‘Now… Now, I can explain!’ Amberly said, placing her sword in its sheath and walking forward. Her hopes weren’t high. Leoric was very much the “fire and brimstone” sort. She supposed Laes was the fire and brimstone sort too, but in a very different manner.
Laes was quietly trying to slink into the shadows. Putting himself out of sight from the two aghast followers. They weren’t so keen to just stand around. One drew out a knife from his belt. A silver blade. He tossed it straight for Laes as the half-devil began to chant a spell that would get him out of here.
‘Laes!’ Amberly shouted, giving him warning to duck the blade.
Leoric sighed. ‘Oh, so you even know the devil’s name.’ He flashed some sort of signal to the men beside him. ‘Amberly, I always hoped… I knew you only followed Soel for the chance of revenge, but I hoped we had managed to keep your heart pure, your thoughts just. To think you would consort with Hell just to further hunt the Abyss. I shouldn’t have let you off the leash so soon… I blame myself for this.’
As he spoke, his men pulled goggles over their eyes and he pulled a scroll from his belt. Before Amberly could ask what it was for, Leoric spoke the trigger phrase and the scroll turned to ash as the spell within it was released into the world. With a cataclysmic bang, a huge flash of white light filled the air and all Amberly could hear was a high-pitched whining noise so loud it left her clutching her ears. The flash of white left her blinded and utterly defenceless as her arms were grabbed and tied together. She heard another spell chanted and, upon its completion, her head felt heavy, her eyelids drooped, she felt her limbs going weak, and in seconds she sagged in a powerful grip of someone behind her.
As the ringing in her ears faded, just before she blacked out, she heard a short exchange.
‘What will we do with them, sir?’
‘Check the children for the demon’s taint, we’ll do whatever we can to save them, I’ll see to Amberly. She’s my responsibility… My sin. It’s okay my children, the dawn is here… You’re safe now.’
A body had been found on the outskirts of the city. A watchman. To be specific, one of the watchmen under Jane’s control. While she had been at a dinner with her husband, the body had been hidden away in the secret chambers under her manor for her inspection. When she returned, with the just now returned Lauralee at her side, her fears were confirmed.
‘That’s a sabre wound,’ Lauralee commented idly, inspecting the corpse, ‘and those burns look like they’re from a blade made of fire. That was the spell Syline was practising when she was in the library.’
‘So, she slipped the net.’ Jane let out a slow breath through her teeth. A girl getting lucky and managing a spell far beyond her means, that was a curiosity. This was starting to become a problem. ‘They said the prints led out onto the frozen lakes, correct?’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘Then she’s smart enough to avoid the roads, but at least she’s not managed her way deeper into the city, she’s making her way away from us. That gives us plenty of time. There’s no one out there but lumberjacks and monsters. No one she can report me to.’
‘Should I set out after her?’
Jane considered it, but eventually shook her head.
‘No, no. There are too many open stretches of land, too far for you to travel without places to rest during the day. No.’ She paused, biting her lip. ‘I’ll use my husband’s connections. If the guard cannot manage it, we’ll use freelancers. Adventurers, they have more experience fighting rogue mages. Money can bend them as well as I can, and their senses won’t be dulled by my control. We’ll organise a fallback with some mercenaries as well, just in case.’
She nodded, largely to herself. Even the words that followed were more for her benefit than Lauralee’s.
‘Yes, don’t worry dear, this one’s still under control, making her way out of the city has been her mistake. Now, what about you? How did it go with the cult?’
Lauralee paused, fidgeting.
‘It–’ she started. She feared Jane’s mood, especially just after talking about how the guard had failed to deal with the runaway mage.
‘Well, out with it.’
‘A paladin arrived, with a devil in tow, shortly after the summoning was completed. I had time to speak to the demons and they gave me the scroll. Then the pair wiped out the entire cult.’
‘Shitting hells!’ Jane cursed. ‘We poured time and resources into that cult. They should have been better prepared, better hidden.’ She paused. ‘A paladin and a devil you said?’
‘Yes, my lady, they seemed to be working together. I fled when it was clear they were going to win.’
Jane looked as if she might make to lash out at her, but after a few moments, let out a ragged breath, calming herself.
‘You made the right choice. If you’d defended the cult and lost, they’d have known of our hand in the activities. Still. A devil and a paladin, that’s a mystery we’ll need to unravel.’
‘I still got the scroll,’ Lauralee offered, trying to make the situation a little bit lighter.
‘You did, you did, good girl.’ She paused. ‘Keep, keep that scroll in mind. We may be able to use it if these adventurers fail. It’s another summoning, one for a hunting hound from the nethers. I had other uses for it, but if Syline remains a thorn in our side…’ She nodded and began to walk away. Lauralee called after her.
‘How did the experiments with the demigod go, my lady?’
Jane turned, and a broad smile spread across her lips.
‘Well darling, at least something is going well. You have no idea. Her blood. Her body. Her power. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It was almost too much at first but,’ she let out a soft, almost moan-like noise, ‘I don’t know if any other blood will suffice again. If I keep her alive long enough, if all goes to plan, well. Soon that power will all be mine.’
Lauralee smiled, but inwardly, she worried what someone with Jane’s temper would be like with the power of a demigod. She hoped to be home with her own mother before she found out.
‘You know,’ the first thing Amberly heard when she awoke was Laes’ voice. It sounded strained. In pain. ‘I really should have seen this coming. Nothing good comes from working with “good people”.’
She lifted her head. Pain wracked her temples like a demon’s claws. Her vision was foggy but gradually starting to clear.
‘I could have just stolen the one child away and disappeared into the night. But, no, whatever human part of me there is demanded I play the hero. I get the girl and save the day. Stupid! The moment I met you, I knew this would end poorly. I should have just left it at that but, no, I took a fancy to the pretty paladin. Stupid, Laes, stupid.’
Laes didn’t realise she was awake; it seemed like he was just thinking out loud.
‘I’ve always been like this, you know? I always stick my head in where it doesn’t belong and it’s always me who gets burned. I should have just renounced the contract then and there, but the fellow was a valuable one.’
Her vision cleared. They were in the cells beneath the Morning’s Fury’s church, where they would attempt to rescue the souls of sinners or interrogate prisoners so they could further hunt down their fellows. She was chained up to a wall. Laes was in the cell with her, on the wall perpendicular to the one she was chained to. She could see silver nails, rammed through his hands to hold him to the wall and a thick collar, embellished with symbols of Soel around his neck: ones that suppressed magic and stopped outsiders returning to their world. Sat in the cell’s only window, to the right of Laes was a little, red songbird, letting out a beautiful song, but it was practically drowned out when Laes continued to rant. Any other time, Amberly would have been smiling just from that little tune, but right now, it fell on deaf ears.
