Bright light from the afternoon sun cast shifting shapes of gold across the glossy black mansion before me. I didn’t even try to hide my approach as I strode across the grass.
Shouts of alarm rose from the guards on the outer perimeter.
I touched my palms together. Calls for me to stop and yells for the others to get the boss echoed across the grasslands.
With a flick of my wrist, I threw a cloud of poison at the closest guard. The blond man slammed his hands together too and shot a blast of wind at it to knock it aside. It did, but I had already hurled another attack.
Glittering green mist slammed into his face. A second later, he collapsed to the ground.
I continued striding towards Malcolm Griffith’s mansion.
There were a lot more guards on the grounds now than there had been last night, which had to mean that Malcolm had in fact sent some of his people to Grant’s mansion when Sienna attacked. Or maybe he simply had more guards posted during the day. I didn’t really mind, though. For this, I needed an audience. Or rather, victims.
Two guards were running towards me. One from each side. I kept moving while I summoned a large cloud of twisting poison and turned towards the one on the right. Lightning crackled through the air as he shot a bolt at me. Leaping to the side, I evaded it while throwing my poison cloud at him.
The move left my back exposed to the guy behind me, which had of course been their plan. But what he hadn’t counted on was that I remembered exactly where he was.
Touching my hands together, I called up a snapping tendril of magic. The guard before me hurled a blast of water towards me while the other one no doubt closed the final distance until he was in range too.
I threw the magic.
The man before me ducked and rolled across the grass to escape it.
But I hadn’t aimed at him.
Without turning to look, I had shot the swirl of magic straight at the guard who had been sneaking up behind me. A thud sounded. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder to find him lying on his side. Even in death, his face bore an expression of stunned shock.
A similar look shone on the other man’s face. I didn’t give him a chance to change it. Before he had even rolled to his feet, another poison attack hit him straight in the face.
While he collapsed to the ground too, I swept my gaze across the area.
These guys had been the outer perimeter guards. The ones now standing between me and the black stone mansion were a lot more numerous. And well organized.
Winds tugged at their clothes as they spread out in a semicircle before me. I let a wicked grin slide home on my lips as I stopped. Lightning shone in their palms as they waited for me to walk straight into the formation that they had set up. However, none of them shot any attacks.
Pressing my palms together, I called up my poison while the smirk on my mouth grew. I wasn’t in range of their magic yet. But they were in range of mine. And since I had never outright attacked Malcolm’s mansion before, his guards had no idea that my magic could reach a lot farther than most people assumed. They probably thought they were safe standing so far away. They weren’t.
Green mist exploded across the grass.
It had a rather large distance to travel, so about half of the guards managed to drop their lightning magic and raise walls of water to block it. The other half, however, died before they could get rid of the attack they already had waiting in their hands and summon magic that would work as defense.
Cries of panic rippled through the mass of soldiers as every other person in their semicircle toppled to the ground.
A series of thuds echoed across the landscape as I spun on my heel and sprinted back the way I had come. I had already accomplished my mission, and Malcolm was bound to storm through the door any second now.
The guards called out in weak attempts to stop me, but no one did. After all, their job was to guard Malcolm’s mansion from intruders, and since I was now running in the other direction, I was no longer an attacker. Besides, they had just watched me kill half of their force. I assumed that they were in no hurry to follow their late friends to the grave.
After swinging myself up on my horse, I rode back towards the mansion again.
Warm summer winds whirled through my hair.
A ripple went through the guards when they saw me charging towards them, and shouts went out to re-form the ranks that were now full of gaps. Some called up lightning magic, but most summoned fire or water or wind in preparation for another massive poison cloud.
I pulled the horse to a halt outside their range again, and was just about to summon that glittering green death they were expecting, when the front door at last banged open.
Malcolm Griffith stalked across the threshold.
His brown eyes flashed with rage as he swept them across the fresh green grass that was now littered with the dead bodies of his guards. Then he snapped his gaze to me.
Letting the glittering tendrils snake around my forearms, I shot the shadow mage a sharp smile and spread my arms wide.
“I hear you’re after Lance,” I called across the large stretch of grass that separated us.
Black shadows bloomed to life behind Malcolm.
“And you sent Callan after me too,” I continued. “So let me make this clear for you, Malcolm. The Binder is mine.” Shifting my arms slightly, I indicated the mass of corpses on his lawn. “And this is what will happen to anyone who tries to take him from me.”
“You went too far this time, Audrey.”
“Too far is for people with limits. And fucks to give. I have neither.”
“You will. You will have fucks to give when you find yourself in the middle of a war you cannot hope to win.”
“Stay out of my way and there won’t be a war.”
“I’m afraid it’s far too late for that, Audrey. The moment you took the Binder, you started a conflict that will end with your destruction. Do you know why?”
“Humor me.”
“Because the rest of us now have a common enemy. You. How long do you think you can last against the power of all of us combined?”
A villainous smile curled my lips. “How long do you think your power will last when I have a Binder on my side?”
Malcolm stared back at me in silence. I knew that the only reason that he forced Callan to go after me instead of hunting me down himself was because he didn’t want to risk me binding his precious shadow magic.
“Tread carefully, Audrey.”
“I would say the same to you, Malcolm.” Turning my horse around, I pushed my heels into its sides while tossing over my shoulder, “Or I might decide to come after you first.”
Only the wind rushing in my ears answered me as I galloped away from the mansion and the mass of dead bodies that I had left in my wake. I had already known that this would be an incredibly dangerous plan when I agreed to it. But it still didn’t stop my heart from starting up a furious beat in my chest.
Malcolm was the most experienced dark mage out of all of us. He had been fighting and slaughtering people out here in the hills for at least seventeen years.
And I had just painted a massive target on my own back.
