by Amy Hopkins
Danil snorted then leaned past Julianne to bump Bastian’s fist. Julianne raised her eyes to the heavens. “Give me strength.”
They walked on for a while, trekking through the long grass by the side of the road. Though not strictly necessary, the little bit of camouflage would reduce the effort needed to avoid notice by a normal person.
If one of the New Dawn approached and was able to block them, the cover would hopefully give them time to hide. The robes served the same function. Though long seen as the uniform of the mystics and rumored to be a sign of their virtue or some rubbish, it was much simpler than that: a plain cloth was easier to ‘blend’ into a background than a brightly dressed person.
The rumble of a wagon made them all dive to one side. Julianne waved the others down, but sent her thoughts out towards it as it passed. A mystic, riding with a farmer. The mystic was shielded, but Julianne touched it with the gentlest of pressure. It yielded, though not enough to alert the stranger.
The wagon passed, and Julianne let out a breath.
He was shielded, but not well. No one I recognized, and I don’t think he had Temple training, not as weak as he was.
Did you touch the farmer’s mind? Danil’s sending was grim.
No, why?
It was like working with an opium addict or an alcoholic. He was fixated on his next high, but there was a lethargy there, too. Julianne, we have to free these people.
Weight settled on Julianne’s shoulders. He was right. No matter what, they couldn’t leave these people to a life of slavery, especially under the hand of one of their own.
Julianne brushed the grass seeds off her robe, and set back off down the road. Already alert to the sounds of passers-by, it didn’t take long for voices to catch her attention. The three mystics darted across the road and slowed, keeping a close eye out for anyone who might stop them.
The sounds came from a nearby orchard. The apple trees gave them enough coverage to slip closer, past the sluggish workers who probably wouldn’t have noticed them even without magic.
Danil, you and Bastian wait here. I don’t want us all caught in the same cage.
Danil frowned, but nodded. Julianne slipped between the trees, casting her mind wide to touch the nearby workers, then a group further afield. A short distance away, a cluster of minds congregated, emanating fear and pain. She scurried towards them.
“What the hell do you think this is? Do you think your masters, your gods will be happy with these takings?” The speaker was robed in blue and carried a staff much like her own. His, however, was topped with gold.
The fear increased, a desperate need to please, a terror of failing before a wrathful tyrant.
“Take them to the brewer. If nothing else, they’ll get us drunk.” He spat in the dirt and turned away.
Julianne pushed against the mind of the robed man before the crowd. His shield was stronger than the wagon drivers, and she debated trying to worm past it. Not worth the risk, she decided. He would probably notice the effort. She could make him forget her, but she wasn’t certain that someone rifling through his mind later wouldn’t notice her tampering.
Not knowing the extent of her enemy’s power frustrated her to no end. Without knowing how they’d made their shields so strong, she couldn’t know if that strength was reflected in other skills, like mind control, or if they even had skills Julianne hadn’t seen before.
Hannah, the girl from Arcadia who’d led the charge against Adrien, had been the first in a long time to exhibit a new type of magic. Was her power a precursor to a changing system of magic?
Shaking off the ominous thought, Julianne watched a group of men cart off a wagon stacked with barrels. In the field, one of the pickers had stopped to watch. His stillness caught her eye, but she wasn’t the only one to notice.
“No. No! Please, Holy Masters, please!” He winced, then writhed, dodging invisible blows. “Please, forgive me!”
The man screamed louder and Julianne’s eyes prickled with tears. She knew his pain was imagined, and she knew that later, she could undo it. Now, however, she was powerless. Unless…
She reached out, not to his torturer, but to the man himself. It didn’t take her long to find the intruder in his head. Ever so carefully, she slid a soft shield in place between his mind and the sensations projected into it.
Julianne diverted the illusion, giving it an ethereal quality that would buffer him from the pain. He stopped writhing and stood, tears running down his face, and wiped snot off his lip with the back of his sleeve.
He jerked as the foreign presence left his mind and Julianne quickly embedded two suggestions into his mind. First, she allowed him to see the illusion. This would alleviate the pain. He would feel it a little, but know it was false. This knowledge would protect him from the worst of it.
Less than a heartbeat later, she added the suggestion that if his torturers knew it no longer hurt, the repercussions would be terrible. The man barely blinked between the shift from agonizing pain, to relief and bewilderment, and then to a very convincing act that nothing had changed.
Julianne left his mind, satisfied his writhing screams would fool the guards, but that he was no longer suffering the pain.
Fatigue from the complicated spell made her legs weak and she slipped away, cursing her inability to help the others… yet. She was aware that she carried both Danil and Bastian in the back of her mind, and that they had seen everything she had.
You did a good thing, Danil sent.
Then why do I feel like I just left a field full of innocent people behind to suffer, while I walk away free?
Danil dropped his eyes when she returned, unwilling to meet her furious gaze. They continued down the road, this time taking less care than before.
The traffic around them increased. They first passed one villager headed into town, then another, and then a group of three. All carried packs of food or cloth, and one man dragged a small cart behind him with a table crammed into it. Each of them had a single-minded purpose: to take their gifts to their Masters.
Fields gave way to buildings and they left the main road, taking alleys and side-passages as they slipped closer to the town center. The town was larger than Julianne had expected, despite Annie’s mental images, but it was dirty and neglected.
Rubbish piled the streets and more than one house sported cracked windows. As they went, peeking in windows and ducking into doorways to avoid being seen, they picked up tiny clues.
The Masters had taken up residence in the mayor’s residence. He’d been the first sacrifice, the first who they’d been unable to completely cow. That gave Julianne hope. If their other skills were as strong as their shields, they should have been able to control the mayor, though with a reasonable effort. The more you pushed a person against their nature, the harder it was to control them.
Julianne learned that many of the townspeople had fled, and that those left still had the wits to miss them. She saw the methods used, a crude combination of mind control, softening of the will, and torture mixed with lavish heaping of reward for doing as the masters wished.
A cry sent a jolt of fear through Julianne. Had they been seen?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Find the brat! Search the houses!” Clomping feet ran through a nearby street, and Bastian grabbed Julianne’s hand.
We have to go, he sent, pulling her back.
She sank her teeth into her lip, then nodded. They knew where to attack, and had a good idea of who. They could come back at night and start their assault under cover of darkness.
They ran down an alley and bolted left, using the map in Julianne’s mind. Then, they reeled around as a cry sounded ahead. Turn after turn, they flitted down one street after another, only to be turned back by a searching guard or a blocked road.
The new occupants of the town didn’t seem to care much about the piles of rubbish that accumulated in corners or furniture and boxes dumped in the streets. Once, a cat darted out and they froze,
then retreated down another path.
Stop, Julianne said. Forget running. We walk out.
Julianne dipped into a trance and projected an image of them that was almost correct. Instead of dusty white robes, though, they now wore the dark cloth of the New Dawn, embellished with the insignia of the rising sun.
Bastian looked down and shook his head, looking nervous. “Will they buy it?” he asked. “I don’t think I could pull this off on my own.”
Julianne winked. “You’re forgetting, I did this for months. Wearing a second skin is like… well, wearing a second skin to me.”
Even Danil looked doubtful, despite the crisp appearance of his robes. “You’re sure you can project this illusion to anyone we pass? What if we run into someone blocked like Donna was?”
“We haven’t seen anyone like that yet,” Julianne pointed out. “Besides, they’re looking for a child.”
As one, they stepped out of the shadows. Light bounced off the gold thread at their wrists and Julianne smiled. She had crafted the image well.
They set off, almost tumbling over a small girl as they rounded a corner. She sprinted away and shot over a wall. “Lilly!” Julianne hissed, too late. She'd recognized her from the images she'd read in Annie's mind.
A scream sounded and her blood went cold.
“Got the little witch!” The victorious cry echoed off the building around them as Julianne’s heart faltered.
The man cursed. A cat squealed furiously, then flew over the wall directly at Bastian. Both man and beast were equally surprised, though the cat was a lot more vocal about it. Julianne clapped a hand over Bastian’s mouth until he’d extricated the feral animal’s sharp claws from his robe. The animal bounded to the corner and looked back to give them a baleful hiss before disappearing.
The girl screamed again, this time a howl of anguish. “No! Temper! You hurt him, you hurt Temper! I hate—” Then she, too, fell silent.
“No…” Julianne flew to the wall and jumped.
Jules, no! Danil sent urgently.
She ignored him and hoisted herself up over the wall, just in time to see a fat, muttering member of the New Dawn stomp off with a small figure thrown over his shoulder. The tiny face was turned to one side and Julianne’s heart broke. She was so young.
“He hit her,” Julianne said quickly. “But she’s too far away for me to wake. Come on, we have to go get her.”
“Julianne!” Danil hissed, grabbing her arm. “We can come back for her. Later, with the others.”
She shook him off, fury burning in her eyes. “She’s a child, Danil. Barely seven.” She looked at Bastian, the question clear on her face.
He nodded. “I’ll do whatever you ask, Master.”
“Thank you. We’ll use our uniforms. Be ready to think fast, and have your… blasting thing ready.” She gestured towards Bastian’s pocket.
She turned back to Danil. “Stay clear. If a fight breaks out, you won’t see clearly enough to help. This is my fight; you don't need to sacrifice yourself for it”
“To hell with that!” Danil stepped up next to her. One hand touched his forehead, then his chest in a firm salute. “You have my mind and my soul, Master.”
The pledge was an old one, used whenever Selah and his council had come to a difficult decision. It was said to confirm the complete trust and loyalty the mystics had in their leader. Julianne had so far only heard it the day she took her position as Master.
Julianne blinked hard to clear her suddenly blurry vision. “Let’s go then.”
They set off in the direction the girl had been taken, Julianne pointedly ignoring Danil’s mental query as to whether she was crying, or had just walked past a pile of rotting onions.
Because if those are tears, I won’t tell. Wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation.
You do nothing but try to ruin my reputation. Julianne held up a hand and they stopped, waiting until a pair of New Dawn members had passed. The couple nodded their way and the squeezing anxiety around Julianne's chest lessened a little at the confirmation the spell was working. Seriously. I’m the leader of a Temple, and my best friend is a gambling addict?
When the street was clear again, they headed to the right. Pinpointing the girl’s location was easier now. She’d woken again, and her furious screams rang through the town.
Your best friend is a suave, mischievous bachelor who half the Temple would be tripping over themselves to get at, if they had half a brain between them.
Julianne pulled Danil around a corner and nodded at a robed figure who hurried past, ignoring them. I didn't know Charles counted himself as my best friend.
Danil pressed a hand to his chest and staggered back at the mock wound.
“I think she’s in there.” Julianne pointed to a small, white building ahead.
Bastian fidgeted nervously. “What’s our plan? Rush them, try to take them by surprise? Or are you two just going to blind them with your dazzling wits?”
Julianne smiled. “We do what we do best. Cover me a moment.”
Her eyes glowed white and her shoulders slumped. She’d need every ounce of concentration for this, and she was already, as usual, running on empty. Slipping behind the rather average mind shield held by one of the men guarding Lilly, Julianne found the information she needed. When she opened her eyes, Bastian gasped.
“Who are you?” he asked, uncertainty underlying his words.
A thin, bearded man smiled back at him with a greasy expression that made Bastian shiver. “Convincing?” Julianne asked in a strange voice, from an even stranger mouth. She smoothed her pristine navy robes and nervously pressed a hand to her new facial hair.
“Wow, Jules. I’ve seen you do it before, but it scares the hell out of me every time.” Danil reached forwards to touch the cloth of her robe. “You know your robes are darker?”
The man—Julianne—nodded. “I am Master August. His rank is denoted by the deeper shade of blue. You two will be my aides, newly arrived in town. Shall we go?”
Bastian nodded, eyes wide. Then he shook himself and wiped the stunned expression off his face. “Yes, Master.” That, at least, he could handle. It rankled him that they’d stolen the title of Master, though.
Julianne strode forwards and slammed open the door. The heavyset man jumped to attention, but not before Julianne had seen what he was doing. He’d been leaning over Lilly, who was tied to a chair and craning her neck as far as possible to get away from his warm, sticky breath.
“What the hell is this, Jackson?” Julianne demanded in Master August’s voice.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jackson bowed and began his stuttering explanation. “The girl, Master. I lured her in, caught her. I was just going to—”
“Lured her in? Swallow your lies. She ran straight into you. You got lucky.”
Jackson nodded quickly. “Yes, Master August. Sorry, Master August.” Sweat dripped off his wobbling chin and splattered onto the floor.
“Shut up, you pathetic man. Give me the girl.”
“What?” Jackson’s eyes darted up to his Master. “But you told me—”
“I told you to put a stop to her shenanigans weeks ago.” That was true, according to what Julianne had seen in Jackson’s memory. She had exploited his fear of his Master and his confidence of rich rewards when he handed the girl over. No better way to unsteady someone than by thwarting their expectations and turning elation to terror. “You were to contact me immediately, not sully the girl with your sweaty paws. I should have you flogged. I still might, if you forget your place again.”
“Please, Master. Forgive me?” Jackson’s bottom lip trembled and Julianne stifled the urge to slap him.
“Get out of my sight.” The words came easily, as did the vile tone and instinctive loathing of the man. The difference was that Julianne was disgusted by what Jackson had done. August would have been disgusted at what he hadn’t.
Danil and Bastian stepped forward to take Lilly’s arms. She struggled an
d they had to hold her tightly to stop her from running. The two men half dragged, half shoved her out the door and away from her captor.
As they rounded a corner she sank her teeth into Danil’s hand and he let go, cursing. Lilly snatched her other arm from Bastian’s grip and tried to run, only to trip over Julianne’s staff. Julianne dropped the disguises and when the girl looked up, she gasped and scrambled back against the wall.
“Shh. It’s ok, Lilly. We’re here to help,” Julianne said.
“Who…” Lilly’s eyes darted around, looking for Lord August and his two cronies.
Julianne caught her attention and, one hand on the girl’s arm in case she tried to run again, stripped her fear away. Lilly sagged, then bared her teeth in defiance. Julianne raised an eyebrow at that, then slowly reassembled the image of August. Lilly’s eyes grew wide and she pulled back, ready to run again. Julianne dropped the image immediately.
“Lilly, it’s just a trick. A mask.” Julianne reached her other hand out to Lilly and pulled the girl to her feet.
“How?” The word came out as an angry growl. Lilly scrubbed the tears from her cheeks and folded her arms across her belly.
“Mind magic. Yes, like August and his goons, but I swear we won’t do anything to hurt you, Lilly.”
“We can’t stay here,” Danil murmured to Julianne.
“We can try and sneak out.” She turned to Lilly. “Or, we can use our disguises and pretend you’re our prisoner.”
Lilly shook her head vehemently. “Jackson sent for August. He wasn’t surprised to see you—um, him? He was just surprised to see August so soon. Unless you stopped the message, he’s on his way and will be here any minute. If they see you and him in the same place…”
“You’re right,” Julianne said. “It’s too risky. I don’t know that I can hide us all, though. The people we passed earlier were distracted, easy to fool. Once our ruse is discovered, they’ll be hunting for us.” She didn’t add her other concern. If August was their leader, he was probably stronger than the lackeys he’d left to guard the town during the day. Until she met him, there was no way to tell how much stronger.
