Getting down the mountain was a lot easier than getting up. Everyone just let us walk straight past without challenge. The people on the highest tier even looked relieved when we strode out of the stone mage’s house and started down the steps with all of our packs and gear. And four handcuffed twenty-year-olds.
When we reached the lower levels, I noticed a large group of people on the grasslands by the stables. It was unusual for dark mages to travel in such numbers, but if they were planning on conquering the mountain, I supposed it made sense. And they could have it, for all I cared. We had gotten what we came for. The Enhancer had been destroyed, and the molten metal had been thrown into the stream that gushed down the mountain for good measure.
“What happens now?” Lance asked as we made our way through the ramshackle settlement at the base of the mountain. There was a pleading note to his voice. “I’ve dismantled the Enhancer for you like you wanted. Are you going to let my friends go now?”
“No,” Audrey answered from where she walked next to me. A sharp smile played over her lips as she cast a glance at the Binder. “You still have other parts of the bargain to fulfill. I’ll fight for you. I’ll use my powers on the Chancellor. Remember? So we’ll be keeping your friends as collateral until then.”
“But—”
“And if you don’t, I’ll be finishing what I started outside the cave.”
He shot a panicked look towards his friends. The sharp smile on Audrey’s lips widened in response. It made amusement drift across my own mouth, but I suppressed the approving smirk and instead scanned the encampment.
The smell of wood smoke and metal still hung over the area, and the buildings and tents were as battered and broken as before. I studied the spot where we had talked to those two older women earlier, but they were nowhere to be seen. Same with the rest of the camp. Wet garments hung on makeshift clothing lines, and pots bubbled with breakfast, but the people were staying out of sight. That was probably a wise decision, given that a mass of dark mages was getting ready to force their way up the mountain.
“It’s okay, Lance,” Jessica said in response to Audrey’s comment. She was walking next to him, and she lifted her shackled hands and brushed them down his arm in a comforting gesture. “Everything will be fine. I promise.”
Lance gave her a grateful smile, though he didn’t seem all that convinced. Leoni, on the other hand, held her chin high as she glared at us.
“She’s right,” the lightning mage declared in a smug voice. “Because no matter how good you think you are, you will never win. Evil never does. Because we have something that your side will never have.”
Audrey rolled her eyes. “If you’re about to say true friendship, I think I might actually throw up.”
“True friendship,” Leoni confirmed.
Audrey made a gagging noise.
“You can mock us all you like, but we have something to fight for. You only fight for yourselves. And when you only fight for yourself, no one has your back.”
“They have people who have their backs,” Paige interrupted in a surprisingly vicious voice.
“Well, not enough of them.” Leoni shot her a smug look. “We have an entire city that has our backs.”
“Leoni,” Darren warned, and shook his head.
The lightning mage let out an irritated huff, but kept her mouth shut after that.
I studied the large group on the grass as we at last left the settlement behind and started towards the stables. They were blocking the path, but they were standing in such a way that it didn’t look like they were ready for battle yet. We were also heading away from the mountain, so I didn’t think they would give us any trouble. But passing them while Lance was with us still made me uneasy.
“Stay alert,” I said quietly.
Henry grunted in agreement on my right, while Audrey nodded on my left. Paige looked a bit worried, but she nodded as well after a few seconds.
As we walked farther onto the grass, some of the people from the group spotted us.
A ripple went through the throng.
It made a blast of cold wariness pulse through my chest. Oh, I was starting to get a really bad feeling about this. After casting a quick glance at our prisoners, I swept my gaze over the people before us. There had to be at least eighty of them. Audrey could knock out Lance and his friends, but if it came down to a fight, I didn’t think we would be able to take on eighty dark mages and win.
I narrowed my eyes at them. Where were they even from?
An order rang out.
Slamming my palms together, I called up a force wall right as the casually arranged group of people formed up into two long lines that completely cut off our route to the stables beyond. Beside me, Audrey had summoned a swirling green cloud while the sound of Henry’s wind magic rushed on my other side.
Once the group before us had rearranged themselves into two neat ranks, they stopped.
I stared at them. The way they moved… It was organized and efficient. Almost like…
The center part of the rows suddenly moved aside as a man with gray hair and blue eyes strode between them before coming to a halt on the grass. Steel-colored light from the overcast sky fell across his proud form where he stood with his back straight and chin raised.
Realization shot through me.
Chancellor Godric Quill, the leader of the parliament of Eldar, smiled as he locked eyes on us.
As one, Audrey, Henry, and I stepped back and positioned ourselves behind our captives instead while we kicked at the back of their knees. They crashed down on the grass. Yanking out my knife, I placed it across Lance’s throat while releasing my force wall. Audrey pulled out her dagger and did the same to Jessica, while Henry pressed his own knife to Darren’s throat. The only one left standing was Leoni. Paige snapped her gaze between the Chancellor and us, and edged a few steps away, but she didn’t carry any weapons so she didn’t draw a blade.
“So this is where the Enhancer was hidden all these years,” Chancellor Quill called across the grass. “In Castlebourne. I would never even have thought to search here.”
I couldn’t know for certain since they all wore normal clothes, but I was pretty sure that the eighty or so people behind the Chancellor were constables. Alarm blared in my skull. What the hell was he doing here? He was supposed to be in Eldar, getting ready to attack us in the hills to get his precious Binder back. No one was supposed to know that we had gone after the Enhancer too, and that we had taken Lance with us.
“I thought Essington’s notes told you that,” I answered.
“Oh there were never any notes, boy.”
I knew that he was looking to get a rise out of me by using boy, so I just ignored it and instead said, “Then how come you’re here?”
My mind was spinning, and I had to suppress a sudden urge to look down at our prisoners. Essington had never written down the location of the Enhancer? Then how the hell had Lance’s friends gotten here?
“Yes, that is the question, isn’t it?” Quill mocked.
Since I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of pressing for an answer, I just held his gaze while pushing my knife higher up under Lance’s chin, forcing him to tilt his head back. The Chancellor narrowed his eyes at me. Then a smug smile spread across his lips as he flicked his gaze towards my left.
“Thank you, Paige. We never would have found them without you.”
