Running footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. I rammed the dagger I had been attending to back into its sheath and turned towards the doorway right as Paige skidded across the threshold. Her wavy blond hair bounced around her face as she grabbed the doorjamb to stop her momentum.
“It’s time,” she pressed out between gulps of air. “They’re eating it right now.”
“Excellent,” Grant said while putting down the document he had been reading. After giving her a nod, he looked between the other six of us. “Then it should only be another twenty minutes before the effects start. Give or take a couple of minutes due to individual differences.”
“How do you know?” Audrey asked, a cunning glint in her green eyes.
The same shrewdness gleamed in Grant’s too as he shifted his gaze to her and gave her a slow smile. “The same way you know how long a person will be unconscious due to your poison, I suspect.”
“Which is what?” Malcolm demanded from his place by the window.
Audrey and Grant exchanged a knowing smile and then turned towards the shadow mage and lifted their shoulders in a synchronized shrug. Malcolm looked about ready to strangle both of them, but thankfully, Sienna interrupted before he could.
“Who cares?” She jumped down from the table she had been sitting on and waved a hand in the air. “She said they’re eating it, so let’s go already!”
Paige hiked a thumb towards her. “I agree with the impatient fire lady. If we’re gonna do this, we need to do it now.”
The rest of the room murmured agreement and nodded. Chairs scraped against the floor and clothes rustled as almost everyone headed for the doorway. Paige rapped her knuckles against the doorjamb before taking the lead.
“Be careful,” Sam called after us from where he remained by the pale wooden table. “Remember, I can heal you, but not if you’re dead.”
I huffed out a short chuckle and gave him a nod. “We’ll try our best not to die.”
“Good.”
Our shoes thudded against the polished floor as we made our way towards one of the hidden doors that led to the outside.
“Everyone remembers where to find their tunnel, yes?” Grant said over his shoulder as we strode down the hall.
“Yeah,” we all answered more or less in unison.
“Good. Then drink your antidotes now.”
Faint pops sounded as we all took out the small glass vial that Grant had given each of us earlier, and pulled out the stopper. The pale violet liquid inside would give us temporary immunity to the effects of Grant’s magical garden. I glanced down at the shimmering potion before downing it and then putting the empty vial back into my pocket. All around, the rest of them did the same.
“And you…” Grant began as we reached the door. Stopping with his hand on the handle, he turned to lock eyes with our resident pyromaniac. “Don’t go overboard.”
Sienna rolled her eyes. “First of all, I don’t go overboard. I’m thorough. And secondly, you don’t give me orders.”
Several people opened their mouths to no doubt intervene, but Henry got there first. His steady gray eyes locked on hers, and he spoke with a calm and confident voice.
“If you accidentally burn down these gardens or this mansion, we will all be dead before the night is over.”
Surprise flitted through me. Henry didn’t usually get involved or speak his mind in these kinds of situations. Normally, he just lurked in the background, listening and watching. But then again, he had also ambushed Audrey and tried to interrogate her about her motives back when we traveled to Castlebourne, which I had only found out about later when he told me, so maybe he had been doing stuff like this for a while. And I had just never noticed. He had also been staying here with Sienna and the others for weeks, which I supposed had broken down some previous barriers too.
The fire mage blew out an annoyed sigh and rolled her eyes again. “Fine. I won’t go overboard.”
“And remember,” Malcolm added before Grant could push the door open. “Don’t be reckless. Kill as many as you can manage, but then pull back.” His sharp brown eyes moved from face to face. “While I have no particular fondness for any of you, and would shed no tears if you died—”
Audrey put a hand on her chest and flashed him a sharp smile dripping with sarcasm. “I’m touched.”
“I still need you for this war,” Malcolm finished as if she hadn’t interrupted. “We all need each other in order to win this war. So do whatever damage you can, but don’t take any unnecessary risks. The real war hasn’t even started yet.”
As much as that suit-wearing bastard annoyed me, I had to admit that he was right. Levi and his people hadn’t even gotten here yet, and if we died now, everything we had just gone through in Malgrave would have been for nothing. So I muttered an agreement and gave him a nod.
“And on that note, let’s go slaughter people,” Sienna said in a cheerful tone as she placed her hand over Grant’s and shoved the handle down.
Evening air smelling of moss and summer flowers whirled into the white marble corridor as the door was pushed open. Sienna darted out as soon as the gap was big enough. Behind her, Grant shook his head but then stepped across the threshold as well once the door was fully open. The rest of us followed too.
Paige’s blond hair fluttered behind her as she jogged towards the secret tunnel she had been given. The others began branching off as well.
A sudden flash of panic pulsed up my spine.
Before Audrey and Henry could move past me, my hands shot out and I grabbed their arms. Both of them turned to look at me with eyebrows raised.
I cleared my throat, suddenly feeling incredibly awkward. “Be careful.”
Mirrored expressions spread across both of their faces as they looked back at me. Half… softness, or something, and half amusement. It just made me feel more awkward, and heat crept into my cheeks, so I abruptly released them and stalked away instead.
“We’ll drink to our victory afterwards,” Henry said while I continued walking.
“And to our dead enemies,” Audrey called.
I just gave them a halfhearted wave with the back of my hand and then jogged away towards my designated tunnel. Fuck. I loved Audrey, and Henry was like a brother to me. Both of them had somehow become my family, and I hated how much I now worried about them. About their safety. I didn’t used to worry about anyone. Coldblooded Callan. I killed colleagues and casual friends alike without a second thought. But now I was suddenly worrying so much about two people that I could barely breathe.
We were about to head into a war with the whole damn city state of Eldar. People were bound to get hurt. Logically, I knew that both Audrey and Henry were lethal in their own right and could most certainly take care of themselves. But there was still no guarantee that they would survive all of this unharmed.
My heart pounded in my chest as I slipped into one of Grant’s hidden tunnels and ran towards the other side.
What if they didn’t make it?
Steel bands tightened around my chest at the mere thought of it.
They had to make it. We all had to make it. Because if something happened to them, then by all hell, I would tear this whole fucking world to pieces and drench the smoking ruins in blood.
Drawing in a deep breath, I tried to push aside that horrible fear and worry as I reached the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t go into battle with my mind scattered. Then I would be the one who didn’t make it back.
Moonlight fell across the grasslands outside the garden. I stopped at the very edge, hidden behind a thick tree trunk, and watched the scene ahead for a few minutes. Having something to study and analyze helped take my mind off Audrey and Henry, and I soon found that steady calm returning.
The constables who were camped outside of Grant’s gardens were currently in varying stages of wolfing down their evening meal. I scanned their faces. Light from the fire pits cast shifting colors over their features. As I studied them, it struck me that none of them looked frightened even though they were in the middle of a dark mage war, which was pretty different from what they were used to dealing with back in Eldar. But what was even stranger was that none of them looked particularly eager either. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them truly cared enough about dark mages not sharing their magic to warrant marching out here into a potentially very lethal battle.
That was why I hated democracy. It was too orderly. Too neat. Too many rules about what was right and wrong that you had to follow whether you liked it or not. The dark mage world might be brutal and bloody and completely merciless, but at least I got to make my own choices.
“Hey,” one of the constables suddenly called to the guy who had just shot to his feet next to him. “What are you doing?”
The second guy just threw up his hands and started what looked like some kind of weird dance.
“Uhm… dude. What the hell?”
All around the fire pit, more people started twirling and moving around in strange patterns while blissful smiles spread across their faces. I suppressed a chuckle. Grant sure was good at what he did.
Sneaking a couple of steps out of the shadows, I touched my palms together and called up a wide force arc. In the darkness near the garden, the half-translucent gray color was nearly invisible. And even if it hadn’t been, I doubted that any of the people by the fire would have seen it. All of them, even the first man who had spoken, were now thoroughly lost in whatever emotion Grant’s magic had pulled from them and amplified.
With a snap of my wrist, I threw the arc at them. It spun around itself as it shot through the darkness and straight towards the blissfully ignorant constables.
A shout split the night.
But it hadn’t come from these soldiers. In fact, they didn’t even see my attack before it cleaved them in half. Blood sprayed into the air as their severed limbs and bodies fell to the ground.
Now, the screaming started near my location too.
A bit farther in, where people must not have eaten dinner yet, soldiers cried out in panic as they saw what happened from a distance. I called up another spinning arc and hurled it towards some of the other constables at the edge. They too were lost in their emotions and died quickly when my attack struck.
But now, others had begun racing towards their location, ready for battle.
I threw one more arc while edging a step back.
Right then, a terrible roaring sound echoed through the air and an entire section was lit up on my left as massive red flames exploded into the dusky evening. I blew out an exasperated sigh while cries of terror rose. What part of ‘don’t go overboard’ did Sienna not understand?
My vibrating magic spun through the air as I shot my next attack. It killed another handful of constables and slashed through two rows of tents behind them.
Shouts of alarm were coming from every side now.
A grin spread across my mouth. What an excellent plan this had been. As they usually were, coming from my vicious little poison mage.
Since there were so few of us, we couldn’t attack their forces outright. At least not without first stacking the deck in our favor. Which was what we had done last night.
When we snuck into their camp under the cover of Malcolm’s shadows, Grant had infused the food in some of the wagons with his emotion magic. Then, we’d had Sienna torch the rest of the wagons so that the constables would unwittingly be forced to eat the tainted food today. Thanks to Paige’s discreet surveillance, we’d been able to pinpoint exactly when they ate the food from those wagons, and therefore also time our attacks.
A simultaneous strike on all fronts, thanks to Grant’s convenient tunnels, while the constables were lost in emotion magic and unable to defend themselves, had just given us a small win. And a rather impressive body count for such a short attack.
I let out a dark chuckle as I disappeared back into the trees before the still lucid constables could reach this spot.
Was this an honorable way to wage war? No.
Was it ethical? Also no.
Did we care? Hell no.
As long as we won, there was nothing we wouldn’t do.
