Chapter 13

James had been worried sick about Cilia, it had been weeks since she was kidnapped. However finally his efforts to find her, were successful. A member of his team had seen her being brought to a merchant who was identified as a slave trader.

James was livid, how dare someone to sell HIS property. He immediately ordered his men to kill that merchant and the seller, while he would free Cilia.

Unbeknownst to them, Cilia had already separated from the person, who had attempted to sell her and was trying her best to free herself from the bulky slave collar and slave chain, which were wrapped around her limbs. After a few hours of struggling, the slave collar was send flying as Cilia finally regained her magic power, making it easy to remove the chains binding her.

After all these weeks of imprisonments, Cilia was finally able to be free. She decided to just enjoy those few moments of freedom, before an angry looking James stormed inside the locked room and disrupted her peace.

„Cilia!"

She was taken aback by James enthusiasm and didn't struggle as he hugged her. She was too tired. She had used to much stamina to get rid of the slave collar and was shaken about what happened after her talk with Nisha.

A traitor appeared in the mids of the guards escorting her to an unknown location, which allowed him to capture her. Apparently his aim was to sell her to a friend of his and fetch a good price.

Luckily she was able to get rid of the slave collar before he could track her location.

James didn't allow Cilia to get out of his sight, while he arranged everything for her return to Armguard.

Cilia didn't know why, but she felt dizzy once again and went to bed after arranging herself some layers of protection.

Not many were as skilled as Nisha's subordinates so she would be safe. There was a reason for her to be the second most wanted person of the council even though no one knew her face.

--

On the next day, Cilia had to recount what happened to her in the weeks she had been missing.

She told James that they kidnapped her while she was sleeping and was kept prisoner for a few weeks before a guard betrayed her kidnapper and tried selling her for money. Although she didn't mention it, Jamie was sure that she had to have been tortured considering how long she was gone.

Cilia would have died from laughter, if she would have known his thoughts.

The blame was quietly pushed upon the terror group, which had been behind the massacres in this city. Although Jamie still had his suspicions, he knew Cilia wouldn't dare to betray them, even if she had the chances to do so.

Because of these happenings, Cilia was allowed to have a 2 week vacation in Armguard. Jamie would accompany her back and oversee her, so that she wouldn't do anything stupid.

Jamie did notice the choker, which Cilia was wearing, but she was able to convince him, that she gotten a scar there while she was imprisoned and the choker was to cover it up.

She had already started transforming right after he asked, because she knew, that he would force her to show it to him. And he did.

Under the choker was a huge scar, which spanned from the left side of the neck to the front, while going upwards. It didn't look too bad but Jamie still lost his cool after seeing it. He knew that Cilia would have died if that wound would have been any closer to the centre of her neck.

Luckily for Cilia, she was able to sneak out before that to tell Nisha not to do anything, for as long as she only lifted the choker for a few seconds. As such, she didn't have to worry about it exploding in her face.

With this in mind, Jamie became even more clingy and wouldn't let her out of his eyes. He couldn't be better described as a yandere stalker.

The journey to Armguard was quite smoothly and Cilia felt joy about finally being back.

Nothing much had changed, only a few people were still trying their best to take care of the darkest side of the council. In the time, she had spent as Nishas prisoner, Cilia had gotten information, that some counsellors had deep roots in the underground world.

Sex-/human trafficking, prostitution, drugs and many other things were on the list of dealings of some members of the council.

However the most surprising revelation was, that although James, Darus and the others worked together, their boss was unknown even to both of them. He was always wearing a mask on every meeting, which were very rare to begin with. As such most didn't even know about his existence.

Armguard was still the same and Cilia couldn't hold herself back and hurriedly ran home to greet her family. Unfortunately both of them were at work and Cilia decided to visit her teacher first.

„Teach, I'm back!"

„Cilia! It's great seeing you again." Jamie had already left and Cilia was now able to be alone with her teacher for a bit.

Her teacher forced her to recount all the things, which had happened to her. She told her almost everything but didn't go into detail for some to even hiding a few things, like the fact that she had slept with one of the most infamous criminals on the continent.

Unfortunately the conversation flung back at the direction of her choker.

„Tell me honestly, what is your choker? It's a new magical item but I seem to have seen something similar quite a few times"

Cilia didn't know what to answer, she hadn't wanted to tell her about it. However she could only relent after the intense questioning of her teacher.

„It's kind of a slave collar…"

Her teacher was to shocked to speak, her own student was restricted by a slave collar. She wouldn't mind if it was a normal slave collar as they were easy to remove for someone of her level. Even Cilia was able to do so even without her magic. However this collar was an advanced version of it and extremely hard to remove without the key.

„Where did you get that?!" Lusha was angry, she didn't expect the council to have such an advanced tool and use. It on her precious student.

„I told you, that I was imprisoned for a month. I made a deal to get my freedom back. This collar is so that I will keep it." Lusha could only sight. She didn't have enough of these collars to research a way to destroy them without hurting the wearer and could only hope, that the other person would hold her end of the deal. Obviously she would still try her best to find a way to remove it.

After talking with her teacher, Cilia went back home to be with her family. She even made surprise dinner and her family was shocked and happy to see her back, although they were disappointed that she would only stay for 2 weeks.

With that Cilias previous routine was back, as she stayed in Armguard to relax. It would have been way more relaxing if Jamie wouldn't check up on her a few times every day though.

Unfortunately she fell ill for 2 days after half of her allocated time. She had dizzy spells and blacked out a few times. The doctors said there was no reason for her body to do so, they were clueless and they thought it might have something to do with Cilias trauma.

Unbeknownst to them, Jamie knew exactly what was going on but didn't voice it out. The reason unknown.

-----

At the same time in another part of the city.

„Her highness wants you to continue observing Cilia and notify us when and where she will be dispatched."

„Cilia? You sure?" The person talking was a spy planted to observe people like Jamie

„You know her?"

„Everyone does, she's the student of the sister of the current Queen of the elves. Though she doesn't like being treated like royalty. Cilia probably doesn't even know. Don't harm her or she will personally ask her sister to obliterate us. If you do, we might spark a war between races."

The person who was send by Nisha to meet the informant was one of the guards, who had been with Cilia since her imprisonments. He paled as he realized that they almost decided to torture her for information and kill her afterwards. Luckily Cilia had made a good impression on quite a lot of them and they were able to persuade the Empress into talking with Cilia personally.

The informant bade his farewell and the messenger quickly made his way back to report. The device Nisha had given Cilia was very expensive and they usually only had one in each bigger city in the continent. Unfortunately Armguard was not part of it as part of the council resided in this city and made it to risky to do so duo to security reasons.

On the other hand Cilia had borrowed Yurriks workshop after she had made quite a bit of progress with a few blueprints.

She made herself something similar to a burner, it was powerful and could easily melt steel with a bit of time. She had made it after realizing how often she had recently been imprisoned. A tool to break slave collars easily, as long as the user knew how. It wouldn't be able to help with her choker, but the standardized slave collars could be easily removed.

She also made a few grenades and a few small knifes, which would come out of her boots if she wanted to.