind. She glanced up at Lornalid, who was still smirking in a superior manner.

She sighed--no other choice now if I want to live--and painstakingly traced the runes of the spell.

They hung in the air, glowing, before meandering over to Lornalid and sinking through his clothes and skin to wrap around his heart.

His eyes widened. "You--cast a love-spell on me?!" he spluttered, all the while trying to look away from Tilnika. Failing that, he sat down suddenly and stared at her. "But now--now I can't kill you," he said weakly, looking dazed.

"You think you have problems?" she muttered, fussing over her bleeding leg until Lornalid tore a strip from his cloak and started tending it. "I'm doomed to have you following me around for a long while."

He just gazed at her in bemused rapture.