“Who’s that?” Ruethwyn asked, nodding at the woman in concern. Lissa followed her gaze, and then her expression fell slightly.
“Oh, that’s Leticia. She’s… well, the head servant, I’d guess? Essryl trusts her to give directions when she’s away, and she’s always been kind to me,” Lissa said and sighed heavily. “She’s also been here over a century. I’d hoped she’d come with, but if she isn’t going to, I guess that’s that.”
“A century?” Korima asked, her face paling a little. “I… well, I’d heard that this had happened before, but I suppose I never thought about what happened to all the others.”
“What did happen to the others?” Ruethwyn asked, her anxiety growing as she looked around. “I’m seeing… about thirty people here? And eighteen of them are from Mellesyn. That makes only eleven or twelve others.”
“You don’t want to upset the dragon,” a nearby woman said simply, and Ruethwyn looked over at one of the villagers, who looked slightly green, but smiled at Ruethwyn. “Hello, Ruethwyn. I hope we get out of here, because I don’t like my odds of avoiding being eaten.”
“That’s… rather morbid,” Ruethwyn said, swallowing hard. “I can understand why you want to get out of here, even without that, but… ick.”
“Agreed. I’ve only heard stories, but even a threadbare chance is better than nothing,” the woman said, and Ruethwyn nodded.
“You said you had a way to remove the collars, Ruethwyn?” Anara asked, approaching quickly, letting out a breath as she looked at Lissa nervously. “We don’t know for sure that our method would work; we haven’t had a chance to test it.”
“Assuming they come off when their magic is dispelled, yes,” Ruethwyn confirmed, nodding and looking around the hallway, stunned at the sight of so many pretty women. There were only a half dozen human women, but that was still a large portion of those who weren’t from her village. After a moment, she looked at Korima. “Could I have the ward breacher?”
“Oh! Of course, that makes sense,” Korima said, suddenly smiling broadly. She pulled out the copper ring and handed it to Ruethwyn.
“This is a ward breacher. It’s a single-use item designed to break through wards, and has a powerful area effect,” Ruethwyn explained, her voice loud enough that she thought all the women could hear her. “If you gather around it closely when I activate it, it should disable the magic in the collars for a few minutes and allow you to remove them. The only concern is that if you have any magical items or spells on you that you don’t want it to hit, I don’t see a way around the effect.”
“Oh. I… does anyone even have any spells or magical items?” Anara asked, looking around.
One woman raised a hand hesitantly, and the woman spoke softly. “Me. I have a spell I use to protect myself from mental attacks, since it helps me sleep easier. I cast it before bed, though, so I don’t need to worry about it being removed.”
“I do, too, but I also don’t have a collar,” Lissa added, swallowing and toying with a bracelet. “It isn’t anything special, though.”
“Good,” Ruethwyn said, letting out a breath of relief. Korima shifted beside her, looking restless. “Once everyone is out, we’ll see if this works.”
The wait was somewhat agonizing, but Ruethwyn restrained the impulse to try to hurry the women. She didn’t know what they’d been through, though they looked well enough. When Anara approached again, she tensed slightly, not sure what to do or say. For a moment, Anara didn’t speak, looking at her awkwardly.
“From what Essryl said, you’ve gone through a lot,” Anara finally said, keeping her voice calm, and meeting Ruethwyn’s gaze. “Did you really survive a demon invading the academy?”
“Um, well… yes? All the other students helped, though,” Ruethwyn said, feeling a bit taken aback. “I doubt it’s anything like what you’ve been through, though.”
Korima snorted softly, shaking her head. “A dozen hellhounds, then you shoved the demons through a rift and held them there until the teachers could arrive. We would’ve all been captured without you, Rue. Not that I’m saying we know what it was like here, Anara. I have no clue about that.”
“Mostly lessons for etiquette, dancing, music, and being pretty. Though Mistress Essryl surprised us when she decided to teach me to fight a little,” Anara said, looking to the side and hesitating before she finally asked, “Why did you never talk to me, Ruethwyn? I’ve been thinking back, and I saw you around town a lot, but I don’t remember if we talked at all.”
Ruethwyn slowly flushed with embarrassment, and cleared her throat before answering, her voice quiet. “I… was afraid to, honestly. I’d had some bad experiences with some of the others, and I felt like I couldn’t relate with anyone else. I was going to try when we headed to the capital, but then…”
“Oh, that would explain it,” Anara agreed, then fell silent.
They stood there awkwardly for another few seconds, and Ruethwyn still wasn’t sure what to do. Korima looked between them and sighed loudly, her obvious exasperation prompting Ruethwyn to blush.
“She has a point. This has to be one of the silliest meetings in the history of rescue attempts,” Zaria interjected. “The only way you could’ve made it worse would be if Anara had hit you… though come to think of it, that might have made the meeting go smoother.”
“Please don’t tease, Zaria? This is hard enough as it is,” Ruethwyn told the fey plaintively. “I just don’t know what to say! We’re not out of the palace yet, either.”
“Well, it looks like the others are about ready, so you can wrestle with words for another few minutes at least,” Zaria pointed out, drawing Ruethwyn’s gaze to everyone else.
The various women were in the hallway, wearing a variety of different clothing, most of it at least decent for traveling in, though some didn’t look like they’d be able to run as easily as others. Most of them had bags, but none were overloaded, which was a relief. The only one who hadn’t prepared was the woman named Leticia, and Ruethwyn felt faintly uncomfortable as she felt the woman’s gaze almost piercing through her.
“It looks like we’re ready,” Ruethwyn said, and stepped forward, speaking more loudly. “I’m going to set this on the ground, and I need all of you to cluster closely around it. I have magic which I need to keep active, so I’ll need a path to get out, but as long as all of you are within three paces of the breacher, it should work. Alright?”
There was a chorus of agreement, and Ruethwyn set the ring on the ground, then waited for the women to approach. Most left their bags behind as they clustered around her, and she had to gesture for a couple to move so she wouldn’t have her path of retreat blocked. Anara was right next to Ruethwyn, and she couldn’t help wondering how the other woman had kept up her spirits for this entire time.
Once everyone was in position, Ruethwyn spoke the command to activate the breacher and quickly retreated, giving a healthy distance between her and the device. A couple of the women looked nervous, and they flinched backward as the ring flashed, especially with the crackling sound. A moment later, there was a chorus of clattering and clanging as the collars outright fell off, most of them bouncing off the floor, but some getting caught in their former wearer’s clothing.
“Yes!” Ruethwyn hissed, smiling in relief as she saw them come loose. “It looks like… oh no, one of you was out of range, from the look of things.”
A single crestfallen woman was fingering her collar, tears welling up in her eyes. She’d been near the back and must have been just out of range.
Lissa spoke quickly to reassure the woman, moving forward. “Don’t worry, I’ve been working on a spell to remove them. That just was a lot faster than me doing it, so hold still, and I’ll help you.”
“Oh, thank you! I was afraid that I’d just ruined my chances of escape,” the woman replied, her fear turning to relief.
“You wouldn’t be left behind. We’ve got more of the breachers, just not with me right now,” Ruethwyn said, smiling at
the woman.
“Now what?” Anara asked, picking up her bag. “I assume you have a plan?”
“We do, don’t worry about that,” Ruethwyn assured her, looking at the others, and seeing the collar come off the woman’s neck after a fairly long incantation. She spoke a moment later. “We came here with three others, they were checking the other floors for signs of you, in case you weren’t all near Anara. I had a tracker to help me find you, is why.”
“Ah,” Anara said, flushing slightly. “I wondered why you came to my door first.”
“Anyway, we entered the wing through the northern doors from the central wing. We broke the wards there, so we’re going to take you through there, and out an escape passage near the clock,” Ruethwyn continued quickly, glancing between them. “We have a way to get out of the area quickly, but it’s going to be at least an hour hike to get to it. We need to move quickly and quietly.”
Several people nodded their understanding, and Ruethwyn smiled, then said, “Come on, then. Let’s try to get out of here fast.”
As she turned, she heard Lissa speak softly. “Goodbye, Leticia. Thank you for everything.”
“You’re welcome, Lissa. I may not believe you have the best odds of escape, but I wish you luck,” Leticia said simply, her tone calm and refined.
Ruethwyn glanced back once, then continued forward, retracing their steps toward the doors out of the wing. As they moved, she glanced back to make sure everyone was following.
“There are a lot more people than I expected,” Korima said quietly, sounding nervous. “Do you think Alaran’s teleportation thing can get all of them out?”
“Of course,” Ruethwyn said firmly, seeing worry flicker over the face of one of the nearby women, worry which eased as she continued. “His original rescue party was about twenty people, and they were planning to rescue everyone. It’ll have more than enough power to get everyone out.”
“Oh good. I was just worried,” Korima said, sounding relieved. “Plus, I—”
At that moment, they came around the corner to approach the doors, and Ruethwyn suddenly stopped, blurting out, “Oh, crap.”
Alaran, Sella, and Tadrick weren’t back yet, which surprised her a little, but someone was standing in front of the doors, and dread almost overwhelmed Ruethwyn, along with a touch of despair.
Essryl was standing there, wearing her armor and looking completely at ease as her hands rested on the hilts of her daggers. A smile appeared on Essryl’s face as she saw Ruethwyn, and the glowing violet gaze of the dark elf was unsettling, to say the least.
“Ah, so the one who set off the alarm was you, Ruethwyn! I thought it might be, but I wasn’t quite certain,” Essryl said pleasantly, and looked over the crowd of girls, clicking her tongue as she added, her tail lashing slowly. “It looks like you even managed to get all the collars off the girls… not bad at all. However, you seem to have neglected one thing.”
Essryl’s smile vanished as she continued, her tone as cold as ice. “I believe I told you that you should do everything in your power to avoid me when you came here. Alas, it appears that you ignored my warning. That was a mistake.”
Ruethwyn swallowed hard as Essryl drew a dagger, and a murmur of fear ran through the group behind Ruethwyn.
Chapter 40
“I’ll have you know that I thought I did try to avoid you,” Ruethwyn replied, keeping her voice calm, even if she felt more tension than she’d had at any point in the past year. Except maybe for the meeting with Imris. “I just didn’t do good enough, I guess.”
“Ruethwyn, now would be a good time for your avatar state, no?” Zaria inquired, almost startling Ruethwyn.
Realizing it was a good idea, Ruethwyn took a deep breath and channeled mana into her connection with Zaria, and she heard gasps from the people behind her as her skin turned crystalline like ice, and her thoughts calmed still more.
“You impressed me, to be perfectly honest, but things changed in the last few weeks. As much as I wanted to give you an honest chance, My Lord’s orders overruled that,” Essryl replied, a smile flitting across her face again. “I was informed that should you come into the castle, my single, overriding order is to capture you alive. So I put up an alarm hidden from magical detection around the hallway to the rooms of my girls.”
“Well, crap,” Ruethwyn said, her mood sinking still further. “That explains why we sensed heightened mana levels.”
“Indeed. Now, why don’t your friends come out? I know they’ve been hiding in the stairwells for the last couple of minutes,” Essryl said, her gaze flicking to the stairwell. “I’ll strip away their invisibility if I have to.”
Ruethwyn almost started at that, but after a few moments, there was a shimmer from the stairs, and Sella and Tadrick appeared. Tadrick had his sword out and was staring at Essryl, looking tense, while Sella had both the enchanted wand Ruethwyn had given her out, and her other hand was poised to cast a spell. Neither looked happy, which Ruethwyn entirely understood.
“And you. I’ve noticed you watching me,” Essryl said, her gaze focusing on the lower stairwell.
Alaran seemed to melt into existence from the shadows, his sword resting easily in one hand. He spoke calmly, shaking his head as he did so. “I thought I’d stayed hidden better than that.”
“Ah, Sir Alaran Whisperblade… I didn’t think you had the strength of will to come back here,” Essryl said, smiling slightly. “It appears I’ve been regarding you unjustly. My sincere apologies for that.”
“Not ‘sir’. I renounced my knighthood and broke my ties with Selwyn to ensure that I could join Ruethwyn without bringing the Dominion’s wrath down on my homeland,” Alaran replied, slowly preparing himself for combat. “As for you… I’ve been thinking about how best to fight you for the entire winter.”
“Indeed? Well, isn’t that interesting,” Essryl said, and she looked over the room and smiled more. “Let’s see… it looks like seven of you want to fight? Interesting. This could be fun.”
Ruethwyn almost jumped as she realized that aside from her friends, Anara had taken an odd stance, and Lissa looked like she practically had a spell on her lips. The idea of them joining was shocking, but Anara had said that Essryl had taught her to fight a little. But even though they outnumbered Essryl, Ruethwyn couldn’t help thinking that they were the ones who were in danger.
“No,” Ruethwyn said, her voice drawing gazes back to her, some of them shocked.
“No?” Essryl inquired, raising her eyebrows. “No what?”
“You said your overriding goal was to capture us… me. Then if we stayed, could the others go?” Ruethwyn asked, and she saw the dark elf’s eyebrows rise still more. At the same time, her friends gasped and several of them protested.
“Rue, no! You can’t do that!” Korima protested instantly, looking outraged.
“I didn’t come all this way to allow you to give up your freedom for that of others,” Alaran added. The others were about to chime in, but Essryl spoke, her voice loud enough to override their voices.
“As entertaining as the offer might be, I’m afraid not, Ruethwyn. My duties still require me to try to keep all the girls here, so that isn’t something I can allow,” Essryl said, frowning slightly as she added, “In fact, I’m a bit disappointed in you. I thought you had more spirit than that.”
“It was worth a try. We also only said we’d stay behind, not that we wouldn’t fight to escape once they were gone,” Ruethwyn said, shrugging slightly. She felt Zaria’s amusement at that, and Essryl’s frown turned to a smile.
“Oh? Well, that is better, and makes me think better of you, Ruethwyn. Hm… come to think of it, if you and Alaran went all out, you might keep me occupied for a minute or two. Long enough for your friends to get the girls out of the palace, and out of the domain of my responsibilities,” Essryl said, tilting her head and considering. “It isn’t a good chance, but it’s a chance. You’re fortunate that I’m supposed to take you alive; it hampers me slightly
.”
Ruethwyn’s eyes went wide and she exchanged a look with Alaran. His agreement was obvious, even if it was wordless, and she smiled.
“You heard her,” Alaran said bluntly, and with a sharp word he launched forward, half his body seeming to turn into living shadow as he streaked across the room with blinding speed. Essryl instantly parried the attack with her dagger, the harsh chime of metal on metal ringing through the room as she slipped aside like greased lightning, exchanging blows with Alaran without the smile ever leaving her face.
Ruethwyn started an incantation of her own in the same moment, and Zaria’s influence helped her come up with a different spell than normal. The incantation was quick, and she felt the flexible magical ice form along her legs, arms, and up her torso to her neck. The second it was complete, she started another spell, sidestepping to get clear line of sight on the fight, four orbs of roiling frostfire forming in the air above her.
“Oh, interesting! You’ve improved… let me see, you’ve shifted part of your body to be immaterial except when you strike, which allows you to move far more quickly than normal,” Essryl said, her tone almost playful as she blocked, then almost knocked Alaran off his feet with a leg sweep. “Not entirely immaterial, though. Sorry, it looks like Ruethwyn wants to play, and she’s the more important one here.”
Behind them, the girls streamed by with Anara and Korima in the lead, heading for the door. Ruethwyn couldn’t spare the time to watch them, but she caught a glimpse of worry on Anara’s face, as well as most of the others for that matter, then they had the door open and were going out. More pertinent was the insane speed with which Essryl launched toward Ruethwyn.
Gesturing, Ruethwyn sent the orbs of icy flames flashing toward the approaching Illisyr, trying to spread them to give at least one a chance to hit. They flew out as fast as the dark elf, but Essryl laughed, turning sideways in mid-lunge as she dodged between two orbs. Ruethwyn only had an instant for her eyes to widen, and she started bringing up a shield, but it was a little too late.
The Obsidian Palace (Through the Fire Book 3) Page 35
