Elinor stared into the flames.

  Each lick of fire spewed forth from her fingertips without pain, without feeling, without sensation. The fire could not touch her. But it could touch the monsters that the Council drew up from the south.

  The greyback screamed through three mouths that opened up on its thorax simply for the occasion, its many legs trembling, straightening, then curling up as the flames dealt their damage.

  As the experience notifications came in, Elinor’s eyes glazed over. She’d never thought burning could feel this good. She had never intended to specialise in these magicks, and in fact her formative years in this world were spent levelling up only Baking and Enchantment skills. But with the latter came an affinity for spellwork, and soon Tana had come knocking upon her door.

  She had decidedly not been a woman who had invested exclusively in crafting skills. Though not the tallest nor the brawniest woman that Elinor had ever seen, Tana was certainly intimidating. It was an ineffable trait, and certainly not one rooted in physical characteristics. Perhaps it was the way she carried herself, the way she handled that ornate sword as though it was nothing more than a child’s plaything. And it was the way she’d held her head so high as she’d explained what her Council intended to do to this world.

  It was a handful of locals—creatures formed of the magicks of Elinor’s homeworld—that the fire sorcerer had to thank. Were it not for this team of so-called Slayers, Elinor would never have been recruited to the Council. They had killed her predecessor, a man vital to Tana’s great plan, forcing the Council to find another.

  In the year since Tana had knocked on Elinor’s door, the woman with burning hands had closed down her bakery, headed south, and learned to love the flame. Fire was insidious in its yearning for adoration. Elinor had thought nothing of it, in those early days; she had burned because she had needed to burn, to build up that experience for the day the towers would be activated. But more and more… she had found herself burning for the simple joy of it. Elinor had told herself that she created fire because she had promised Tana that she would, but she knew—not very deep down at all, really—that she burned because she enjoyed the burn.

  She enjoyed the hiss of flame against flesh.

  She enjoyed the smell of ash and charcoal.

  She enjoyed the light, flickering before her.

  And through this newfound passion, she had found her strength. Elinor had a lot to be grateful for.

  It was a shame that the locals thought she was responsible for so many of their number growing missing. If they knew the truth, they would see that more would have disappeared without her interference—there would have been more of these monsters drawn towards the north, more of these monsters to snack along the way. It was of little consequence, though. In the end, when the ritual was complete and the magicks were drained from this world, there would be nobody left to detest her.

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  That time would soon be upon her, and Elinor was not yet strong enough to do her part. Not yet. She would be, no matter the cost. She owed that to Tana, after what that woman had done for her. Elinor would just keep working—day and night, should it come to that.

  The fire sorcerer reached down into her robe’s capacious pocket, pulling from it a smooth grey stone. When the Council had first gifted it to Elinor, she had sensed it had properties of magick, but it was only now that she was strong that she could feel those magicks. The flow of energies drifted amongst her own, brushing her own coursing magicks gently aside, like a breeze through hair.

  Elinor almost didn’t need to look at the locator stone to know where it would point her, though she did anyway; there was no reason to slow her progress through being too proud to look. Green energies drifted upon the polished surface of the stone, gesturing her to the east. If she headed that way, sooner or later, she would come across more enemies to burn.

  The sorcerer could almost see the flames.

  * * *

  The smoking ashes before Elinor had once been a horde of hags. The sorcerer had never seen—or heard of—so many hags as she’d encountered over the past few months. These monsters, above all else, seemed drawn to the preparations in Auricia, the magicks there affecting the hags so much that the typically solitary creatures even travelled in packs. Had this been more than a small group, Elinor might have even had trouble, but as it was, little could withstand the flames. She told herself she would only stare into the ashes for a moment, enjoy this for only a second before she moved on to the next kill, to the next source of experience. But the sun seemed to rise oh-so quickly in that night sky, and the—

  ‘Elinor.’

  The sorcerer jumped at the sound of her name, her heart skipping a beat. She wondered at first how someone could have crept up on her so easily, before she realised exactly who it was. It was a Council member that she’d met only once more, but once was enough. Tana’s assassin sent a chill down her spine more than anyone else Elinor had met.

  ‘Cleo,’ the woman explained. ‘We’ve met before.’

  ‘I remember.’ Elinor had to force herself to hold the woman’s gaze. ‘Is it time?’

  The assassin stared back, her eyes unremarkable except for the fact that they made Elinor feel queasy. ‘Not yet. Soon. I’ve come here to warn you; the Slayers have set a trap for you in the farmhouse.’

  The sorcerer counted to three before replying, forcing herself into the calm state that her position deserved. The gods did not fear their creations. Tana had told her that. ‘The ones who—’

  ‘Killed Jacob. Yes.’

  ‘Then I won’t return. I’ll head northeast; Dunn has said the incursions around Tradum are becoming unsustainable anyway. I can lend a hand there.’

  ‘No.’ The woman said nothing more, her eyes daring Elinor to ask the obvious question.

  Elinor relented. ‘No? You want me to spring the trap?’

  ‘I have been following my—’ The sorcerer saw something flash behind the assassin’s eyes there. Had Cleo been about to mispeak? To reveal something that only the more senior members of the Council should know? ‘I’ve been following the Slayers for a few months now. I have been keeping our number out of their paths. But with more and more eyes and ears converting to their cause, this is becoming an impossible task. Besides, there is work to be done beyond handling the Slayers.’

  Elinor held the woman’s gaze, following her logic to its termination. ‘I spring the trap, keep them distracted, and then you handle them. Is that it?’

  The assassin said nothing, eventually deigning a response in the form of a nod.

  ‘You’ll kill them?’ Elinor asked, pressing the issue.

  ‘Perhaps.’ It was all the answer the sorcerer would get.