“Not so fast,” she said through clenched teeth, summoning a swirling blue portal. Its location wasn’t far. Stepping through, she reemerged at the end of the hallway the final assassin had attempted to flee down. He skidded to a halt, his eyes widening behind his mask. Aurelia gave him no time to react. Unleashing all her fury, she tore bricks free from each side of the castle walls and then slammed them together. She heard the assassin’s bones snap, saw his skull crunch inward. His body dropped to the floor like a rag doll, and it was only then Aurelia felt she could breathe.
She ran back to the garden, pausing only momentarily at the door. Two guards lay slumped outside the entrance, thin darts protruding out from their necks. Aurelia passed them by, holding in a shudder. Checking the other exit, she found two more dead guards. The waste of life infuriated her as much as it frightened her with the implications.
“Mommy!”
Aurelia turned, felt her heart break upon seeing Aubrienna rush out from cover and run toward her. Her cheeks and neck were red, her face a mess of snot and tears. Aurelia scooped her into her arms, then went to Gregory. She set her daughter down, wrapped them both in her arms, and tried to calm them.
“Hold your ears now,” she said, pulling them closer to her chest. Turning her head toward one of the doors, she gathered magic into her voice.
“Guards!”
The sound must have echoed throughout half the castle, for within a minute, dozens came rushing in, cursing at the sight of their dead brethren.
“Take them to Harruq, and make sure they don’t leave his side,” she said to the man in charge. “I don’t care how disruptive they are, they don’t leave. Is that clear?”
“Understood,” the soldier said, scooping Gregory up into his arms. Another pulled off his mailed glove and offered a hand to Aubrienna.
“Mommy, don’t go,” she begged. She had started to calm down, but was only the slightest push away from breaking again.
“I’m sorry sweetie,” Aurelia said, kissing her forehead. “Go to daddy. Mommy has people she needs to see.”
She sniffled but managed to keep herself together. Aurelia felt guilt watching them go, but she shoved the feeling away. Now was not the time. As squads of soldiers spread out to scan the castle for any more intrusions, or at least discover how the assassins gained entrance in the first place, Aurelia opened a portal to her and Harruq’s room. From there she grabbed her staff, one of her few cherished possessions she still had from their flight from Veldaren. Leaping back through the portal into the garden, she approached the rainbow sphere that had given her so much trouble. The closer she stepped to it the more she felt her magic fading, until when it was at her feet she was powerless once more.
With a satisfying crack, she smashed it with the butt of her staff. The sphere broke easily, letting out a great puff of smoke and color as it did. Scooping up the surprisingly cool shards, she closed her eyes to create another portal. The masks the assassins wore were familiar, and that they wielded magic made them doubly rare. But there was one man she knew that matched both qualities, a man that might either be behind the attack, or know who was responsible.
Through the portal she stepped, still holding the shards. When she exited, she was on a distant street in the trade district of Mordeina. The men and women passing by turned to gawk, and for once Aurelia wished she might fit in a little better. No time for a disguise, though, so she hurried to the tavern she’d been told to go to if she ever sought to make contact. It wasn’t the tavern itself she needed, though, but the dark alley beside it. A child sat there on a crate, looking bored. His hair was disheveled, his face dirty, but there was something of an act to his appearance. The alertness of his eyes, the healthiness of his skin, belied the supposed starvation of a street rat.
“Hello,” Aurelia said to the boy.
“Don’t feel like talking,” was his response.
“I fear I’m not as wise as I thought,” she said, as instructed. “Might you help me?”
The boy stared at her, then gave a curt nod.
“Wait here.”
Aurelia stepped into the alley, holding her staff in one hand, the shards in the other. Several minutes passed, but at least she was out of clear sight of the traffic.
“Bored of your life in the castle?” asked a woman’s voice from above.
Aurelia glanced up to see Veliana peering down from the rooftop of the tavern, a smirk lighting up her lone good eye. She wore the colors of her new guild, dark gray shirt and cloak with black sleeves and pants. In her left hand she twirled a dagger, her fingers dancing.
“I’d prefer the boredom over today,” she said. “Where’s your guildmaster?”
“Right here,” Deathmask said, stepping out of the alley’s shadows, his arms crossed behind his back. His long dark hair curled down around his neck. A gray mask covered his mouth and nose, but his eyes were sparkling with humor. “Ah, Aurelia, how good it is to see you again. Your beauty is as stunning as ever. Such a shame you waste it on that oaf of a half-orc you call a husband.”
“I’m in no mood,” Aurelia said, tossing the shards at his feet. “Someone tried to kill me and my daughter, and Antonil’s son as well. I want to know why.”
Deathmask lifted an eyebrow.
“Interesting. And you think I have the answer why?”
“All three assassins wore masks similar to yours.”
“Hardly unique to cover one’s face.”
Aurelia crossed her arms, reminding herself not to take her frustration out on the wily rogue, despite how much she wanted to roast him down to ash so he’d match the name of his guild.
“They were also proficient with magic,” she said. “Only one guild in Mordeina has members with any magical training that I know of: yours. And if it wasn’t you, then you of all men should know who it was. No one has a better finger on the pulse of the underworld than you.”
“No one since the days of the Watcher,” Veliana said, laying on her back and continuing to twirl her dagger. “By the way, should I mention how stupid it’d be of you to come here if you actually thought we were guilty of the attack? But you’re not that stupid, which means you don’t think we were responsible. So please, lay off the demands, and keep the shallow reasoning to yourself, hrm?”
Fire swarmed around Aurelia’s right hand.
“Easy now,” Deathmask said. “I’d rather not have anyone die. No profit in it. Aurelia, when you arrived you oh-so-politely tossed something at my feet. Care to tell me what it was?”
“It was a sphere before I smashed it,” Aurelia said, turning her attention back to Deathmask. Her fist clenched, removing the fire. “The assassins threw it at me just before they attacked. Somehow it created a hole in the world’s magical weave, preventing me from casting any spells.”
Finally she saw a bit of interest spark in Deathmask’s eyes.
“Really now?” he asked, kneeling down and picking up one of the shards. “Interesting…”
“So please, what can you tell me? They wore gray and red, and all were light of skin if that helps.”
“So they even dress similar to me now? How interesting. Are you sure I’m not the man responsible for the attacks? Enough coin and even I might rethink my allegiances. Angels do tend to make life as a rogue difficult.”
“We went through too much together for you to turn on us without a chance to rectify things first,” Aurelia said.
Deathmask laughed.
“Sentimentality? I think you confuse me for someone else, elf. No, the proof you need to know I wasn’t behind this is much simpler. If it had been my guild making the attempt, you wouldn’t be out hunting for the party responsible. You’d be dead.”
He tossed the sphere shard back to the ground.
“What he threw at you is known as a voidsphere. Rare, but not impossible to craft if you know what you’re doing. As for these assassins…no, I cannot tell you who might have hired them, nor the name of their organization. If any other guild
started showing an affinity toward spellcasters, I assure you, I’d know about it. I’m sorry, but if you need answers, you’ll have to look elsewhere.”
There was no hiding Aurelia’s disappointment. She clutched her staff and took a deep breath. The city wasn’t big enough for a new guild with such power at their disposal to go unnoticed for long. Someone had to know.
“Please,” she said. “If you learn anything, find me or my husband.”
“I will,” Deathmask said, winking. “If the profit’s right.”
Aurelia turned, ripped open a portal, and vanished.
Veliana watched the elf disappear into the swirling blue, then leapt down from her perch atop the tavern.
“You lied,” she said.
Deathmask shrugged.
“I do that from time to time.”
Veliana knelt before the shards of the voidsphere, scanning over the intricate detail required to carve the magic into its surface.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“Games,” Deathmask said, leaning against the wall. “People are playing games, and no matter what happens, we will benefit. Nothing can be worse than the way things are now.”
“And if they kill Gregory?”
“Do I look like a man who will shed a tear?”
He was grinning, she could tell by the way his cheeks pulled upward at his mask.
“You look like a heartless bastard,” she said, standing.
“You’re making me blush. But no, Vel, until we know everyone’s aims, we keep our mouths shut and our eyes open. Can you do that?”
“I can,” she said. “But you still could have told them who was responsible. That alone would have been worth a princely reward.”
“And ruin all this fun?” he asked, scattering the shards with his foot as he walked toward the street. “I dare say, Veliana, it’s like you don’t even know me anymore.”
13
Entering Mordeina was a far different experience than Qurrah expected.
“Where are the angels?” he asked as they stepped through the second of the enormous gates. When he’d left years ago, they had flown about the city like hummingbirds around a flower. Now, though, it seemed even the floating city of Avlimar was absent of life.
“They hope to guard an entire nation,” Tessanna said, pulling on his arm as they jostled through the overcrowded road leading directly up the hill to the castle. “Surely you didn’t think they’d all be here?”
“I still expected more of a presence,” Qurrah said. He caught sight of words scrawled upon the nearby buildings, written with a dark red paint of some kind. Each one effectively said the same thing: all hail the Missing King.
“Azariah was right,” Tessanna said, and she pointed to where a man had gathered a crowd about him as he shouted from atop a makeshift pedestal of boxes. “Things are not well here.”
The two made their way closer until they could hear his words. The speaker was a man Qurrah did not recognize, dark of hair, clean cut with a soft face. His eyes, however, bespoke madness.
“Now they brandish swords against our fellow men!” the speaker cried. “Now they threaten the blood of the innocent along with the guilty. Will we still let them lord over us? How many years until we are all afraid for our lives? How long until the very words I speak now are considered blasphemy that requires their justice?” He nearly spat out the word. “Their grace. Their protection. Where is our voice? Where is our king?”
“I’ve heard enough,” Tessanna said, tugging on his arm. Qurrah stared at the man, letting his face burn into his memory. He held such anger, it was beyond rationality by that point. It was beyond convincing. This was a man frighteningly similar to Velixar, and that he had assembled such a massive crowd surprised him none. Such was the draw, and danger, of a man willing to tell others what they wanted to hear, feeding them half-truths and exaggerations so they might be angry instead of afraid.
At the castle doors the two stopped, unsure of how to gain entrance. They still wore the magical disguises they’d cast upon themselves, shifting their features, adding color to Tessanna’s eyes and melding Qurrah’s ears into something human. Fortunately they had time to think without being noticed, for another crowd had gathered at the gate, harassing the guards.
“The steward is seeing no more petitioners today!” the guards shouted, but the annoyed looks on their faces showed they knew it’d do little to make them disperse.
“What’s that orcish bastard going to do about the angels?” the man beside Qurrah yelled.
“Nothing,” said another, shouting loud enough to ensure all others heard him. “He’s too busy sucking an angel’s dick. How else you think he got on that throne?”
Qurrah’s fists clenched as the crowd laughed. He’d never considered himself all that protective of his brother, and was surprised to find just how furious these disrespectful comments made him. Pushing to the front, he stepped before one of the guards, who tensed. He didn’t lift his weapon just yet, but it was clear he was ready to if needed.
“I must speak with Harruq,” he told the guard.
“You deaf? He’s not taking petitioners, now get back before I make you.”
“I’m not deaf,” Qurrah said, banishing his disguise with a thought. “I’m his brother. Tell him Qurrah and Tess have come to visit. I guarantee you he’ll grant us access.”
The guard froze, and he glanced to the man beside him for any indication of what he should do. The other guard just shook his head.
“Go tell him,” he said. “I don’t want my head on a spit just because I turned away the steward’s brother.”
“What about them?”
He gestured to the mob, and Qurrah understood his fear. So far they seemed content to mock, yell, and insult, but at any moment their thirst for blood might rise. Such was the nature of a mob. Qurrah beckoned Tessanna closer. The moment she took her first step her disguise vanished, lengthening her hair, returning the blackness of her eyes and the paleness of her skin. Several beside her let out gasps upon seeing the change. For her part, Tessanna looked simply bored.
“Yes?” she asked Qurrah.
“The guards are afraid things might turn violent.”
“They’re right to be.”
Qurrah chuckled.
“Never mind, then, I will handle them myself.”
He stepped into the space between the guards and the mob. He felt their eyes upon him. A couple had overheard his discussion with the guards, and like lightning his name spread. He let them look, let them see the true face of the fairytale monster they’d made him into.
“Did you not hear?” he asked them. “The steward is not seeing any more petitioners.”
Qurrah dropped to one knee, slamming his palm to the ground. A thin wall of shadows burst from the dirt, climbing over ten feet into the air. It formed a semicircle, sealing the door and the guards within its translucent protection. From the other side people yelled, and a few hurled stones that bounced off with a high-pitched twang.
“That will last an hour,” Qurrah said, turning back to the guards. “Long enough for one of you to find my brother.”
The first guard nodded, looking frightened but doing a fine job of trying to hide it. Turning, he banged on the giant doors twice. When they opened, he slipped inside just before they reclosed.
“Where are the rest of the guards?” Tessanna asked, eyeing the castle curiously. “It seems odd you would be alone. Is the threat not out here among the angry people?”
The remaining guard opened and closed his mouth, confirming Qurrah’s suspicions that something more was amiss.
“I cannot say the reason,” the guard said at last. “Forgive me, but until milord gives me permission, I can say nothing.”
Qurrah and Tess shared a look.
“Very well,” he said. “We’ll leave you be.”
A few minutes later the great doors reopened. A guard stepped out and beckoned to them.
“Follow me,” he sa
id.
They did, and it was only when the doors shut behind them were they finally free of the angry shouts of the people. Down the carpeted hall they walked, until the guard veered to the right, leading them into a small but well-furnished room. It had several chairs, a table already set with food, and a hearth that was currently empty given the warmth of the day. Tessanna grabbed an apple, took a bite.
“Wait here,” was all the guard said before exiting. The door slammed shut, and from the outside they heard the lock slide into place.
“Trusting fellow,” Qurrah said.
“While he was watching, you changed your appearance and then summoned a wall of darkness,” Tessanna said, rolling the apple from hand to hand. “That he left us alone at all seems pretty trusting to me.”
Qurrah chuckled.
“Since when did you become so understanding?” he asked.
“How else would I have stayed with you so long?”
She laughed at him, her eyes sparkling with humor, and Qurrah laughed with her. She seemed so happy, so content, so…normal. It wouldn’t last long, he knew. It never did. But he’d appreciate it while it was there.
“Are you nervous?” she asked after taking another bite.
“A bit. How long ago did he visit our cottage? Surely a year now, if not longer. Aubrienna will be twice the size she was when we last saw her.”
His niece’s name was like a trigger, and immediately Tessanna ceased eating her apple. She lowered her head, shoulders curling inward. Nervous, shy, regressing. Qurrah put a hand on her shoulder, kissed the top of her head.
“You’ve been forgiven,” he said to her. “Don’t forget that. You’re her aunt, that’s all she knows you as.”
“Her crazy, crazy aunt,” Tess said, peering up at him through her long bangs, but despite her obvious discomfort, she smiled.
Qurrah kissed her again, then held her against him as he tried to ignore his own nervousness. It had been a long while since he’d seen his brother. Perhaps he’d be unwanted. After all, he was a living memory of all the agony his brother had suffered, a specter from a far darker past. Harruq’s life had become so grand now. Exotic wife, beautiful daughter, friend of kings and steward of a kingdom. Would he, in his poor existence and plain robe, be just an unwanted reminder of childhood days stealing food and scrambling to find shelter when the weather turned sour…
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