Hit And Run (Mica)

MICA EARTHBORN

"Fighting you was fun, but this is the part Mica has really been looking forward to," I said, my face inches from Lyra Dreide's. I was sitting in her lap and straddling her legs, carefully watching every twitch of her lips, every shift of her eyes.

This retainer has quite the poker face.

We had returned to our hideout in the Beast Glades after capturing Lyra Dreide. It was difficult to track mana signatures here because of the S- and SS-class mana beasts everywhere, and we'd been careful to make sure we weren't followed.

The retainer was bound within a stone chair I'd conjured just for her. Well, it was kind of a chair, just not a very comfortable one. The hard stone wrapped around her legs from ankle to knee and covered her hands entirely. A collar wrapped around her throat, and there was a single spike protruding into her back. If she tried anything, that spike would pierce her mana core in a blink.

Personally, I had suggested we start with that, but Varay thought disabling her core might break her completely, and we needed information first. So we had to break her a little bit at a time.

Varay started with a toe.

She didn't ask any questions first, just slowly removed the retainer's boot, pinched her little toe between two fingers, and froze it solid. Despite our warnings not to fight back, the woman's body shimmered with mana to counteract the spell. It was instinctive, but I forced the spike just a little deeper anyway.

"Oh, that's really close to your mana core. Careful"—I booped her nose with my finger—"that you don't squirm around too much."

I heard a crack behind me and turned to see Varay hold up the toe, which she had just broken off.

I gave our prisoner a pained, sympathetic look. "Ouch. That must have hurt. So, why don't you tell us all about the Alacryans' operation, huh? Then, you can keep the rest of your perfect little toes."

Lyra Dreide, pale and sweating despite the cool air of the cave, scowled but said nothing.

"Talking is, like, your thing, right?" I asked, twirling a lock of her red hair around my finger. "So it really shouldn't be so hard."

The retainer gritted her teeth as Varay started on the next toe. When it broke, Lyra Dreide gasped, her entire body shaking beneath me.

Varay's armor creaked as she stood, and I could feel her cold glare over my shoulder. "Move, Mica. I'll handle the questioning."

Shooting her a pout, I hopped off the retainer's lap and walked to my bed. There, I scooped up one of my dolls. It gave me an idea.

As Varay began the questioning, I focused on rearranging the doll's features. It was one of the few I had really tried to make look nice, and it already had a semi-realistic female face. I just had to change a few little things, and I had a vague likeness of our prisoner.

"I want the names of the highest ranking officials in Xyrus, Blackbend, and Etistin." Varay was standing over the retainer, arms crossed and radiating a chilly aura. Her tone was all business. She really could be scary sometimes. I was pretty sure that, if I'd been the one in the chair, I'd have spilled my guts in about four seconds.

Plus, I was really fond of my toes.

The retainer, on the other hand, seemed to have gone mute all of a sudden. She simply watched as Varay bent down, took a third toe, and froze it solid.

Behind Varay, I mimicked the action on the doll. I mimed it screaming and shaking in response, then it bobbed around as if speaking quickly. Varay asked again for the names, but the retainer held her tongue.

"Mica thinks you should move on to the pretty lady's face," I suggested helpfully. At the same time, I pinched the doll's tiny nose and broke it off with a quiet crunch.

Varay turned to say something but stopped when she saw the doll. The judgment written across her face was pretty obvious, but I didn't care. I was helping.

Aya stepped forward from where she had been half hidden in the shadows. "Varay, perhaps I should take it from here. This is my specialty, after all."

Varay met the retainer's eye and paused, her fingers tapping against her thigh. "Fine, but remember, we need her mind whole."

Moving slowly closer, Aya raised one hand and made a gesture in the air with her hand. Whip-thin tentacles of mist began uncoiling from her fingertips and wrapping around the bound retainer. Lyra Dreide's jaw tightened as unintelligible whispers filled the cave.

"I think my dwarven companion is right. You seem like someone who cares a great deal about how you're perceived. That's why you're in this position, after all. The adoration, the fear, those moments where entire crowds of people hang on every word you say..."

Aya rested her hand on the side of the retainer's face. When the woman stiffened, I gave her a little nudge with the stone spike in her back.

"This is what we will do to you if we don't get the information we need," Aya said, her voice a low purr full of promise and threat. As she spoke, the misty tentacles wrapped around our prisoner's face, and the whispers intensified. "Can you see it? Can you see what becomes of you?"

Lyra Dreide's face had gone pale and her lips were trembling. She closed her eyes against the mist, but even that wouldn't protect her from Aya's illusions.

"Listen, Alacryan. Listen to the screams. Do you know what those are?" Aya cooed. "That is the sound you will hear everywhere you go: the horrified keening of women and children, the terrified disgust of the men, unable to stand the sight of you."

Lyra Dreide's body began to shake. I felt the surge of mana building up within her and prodded with the spike at her back. "Don't try it, lady."

Varay rested a hand on Aya's shoulder, and the elven Lance withdrew her mists.

"Trust me when I say I take no pleasure in this," Varay said as she pressed her palm against the retainer's cheek. Lyra Dreide's eyes flew open. "I do not desire to bring you pain, and would much prefer it if you simply gave us the information we need. If you make me, however, I will freeze off your ears, then your nose. I will turn your eyes to ice and scorch your flesh with frost. Mica will constrict these cuffs until your legs crack and your hands are crushed to useless pulp. Finally, if you suffer through all that and still will not talk, I will break out your tongue, pierce your core, and hang what little is left of you over the streets of Etistin for all to see, just as you did to our queens and kings."

I caught Aya's eye and silently mouthed, "Wow."

Lyra Dreide seemed to be searching Varay's cold eyes. After a moment, she sagged in defeat, and Varay withdrew her hand.

Varay sat back, and a jagged throne of ice crystallized out of the air beneath her. She seemed to sink into the frozen throne as she lounged back and crossed her legs before pinning the Alacryan with a piercing stare."I want names and titles, details on the chain of command, where local leaders are being housed. By the time you're done, I want to understand the mechanics of the Alacryans' new government as well as you do, Lyra Dreide. If you make that happen, this all stops and you can keep your life. For the moment."

The woman seemed to deflate, sinking back against the chair so that I had to reduce the size of the spike to make sure it didn't accidentally puncture her core.

"Fine. I'll tell you what you want to know."

* * *

Just a few hours later, we were flying at top speed over the Grand Mountains.

Once the retainer had started talking, she just wouldn't stop. It was like Varay had pulled out a plug and all the information inside her came pouring out. As the mouthpiece of the Vritra in Dicathen, she had it all: how local governance was being structured and maintained, who was in charge where, what their individual roles would be in Agrona's overall design...

Honestly, she talked so long that I got bored and sort of zoned out, but that's what Lances Aya and Varay were for.

It hadn't taken long to plan our first strike. Varay was insistent on using what we'd learned immediately. Word of our attack would spread like dragon's fire through both the Alacryan forces and Dicathen's civilians, and we were going to capitalize on that.

Our first target was in Xyrus: Ensel Speight, the mage who had been put in charge of Xyrus Academy. Of all the people she'd told us about, this dungworm was the grossest. He was in charge of educating the young mages, by which of course I mean brainwashing them into supporting the Alacryans. But it went a lot further than that.

Ensel Speight had pioneered a system by which young Dicathian mages would be rigorously tested to better understand our magic, and at the same time used against anyone who didn't fall in line. They were making little kids practice their casting on living targets.

The thought of it made me sick, but there was some small consolation in knowing that we were going to wipe Ensel Speight off the face of the world.

We flew in silence, our bodies wrapped in mana against the bitterly cold air at such a high altitude. It wasn't until the lights of Xyrus City appeared in the distance that Varay slowed to a halt.

"Mana signatures should be suppressed on approach," she said, despite our already having discussed everything before leaving. "We'll circle around and come in from just above the academy. Aya, you'll pierce the mana barrier. Remember, straight to the director's tower. We—"

"By rock and root, we've gone through this already," I muttered, drawing a glare from Varay.

"We get out clean, otherwise our next objective becomes that much more difficult." Aya nodded, her dark hair gleaming in the starlight. I grunted my acknowledgement. Sometimes Mica thinks Varay forgets we were all generals once upon a time...

Without any more unnecessary talking, we flew high up over the city and aligned ourselves to the academy. It was still possible we could be detected by our constant use of mana, or even seen if we were unlucky, so we moved fast.

Once the academy was directly below us, we turned in formation and dove toward the dome protecting Xyrus. Aya was in the lead position, and as she reached the dome, her arm lit up with a beam of pure mana. Using her arm like a knife, she slashed through the transparent barrier and darted through.

The protective shroud began to heal itself instantly, the ancient mages' powerful spell knitting back together like a healing wound. Varay flitted through second, and I followed, the edges of the hole already close enough that they sizzled against the mana shrouding my body.

The secondary barrier that enclosed just the academy wasn't active, which we'd expected, and the way to the director's tower was clear. Varay and I followed just behind Aya as she flew like an arrow toward the tower balcony.

When the elven Lance hit the closed balcony door going full speed, it caved like paper mache, exploding inward and showering the director's room with dust and debris. The place was a mess. I landed in the center of the room, my mace held loosely in one hand, but there was no one to swing it at.

A desk that had rested in front of the balcony door had been flung across the room and smashed through the lower half of the door to the stairs. Chunks of stone and wood covered the floor, and a fine white dust was settling down over everything.

"Damn, maybe he's not here?" I looked at Varay for confirmation, but sensed building mana at the same time she did.

A shield of ice appeared in front of us an instant before a beam of blue fire shot out from under a piece of the rubble. The fire spread across the shield, devouring it, but Varay's spell absorbed all of the heat, and after a second both fire and ice faded away.

Aya leapt to the spell's source and hurled a large piece of the wall across the room. Under it sprawled a very thin man in black and red robes. He was balding with thin, greasy hair that hung from the sides of his head. His piercing gray eyes were watery with the pain of a clearly broken leg, but somehow he still seemed to look down his nose at us.

"The famed Lances, I presume," he ground out through clenched teeth. "Once the finest generals of Dicathen's army, now fallen to the role of lowly assassins." He spit out a mouthful of blood. "Pathetic, really."

"You talk a lot for a corpse," I said, bringing my mace up and looking to Varay. "Let Mica shut him up forever, please?"

Ensel Speight snorted and coughed up another mouthful of blood. "I would love to have given you three to the Testers. By the Vritra, the things we could have learned..."

Shouts from outside and in the stairwell below us announced that it was time to leave. Varay nodded, and I stepped forward to deliver the killing blow.

The cruel man howled as he released another ray of blue flame at my face. I brought up my mace to deflect it, but the spell never reached me. Instead, Varay shot forward and caught the fire. For a moment, it looked like a solid line connected the two, then the fire in Varay's hand began to harden into a darker, colder shade, freezing solid. The frozen fire spread, her ice racing back long the length of the beam. Ensel Speight's face was twisted in concentration, but at the last moment his eyes went wide and I felt him try to cut off the spell, but it was too late.

The ice grew over his hand, up his arm, and in an instant had covered his entire body, freezing him solid. Varay released her end of the frozen fire and the line broke and shattered on the ground.

Resting my mace on my shoulder, I gave Varay a pleading look. "Now can Mica do it?" Varay only rolled her eyes a little bit before nodding.

When my mace struck the Alacryan a second later, he shattered like an ice sculpture, pieces of him flying across the room.

Someone hammered on the door to the stairwell. "Sir! Sir? Are you all right, sir?"

"Let's go," Aya said, carefully stepping over a large piece of Ensel Speight's...I thought it might be a piece of an arm, but it was hard to tell.

As we flew out of the gaping hole in the side of the tower, more shouts came from below and a series of spells lit up the dark courtyard. Aya conjured a sheet of buffeting wind right below us, sending the red, blue, and green bolts of magic wildly off course as we shot straight up into the sky.

"Ooh, it's like fireworks!" I shouted to the others, watching the barrage of spells impact against the inside of Xyrus's protective bubble.

Like before, Aya sheered through it and we burst out into the cold night air. We immediately dived, skimming the barrier until we were below the level of the floating island, then turned southward toward Blackbend City.

"Easy as catching rock grubs!" I grinned over at Aya, but she was wearing her serious face. "Oh, come on. That was great!"

Varay responded from my other side. "It was successful, yes, but it was only one man. We have more to do tonight."

* * *

Flying high and really pushing ourselves, we made it to Blackbend City before dawn. Blackbend was a sprawling city built on trade from Darv and Elenoir, but most importantly it was home to a huge number of adventurers. This meant the Adventurers Guild had a strong presence within the city.

According to our prisoner, efforts were being made to pressure the Adventurers Guild leadership into publicly supporting the Vritra. Adventuring was a lucrative, if risky, occupation in Sapin, and the large number of well-trained, independent, powerful mages spread throughout the country was a problem for continued Alacryan rule.

Unfortunately, if Lyra Dreide was telling the truth, the Alacryans had been pretty successful in swaying the guild leaders. Who could have guessed that professional dungeon delvers and monster slayers weren't particularly loyal?

The head of this effort was a Vritra-blooded mage named Haleigh Leech. She was a powerful ascender, whatever that was, who turned politician and crony for the Vritra. Apparently she was pretty good at influencing big dumb men, which I respected, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to kill her.

We stayed high enough to avoid being seen or detected until we were hovering over the Adventurers Guild Hall. It was in a densely populated section of the city, so we would have to be careful about throwing around any really big spells; it wouldn't help anything if we wiped out a bunch of Dicathians taking down one Alacryan.

"Ready?" Varay asked, mana already condensing around her. Aya nodded. I gave her two thumbs up.

Varay's mana swelled as a rough ball of ice condensed in front of her. A moment later, she sent it plummeting like a comet toward the building's roof. We followed in the cold rush of air left in its wake.

The comet crashed through the roof, blasted through two floors, and then exploded on the ground level releasing a burst of steaming water that rolled out like a tidal wave, knocking a dozen men out of their bunks. When Varay splashed into the water a second later, she let out a pulse of cold that froze the still rolling wave solid, trapping the men where they lay.

Dicathians, I noted. But all alive.

A group of three unarmored Alacryan mages peaked tentatively over the rim of the broken floorboards. The floorboards beneath them creaked before giving way as I increased the soldiers' weight, causing them to plummet through like they were cast out of iron. The force of the fall was enough to incapacitate them, but they weren't alone.

Mana signatures were moving all over the Guild Hall. Four were coming down the hallway toward us. I prepared to attack as soon as they appeared in the doorway, but the woman who led them wasn't wearing Alacryan clothes.

I held up my hand to stop them. "Go, get out of here!"

When she hesitated, her companions all stacked up in the hallway behind her, I let my intent settle on them. "You don't fight for these people, understand? Especially not against us." That was all it took, and the adventurers broke and fled.

"They seem to be congregating near a strong mana signature in the northeast of the building," Aya noted as she sent out a sweeping blade of wind that sheered through three Alacryan soldiers who had just burst into the room from the other end.

"That must be her," I said.

Without waiting for confirmation, I shot off in that direction, smashing straight through the walls instead of navigating the winding corridors of the huge building. When I burst suddenly into a brightly lit office, I found myself facing a wall of magical shields.

Swirling wind, blazing flame, solid ice and stone, and translucent, shimmering panels separated me from about twenty soldiers. They were arranged around a muscular blonde woman. Even though it was the early hours of the morning, she was adorned in heavy plate armor that gleamed golden in the bright light. The sides of her head had been shaved to highlight the two jet black horns that grew from her skull.

Wow, she looks like a total badass.

"Hi there," I said, giving the crowd of Alacryan soldiers a little wave. "Haleigh, right?"

"Hold her here," the woman boomed before slipping through a hidden alcove and vanishing.

A dome of solid stone a foot thick formed over me to deflect the storm of incoming spells, then exploded outward in hundreds of sharp slivers. A few slipped through gaps between the shields to hit the mages behind them, but I didn't need to waste time on swatting individual soldiers.

Dashing sideways, I shouldered through the wall into a narrow hallway before hammering through another and finding myself outside in the street. The big Alacryan woman was sprinting in the other direction, her armored boots clanging off the cobblestones like a forge hammer.

Feeling a little creative, I conjured a simulacrum to guard the hole I'd smashed in the wall—just a rough stone golem about the size of a dwarf, like a giant version of one of my dolls—to keep those mages from pouring out behind me, then raced down the street after Haleigh Leech.

I wondered what was taking the others so long, but knew that, unless they had run into a Scythe—which they hadn't, because I would have felt it immediately—they weren't in immediate danger.

Taking up my mace, I hurled it at the retreating Alacryan's back. A shadow seemed to step out of her body and grab the weapon out of the air before it could reach her. The shadow spun the mace, clearly preparing to throw it back at me.

"Hey, that's mine!" I shouted.

Manipulating gravity around the mace, I made it so heavy it ripped free of the shadow's grip and crashed to the ground, breaking the stones and sinking a few inches into the road. The shadow popped like a bubble and vanished just as my target turned onto another street and I lost sight of her.

I took flight, moving low over the road and snagging my weapon as I shot past. When I banked sharply around the corner, I was once again face to face with a wall of shields protecting rows of Alacryan soldiers, with Haleigh Leech standing behind them.

"Déjà vu," I said as I floated to a stop. "Are you just pulling these guys out of your pockets or what?"

"We're more than ready to deal with a few rebels," she boomed, her deep voice resounding from the nearest buildings. "The war is over, general. You've already lost."

A door opened to my right and a man dressed like an adventurer stepped out. He had his weapon in hand and was staring angrily at the Alacryans. Door after door opened and several more Dicathians followed.

Haleigh Leech glared around at them. "Return to your homes, civilians! Anyone who resists will be executed immediately."

Seeing the people willing to stand up to the Alacryans was exactly what we were doing this for. The Lances were formed to be a symbol of strength to the Dicathian people, and that's what we intended to be.

But after this woman was dead, we'd be back on the run. Anyone who raised weapons against the Alacryans would probably be killed, and instead of hope there would be despair, anger, and lingering resentment. It wasn't time for them to fight back, just to know that the Lances were still out there, fighting for them.

"You heard the demon lady," I shouted. "Back into your homes, if you please. Let the Lances do the fighting today."

There was some hesitation, a few confused looks, but no one disobeyed, and slowly they retreated back to their homes, though I could still see plenty of faces peering out at us from behind windows or between shutters.

"Where were we?" I asked, turning my focus back to the Alacryans. "Oh, right, I was about to kill you all."

Making myself heavy as an iron hyrax and reinforcing the thick barrier of mana around me, I plunged toward the shield wall. A few spells glanced harmlessly of me before I hit the wall. Their shields buckled and the mages behind them were tossed aside, scattering like confetti. The entire line collapsed.

I twirled my mace in a wide arc, flatting several soldiers. A few were trying to close in, but the rest were stumbling back, and they were all falling over each other. The barriers reformed around me in an attempt to box me in, but before I could do anything cool to free myself, a sudden thunderclap split the air. The Alacryans fell screaming to the ground, bleeding from noses, eyes, and mouths as the spell shattered their insides.

Aya flashed past, ignoring the few men who had survived in an effort to reach Haleigh Leech, who was running again, bolting down the street at top speed. When Aya reached her, three shadow forms broke away from her and grappled Aya, pulling her out of the air and pinning her to the ground.

I made quick work of the last of the soldiers before sprinting to the elven Lance's aid. By the time I reached her, though, the shadows were gone and she was standing back up and dusting herself off.

"By the way, the target can create weird shadow copies of herself or something," I said as I ran past.

"This is taking too long!" Aya shouted, keeping pace with me easily. "We'll be overrun if we don't get out of here."

Just then, four figures appeared as if from thin air in front of us, blocking the way. At first I thought they might be retainers from the strength of their mana cores, and I slid to a stop. Aya did the same, eyeing the newcomers carefully.

No, not on the same level as Lyra Dreide or that awful creature, Uto, I realized. Still, they weren't weak.

They were strangely hard to see, like they had draped themselves in shadow. I assumed it was some kind of spell or power that helped them hide their presence.

The man in front took a step forward, and it was like he stepped into bright midday sun, or maybe more like he himself had suddenly started radiating a light of his own. He wore nothing but a pair of loose, silky black pants, showing off his athletic build. He was handsome, too, with slightly curly hair the color of red cedar.

He put his hands on his hips and grinned at me, his teeth gleaming white in the gloom. "Rose Guard, present!"

The shadow faded from the others as they stepped forward one at a time. To the bare-chested man's left, a willowy figure in scarlet battle robes pointed a long finger at me and said very softly, "Royal!"

On the right, a woman in black chainmail and oxblood red leather armor stabbed the tip of her huge two-handed sword into the road and flipped her ponytail. "Roxy."

Behind them, a large man in a black and red uniform similar to Lyra Dreide's twirled a staff casually before resting it across his shoulders. His voice was as deep as a moon ox's bellow. "Gale."

"And I'm Geir," the leader finished with a wink.

I exchanged looks with Aya. It was as much her look of bewilderment as the Rose Guards' introductions that set me off.

I laughed. Loudly. I laughed until tears streamed from my face, until I was wheezing with every breath, until I worried I might collapse right there in the street.

Maybe that's the plan, I thought through my outburst of mirth. They debilitate their opponents with uncontrollable laughter and then stab them while they're down.

Despite this thought, the four Alacryans didn't make any move to attack. They didn't look very happy, though.

Drying my tears, I shooed Aya away. "Go catch the target before she escapes. I'll stay and play with these four."

Aya nodded and shot up into the air. The Alacryan named Royal was about to cast a spell but Geir held up his hand.

"You have mocked and dishonored the Rose Guard, madam. We demand satisfaction in a trial by combat. To the death," he added dramatically.

"Yours, maybe," I snapped back, my mace already moving.

It was actually pretty impressive how quickly the four mages were able to synchronize their response. My mace slammed into the ground in front of me, shattering the road. A lightning bolt pattern of cracks spread out from the impact in the direction of my opponents, but they were ready.

The big man named Gale conjured dozens of plate-sized slabs of stone, which orbited the group, including moving under them so they could step up off the ground and avoid the collapsing cobbles.

Royal danced up onto one of the plates and rode it away from an upheaval of jagged rock before conjuring boiling, stinky water, which bubbled up out of the cracks I'd made. It hissed where it touched the stones, and after a few seconds, there was a moat around the Rose Guard.

Roxy whirled her sword and writhed like a belly dancer. A long tunnel of wind-attribute mana poured from her blade. It grew, and kept growing until it was long enough to wrap all the way around her and her friends. At one end, the head of a snake was outlined in gusting wind.

Finally, Geir floated up in the air, and then his body burst into flames. The fire shaped itself around him like a suit of armor, but it wasn't just that. Two burning wings protruded from his back and a long, whiplike tail of fire hung down behind him. Both arms were tipped with shining, fiery claws, and the flames around his head had formed into the familiar reptilian shape of a dragon.

"Oh, that's cool," I said, admiring the flaming dragon suit. "Did you choose the shape or did it come like that?"

Geir's voice took on an otherworldly, echoing quality when he spoke again. "The time for coy and playful words is past, Dicathian. Now, you face the full might...of the Rose Guard!"

The dragon's mouth breathed a wide cone of fire, which I deflected with a stone slab that rose up out of the street. When the flames stopped, I toppled the slab over to land in the acidic muck, creating a sort of bridge across the moat.

The wind-snake lunged, its jaws open wide. I was kind of curious what the thing could do, but not enough to let it strike me on purpose. Hopping forward onto the stone slab, I felt the jaws snap shut right behind me before I swung at its back, but my mace passed cleanly through and nearly plunged into the stinky moat.

Geysers of the foul water began to spray up into the air. Where the droplets landed on me, they sizzled against my mana and tried to eat through.

I took a hopping step forward and swung at Geir, but the stone plates moved to deflect the blow, and the dragon opened its mouth for another point-blank blast of fire. This time I took the attack head on, trusting my protective mana to absorb the heat as I spun, increasing the gravity of my mace to create momentum so that when another stone plate swung into a defensive position, the mace shattered it and kept going.

Geir shouted and jerked back, his wings flapping wildly behind him, and he just managed to avoid my swing. Several of the plates moved into place to guard him, but I let up on my assault, instead flying straight into the air to avoid another strike from the wind-snake.

Noxious mist began to form a cloud around me, corroding my mana shielding. Creating a point of dense gravity to my left, I pulled the green gas away and spun to meet Roxy, who was sprinting up the wind-snake's back like it was a siege ladder.

Her huge blade hissed as it cut through the air, then rang like a bell as it deflected off my mace. Her hands moved with incredible speed—aided by calculated bursts of wind—as she slashed and cut in a barrage of strikes.

From the corner of my eye, I caught Geir circling around to get behind me, and could sense Royal preparing some new spell below. Gale appeared to be focused on his stone shields, keeping several of them close enough to each of his companions to deflect a sudden attack.

I felt for Aya and Varay to make sure they were still okay: Aya was a few streets away, her mana surging as she fought someone—hopefully Haleigh Leech—but Varay was still at the Guild Hall, her mana calm.

Knowing they were fine was enough for the moment; I was a little too busy with the Rose Guard to wonder why Varay was just sitting around on her skinny behind.

When I felt the warmth of a sudden gout of flame at my back, I dropped like a stone, deflecting one last strike from Roxy's blade as I fell. The jet of fire shot past her, obviously aimed carefully to avoid any crossfire.

A liquid green missile launched from Royal's hands, forcing me to twist in the air, but I took advantage of the redirection by hurtling toward Gale. The big Alacryan conjured a dozen new stone plates to defend himself, but I only increased my own weight and plowed through them, using my body like a battering ram.

Just as I reached him, the Shield vanished.

Another acidic missile splashed across my shoulder, hissing and popping against my mana barrier. I conjured a column of stone that punched up from the ground and slammed into Royal, sending them careening into the side of a brick building.

Geir dove from the sky, his fiery claws outstretched. I cast Black Diamond Vault, encasing myself in a shell of shining crystals at the last instant. Although I couldn't see or hear anything happening outside, I let out a pleased giggle at the thought of Geir smashing face first into the hardest substance known to dwarves.

After holding it for only a couple of seconds, I released the spell, allowing the crystals to fall away and dissolve back into the ground. Geir was lying at my feet, his conjured armor flickering dimly as he struggled to maintain concentration on it. He was bleeding badly from his forehead.

"You should really be more careful," I cautioned. "Flying takes a lot of practice, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it someday."

A deep-throated battle cry rang out from above and I brought my mace up just in time to catch Roxy's blade. Her serpent blew in from the side and clamped its mouth over me. I was pulled off my feet and suddenly found myself tumbling around inside of the construct like a leaf in a hurricane.

The wind-snake's mouth dove into the pool of caustic liquid that still covered the street, sucking up acidic water and dousing me with it.

Well this is annoying, I grumbled to myself as I flipped head over heels through a stinky acid soup within the belly of the wind-snake.

Feeling downward through the ground, sensing the earth-attribute mana, I located a layer of heavy, wet clay soil about thirty feet below the cobbled surface of the road. I quickly increased

the gravity within the pocket, crushing the clay, forcing out the moisture, and leaving a vacuum several feet wide. The Rose Guard seemed to be taking a moment to collect themselves. Gale had reappeared and helped Geir back to his feet. Roxy was focused on her spell, making the wind blow constantly faster and harder to keep me trapped within. I couldn't even see Royal.

This all worked pretty perfectly for me. I clenched my fist and broke the earth beneath their feet. The road and the soil below it collapsed into the void I'd created underground. At the same time, I hit each of them with Gravity Hammer, flattening them like bugs under a boot heel.

Three Alacryans, several tons of dirt and stone, and about a thousand gallons of acid water vanished into the breach.

The wind-snake and the churning digestive fluid within it vanished, dropping me to the ground just at the edge of the huge hole I'd created.

"Geir! Roxy! Gale!"

"Oh, there you are," I said casually, turning to Royal. The Caster was standing just outside of where the street had collapsed in on itself. I glanced into the hole, but there was no sign of the others.

"Hey, at least you dismissed all that yucky water before it melted your friends' faces off," I said consolingly.

I sensed Aya approaching, and Royal twisted around, conjuring a long stream of acidic liquid that orbited them in a spiraling pattern.

Aya ignored the Alacryan. "It's done," she shouted, zooming by overhead.

"Welp," I said, meeting Royal's shocked gaze, "it looks like it's time for me to go. Maybe if you hurry, you can pull your friends out before they suffocate. Bye I guess!"

My feet lifted up from the shattered street and I flew after Aya. Varay shot up through the hole in the Guild Hall roof to meet us, and together we turned south and flew away over the rooftops of Blackbend.

* * *

"So, what were you doing while Aya and Mica got our hands dirty, hm?" I asked Varay a few minutes later.

"Convincing the guild's leadership that it isn't in their best interest to back the Alacryans," she replied.

"And this was successful?"

"Seeing the Lances appear like lightning from a clear sky to strike down the Alacryans seemed to have made an impression on them, yes." Varay's mouth twitched, about as close to a smile as she ever got.

The sun was just peaking over the horizon on our left, turning the sky a smoky blue color. There was a gentle wind at our backs and miles of untamed land below us. I felt pretty good about how things were going.

"Something's following us," Aya said, gesturing over her shoulder.

From Blackbend, we'd flown straight south toward Darv. Our last target for this mission wasn't actually in the dry wastes or dwarven tunnels, but we wanted to throw off any tracking or pursuit the Alacryans might have conjured up.

Varay signaled a halt and we looked northward to watch. There was a shimmer in the air a couple hundred feet behind us, like a shadow suspended in midair or little wispy gray cloud.

"Some kind of tracking spell," I confirmed, nodding sagely. "Fast, too, if it's kept up with us this far."

I headed toward the dark smudge against the dawn sky, but it moved away. I flew faster, but it stayed around a hundred and fifty feet back. Finally, I leaned into it and shot full speed toward the shadow, but it still moved just as fast as I did.

Banking hard, I headed back toward the others. The shadow reversed course and followed, keeping its distance but not falling behind.

"Definitely fast," I confirmed when I drifted to a stop next to Aya.

The elven Lance hurled several dozen bullets of wind at it. Her spell passed through the shadow with a faint ripple, but didn't seem to harm it. We spent a minute chucking increasingly strong spells, but nothing affected the shadow at all.

"You realize that if there is some Alacryan Sentry sitting back in Blackbend watching all this, we're going to look like idiots, right?" I told Varay.

"Ideas?" she asked, not taking her eyes off it.

I had already tried increasing its gravity directly, which hadn't done anything, but thought maybe something a little more powerful might do the trick. Picking a point about halfway between us and the spy cloud, I focused all my energy into casting Singularity.

The black hole was too far from the shadow to affect it, but if the shadow just followed us in a straight line like it'd been doing so far...

We backed away from the perfect circle of pure darkness, no longer able to see our pursuer but hopeful it would stay on course. We made it a few hundred feet away before I had to let go of the spell, unable to support it from such a long way away.

The instant it faded, the shadow flashed across the sky, once again hovering in the distance.

"Damn these Alacryans and their weird powers," I mumbled. "We can't just let it follow us around, so what's the plan, ladies?"

"Perhaps we could absorb its mana?" Aya suggested, her brow wrinkled in thought. "But we can't get close to it," I countered. "Unless..."

"We could attempt to approach it from three different directions, boxing it in," Varay said. "Good idea. Perhaps it won't know which way to move."

I stayed where I was as the other two Lances flew wide around the shadow-spy. Once they were in position, we slowly began to fly toward it, attempting to keep an equal distance between it and each of us.

The shadow flitted short distances one way or the other, but it always corrected and didn't seem to be able to move closer to any one of us. Once we were only a few feet away, it began to vibrate quickly as it made tiny adjustments back and forth, likely trying to stabilize in a perfect position between us.

"Carefully," Varay ordered. "Reach your hands in and see if we can draw on its mana."

Very slowly, we each reached toward the vague shape. Once my hand was within it—passing through just like our spells had—I felt for its mana. There wasn't much; it wasn't a particularly strong spell. We each absorbed only a drop before the shadow-spy dissolved, vanishing entirely.

Varay was staring at the empty space between us with a strange look on her face. "Some day, I hope we have a chance to study these Alacryan forms of magic," she said. "The things they are able to do...I've never seen anything like this shadow."

Aya's expression darkened. "Like they are doing to us in Xyrus?"

"Of course not," Varay snapped. "But if there is an end to this war, I hope our two nations have a chance to share our knowledge of magic...after the Vritra are destroyed."

Aya scoffed. "I would rather send their entire continent to the bottom of the ocean, myself."

"Mica agrees that the Alacryans deserve that and worse," I said, drifting next to the elven Lance only for her to move a few feet away, her arms crossed over her chest.

Varay looked...sad.

I didn't know she had such a tremendous range of facial expressions, I thought to myself. Smiles, sadness, icy determination, chilly professionalism...that's easily twice as many expressions as I thought she was capable of.

"This was Agrona and the Vritra," Varay said, "not the people of Alacrya. You didn't see the shiploads of slaves he sent ashore to die at Etistin Bay, Aya. For no other reason than to give us the impression that we were winning, he sent thousands of his own people to certain death."

"And when the dark-haired boy arrived, he killed nearly as many of their own men as he did ours," I remembered. Picturing the boy with his black fire and metal spikes sent a shiver down my spine.

We floated in silence for several long seconds before Varay turned eastward. "There is time enough to debate these things and more when we return to the Beast Glades. For now, we have one more target."

Aya and I fell in behind her as we headed toward the Grand Mountains, the flush of our success overshadowed by our own conflicted thoughts.

***

We hugged the cliffs of the Grand Mountains northward across nearly the entire continent, from Darv in the south to the northern coast of Elenoir. From there, we flew low along the coastline, hidden within the cover of the forest. This was slower than flying over the misty trees, but safer.

Aya guided us. The elf changed the moment we dipped below Elshire Forest's canopy. Ever since we'd learned about the deaths of King and Queen Eralith, Aya had been diminished. She was like a candle that had burned out, but now that she'd returned home, her wick had been relit.

She'd scouted Elshire for us a few times while we hid in the Beast Glades, but I hadn't gone with her. Now I wished I had. Seeing the poise and focus the forest gave her made me think of our early days as Lances. The pride and excitement and competitive spirit we all had. We'd been so ready for the war. We were the strongest mages on the continent, what could possibly stand against us?

The Greysunders should have been our canary in the coal mine. We should have realized then that...

I refocused, turning my mind inward and focusing on my core like I did when I was refining it. There was no point in picking at that old scar again.

Our target was Asyphin. The entire city had been cleared of elves and turned into a fortress for the Alacryans' efforts in Elenoir. They hadn't even kept elven slaves there just in case one figured out some way to spy on them, which meant we didn't have to be careful when we attacked.

Highbloods, scientists, ranking members of the Alacryan army...Asyphin City was full of them. The real reason it had made our short list of targets for this first hit and run mission was because of what Lyra Dreide didn't say, however.

During her entire interrogation, the only time she pretended not to know exactly what was happening was when talking about Asyphin. She had been happy to give us the names of Highbloods, Alacryan officers, important Instillers...all while downplaying any individual's role in the occupation and claiming ignorance of why the city was so important that not even one Dicathian was allowed to stay within it.

It was clear that the Alacryans were up to something in Asyphin, and so we were going to hit it hard.

"We're not far now," Aya informed us. "A few more minutes."

"Do you two feel that?" I asked, suddenly sensing an incredible amount of mana ahead.

"A Scythe? I think it's coming from the sky above the city."

Maybe they guessed we were coming and prepared a welcoming party. Unwelcome butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I thought about the black-haired boy from Etistin Bay.

"We could turn back?" I suggested, slowing to a stop and hovering twenty feet off the ground. "Mica could be happy with the completion of just two objectives. Perhaps three was a little ambitious..."

"No," Varay and Aya answered at the same time. Aya went quiet and let Varay finish. "Let's go up and introduce ourselves, feel out the situation. Mica, you and I stood toe to toe against the Scythe at Etistin, even before Aya got there. If they've trusted the defense of this place to just one Scythe, then our journey to Elenoir may be even more rewarding than we planned."

I began to nervously pick at my nails as a sharp buzzing began growing louder in my ear.

"Or," I stammered, my heart hammering in my chest like three dwarves swinging at an anvil, "it could be a trap. Like Aya suggested!"

The others were giving me strange looks that made me want to punch their stupid faces. "Last time we faced a Scythe, Mica nearly died!" I kicked myself mentally for the way my voice sounded like that of a whiny child, but kept going anyway. "We all did! This was supposed to be a series of quick strikes to destabilize the Alacryans, yes? Not a full out war with a Scythe!"

My chest was heaving up and down so that I bobbed in the air, and my fists were clenched so tight that I could feel my joints cracking. There was a buzzing like wasps on fire in my head, and I was suddenly worried I might pass out.

Is Mica having a panic attack? Lances don't have panic attacks!

Aya flew close and reached for my hand. I pulled away, but she grabbed me and held me tight. When she spoke, it was with a softness and kindness I hadn't heard from her since before the Council fell. "Mica, we thought we were invincible. Even when Alea—Lance Alea—died, it seemed like a fluke, like bad luck. It couldn't happen to us, because we would be more careful, we would be stronger. Then they broke us."

She leaned forward, pulling me toward her, and planted a warm kiss on my cheek. "But this is how we put ourselves back together, understand? We fly up there and kick whoever we find's ass. After that, we can go back to the Beast Glades so you can annoy me to death with those dolls of yours, all right?"

I snorted and blinked back tears, not even sure why I was crying. "I thought I might try writing a puppet show next."

Aya turned to Varay. "At least if we die today, we'll never have to see that."

I let out a hoarse laugh and punched the elven Lance in the arm. "Let's just do it then, shall we?"

With Varay leading the way, we flew up out of the canopy and went straight for the powerful source of mana hovering above Asyphin. He obviously saw us coming, but made no move against us, just waited as we approached.

It wasn't the horned Scythe.

The dark-haired boy from Etistin Bay, the one who had lived in my nightmares ever since then, greeted us with a cold glare.

Varay stopped thirty feet away. The boy spoke first. "You've pulled me away from something incredibly important, Lances. The High Sovereign is eager to see you removed from the board, but I don't have time for you right now. Leave."

This...wasn't exactly what any of us had been expecting. "You've grown more powerful since we met in Etistin," Varay said, her voice

icy calm. "But I don't think you alone can stop us from doing what we came here to do."

"Which is what, exactly?" the boy snapped. "More assassinations? Whatever you think you've accomplished, you're wrong. You've done nothing but shine a light on yourselves. Honestly, you Dicathians are so small. If Grey had been reborn on Alacrya, like he was supposed to, it all could have been different, but no, he became a Dicathian, and I had to grow up in exile just to get close to him!"

The three of us exchanged an uncertain look. "What the heck are you talking about?" I asked, forgetting some of my fear.

The boy growled, like he really was some kind of feral mana beast. "I don't have time to talk to you, much less kill you. Leave Elenoir immediately. Take no further actions against our people. Live out the rest of your pointless lives as hermits in the Darvish deserts or the Beast Glades or wherever you've hidden away. If I see you again, I will kill you all. Go."

Cold fear pressed against my chest, but we didn't move.

When black fire engulfed his hands, Varay, Aya, and I spread out and began channeling mana to counter him, but another figure was rising up out of the city. The dark-haired boy turned his back on us as he watched the newcomer approach.

The man was a retainer, I was sure of it. He was tall and kept a ramrod straight posture even as he flew. Black leather armor hugged him like a second skin, and the truth was he'd have been handsome if not for the horns jutting out above his ears.

"Cylrit, I told you to—"

"It's beginning, sir. You're needed back at the city, immediately." The retainer spoke with a clipped, militaristic professionalism. "By order of Agrona himself."

The boy's gaze turned back to us. "I can't leave until these pests have been dealt with..." He seemed uncertain, both eager and unwilling to leave.

What could be so important that he'd just walk away from a fight with us? We had assumed that we'd be the Alacryans' top priority once we revealed ourselves, and it was pretty troubling to learn that we weren't.

"I'll take care of them, Nico." Cylrit's red eyes met mine. "You need to be there."

"I just hope you do a better job this time around than you did protecting Lyra," Nico snarled. To us, he said, "When you reach the afterlife, tell my old pal Grey I say hello." Then, he flew down into the city and out of sight.

"So we're supposed to be afraid of you now?" I asked, still holding the retainer's gaze. "Sorry to break it to you, bud, but we already took out one retainer this week. If we weren't afraid to fight that guy"—I waved my hand in the direction the dark-haired boy had vanished—"why do you think we'd be worried about you?"

"We're not going to fight," Cylrit said casually. "You're going to go back into hiding and bide your time."

"Why would we do that?" I asked.

"Bide our time for what?" Varay said at the same time.

A warm wind blew from the north, carrying the smell of the salt sea. Cylrit closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he again held my gaze. "As Lady Seris said, Mica Earthborn, we each have our parts to play, and this isn't yours."

Aya's dark hair danced around her face in the breeze as she gave me a questioning look. "The Scythe that—"

"Let me live and sent me to help in Etistin, aye." To Cylrit, I said, "I don't like being played with. Tell us plainly what you want, or we'll beat it out of you."

Cylrit laughed with a sense of easy confidence that made me equally nervous and frustrated. "Maybe you could, but you three look tired to me, and it wouldn't help you anyway."

"What is this important thing that is happening?" Varay asked. I got the sense she was pushing to see how much information this retainer was willing to share.

Cylrit's friendliness and ease evaporated in an instant. "Not something you need to worry about. Now go. I can't risk speaking to you any longer."

I leaned toward Varay. "We can take him," I muttered. Now that the dark-haired boy was gone, my pre-battle jitters had fled, and I felt like working out my embarrassment and frustration on the Alacryans. "We can still complete our mission."

But Varay was shaking her head. "No. Come on, we're leaving."

Cylrit stayed where he was, watching us go. Even after he was well out of sight, I could still feel his red eyes burning into my back.

***

This hadn't been how we'd wanted things to go, and the flight back to the Beast Glades was made in silence. It only got worse after that.

I cursed as we landed next to the secret door to our hideout. What should have been an inconspicuous slope of rocky ground was a blasted crater leaving our cozy cave completely exposed.

Varay leapt down into the crater and I felt several flashes of mana. Aya followed, her hands up as she prepared to start casting, but there was no need. Three huge lizardlike mana beasts were dead on the floor, their heads burst apart like melons.

Our hideout was a shambles. The cage where she had been contained—a fusion of ice and earth elements Varay and I had constructed, which had then been imbued with a sound spell to keep the retainer asleep—had been shattered, just like the secret door.

Lyra Dreide was gone.