Chapter 2 #2
“Tensions grew for weeks, and then one morning, the sky filled with smoke. Father woke us up and ordered us to get dressed. It was chaos—people running, screaming all around. The dead were everywhere—people we knew, people we grew up with. Dismembered bodies, severed heads on spikes in front of their homes, left on display.” Rainier’s tone was grim.
When the others said nothing, he continued.
“Word had been sent to the king weeks before, asking for help, but it never came. Non-magical folk weren’t often trained to fight, and since most of those with abilities were missing or dead, we didn’t stand a chance. ”
Tal had heard whispers of magic folk more powerful than the gods, but she had chalked it all up to myth. “Where could someone get such power?”
“Pain.” Sybil pursed her lips at some vision the others couldn’t see. “Even if our warriors were able to get close enough, they had one chance to get a killing blow. Anything less just made the mages more powerful.”
“You mean blood magic?!” Carrick turned to Tal.
As children, they’d snuck around the docks and often heard stories from the other kingdoms. At the mention of blood magic, a hush would fall over the conversation, and Tal would shiver against an unnatural chill, as if the gods themselves cursed anyone who dared speak of it.
“That can’t be. It’s forbidden.” Egan shook his head.
Sybil answered with a somber stare.
Tal didn’t believe in legends, but the danger stood before her. “Can we kill them?”
Rainier tilted his head. “If you get past the countless apparitions, dodge the spells and curses, and strike true? Sure. They’re still mortal. One or two didn’t make it out of the battle, but for every one of theirs we killed, hundreds of ours were lost.”
A power like that could destroy their weak northern kingdom without any resistance. “How many mages were there? Maybe we’re lucky and only have to deal with one. Have you heard anything from the southern kingdom since?”
The twins shook their heads in unison, but Sybil spoke.
“They mostly sent out their apparitions. We only ever saw a few actual mages—they wielded all the magic.” She clutched the ash-covered cloth in her fist. “Our village was destroyed by the time we got to the ship. Based on what we learned in the weeks before and then afterwards on the ship, the same thing happened to several villages along the path from the eastern kingdom to the southern kingdom. All taken out within a week of each other. But there’s been no word.
” It had been fifteen years since they stumbled out of the belly of that cargo ship.
If their father hadn’t come for them yet, the likelihood of him ever coming at all seemed nonexistent.
“That is what I don’t understand—from what Father told us, the southern kingdom was always at war but always from within.
Power always switched among the families.
And then one day, this unknown outside faction comes in, and no one talks about it?
” Rainier clenched his fist. “Did the mages stop traveling south? Did one of the remaining villages stop them? And why didn’t the king send help?
If the warring families suddenly united, maybe we could have won.
Bleeding pigs, how could they sit back and let the surrounding villages get destroyed? !”
No one had an answer for their conflicted friend. In the last fifteen years, no whispers of a conquering foreign power had reached Tal’s sources. That this bloodshed happened within that time left her uneasy. The conversation created more questions than answers.
“Is it possible they cast some sort of illusion spell to prevent anyone from seeing the true devastation?” Egan mused.
“Do you know how powerful of a spell that must be? To prevent all traders and travelers from seeing a massacre of whole villages?” Rainier lost his composure and yelled at their young friend.
Sybil put a hand on her brother’s arm. “We don’t know if anything happened to him. For all we know, Father managed to force them underground. There’s still a possibility—”
Rainier ripped his arm away from his sister and stormed off in the direction of his room. No one spoke for several breaths. Rain rarely showed emotion, but they never spoke of their home before now. It made the appearance of the mages at the docks all the more concerning.
Tal, Carrick, and Egan sat motionless while Sybil described the apparitions.
“Human copies of the mage who created them—even down to their cloak. Except, their faces.” She shook her head, eyes widening at some horror Tal couldn’t see.
“Nothing. No eyes. No nose. No mouth. No features whatsoever.” She gripped the back of her neck and refused to look at anyone in the room.
“When they spoke, you could hear how empty they were.”
Tal compared Sybil’s memories with her observations from the night before.
But since only Pochette got close enough to the apparition, the burning of his buildings and killing of his men weren’t enough to indicate that mages were in Meladair.
Tal was proof of at least one Fury alive with the power to set an entire building ablaze.
Though, to their knowledge, there were no others in the kingdom, and she was the only person brave or powerful enough to take on the now-dead king of the docks.
Sybil described the breadth of the mages’ power.
As they escaped the village, she watched as a man’s head had been severed from his body by a mere swipe of the mage’s cloaked arm.
A couple running across the street were caught in a wall of flame that erupted from under the enemy’s cloaked hood.
Syb and Rain witnessed another mage attack with three different elemental powers—something that should have been impossible.
The unease in Tal’s stomach solidified to something akin to fear, a feeling she wasn’t used to.
“Do we think these mages are connected with those from the southern kingdom?” Carrick voiced the question Tal had been toying with. They didn’t know how many mages were involved in the deal brokered with Pochette.
Sybil shrugged. “It’s possible. A secret society of the most powerful magical beings taking out any possible threat would make sense. Then again, we’ve never heard of anything like it.”
Egan tilted his head. “What would a secret society of mages want with Meladair? We barely have enough food here, let alone gold or any other resources. It makes more sense that the two situations are unrelated.”
“We have to assume the worst. Do we really want to let our guard down on the chance this mage is acting alone?” Rain stood in the entrance to the common area, leaning his shoulder against the stone. He’d attempted to return as his collected self, but his hunched shoulders belied his irritation.
“So that’s it then?” Egan asked, incredulous. “We just accept that we’re being invaded? And what about our plans?”
Tal scoffed. “What plans? There’s nothing left of Pochette’s empire, nothing to run, nothing to rule over. Hells, if the gangs aren’t running for the mountains already, they’ll surely destroy each other in the fight to claim the throne of the slums.”
“Has anyone actually seen a mage in Meladair?” Carrick sounded skeptical.
Tal shook her head. “If what Pochette said is true, he only interacted with the apparitions.”
“But if an apparition is present, a mage can’t be far. From what we saw, a mage could only project an apparition the length of twenty buildings.” Sybil sharpened one of her knives while she relayed the information.
“Any witnesses still alive only saw cloaked figures before the fires started. Apparitions are incapable of producing magic, so unless they set the fires without it, unlikely given how quickly and completely everything burned, mages were in the streets last night,” Rain concluded somberly.
He crossed his arms and clenched his fists.
Pochette’s warning about the evil he kept at bay echoed in Tal’s mind.
What had he done to protect his empire? Did the mages destroy it and leave or were they here to stay?
She beseeched Sybil wordlessly, and the seer nodded.
“Shit.” She bit her lip. “Can you see anything? Do we know why they’re here? ”
Sybil narrowed her eyes at the blank space in front of her.
Her lips pursed and nostrils flared, and then she shook her head.
Despite her powerful gift, she could not see futures for strangers unless they linked with someone she knew and only if she focused on the right person and the right events.
Even then, there was no guarantee the future would reveal itself.
When Tal mentioned that the unknown apparition searched for a red-head, Sybil stared at her with a strange look on her face.
But when Tal questioned her, her friend kept silent.
“Someone should inform the king.” Egan stood as if he would be the one to do it.
Tal sighed. Egan was the most na?ve of the group.
He still believed the king would help or cared at all.
“The docks have been rotting for years with no help from the palace. The nobles are too busy attending their balls and eating their fill to give us a second thought.” No one of status had ventured to the slums or offered any kind of aid, least of all the young king who wasted his days on pleasures of the flesh. No, they were on their own.
“Even if one of us could somehow get word to the palace, do you really think they would believe us?” Tal sheathed her knife and stood.
“Until we know more, we need to be careful. We have to assume they’re taking anyone with abilities.
Sybil, Rain, you know more than any of us how dangerous this could be.
Be vigilant. No one goes out alone at night.
And we take it easy on the bounties. Small jobs only like we had planned while getting used to the businesses.
Even without taking over Pochette’s establishments, we have enough to manage for now. ”
“The same goes for you too, Tal.” Carrick notched a brow.
“I can hold my own.”
“Be that as it may, if what Pochette said is true, then powerful mages will be looking for you. Have you ever gone head-to-head with a mage? I’d rather not test your strength, if you ask me.” Carrick crossed his arms.
“I am not some princess needing a bodyguard. I did just fine on my own before you four showed up, and I continue to do just fine when you’re all doing your own thing,” she ground out.
Talwyn had few memories of her life before a fisherman named Waltford picked her up with the rest of the rubbish at the docks nearly two decades ago.
He took her in, fed her, clothed her, and let her sleep in the corner of his one room home.
But he never let her leave and never gave a reason.
“No red. No gold. No fire,” he would say in his simple-minded language.
One day, he went out and never returned.
After seven days, Tal ran away and lived on the streets, scrounging for food and hiding from the Netters.
Carrick spotted her long before she noticed him.
Days without food left her collapsed in an alley.
He offered her bread and fresh water when she was too sick to find her own and carried her back to his hideaway under a dock where he nursed her back to health.
His gentle nature and strong presence broke down her walls.
By the end of the week, they were inseparable.
As much as Talwyn refused to let anyone think of her as fragile, she would never fault Carrick for his protectiveness over her.
“I’m okay with holding off on taking over things, since every one of those businesses and persons are gone. But regardless of who is after you, we need to figure out what to do about these mages.” Rainier tapped his ledger, as if the numbers in the book would give them a plan.
“We do nothing.” Talwyn stood with her arms crossed. All eyes landed on her.
“Tal, we can’t ignore them as a threat,” Sybil said gently.
“Did you forget what happened in your village? We are not kings with armies at our commands, nor are we assassins. We are bounty hunters. We do not stand a chance against beings powerful enough to destroy entire villages in one night. And it’s not our job to keep the peace.”
“I thought we were prepared to do just that when you killed Pochette,” Egan added quietly.
“We were supposed to keep his businesses running and the gangs away from the common folk. That plan never included outside forces, and now all our allies within Pochette’s gang are gone too.
It’s just us. Pochette had hundreds of men, and he couldn’t keep the mages out.
Besides, he was dead whether I delivered the blow or not.
If he thought they were going to let him walk away, then he deserved what he got. ”
“So, you would sit back and let them destroy our home? You’d watch the world burn and do nothing?” Carrick asked.
Her eyes shot to his and the hurt in them gripped Tal’s heart enough to steal her breath.
Carrick had always been supportive of her choice to lay low.
She always said, “Helping others is the best way to get yourself into trouble,” to which Carrick would tease that he helped her.
She never had much of a response to that, but she would be forever grateful for his kindness that day.
She knew this went against everything they’d agreed to, but Tal never wanted any of it.
“We do nothing. When the mages are gone, then we can revisit this ruling business. Until then, we lay low and avoid capture,” she repeated, ending the conversation.
She left them there, in one of the dead-ends of the underground sewage system and retreated to her room.