Rap Rap Rap Rap Rap.
The sound of knuckles at the wooden door came with the sharp rapidity of a man who was in a desperate hurry, but was just as desperately trying not to draw unwanted attention towards himself.
Justin went to the door, but halted before opening it. “Should we…?” he asked the room, though his eyes remained on Leon.
Scowling, Leon answered, “No. Look at him.”
Outside, Maemon looked harried, as if he’d been chased to the safehouse. His disheveled appearance only served to water the seeds of doubt that his appearance planted in Leon’s heart.
“He’s a friend,” Justin said simply, his face setting into an expression that was hard and stern.
“He’s one of Kamran’s men,” Daryun answered, backing up his King.
“And he helped us,” Justin pressed. “Should we abandon him just because we got into some trouble?”
“Hardly ‘some’ trouble,” Leon whispered. “Getting out of the city is going to be challenging enough without adding more people.” Despite his words, Justin’s words still resonated. Several times over the past few seconds, Maemon had turned to look down the driveway as if terrified that he was being followed. His carriage ark remained visible, though, and Leon wondered if the driver was trustworthy.
“Leon,” Justin whispered. “One man. One man who helped us with no thought of repayment or betrayal. Are we going to ignore him?”
A cold grimace passed over Leon’s face as his mind warred with itself over how much he wanted to risk their escape and how much he didn’t want to abandon someone who had done him and his people a favor at great risk to himself. Eventually, he sighed and said, “Fine, but give me a few seconds.”
As Justin sagged slightly with relief, Leon waved his hand at the table in front of him and pulled all of the maps that they’d been studying back into his soul realm, then tossed a few more disguise bracelets to the rest of the retinue. If he was going to take the risk of letting Maemon inside, he wasn’t going to reveal his face or risk their speculative plans for getting out of the city being seen.
“If you can stand, do so,” Leon ordered. He didn’t elaborate; everyone knew the need to project strength when faced with an unknown actor.
From where he was seated, Alcander pushed himself to his feet. He was looking much haler than he had when they’d arrived, and he moved with promising vigor. Beside him, Cassandra and Zhang straightened up and put on their bracelets. They needed a moment to ensure their disguises were the same as before, but soon, all three were standing around the table looking as they had before Maemon took them to Kamran’s palace.
Leon, Justin, and Daryun followed suit, with Daryun heading deeper into the safehouse to bring Valeria her replacement bracelet. Nestor, however, remained on the floor, but since he could pass as a regular golem, Leon wasn’t so concerned about him.
Only once all of that was finished did Leon nod to Justin. The man was the only one who didn’t disguise himself, though he had a bracelet.
Barely a few minutes had passed, but Maemon had rapped on the door several times, each time a little more loudly and a little more desperately. When Justin opened the door, Maemon bolted inside.
“Finally!” the bureaucrat exclaimed. “Shut the door!”
Without wasting a moment, Justin did as bid, sealing everyone into the safehouse again, with the privacy wards snapping back into place.
“By all the fucking fiends of the underworld, what happened?!” Maemon hissed. “The entire city is under lockdown!”
“If that’s true,” Justin replied, “how did you get here?”
“Working for Kamran has privileges,” Maemon said with a tone of such bitterness that it almost physically hit Leon. “Checkpoints are going up all over the city. Kamran’s forces are preventing everyone from moving around.”
Justin exchanged a worried look with Leon, who had watched many of those checkpoints get set up while they were planning their escape. Then, the silver-haired man asked, “What are they saying about what happened?”
Maemon collapsed into one of the chairs around the table and slumped tiredly. “Story as it was announced in the palace is that one of Halbast’s agents infiltrated the city and attempted to disrupt the festival. I imagine that is the story that will be announced within the city in the coming hours.”
“That’s hard to believe given Kamran himself stalked the city,” Leon said quietly, drawing Maemon’s attention.
“And how many people were paying enough attention, or even had the capacity in the first place, to notice anything wrong with the story?” Maemon shot back, and Leon had to admit that he had a point. If something similar to that story happened in Artorion, he knew that his people would be seeing him flying around the streets looking for whoever was responsible.
“The people here can believe whatever they want to believe,” Justin dismissed. “I’m more worried about the Lords in the palace. Kamran and his men. What are they doing now?”
“Kamran is likely doing damage control,” Maemon said. “That’s above my authority to know. But whatever happened between all of you must be terrible for him if he’s so willing to claim that Halbast humiliated him with so many other Lords in his city.”
“Then… he likely won’t deploy those Lords against us,” Leon said.
“Why do you say that?” Justin asked. “If he has the power, then I’d imagine that he’d use it.”
“That depends on how badly he wants to get his hands on us,” Leon elucidated as he started to slowly pace around the largely empty room. “If he’s willing to throw all of his prestige into the dirt, then he’ll ask the Lords for help. Maybe even go hat-in-hand to Anurak or Johan.”
When he mentioned the other two fifteenth-tier mages in the city, Maemon paled considerably, but he didn’t interrupt.
Leon continued, “But he’s apparently already admitted that someone’s subverted his defenses and wreaked havoc in his city on such an important day. That’s a challenge that he can’t ignore. He’ll have to show that he’s still strong, that such a provocation doesn’t go unanswered. To do that effectively, he’ll have to handle this situation personally, or at least with his power, rather than the power of the visiting Lords. It’s a matter of saving face, and when dealing with other proud Lords, face is something that has to be saved. If he’s trying to ally with Anurak or Johan, then failing to deal with this situation might cost him that alliance.”
“Then we might not have to worry about the other Lords,” Justin said, “but a particularly determined and furious Kamran.”
“And his army, and direct retainers,” Leon said. “Given how hard he pursued us and how little he cared about harming the people around us, I won’t be breathing any sighs of relief, though. Getting past the walls hasn’t been made any easier.”
“And…” Maemon quietly interjected, “I hope you’ll allow one more man to join you…” His eyes met Justin’s, plaintive almost to the point of being pathetic. “I got out of the palace just before it was fully locked down. They’ll realize that all of you are gone and that I helped you to get inside.”
“Were you not prepared for this?” Leon asked. “Did you not arrange your own escape before agreeing to help us into the palace?”
With a gaze that could kill, Maemon turned back toward Leon. “I hardly thought the disappearance of Lord Kamran’s ward at a time when the city held more visitors than residents was going to lead to this. Also, who ever are you, to be speaking like this to me?”
Leon blinked, taken aback slightly until he remembered that Maemon likely thought himself stronger than Leon given the disguise. For a brief moment, Leon thought about dropping the disguise so that Maemon could feel the degree of his mistake—the corners of his lips even twitched upward as the thought passed through his head—but he didn’t indulge his ego in this case.
“Someone involved,” Leon replied.
“Maemon, my friend,” Justin interjected, “let’s not get too hung up on those I hired to aid me. We’re all in this together.”
Maemon scowled but shifted his attention back to Justin. His brief burst of anger faded quickly, and he leaned forward, popping his elbows up on his knees. “We are friends,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I did this favor for you without considering that it would lead us here. I did not ask for payment. And yet… I need to get out of this city, and I won’t be able to do so alone. I’ll help you as much as I can if you’ll just take me with you. If I am still here when Kamran inevitably realizes who all of you are and who let you into his palace, he’ll have me flayed.”
Justin’s eyes flickered to Leon, and Leon could see his desires plain as day. He wanted to bring Maemon along, and even with the practicality argument, Leon was finding it difficult to turn either of them down. Maemon wasn’t necessarily trustworthy, but Leon didn’t think he was so great an actor that he’d be pretending to be Kamran’s agent.
‘Assuming Kamran even needs an agent…’ Leon thought. If he were in Kamran’s position and he knew where someone had stolen his hypothetical daughter, he’d be acting personally, not sending someone else.
Of course, even if Maemon wasn’t an active agent of Kamran’s, that didn’t mean that he was trustworthy, or that he could be safely brought along. But he had done them a service, and he was facing death if he were left behind.
Subtly, Leon nodded. However, just as Justin inhaled to accept Maemon’s request, Leon’s head whipped around to face the wall, though it wasn’t the plaster that had captured Leon’s attention; rather, he’d sensed a small procession of four carriage arks coming down the street and slowing down to turn down the safehouse’s driveway.
“You may have been followed,” Leon said as the first of the carriage arks completed the turn off the street and made it absolutely clear that the safehouse was their destination.
“Who is it?” Justin asked as everyone else in the room armed themselves, startling Maemon enough that the bureaucrat nearly fell out of his chair.
“Unlikely to be Kamran,” Leon said. “He would’ve announced that he’d found us by striking this place with an entire storm’s worth of lightning, not send four small transports…”
Leon’s disguise flickered too much to be missed as he sent a mental message to Valeria, still talking quietly with her mother in another room, updating her on what was happening. She remained with Ariana, though she responded that she’d be ready to fight if the need arose.
Just as the exchange ended, one of the transports opened, and out stepped the passingly familiar figure of Tion Bey, the very man who commanded a unit of local city guards and who had arranged for this safehouse in the first place. No one else exited the ark, and it closed after he exited, but Leon doubted it or the other three were empty. Tion Bey sauntered over to the front door, his gaze lingering for a moment on Maemon’s ark that was still sitting where it had been parked, and laid his hand on the brass doorknob. He didn’t knock; he just twisted, and Leon felt the wards in the safehouse open to him, followed moments later by the door itself.
Smiling like he’d just won some kind of lottery, Tion Bey stepped inside, letting the door shut behind him.
“What a spectacular storm you lot have stirred up,” he said. His eyes landed on Justin first, deep and penetrating, with a hint of disappointment. Then, he turned to Maemon. “Running as fast as you can, I see.”
“Running? I’m sitting as fast as I can, as you can damn well see,” Maemon retorted hotly.
Tion Bey afforded him a single chuckle. “You know what I meant. If you’re here, then you’re trying to get out of the city. One sign of trouble, and you’re looking to just cut and run. It’s pathetic.”
“Tion,” Justin interjected, “what are you doing here?”
The guard commanded rolled his eyes. “Do you remember the conditions I gave you to help you, Justin?”
“How could I forget? You repeated them often enough…”
“Yes, I did. And yet, you still brought so much trouble to this city. I imagined that there’d be some trouble, of course, but the initial estimates for the night’s death toll are in the thousands. There will be… consequences for this.”
“We’ll be gone before they fall,” Justin confidently insisted.
A shallow smile played at Tion Bey’s lips. “So you say.” He took a few steps toward Justin, his eighth-tier aura coiling like a serpent preparing to strike. Leon let his power flow through his body, preparing himself to fight, just in case.
“Listen, Jack,” Tion said, his tone hardening and his gaze turning accusative, “you have dumped a tremendous amount of trouble on me. I have sheltered you because you were a friend, and you’ve been good to me. But Lord Kamran himself getting involved in these matters… is making me feel rather nervous.”
“Nervous,” Justin spat. “About what?” He didn’t back down as Tion took another step toward him. Tion Bey was only eighth-tier, and Justin had reached the tenth, and he didn’t have much to fear from the man who looked old enough to be his father.
“About my own role, small though it was, in these events,” Tion Bey explained.
“You accuse me of running when you’re here to do the same thing?” Maemon asked, his tone acidic.
“I am no coward,” Tion Bey said calmly. “I can conceal myself well. But… to do so requires a certain amount of… resources. It will be a great expense, and since you are the one who got me into this mess in the first place… well, surely you’ll help a friend out, won’t you? To a man like you, something to keep me happy and… quiet would surely be worth giving, wouldn’t you say?”
Justin’s glare could’ve frozen an erupting volcano. If their situation wasn’t quite as dire as it was, Leon wondered if he would’ve cut Tion down right there. But through clenched teeth, Justin asked, “A ‘gift’, then? What kind of ‘gift’ are you looking for?”
Tion Bey’s toothy smile would’ve put a crocodile’s many-fanged maw to shame. “A man who brings storm crystal to give tribute to a Lord would surely have a few more crystals to spare, wouldn’t he? A little something for his friends, to keep them cool when other Lords start throwing lightning bolts at each other, right?”
Justin’s mouth bent downwards like the arms of a drawn bow. “You were paid already. And why would you assume that what was brought to give to Kamran as tribute hasn’t already been given?”
“I hope it hasn’t all been given,” Tion Bey said with such a sweet tone that Leon was almost shocked that honey wasn’t spilling from his lips. “If I have to walk out of this safehouse—I have, obviously, made arrangements should I fail to walk out of this safehouse—without a significant number of storm crystals, then I can’t protect you from Kamran, my friend.”
“A mage of your power is hardly able to protect anyone from Kamran,” Justin observed.
“Words are often more useful than raw magical might,” Tion Bey countered. “Justin. How much is this worth to you? Are you seriously begrudging me a few small crystals after the chaos you’ve thrown this city into? After the streets were dyed red with blood after whatever little thing you did in the palace culminated?” Tion stepped forward again, this time almost pressing his forehead against Justin’s brow. “How much is this worth to you, Justin? How much is a way out of this city worth to you?”
Rolling his eyes, Justin said, “If you have a way out, you’d have used it already.”
“You have a low opinion of me. I don’t blame you for it, but it’s something you should acknowledge and work to correct.”
“I won’t be correcting anything,” Justin said. “You won’t be getting anything from me. You have already been paid, and I will not be extorted.”
“‘Extorted’ is such an ugly word,” Tion Bey said as Leon felt the man’s magic curling around his fingers. He was getting ready to summon something, and in anticipation, Leon let his power rip through him, ensuring that every muscle he had in his body was energized and ready for quick movement. “But ‘gift’ is not, isn’t it? And given what I know…”
Justin stole a look at Leon, and Leon shook his head slowly. He didn’t want Justin to give this man anything.
“If you’d come to us requesting help,” Justin eventually said, “then I’m sure we would have rendered it, as we have aided Maemon. But for your demands, you will get nothing.”
“That’s a damn shame,” Tion Bey said as he slowly, contemptuously, turned his back to Justin and started strutting back to the door. “Then I have no choice but to—”
The guard captain halted, a nightmarish groan of pain breaking through his moving lips and set jaw. He had just enough time to look down at Iron Pride sticking out of his chest and to realize what just happened before Leon obliterated his heart, killing him instantly.
With a flick of his wrist, Tion Bey flew off of Iron Pride, landing in a bloody heap in a corner. It was over so quickly that Justin barely had time to blink, and Tion Bey was gone.
“Shit!” Maemon shouted as he jerked away hard enough to fall out of his chair.
Justin’s reaction was no less potent, though less comedic. He reeled, as if he were the one struck rather than Tion Bey.
Silence settled over the safehouse as the two pre-Apotheosis mages stared at Leon, while Cassandra and the Paladins looked not at all surprised.
“If you hadn’t done so, I would’ve,” Alcander stated. “I still have to make up for falling to that damned golem.”
“Damn it,” Justin whispered, hardly even acknowledging what Alcander just said. He crouched down beside Tion Bey’s cooling corpse, his face pale, his hands shaking, and asked no one in particular, “What… what now…?”
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