Lightning crackled through the air. It zapped into the grass next to me as Henry shoved the bolt aside with a blast of wind. Twisting slightly, I threw a force lance at the guy who had shot the lightning. His eyes widened as it took him straight in the chest before he fell from his saddle. I whirled around as hooves sounded behind me again.
As soon as the riders had seen Audrey’s green cloud, they had spread out to circle us so that she wouldn’t be able to poison them all with one simple attack. And they had stayed on their horses too, which made it much more difficult for me to hit them. They were still dying quickly, though. Especially since Henry was taking care of my defense so that I could focus only on attacking.
Slamming my palms together, I summoned a small force blast and hurled it at the rider behind me. It smacked right into him from the side, making him topple from his mount. The horse neighed and galloped away while the guy I had hit crashed down onto the trampled grass. Fire shot towards me when he threw an attack while scrambling to his feet.
Heat washed over my face as Henry redirected the flames up into the sky with well-timed wind magic.
I threw a spinning arc at the guy before he could recover.
Blood misted the air as it cut straight through his chest. He crumpled to the ground with a series of thuds.
Suddenly, the area around me was still. Drawing in a breath, I rolled back my shoulders and shifted my gaze to Henry. He was also scanning the trampled and bloody grass around us, but only corpses stared back.
I turned towards where Audrey was fighting.
A flash of panic spiked through me.
“Audrey!” I snapped while smacking my hands together and calling up a force arc.
She had just poisoned three people in front of her, but there was one more enemy left. And he was standing in her blind spot. Fire bloomed between his hands as he got ready to incinerate her.
I threw the spinning arc.
Flames roared across the grass as Audrey whipped around. But she had nothing that could block it, and the attack was too wide to dodge. Terror stabbed into my heart.
Then my force arc severed the man’s head from his shoulders.
The fire stretched towards Audrey, but then dissipated in a flash as the guy’s head rolled from his body and bounced down on the grass.
Someone threw up. Loudly.
I turned to my left to see Paige doubled over as she vomited on the grass. She probably had a concussion from when these guys had hit her repeatedly in the head.
Shifting my attention back to Audrey, I found her watching me from across the grass. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then she gave me a slow nod.
Since that guy had been the last of the squad that had been tracking Paige, all three of us left their corpses on the ground and started back towards where Paige, the unconscious Lance, and our horses waited. I glanced down at Audrey as she fell in beside me and Henry.
“That makes us even for the collar,” I announced.
A huff of amusement escaped her chest as she turned to look up at me with raised eyebrows. “Oh, I don’t think so. That makes us even for me saving your pretty little neck from that knife back at Malcolm’s mansion. The collar still requires additional payment.”
My heart did a ridiculous backflip at the way her mouth curved when she smirked at me. Ignoring it, I instead let out a short chuckle and shook my head. “Fair enough.”
A low moan came from my other side. I shifted my attention to a man that had almost made it all the way to Lance before I had cut him down with a force arc. But apparently not well enough. There was a deep gouge across his shoulder blades, and blood coated his clothes and stained the grass below him red, but he still rolled over on his back.
“You’ll never win,” he pressed out between wet gurgling breaths. “Once we have the Enhancer, you won’t stand a chance.”
Touching my palms together, I called up a force blade and slammed it down across his chest as we walked past. It cleaved him in half, ending his pitiful threats.
Paige threw up again.
We should probably get her to Sam if she was this badly hurt.
“Can you not?” Audrey snapped.
Frowning, I tore my gaze from the vomiting woman and met Audrey’s eyes. “What?”
“It’s fine,” Paige croaked. “I’m just not…” She dry heaved before sucking in a deep breath and straightening. “I just haven’t seen someone…” Slapping a hand in front of her mouth, she gagged a couple of times before finishing with, “Get cut in half like that before.”
Oh. So that was why she was throwing up. I supposed that being surrounded by only dark mages for the past thirteen years had skewed my perception somewhat when it came to how much violence and gore was considered normal.
“Ah.” I cleared my throat. “Right.”
She removed the hand in front of her mouth and drew in another bracing breath while the three of us came to a halt in front of her. The horses she was still holding on to was watching her curiously as if waiting to see if she would throw up again. She didn’t.
“At least it was efficient,” she said as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Audrey moved over to her pack and grabbed her waterskin. “Yeah. Though, I don’t understand why they keep sending so few people. It’s like they’re not even trying to win.” Coming to stand next to Paige, she held out the waterskin. “Here.”
Paige gave her a weak smile as she took it. “Thanks.”
“They weren’t expecting a fight,” I said to Audrey while Paige washed her mouth and face. “If your guess was right, they let Paige escape so that they could follow her and find out which mansion is yours. Since they think that you have Lance, they were probably going to just mark the location first and then come back with a real attack.”
Audrey drummed her fingers against her thigh and then shrugged. “Good point.”
“And they sure weren’t expecting to be fighting two of us at the same time. They don’t think dark mages have friends, remember?”
Her eyes darted briefly to Paige, but all she said was, “Yeah.”
“We should still get going, though. There might be others coming.”
“I agree.” She turned to Paige. “But first, how badly hurt are you?”
Paige handed the waterskin back and then raked her fingers through her hair. “I’m fine.”
“Paige.”
“I am.” She gently touched the bruises on her cheekbone before shrugging. “Trust me. I’ve been through worse.”
Audrey’s eyes flashed. “Really? Give me a name.”
“I would, but they’re already otherwise occupied.” A mischievous smile curled her lips. “The constables found some really incriminating and very legitimate-looking documents in their homes after an anonymous tip.”
The rage died in Audrey’s eyes, and she huffed out a laugh instead. “How unfortunate for them.”
“Yes, very.”
“You always were a sneaky one.”
She brushed imaginary dirt off her shoulder. “I know.”
“Boss,” Henry said before Audrey could counter. “We really should get going.”
“Yeah.”
Both of us turned to look at Paige and Audrey.
A warm summer wind snatched up Audrey’s long dark hair and sent it tumbling over her shoulder and down her back. In that tight riding outfit she wore, every shift of her muscles was clearly visible, and I thought I could see her shoulders tense up as she turned back to Paige with serious eyes.
“Do I even want to know?” Paige asked before she could say anything.
Audrey gave her a small smile. “Probably not.”
“Alright. Well, I’ll just…” Trailing off, she turned to look out across the rolling grasslands. Sunlight beamed down on her, making her squint a little as she stared towards the hill that we had come from. A sudden bout of embarrassment washed over her features, and she awkwardly hooked her blond hair behind her ears. “Actually, I have no idea what I’m going to do now. I can’t go back to the city anymore and, well…”
Winds smelling of warm grass whirled across the landscape as Paige trailed off and shrugged helplessly. The sight made both pain and hope flare up in Audrey’s eyes.
“You could… come with us?” Audrey said. It sounded like a half offer, half question.
I had never heard her use that voice before, and it made me frown a little because I didn’t understand what it meant.
“Really?” Paige’s blue eyes lit up. “I could?”
Relief washed over Audrey’s face as she smiled. “Of course.”
“I promise I won’t slow you down!” She grinned sheepishly. “Or lead a bunch of constables right to you again.”
“I know.”
“Good. And…” She trailed off and then slapped her forehead. While letting out an embarrassed laugh, she turned towards me and Henry. “Man, we still haven’t even said hello, have we?” A smile shone on her face as she held out her hand to me. “Hi. I’m Paige. Which you of course already know by now because, you know…” She waved her other hand vaguely towards the area around us.
For a moment, I just stared back at her in utter confusion. This had been Audrey’s best friend at the academy? But she was so… bubbly. When Audrey had told me that she became friends with a forger who liked to break rules, this was not at all the kind of person that I had imagined in my head. I had imagined someone cunning and ruthless. Like Audrey. Not… this.
Pulling myself together, I reached out and took her hand. “Callan.”
“Of course.” She let out a breathy laugh and gave my hand a few firm shakes before releasing it and pointing a finger at me instead. “Which I already knew too, of course, because I forged your papers of citizenship.”
I was still so stunned by the realization that Audrey had actually spent nine years with someone like this that I only managed a, “Right.”
Thankfully, she turned towards Henry before I could say anything else.
“Paige,” she said as she held out her hand to him. “Again.”
The scowl on Henry’s brow cleared a little as he shook her hand. “Henry.”
“That one I didn’t know. Well, nice to meet you, Henry.”
Before either of them could say anything else, I cut in and turned to the poison mage. “Audrey, wake Lance up. We need to leave. We’re in a hurry, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember,” she sniped back. “And stop giving me orders.”
She shot me a venomous look, but touched her hands together and pulled the poison out of Lance’s body. Leather creaked and horses snorted as we swung ourselves back into our saddles.
Horror blew across Lance’s face when he woke up to find the entire squad of constables slaughtered on the grass, but it was very effective for making him get up on his horse again without complaint.
As we started through the bodies that littered the grasslands, I could feel his righteous anger as he glared at me. It made me want to throw a force wall at him to knock him off his horse, but thankfully, I managed to suppress the impulse.
The metallic smell of blood disappeared as we crested the hill and urged our horses into a trot. Warm winds pulled at my hair.
“So…” Paige began.
Uncertainty, and a bit of amusement, flickered across her face as she shifted her gaze between me and Audrey.
“Where are we going?”
