Chapter 39: Misdirection

Toren Daen

I approached the distillery building carefully, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. The shadows masked me well this high up, the darkness cloaking me like a friend.

I'd left Hofal behind. My speed allowed me to outpace any pursuit he tried, so I didn't know if he was trying to follow or not.

With luck, I'd be back to the meeting spot in a few minutes.

Every now and then I checked my surroundings, a part of me hoping I'd spot some sort of patrol. That would banish my fears.

I found nothing. No hide nor hair of man or woman rewarded my search. The streets remained quiet, creating an eerie feeling when combined with the persistent fog. I felt like I was being watched from the haze, but no eyes met my own. The mist was pervasive and ever-present, and where before I had viewed it as an ally for this heist, now I watched it with wary caution.

Anything could hide in the fog.

My anxiety ratcheted up a notch as I finally spotted the building I knew was a facade for the underground factory. A long street led up to it, with smaller buildings on either side. Right past the building was a winding canal, the water drifting along lazily. A bridge connected the street from one side to the other.

The banks were steep, nearly a sheer ninety degrees. Unlike most waterways, the banks were also tall. If anybody fell in, they'd be stuck without magic or assistance. The fog gave the water in the canal a wide berth, something I didn't quite understand. What could cause that?

My actual target was a mostly wooden structure. It was short and quaint, looking like a canalside cabin rather than the front for drug mixing operations. I could almost imagine myself relaxing outside on a Saturday morning, sipping coffee and watching the sunrise from the nice wrap-around porch they had.

I dropped to the stones, muffling the sound I made as I landed. I couldn't use my normal roof-hopping methods anymore; the distance was too great.

As I approached the building, I thought over all I knew. There wasn't any human presence nearby and I couldn't sense any mages. Wade's investigations were all I had to go on regarding this place, but everything he had told us–minus the actual physical description of the building–had turned out to be false. No heavy presence of people; no covert guards that kept him away.

Had he been wrong?

No, I didn't think so. Which left few other options.

Was I acting impulsive on purpose? Part of me wondered. I was so close to my goal. Was I simply finding an excuse to rush the last few feet to my vengeance, like a sprinter pushing themselves once more near the end of a marathon?

The handle of the cabin door taunted me, like a dancer holding out their hand. Would I accept their waltz? Stride into the abyss?

I stared at it for a moment as the reality of the situation sunk in. The absence of presence could only mean that the Joans had expected an eventual assault on their distillery and had moved it. There was no way they would wait for the Rats to attack them here.

I sighed inaudibly, the constant sound suppression I kept up masking the noise. The Rats would have to start another game of cat and mouse, scrambling after leads blindly and trying to pin down a foe with far more resources than they had.

The destruction of the warehouses would make the Joans far more cautious. They'd go underground, and there would be no telling how difficult it would be to uproot them once again.

I turned around, planning to go back to the nearby rooftops. Hofal would receive depressing news. Maybe he'd tell me a story about how the construction of a building always had its pitfalls to cheer me up.

A click sounded from behind me. It was barely audible, akin to the sound of a cigarette lighter's sliding metal. It was hardly noticeable: in fact, I wouldn't have drawn my attention if not for my enhanced sense of hearing and the utter stillness of the night. And because our little methane bombs made the Exact. Same. Sound.

Replacing the earlier silence, my senses screamed at me from inside my head. Acting purely on instinct, I flared my crest. Familiar warmth coursed from my core to my back, my telekinesis rune activating under my will.

I threw everything I had into a push behind me, pressing against the door that still remained innocuously closed.

I rocketed forward into the street, propelled by my crest.

Not fast enough. A detonation followed; a wave of heat and force at my back. A deafening explosion propelled me forward just as much as my own telekinesis, a blinding flash of light blocking out my sight for a moment.

I felt the fire sear at my back, my mana shroud barely protecting me from the licking flames.

The force of the explosion behind me sent me tumbling through the air. I hit the ground thirty feet away twice, rolling painfully before instinctively trying to balance myself midair. My feet stumbled on the cobblestones, then I rolled a bit more before skidding to a halt.

I coughed, trying to catch my breath and make sense of what had just happened. My vision was fuzzy from the cacophonous flash of light, and I blinked multiple times as I struggled to my feet.

I–I needed to take stock of myself. Make sure I wasn't hurt.

I was in the center of the wide street, having been flung a good fifty feet from the center of detonation. The cape of my cloak had been burned completely, causing me to discard what was left. The arms of my shirt had been charred as well, exposing a bit of my tattoo. I felt dull pain from where I'd tumbled, but I was certain nothing was broken. That was good.

What wasn't good was the smoldering ruin of the cabin by the canal. Smoke billowed high into the air, a twisted reflection of the burning warehouse I had left behind not half an hour ago. There had been a bomb inside that building, but now there wasn't even much of a building left.

The Joans didn't just know we'd hit them, I realized with grim horror. They were planning for it.

I finally sensed mana presences popping up around me. One, two, three, four…

Dread threatened to consume me. They had me surrounded from all sides, boxing me into this extremely exposed position. A few stepped out into the street, leveraging weapons in my direction, but most stayed in the shadows.

My eyes darted around, trying to find a route of escape. I had to get out of here and warn the others. That blast was probably meant to kill every one of the Rats, but I'd only escaped due to my supernatural hearing and telekinesis.

But then a fifth mage dropped from a tall building, landing in front of me fifteen feet away. They were dressed in dark colors. A stiletto was secured on a belt at their waist. A cloth mask kept their feminine figure somewhat hidden, but not the eyes.

Not the eyes.

They were grey as steel, and I might've mistaken them for cold apathy if I couldn't recognize a boiling hatred in them. It was barely restrained, kept in place by an effort of will. Any wrong move; any twitch forward would unleash the tide held behind those eyes.

I knew that hatred; that bitter fury. I knew it because I felt it threatening to break out of myself, the object of my ire finally standing across from me. The woman who had killed Norgan was less than twenty feet from me, tensed like a cat ready to strike. Thoughts of warning the Rats immediately vanished, my focus solely on the woman in front of me.

I stiffened, my hand drawing my dagger. The steel in my white-knuckled grip promised blood retribution. "Kaelan Joan," I hissed. My voice wasn't altered by sound magic. I wanted it to be heard. As it was in nature. As it was when she slew my brother.

The entire perimeter around me was fraught with tension. The mages were primed to attack and finally complete their pincer movement to take me down. But my attention narrowed on the woman across from me like tunnel vision, the only thing I could see was that stiletto on her hip driving its way through my brother's chest.

Norgan's murder shifted on her feet, lightning crackling from her fists. "I promised you that the scion would end your miserable life," she snarled, rage breaking through her composure. "But you've spat on my gift. Attacking your betters has resigned your fate to one far worse than promised." She rolled her shoulders. "I'm going to give you a death far slower than your weakling brother got. You wasted my mercy."

I dashed toward her with a roar, using a burst of telekinesis and fire to fling me forward at unimaginable speeds. I channeled mana through my steel, hardening it and sharpening it for when it would dig into Kaelan Joan's flesh.

I swung my blade in a crescent arc, fire coating my weapon as the edge called for blood. I watched Kaelan's eyes widen in shock as I closed the distance between us in a heartbeat. My dagger cut into her arm, but the striker used a burst of speed to hastily move backward, sparing her any further cuts.

Unwilling to let my advantage go, I started to harry Kaelan. She was slow to react, my initial attack having caught her off guard. Lightning began to appear on her arms, a familiar spellform that I had seen before.

"You killed my brother," I spat through the onslaught. "You're going to burn for what you've done! Burn like your fucking drugs!"

Before I could continue my assault, however, I felt something wrap around my ankle. I was tugged backward off my feet and then hurled toward where I started.

A whip-like cord of water held my leg tight as it slammed me back into the concrete, away from my enemy. I felt some of the breath leave my body, a measure of the impact getting through my mana shroud. The spell traced back to one of the four other mages that surrounded me, something I had somehow forgotten in my rage.

Imbuing a shroud of sound over my dagger, I cut at the tendril of water that held my leg. The spell was severed, and not a moment too soon. A barrage of spells was aimed at me from two separate corners, their casters shielded by the shadows of buildings.

Trying to reorient myself, I used a burst of telekinesis on the ground, pushing myself into the air. The spells–a gale of cutting wind and bullets of water–passed through where I had just been.

I sensed something approaching, but I was too late to react. A torrent of fire splashed against me, blowing me back to the ground in a roll.

The spell burned at my clothing even more, tearing at the dark fabric. I grit my teeth, then focused on one of my spells. Sound mana surrounded my palm in an oil-like sheen, building and building to a crescendo.

Then I slammed my palm into the earth, causing slight tremors and a crashing boom to echo out into the foggy night. The fires around dispersed from the shockwave, but it was far less effective than I'd hoped. The mana I could sense being prepared for another wave of spells paused only for a moment then began to build again.

I barely brought my dagger up in time to deflect the lightning-clad strike of Kaelan Joan, who had maneuvered into my guard with deadly precision. She stabbed with it again, something I narrowly diverted in a shower of sparks. Some of those were from metal on metal, but more were from the errant spells of my enemy.

Every collision of steel sent tendrils of electricity snaking up my hands, the automatic defense of my enemy searing my flesh and making my grip spasm. My rage, while still burning hot inside of me, began to simmer off as Kaelan Joan kept me occupied. My counters and deflections were off-balance because of each and every electric twitch, causing me to adjust haphazardly as I was forced on the defensive. Cuts opened here and there along my body as I was edged back.

Yet I could see her movements now. She wasn't a blur to me like she was when she slew my brother. But she had four other mages providing suppressing fire for her, keeping me stuck in this little patch of road.

I needed to get out of this encirclement. Moving through one of the combat forms Lady Dawn had taught me, I used the edge of my blade to redirect Kaelan Joan's. Instead of sinking into my stomach, it passed near my ribcage instead.

Lightning jumped from her blade to my body, though, battering against my mana shroud and making me sweat. I shifted stances slightly, gathering a fireball in my palm. Then, I used my momentum from the deflection to deliver a brutal counter.

The heel of my palm sank into the stomach of my brother's murderer, pressing the condensed ball of fire into her abdomen. The electricity coating Kaelan's body sent spasms up my hand, causing it to convulse, but my own fireball detonated, sending Kaelan hurtling away.

I whirled on my feet, gathering mana under my heel. I tried to rocket toward the nearby buildings, knowing that my hampered mobility here was a death sentence.

I soared straight into a bubble of water. My momentum bled off of me as I was caught by the spell. I exhaled in surprise, losing precious air and taking in water. My eyes widened in alarm, darting down to the mage who had cast it. She was familiar.

Meera, the woman who had run away to save herself in the Clarwood Forest.

The bubble of water slammed back down into the pavement, bursting in a small deluge. I coughed out liquid, coalescing another sound grenade in my hand. I was starting to feel desperate. They'd trapped me here.

I threw the sound grenade upward, hoping the blast of noise would give me a reprieve from the constant onslaught. I just needed to get them off balance!

Another bubble of water, this one from a different mage, leapt out like a beast to swallow my spell. It detonated inside audibly, but the water had done its job, muffling the sound of my attack.

I was dripping with water, disoriented from being thrown around. My head felt like it was full of cotton, but I forced through the haze to fight. Another salvo of wind and fire converged on my position, aiming to kill me where I stood.

I pushed myself backward with telekinesis, avoiding the spells. But I lurched right into Kaelan Joan's blade, which sank into my left shoulder with electric pain. The sadistic striker ripped the weapon free in a spray of blood, then kicked me in the stomach, sending me flying back to where I started. The water I was drenched in directed the lightning across my body, making me shudder as my muscles twitched involuntarily.

"Did you think we didn't plan for you, you filthy peasant?!" Kaelan snarled, stalking forward. Blood streamed down my shoulder, but I pulled myself to my feet. "We've got a water caster and shield here for a reason. You won't be able to pull any of your tricks to save your measly little life!"

I coughed, doing an unconscious check of my shoulder. The stab wound wasn't deep, but the lingering lightning mana caused it to spasm periodically. I couldn't reliably clench my fist there, and the wound already ached.

Kaelan Joan stood ten feet away from me, breathing heavily as she glared at me. A deep cut marked her upper tricep from my initial attack against her, and it was bleeding even more heavily than my own wound.

Her glare redoubled my fury. For all that I was outnumbered and cornered, she had no right to feel angry at me. My anger? It was justified, a blade of vengeance quenched in the blood of my dying brother. I had honed myself to draw its edge across her throat.

She didn't like that I disrespected her family. It was the tantrum of a child who had their toy house knocked over.

I snarled, settling back into my stance. I didn't know if I'd make it out of this, but I would take that devil with me.

I had already died once. Another time would only be fair if I could take that woman with me.

Lady Dawn, I thought, using the telepathic connection of our bond seriously for the first time since it was made. I do not know if I will escape this. But in case I do not, I hope you can forgive me for failing in your vengeance.

I didn't hear any reply. I didn't expect to.

I planned to complete my own revenge at the cost of my own life. There was something selfish about that. The phoenix promised me power to use for not just accomplishing my goals, but hers as well.

But I was expecting to die here, only fulfilling one end of the bargain. It was morbidly amusing. In the end, I would end up being a greater thief than anything Karsien could ever dream of. Who would think to steal the power of an asura, only to let it burn away like this?

I spread mana throughout my body, reinforcing it and the natural shield around me. My dagger had a chip in it from its previous clashes against Kaelan Joan's stiletto: no doubt that accursed weapon of hers was forged from better materials. But it had proven my dagger could draw her blood.

Before I could launch myself at them, I heard another click.

Where before the subtle sound had only rung once to prelude destruction, now it sounded several times.

My eyes darted to a spherical object that had bounced on the cobblestones nearby, making clinking sounds as it rolled. It was dark brown and unnaturally smooth. Orange streaks threaded through the small sphere, constantly twisting and morphing into random shapes.

I felt a grin creep onto my face as realization dawned on me. That was a beast core: one I'd given to Naereni. After all, the spell that I'd stuffed inside with help from Greahd would be wasted on me.

Kaelan Joan's eyes widened in alarm, right before the beast core exploded.