I waited. And I waited ...
... And then something brushed against the wards.
Chapter Seven
I was alert, instantly.
The touch was practiced, very much so. It was just firm enough to feel out the wards without actually setting off any alarms. It would have worked perfectly if I hadn’t modified the wards myself. I stayed very still, content to watch as my unseen opponent worked his way through the wards. He was very experienced, I noted absently. His wardcracking skills were the equal of mine. I’d feared I might accidentally scare him off, either by making it too easy or too hard to break the wards, but he was good enough not to be deterred. I watched and waited, silently counting down the seconds. My opponent was a very skilled magician.
Magic wafted through the wards, a soothing and sleeping spell that had no place in a straight fight. I had to smile in genuine admiration. Only one magician had managed to slip a sleep spell through their opponent’s defences and hammer it into place, at least as far as I knew. It didn’t take a strong magician to throw off the spell, merely one with enough awareness to realise what was happening and bite one’s lip before it was too late. But here ... the spell was practically part of the ward network. There were no warning signs, nothing to indicate that the wards were under attack. Everyone asleep would remain asleep until morning, whatever happened. They’d wake to find Juliana and Gabby gone.
Or so he thinks, I reflected. The wards were starting to open, as if the intruder had hacked the spellwork and keyed himself to the wards. He didn’t put me to sleep.
I inched forward, hiding behind an invisibility charm. My opponent was vastly more professional than the town guardsmen. He certainly wasn’t taking any chances. He’d wrapped himself in an obscurification charm, ensuring that anyone who saw him would think the slight moment was just a trick of the light. I would have been more impressed if he hadn’t been trying to kidnap a young woman and her child. He deserved every last moment of the beating I was about to give him.
He moved towards the caravan, parsing out the wards. I studied him back. He didn’t appear to be that powerful, although it was hard to be sure. He was clearly highly-skilled, with the sort of experience that could have - should have - found him a job almost anywhere. My eyes narrowed. There had to be a reason he hadn’t found a more honest line of work. Anyone willing to kidnap children from their beds was clearly a monster beyond redemption. Did he have tastes forbidden even to sorcerers? Or ...
I slipped out from under the caravan and hurled myself forward. His shadowed form seemed to jump back as he sensed me barrelling at him, too late. I crashed into him, grabbed hold and teleported us both outside the town. The forest appeared around us, trees lit up by the light of the teleport for a long moment before it flickered and died. His magic lashed out at me, trying desperately to crack my defences before it was too late. I’d caught him by surprise. He’d need to refocus his magic if he wanted to escape and he didn’t have time. I wasn’t going to give him any.
He bit off a word in one of the older tongues, languages the empire had tried to suppress before it met its untimely doom, then jabbed a finger at me. The curse was surprisingly weak, designed to worm its way through my protections rather than crack them outright. I squashed it with a thought, wiping the curse from existence. It was overkill - massive overkill - but it served a purpose. If he realised he was facing an immensely powerful opponent, he might just surrender.
A force punch slammed into my wards. Surrender was clearly not what he had in mind. The punch itself was harmless - it would have crippled a mundane - but he’d used the spell to distract attention from two smaller charms trying to sneak through my protections. It was impressive, I supposed, as I destroyed them both. My brothers and I had spent years sharpening our magics in endless duels - loser had to do everyone’s chores for a week - and we were good, very good. My opponent might be skilled, but he lacked the raw power to be a threat.
I could have drawn it out, but I didn’t have time. I lifted my hand, channelling a wave of raw power. He was picked up and thrown to the ground, magic sparking around him as it was redirected by my spells. He was still fighting - I felt his desperate attempts to get something, anything, through my wards - but his power was draining so rapidly his spells were fading into nothingness. The haze around his face blurred, then snapped out of existence. I found myself staring down at a completely unfamiliar face.
He looked back at me, fearfully. I said nothing, taking the time to study him carefully. His brown skin and dark eyes might mark him as a member of House Sejanus, but might likely not. He’d shaved his hair off, something that house regarded as a mortal sin. My eyes roamed over what little I could see of his bare skin. He wasn’t used to manual labour, I figured; his hands didn’t bear the scars of a childhood spent behind a plough or working in the fields. I guessed he was a merchant’s son, perhaps even the bastard child of a magical family. The latter was unlikely. He had real talent. Any family with half a brain would be happy to overlook his origins in exchange for his services.
“We can do this the easy way or the fun way,” I told him.
