It was over quickly.
There was no other way to describe it, and it was the most accurate.
The dockworkers of the man-eaters came at Sonder from multiple sides, and she moved through them, like a hot knife through butter.
There was no stopping or slowing her; each motion led directly to the next.
One of them got a hold of her arm.
She let him have it for the half second it took to turn towards him, and then she hit him with everything that the staff had at close range, and whatever was left of him left the dock, clearing the edge of the horizon, hitting the water somewhere in the dark beyond.
The last two pulled back when they saw what had happened to the others.
She let them go.
After this would be over, it wouldn't matter where they would go.
Sonder turned.
To the king, the queen and their son.
They hadn't run.
The son looked terrified and frozen in his fear, but not the other two.
She wasn't sure if that was pride or confidence or something else entirely, and she found she didn't much care which.
They were here to be punished.
She looked at the sky.
The horizon was slowly changing. The first suggestions of morning were finding their way up from below the waterline.
There was no light yet, but the promise of it held.
She looked at the sword in her hand.
Then she dimmed it.
Not all at once, but gradually, like a fire that settles when you stop feeding it.
The light pulled back onto the blade until it was mostly just a sword again.
It was almost cold; almost just a sword.
She tried to do the same with the staff, but its power was overwhelming, and there was little for Sonder to do to quell it.
She did as best she could.
"I want you to fight me," she said.
The king's eyes moved to the dim sword and the quieted staff.
"Not like that," she said. "Not with all of it. I want you to come at me like you mean it, because your lives depend on it." She pointed the sword at them. "You've had everything taken from you tonight. And soon, nothing will be left. You should be angry. So be angry. Come and hit me with it."
The sun was coming.
She could feel it at her back, still below the horizon but rising, the way you feel a fire before you turn to face it.
She waited.
"You leave us little choice," the king said.
"I leave you no choice."
"You must understand that this is frustrating. There is a part in me that would rather just you'd kill me, instead of fighting you. Just to spite you, or to spit on you. Imagine that. Maybe I will just kneel down and show you my neck so that cutting it would be easier."
"You won't."
"No, I won't, I am too selfish to just let myself die, but in a way it is pleasing. Such an imagine. All that swagger and power to be used, wanting to be used, for such an unsatisfying end."