The last Royal Guards were putting up one hell of a fight at the entryway to Thersyn’s hiding spot. When the chaos broke out they quickly excised the civilian staff members out of the sanctum and moved him to a secure location that would be difficult for any frontal attack to break into.

  This was a small-scale skirmish in the end, but the numbers didn’t matter so much when everyone was trapped in an enclosed space and armed with guns. A small outside courtyard dipped into the figure of the building, allowing the royal residents to enjoy the fresh air without leaving the safety of this area. That formerly tranquil garden was a complete ruin, with bodies strewn around and one even floating in the shattered stone fountain.

  I was close to the scene of the fighting. More gunshots and shouts filled the air, before an earth-shaking blast caused some of the broken windows to fall to pieces around me. Ducking through the garden and across to the other side, I came upon the scene of where the most brutal violence occurred. The chokepoint the guards created caused several more insider plants to be cut down like overgrown weeds.

  The stench of blood and gunpowder hung in the air. I drew my gun and carefully crept through the hallway until I found the source of the explosion. Charlie blew a hole clean through the walls keeping them out of the chamber, leaving the guard’s bodies battered and eviscerated in the process.

  There was too much dust and debris blocking my view. There was nothing left for me to do but charge headlong into danger. Tucking my head down into my chest I rushed down the hallway and through the now-opened gap in the wall, rolling through into an equally wrecked sitting room. Another pair of open doors peered into the adjacent bedroom.

  Charlie was pointing a gun at Thersyn Van Walser, who was pushed up against the foot of his bed with a furious scowl on his weathered features. That determined grimace gave way to shock when he noticed me lurking in the background with a gun of my own.

  Charlie picked up on it. He turned around, but he was still woozy and somewhat weak from casting his last spell. I dodged his first shot by ducking and moving towards him. Charlie couldn’t reset his point of aim without swaying back and forth like a drunkard. Instead he pushed up his free hand and released a weaker attack using what was left of his mana. The air left my lungs and I flew backwards, smashing into a suit of metallic armour that stood vigil at the bedroom door.

  That really hurt!

  My back hit the sharp edge of the lower chestplate, cutting into my skin as a dull knife would. While I writhed on the floor and clutched the sheer line that ran across my spine, thankful that it hadn’t broken the skin and caused a source of severe bleeding. The armour toppled over and collapsed into a pile of disconnected pieces on the ground next to me.

  Charlie’s face rapidly switched from elation to fear. That was his last, best shot at putting me down. He wasn’t convinced that firing a bullet would work, given my ability to wish them out of existence. He tried anyway. I snapped my fingers and broke the receiver in his pistol. The slide locked into place, and his frantic attempts to correct the issue caused it to fly off, leaving him with half a usable gun.

  With my stubborn self refusing to be killed, and his primary weapons disarmed for the time being, Charlie changed his approach. He drew a backup pistol from his belt loop and swept around, clutching Thersyn’s neck from behind and pushing it against the side of his skull.

  “Don’t move! I’m going to blow his brains out if you do!”

  Wasn’t that what he came here for?

  Charlie looked very pleased with himself. I was confused for a moment. Why was he not blowing his brains out then and there and completing his objective?

  “I’m going to stop you,” I stated simply.

  “As if. You put a single finger on me and your life will be over! All of that time and effort, and rubbing elbows with all of the other parasite nobles that are running this country into the dirt, it’ll all be wasted!”

  “What does that matter to me?”

  Thersyn tensed up. The cold steel of the gun’s barrel was a constant source of heart-shredding fear. He could be as strong as he pleased when he was standing up for what he felt was right – but that calculus always changed rapidly when your life stood in the crossfire. This was the first direct threat to his life in many, many years. His end was a single trigger pull away.

  “You’re all about appearances! I can tell just from the way you look! That hair, the makeup, the way you walk around like you’re on eggshells. Look at you now; covered in someone else’s blood and face to face with the former King. You’re not going to do anything, and if you try I’ll just kill him here and now.”

  That was what they came here to do in the first place, but Charlie had made a discovery that none of the other assassins could fathom. There was a strong chance that he would die here, and holding Thersyn hostage was one of the only ways to keep that from happening. He wanted nothing to do with my magic.

  I could see it playing out in my mind. He’d try to make me hesitate through his new human shield, find a convenient exit, and pump a shot through his back before running away again. I was not going to give him that opportunity. I wasn’t keeping this particular ‘ace’ in my pocket to never use it. Thersyn was simply too important to let die versus preserving my cover as a young noblewoman. Landon Sloan and the rest of his miserable slugs already knew I was involved anyway.

  There was the obvious issue that Charlie was dancing around. I was already soaked in blood and holding a gun in one hand. It was immediately evident to anyone with a working pair of eyes that I was not enjoying a leisurely stroll through the palace while all of this chaos was going on. Thersyn was capable of putting the pieces together.

  “That’s the difference between you and me,” I laughed, “You’re still all concerned about clinging on to how your life used to be. You came here to kill the King – but now you’re hesitating because you might have to sacrifice something to do it. Your life? Your everyday routine? Your innocence?”

  I pushed myself up to my knees and stared him dead in the eyes.

  “All that time and effort won’t be wasted. It can’t be. I did all of that for a good reason, so that when I needed it most I could throw it all away and put myself in the right place at the right time. Maria Walston-Carter? That name doesn’t mean anything to me. My reputation? My looks? My honour? They’re all there to trick people like you into underestimating me.”

  The most powerful man in the country was in front of me to bear witness to the last act of Maria’s normal life. This was not something to be held onto until the ‘right moment,’ because that line of thinking would lead to a fool missing it entirely.

  I was exhausted, physically and mentally, and my magic reverses had been depleted to the bare minimum. I only had one shot left at this, because I couldn’t curve a bullet around Thersyn’s body and hit Charlie even though I wished I could. It would have to be a magic attack – and casting that spell would knock me out cold from mana deprivation. It had to take Charlie out of the picture.

  “You can’t do it. You’ve used every bit of magic in you!”

  “You’re the same. That cute hole you blew through the wall is hardly a match for your best and most destructive work. You’re worried about getting out of here in one piece.”

  Charlie gritted his teeth and applied more pressure to the trigger of his backup gun. I honed my senses and recalled the feeling that rushed through my body when I erased the ‘space’ between us during our first fight. This was a power that could go even further. If I were to entrap Charlie within a pocket of ‘space’ and delete what laid between him and the outside of the palace.

  “Get out of my sight!”

  Charlie braced for another bolt of lightning, or perhaps for a raw concussive blast intended to fling him away from Thersyn without directly harming him. What he found instead was a novel and stomach-churning sensation. For a brief moment he found himself incapable of breathing. His vision blacked out, and his ears almost burst from a sudden and violent change in pressure.

  What he found on the other side of his incredible journey was the ground two floors below. He fell through the air and crashed into a thorn-filled bush that rested beneath the bar-covered window that was to his right before I cast my spell.

  It was like an airlock, or a railgun. I created a large vacuum space between Charlie and the exterior wall, sucking him inwards to the empty void before closing it behind as he went, propelling him through to the other side and releasing him back into reality. The other side of my makeshift portal dumped him back to the outside garden, where the hawks were still running amuck.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Of course, I was already halfway to the floor unconscious when this played out. Absent any better options I decided to delay our final battle for a while longer. It was more magic energy than I had to spare, and his sense of nausea was dwarfed by mine. Bile roiled up in my throat as the strength left my legs and caused me to slump onto the ground.

  Maybe Durandia had gone too far by giving me this type of power...

  I awoke some time later.

  The sounds of screeching half-hawks had died down at some point, warded away by the firing of weapons and the lack of fertile mates to claim for themselves. Charlie did not take a second bite of the apple, choosing instead to take what small pyrrhic victory he could and leave without killing Thersyn. That would make his father very angry indeed.

  It was impractical anyway. He would have to navigate through the gardens and palace halls again, which was incredibly dangerous with so many half-hawks running rampant. There was no doubt that being bisected by one of them would spell his doom, regardless of how much demon blood Landon pumped into him.

  I was laid out on the sofa in the study next to the King’s bedroom with a cold, damp towel on my forehead. Thersyn stared at me and steepled his fingers, his face pensive and uncertain. He was unsure of what to say. I still looked like a madwoman, caked in blood and wearing nothing but a gore-soaked dress shirt and a skirt.

  “Ugh! My head!” I groaned.

  “Are you okay? I’m surprised that you’re awake so soon after casting... whatever that was.”

  I clutched my pulsing temples and coped with it as best I could. This was one hell of a hangover. No wonder they kept telling us not to overdo it with the spellcasting in class. Everything felt off. My mouth was dry, and I’d lost my sense of taste and smell. My ears were still ringing, throwing me off-balance when I tried to rise to a sitting position.

  “You really ought to rest some more before trying to move. I know very little about magic, but I assume bedrest is the best cure to what ails you.”

  I forced my body upright regardless of his concern and slumped back on the sofa. It was unladylike, but I was also still covered in dried blood and had exposed the entire fa?ade to the King – so it was well past the point of being relevant.

  “Are they gone?”

  “Those beasts? Or the half-hawks they summoned forth to terrorize the estate?”

  He told jokes too. That was interesting.

  “Both.”

  Thersyn nodded, “They are gone. Warded away by the resplendent bravery of the guardsmen. I have tasked them with recovering the fallen and moving them to an appropriate place. I also had a doctor visit and check on you.”

  “What about-”

  “I removed the weapons from your person before inviting them into my chambers. I suspect that discretion is the better course of action in regards to this incident. We are the only people who have seen the truth.”

  He sat on the chair across from me and finally took a moment to calm his nerves. It was a brush with death that was entirely new to him. He might have been in dangerous situations before, but never so directly. Charlie could have pulled that trigger at any moment and ended him then and there. He was lucky that Charlie was more concerned with his personal safety than he was completing his objective. That miscalculation gave me the opportunity to stop him.

  I was reeling in a similar manner. These new spells I had conceptualized revealed the full breadth of the boon that Durandia granted us. Samantha must have possessed similar powers, as we were intended to be two sides of the same coin. Suddenly a new world of options was opening up before my eyes. Where were the limits of this ability? I didn’t know. All I could conclude was that using those two spells on the spot was more than a lucky break.

  This was irrational magic, the type that the monsters in the Veil used. It didn’t conform to the usual rules that one would expect in a physical world. Durandia had to get special permission from her peers to give us these abilities, presumably because they encroached on the realm of the ascended in some capacity. Xenia made it clear that they could not ‘create’ more of themselves without a good reason.

  “Would it be too much to ask for an explanation of your actions? I’m struggling to understand what happened. I was sitting here, enjoying a book, when I heard all kinds of terrible noises coming from outside.”

  “There’s nothing to say. They launched an attempt on your life, seemingly with the assistance of some of the people under your employ.”

  “But to do all of this! To risk your life and bloody your hands...”

  He couldn’t accept that. There had to be a greater reason.

  “I’ve never been one to sit back and allow injustice to occur, and I’m sure that you understand full well what kind of chaos would be unleashed across Walser should you be murdered by these unscrupulous fools. The type of mass anarchy that would touch every corner of society and leave none spared its insidious reach.”

  “It is too high a burden for a child to shoulder!” Thersyn barked, “I’ve made many difficult decisions in my years, but I always sought to protect the future of our children. That was why it was so important to me to end the war as quickly as possible. The stresses of this cannot be overstated.”

  “Even so, it is too late to rectify the issue now.”

  Thersyn’s face dropped, revealing the deeply-carved wrinkles on his brow and around his eyes. He knew I was correct. The deed was done. The blood that covered my body was not my own.

  “You needn’t lose any sleep worrying about me. There are greater problems at hand that demand urgent attention. With Welt gone, those who remain in his wake intend to cause even more chaos than he desired.”

  Thersyn scoffed; “It’s abominable! This great wretched machine lurches on with no one man at the wheel to steer it. We are living in dangerous times. When blood is spilled, no amount of reason will dissuade the victims from seeking their vengeance.”

  Sloan was the man at the wheel. If I killed him, and maybe some of his friends, the organization would dissolve and we’d be saved. He was correct that if things escalated to war then no one man’s death would see an end to it. I had to stop it before it got that far. The massacre in the city did not fill me with renewed confidence.

  Thersyn was stumped about how to approach this discussion now that I had erected my rhetorical defences.

  “Regardless of how I feel, I should thank you for stepping in saving me. Your bravery is admirable. If there is anything I can do for you in return, by all means – please let it be known.”

  He didn’t exactly have the legal authority to help me in a way that mattered. Getting a royal pardon for all of the threats and murder that I participated in would be useful, but that wasn’t on the cards with Ekkehard occupying the throne.

  “The only favour I could ask of you is to keep this between us.”

  Thersyn tilted his head to one side; “You merely wish for my confidentiality?”

  “I’m not in need of more money given our family’s good fortune, nor do I harbour any desire to join the royal ladder through some kind of marriage arrangement.”

  “That is very unusual...”

  The doors to the room burst open. Thersyn leapt up from his chair and almost shouted the intruder down for ignoring his orders, but he stopped. It was Theodore – not a meddling retainer who thought they knew best despite his clear red lines.

  “Father! What in the Goddess’ name happened?” Theodore closed the distance and hugged his father, “I was worried half to death!”

  Thersyn patted his back, “I’m fine! It’ll take more than that to be rid of me, I promise you.”

  Theodore’s gaze turned in my direction. I still looked like I’d been through the wars, but at least Thersyn managed to rinse away most of the blood using the washroom attached to the study and another bloodied towel.

  “What did you do to them?”

  “Don’t be so sour, Theodore. Lady Maria was the one who stepped in at the crucial moment and saved my life.”

  I waved my hand at Thersyn, “No, no. I need none of your help in this regard. By the time I arrived here at the scene, all of the gunmen aside from one had died in the gunfight. I believe a half-hawk took care of the others.”

  “What did you do with that young lad?” Thersyn asked.

  “I sent him outside. I can’t quite explain how that spell works, even though I was the one who cast it.”

  “He must have fled then.”

  Theodore was still confused about the sequence of events that had transpired. I had no interest in giving him a recollection of every detail. He shook his head, covered his face with his palms, and murmured quiet words to himself rather than asking more questions.

  I had a lot of questions too. I really wanted some space to test out the limits and rules of this new magic. It didn’t make a lick of sense to me. Why was teleporting Charlie away less strenuous than annihilating his neck from long range? Killing him wasn’t an option with my mana reserves in a horrible state – yet I would have assumed that warping the fabric of reality would be more expensive!

  Before that, my dirty clothes would need to be changed out, and that meant getting in touch with Franklin and dispatching him to my temporary room to get them from my suitcase. It was unlikely I could truly get away from the palace without sharing what I’d learned with the Royal Guard – including the identities of the insiders who caused the chaos.

  Honestly, what the hell was the chef thinking? Was he tricked into believing that murdering the former King was the hot new trend and he was scared of missing out?

  “I need to go back to my room, have a real clean-up, put on some fresh clothes, and maybe lie down for a few hours,” I declared.

  Theodore sighed, “I think that your attendant is waiting by the doors, what’s left of them anyway.”

  He wouldn’t be allowed through into the sanctum. I willed my legs to move and wobbled to my feet, feeling my stomach do another backflip in response to the slight movement. This was no hangover. It was far worse than that.

  “For goodness sake! You look like you’re about to topple over at any second,” Theodore observed.

  “If Franklin can’t enter the sanctum, then I will have to go and meet him.”

  I didn’t need their help or pity. I struggled my way to the door and started the long, tedious walk back to the front. Theodore wavered between following me and staying with his father, eventually choosing to follow and ensure his guest didn’t break her skull open on the floor.

  The guards did some impressive work. An hour or so after the attack and the bodies were already taken away and stored somewhere away from the virginal eyes of the royals within. Theodore remained silent during the walk. When we finally got to the entryway, Franklin was pacing back and forth with a pair of weary guards keeping watch.

  “Franklin, stop bothering the poor men already!”

  He snapped back to life, “Oh! Thank goodness you’re okay, Lady Maria!”

  “Yes, yes! I’m okay! Can we please get back to the room, preferably without anyone else being able to see me?”

  Franklin was already prepared, whipping out a clean towel and placing it over my haggard head as a cover. He led the way – walking in front so that nobody could catch a glimpse of my blood-soaked clothes and knotted hair. Theodore continued to give chase the entire time. He was intent on getting some answers from me.

  The question was whether he’d be willing to accept them.