Her voice was edging toward irritation, but not at the High Priestess. Fiaethe was not a magic user in the way of these Elves and Drow; she didn't learn to kill, her magic was rooted in growth and creation. Her show of light in Maeglin's house was the act of a dying and desperate elf, one who was lucky enough to have the right tools at the right time. If she did that here, singling out light in its pure form with no assistance from a wood floor or the other elements, would it tire her? She was not a light mage of rank. Fiaethe couldn't afford fatigue. She did not know how she would stay alive if they were forced to run and she couldn't stand.
Her father had been the great warrior of her House, but Fiaethe had never fought. This was the closest Fiaethe had ever come to slaying Drow.
While she managed herself well enough when arrows came through Aeotha's shield, Fiaethe equated her narrow misses to luck more than speed. Her eyes were drawn constantly to the fleeing wounded. What was she supposed to do to help them? What was she supposed to do to stop all of this? The High Priestess' light was destroying whatever Drow it found, but arrows still came.
Her eyes fell to the cracked stone by Aeotha's left foot. Water had gathered there from the last rain, resting in the smooth sides of rock and collecting the light that fell from the holy magic above. Fiaethe paused, struck with inspiration by it. Why she didn't know, but it made her quickly re-think her situation as a Caesaraes, instead of as a battle mage.
The stone beneath her feet was surprisingly fine, yet mismatched. Dwarves would have balked at the choice to use such stone, being surprisingly high nosed for how small they were. Fiaethe supposed this was a small part of the rebuilding of Terestai after the Breaking -- and that in a way, using such stone as a tool was blasphemous somehow. Yet it had been reused once before, hadn't it? She had stopped thinking about the stone's character almost a full minute ago. There were screams around her and movement. She focused on her idea.
The ground around her and Aeotha's feet began to shift. A Drow, who had been close with a crossbow, fell backward. The arrow misfired into the face of another bystander and blood spurted across the ground.
"Ranquisarna," Her words fell on the warm air around them -- a competing, ancient wind released from a prison beneath the earth. Tendrils of rock and soil rose upward when she urged them -- "Orta, orta..." -- and began to twist outward and then upward. Pieces of armor that been repelled from Aeotha's shield were now stuck in with the rock, reflecting the High Priestess' light. The water, which had been previously been stuck in the floor of the square, was flowing up around those stone fingers.
Truly, it was as if she and the High Priestess stood in the palm of some creature's hand...only those fingers were bent at the knuckle and tipped like spears.
No one could accuse Fiaethe of not having a creative mind.
Arrows struck against the rock with soft pings. Gentle reminders that it was still very possible to die, regardless of the High Priestess or the tenuous friendship she had with a powerful alchemist.
The water hardened so suddenly and so smoothly into ice that a patterned layer of frost developed on the surface. The light and warmth Aeotha exuded was amplified almost immediately by reflecting off the ice encased stone. That holy power was directed in more focused paths toward the wall where archers were stationed and through the crowd of soldiers around them.
Not pure light magic, in fact, Fiaethe realized that she hadn't used any light at all...but it was the next best thing.