My work was not yet done. Samyia refused to sleep. Iris would stay the night with her.
So, I told her stories from back ho. I weaved a tale of what a city of tal and glass was like. Iris listened as eagerly as the young girl.
I don’t count myself as much of a storyteller, but the strangeness of my words and the vagueness of their aning caught their attention. Too long did I talk and hold their mind.
The young one could only fight so long before dreams took her. Ones involving planes and rockets that may to her mind have looked like boats sailing across the sea. She slept.
Everyone wished her a goodnight. Morgana gave her a goodnight kiss. I felt I should do the sa, but didn’t feel comfortable doing so. I held back and whispered a soft, "Goodnight."
Morgana worked and so left with eyes burning with ambition. I had to respect her productivity. It was so unlike myself, yet admirable. She really did have leadership qualities.
, I’d cured a person with as much effort as it took to cook noodles in the microwave. I’d also helped commit our strategy. No, I was definitely more like mold than a mber of this society, at least that is how I viewed myself. A lazy sloth compared to Morgana’s busy bee.
I slept with Umbra that night. Resting my head on her warm chest and nestling my face between her small, soft mounds.
I had to protect this, her, them all. Umbra warm in my eyes; my seed and her nectar spilling out from between her legs. Morgana’s aspirations, Iris’ dreams and Samiya’s childhood. Byrette and Tulisa’s work and place to belong. We had a place here in Elkilbour, however, temporary.
A family you might call it. A group or clan Penmagi. I don’t care the na. It was the big question and answer. The people who I felt at ho with, and I wasn’t quite there yet. But it involved these people, for now and perhaps for a long ti, though it may change
Knowing that these Unseelie in the shadows might hurt Samiya or Iris stiffened my resolve. Maybe they already have? Were they behind the attack on the Druids? I had thought it was Roman plot. I wasn’t sure anymore.
One enemy was too much, and now two striking possibly at the sa ti. The situation had gotten a lot more complicated and I wasn’t sure how to start. But, I was sure that we should strike back.
I heard him, but I saw him. Superhuman hearing has its advantages. Slled him, like dirt, his odour suggested.
They knew my control over tal. His weapon was a stake. What am I? A vampire?
Lying next to a beauty who clung to my chest like I’d enthralled her, a reclusive stranger and wielding almighty magic. I could understand the mistake. My bad.
Regardless of whether we chose fight or flight, we’re being attacked by assassins. I wasn’t living in a ga and this fool was no hooded anti-hero. This person intended our murder.
It took less than a twitch to wrap a collar of tal around his throat. It took a Maradon or Mars to make struggle in combat. Not so scum.
I gently pulled Umbra’s arm off my chest. I spooned her and she had a way of emboldening my masculinity with her seemingly frail form. It was like I was comforting a teddy bear as a lover that night. One who happened to be cursed.
She moaned, but did not stir. I parted her cascading locks from her sealed eyes. She didn’t need to be disturbed. Not by an unimportant event like this. Our ho wasn’t on fire and she was safe. I didn’t want to give the evil eye any chance to awaken... any opportunity to take over.
After I took care of the fool, I would secure the rest of my people.
I dragged him, my hand raised the palm facing the roof and my fingers bent inwards towards the palm like the legs of a dead spider. I manipulated the tal collar to pull him out of my temporary ho.
He clawed at his neck for relief and air with his legs kicking helpless. I lifted him through the air and he bore an uncanny resemblance to a drowning victim.
A red, boiling anger bubbled beneath my steely expression. Veins popping and muscles tensed the coursing adrenaline prid for violence.
Seeing red and eager to draw blood, I gnashed at the binds, those tricky moral qualms and doubts, pricking at to not make my visions of red real.
I wanted revenge. I wanted to know their big plan and interrogate them for all their intel. But, I had one overriding concern.
I opened the collar so he could breathe.
"Who else is being attacked?" I asked and he hesitated.
He moved to scream, but I shut the collar again.
"Tell . Lie and you will endure the most horrible agony possible. I swear it on the promise that is , The Sorcerer of Tomorrow." I warned him.
I let him speak.
"I tell you nothing."
I shut him up and I sent jolts of burning fire across every fibre of his skin. He would scream if he could, but I had him imprisoned. I was the authority and from it cruelty. Righteous cause fired with conviction to act.
"Tell ."
I let him speak.
"I can’t."
I shoved tal down his throat like a fist where the knuckles tickled the back of the neck.
I said into his ear, my face as pained as his from my action, "Then you suffer."
I pulled his guts out from his stomach.
Tears poured from his eyes, drenched in sweat and soaked in his own piss. He stank of shit. Broken.
I’m no torturer.
He died.
Shock perhaps, but I felt it and died with him. A part of at least. It was sothing else to feel soone die. I’d had the power. I was alone and with no excuse for self defence he was already captured.
Feeling the warmth leave his body, it occurred to that perhaps there had been another way. I had not the ego to deny that not only had there been another way, but perhaps better ways.
No one needed to know. Let my bloodlust drenched sha be a secret from anyone. I buried him into the fires of the core of the planet. I’d doubt his remains made it far down untouched.
Flickers of warmly telling stories died, and a cold conviction solidified. I marched over to check on Samiya and Iris. Morgana could protect herself. Tulisa, etc were a lower priority. A cold calculation, but such had my life beco.
My eyes glowed blue like bright torchlights mixing with the gentle green glow of the tunnels. I hardly looked to be the villain wearing what with my scant clothing and haloed by the light of saturated teal.
The assassin on look out spotted .
He should have scread for help. A trained spotter would have.
He charged swinging a stone headed axe. The stone cracked and crumbled on impact with my bicep. The wooden handle shattering.
I placed my one hand full of fingers and a thumb onto his face. I pulled the tiny tals from his body out of him leaving a dead corpse to flop to the floor in my wake.
I swivelled my head and checked the surroundings. No one. I rushed for Iris and Samiya. Fear screaming that they were in danger.
I barged into their ho.
I saw him. A handso young man licking his lips. He was over Tulisa, not Iris, her clothes ripped and his intentions clear. Samiya hid out of sight, but I felt her safe by detecting her magic.
I snapped my fingers and teleported the would-be rapist. Unsuccessful different parts of his body popped out across the planet and space.
I bent down and lowered a hand to Tulisa. I made sure to keep looking steadily into her eyes. I was there.
She was looking away. Side-eyed and tears welling from terror and I suspect sha. How wrong it is of us to make the survivor feel sha for the violence of the assaulter.
Luckily, I had stopped him before he could do anything sexual. Not quick enough to have stopped the assault or the tearing of his nightclothes.
"I’m here. Tulisa. I’m here now. No one is going to hurt you. I promise."
She leapt into my arms and sobbed into my shoulder.
I patted her head, stroking her hair and repeating that I was here.
"You can co up, Samiya."
The little girl poked out from the shadows.
"I didn’t know what to do. I hid." She apologised.
"Good. You stayed safe. It’s my job to protect yous. Your job to stay safe. You did good."
She grasped and held onto my hand.
"Tulisa. You might be scared. Can you stay and look after Samiya?"
"You’re leaving?" They both said.
"There are more of them out there. More people need my help."
"They might co back."
"I’ll place a wall of safety over you both."
Tulisa’s face set into stone, "I’ll do it." Her face crumpled and creased, "You kept us safe. So, I can look after Samiya."
She tried. She tried for . She tried for Samiya. A child not her own whom she was asked to look after, and a responsibility she bore even after trauma. In my mind trying alone made her amazing, but confronting the terror of being stranded made her a hero.
Smiling, one that hung without tension, I told her, "You’ll be a great mother one day, Tulisa."
She cried at that, but they were happy tears I think.
"I’ve got to go. I swear that I’ll ca back soon."
"We’ll be alright. Sorcerer never lies. He’s always be true. We’re safe."
"I hate it still." Samiya said sincerely and far too grown up for a child to be so wise. Brave, little girl. One day I’ll make you a safe ho.
I left without replying and felt my heart tear at leaving them.
Where was Iris? Fear, confusion and anxiety stopped from taking the smartest course. I should have searched for her magically. I wasn’t thinking well.
So, I walked on and ca across another one.
"Sorcerer! He’s alive!"
This one, she was smarter.
Gritting my teeth I spartan kicked her. She flew into the tunnel wall smashing into chunks of flesh and sprays of blood.
I forget sotis how much my sheer strength had leaped through my magical enchantnts
I drew the tal from the remains and now ford a tiny ball for an impoverished long range weapon. One that was relatively quiet and hidden.
Two ca rushing from the shadows ahead of .
I threw a ball of tal through the throat of the one far away with my left hand. Puff of blood and a falling body showed them to be dead. Using my right hand, I pulled the spinal cord out of the throat of the nearest assassin. The fall of blood and failing hands ca before the fall.
A stone axe bounced harmlessly off my back. The desperate attacker at my back had thrown and ran away. I pulled the tal ball towards and then past and straight through the heart of my would-be killer.
I continued my course to Morgana’s room. Passing by Rebecca’s she ca up coated with blood.
Before I could ask she said, "I’m fine."
I nodded, "Morgana and Iris are next to check on."
"You want help."
I shook my head, "You’ll help by staying safe."
She bowed, "As you command."
I marched down the tunnels. They sohow heard first this ti.
"He’s coming!"
"Run!"
"No one escapes!" I called.
They were a group of four.
I killed them all.
More of them, further back, ran away
"He’s unstoppable!"
They ran straight into Tara who cut them down like they were wheels of cheese.
She ca up to , "We are under attack."
"No shit."
"Lady Morgana, Iris Bryette are secure. I don’t know who else." She reported
My shoulders dropped and I let out a relieved sigh.
"Everyone else is safe. I’ve checked on them." I replied.
"Very good. Know who it was?"
"No."
Iris and Morgana walked towards us, the latter said, "Unseelie. I extracted the information from one of my attackers."
"Does this an it is Unseelie who has been behind all the attacks?" Tara asked.
"No, we have two enemies and both can strike us. I am more surprised that the Unseelie could sneak into the heart of the Circle of the Druids and raise no alarms despite the fact you have been slaughtering them."
"It is strange."
"Where is Samiya?"
"In her room, where I thought you would be?" I replied.
"Tulisa said she would take over after Samiya was asleep. I was joining Morgana and Byrette." Iris explained.
"Fair, but I think she would appreciate your company."
She nodded, "If I had known."
I shook my head, "None of us knew. Just maybe tell where you’re spending the night. You knew my plans."
"You’re right. I’ll go see Samyia. Stay safe everyone." Iris said and went off at a fast jog.
Then Donna ca running towards us.
She was set with sweat and eyes wide with fear.
"What’s happened?" I asked, I was not exactly ready for another crisis.
"Romans are breaching the walls. We need your help."
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