Chapter 27: - Gazes and Graves

  All eyes were on Ksenija and she had to resist the urge not to flee from them. She first had to recognise that they were not hostile gazes but friendly ones, awed ones in fact. That was odd, she’d never been looked at with awe before, and certainly not by this many people, certainly not by these types of people.

  It seems that old hag knew what she was doing after all. Ksenija considered that she may have perhaps judged Miss Dragunova too harshly, then decided that she hadn’t. The woman was a cunt. A cunt with style and taste, and hands made out of magic, but a cunt nonetheless.

  She pulled her eyes away from the people and set them to the room. It was beautiful; really, really beautiful. So beautiful that Ksenija did not have the words to describe it, so beautiful that she knew that from this very day on she would compare every place she entered to this ball and find them all lacking.

  A well dressed man approached her with a tray in hand, leaned down and offered her a cake sat upon it. “Compliments of the Republic Miss,” he smiled affably but did not meet her eyes directly—as if she were the wife of a Governor and he her servant.

  Ksenija smiled politely and hesitantly took the cake. She took a bite and instantly knew what heaven tasted like. She grinned, then grinned wider, and ate, and ate, and ate, and then the damn thing was gone. She needed more, more, now.

  Ksenija searched for the man and found three girls in front of her instead. They were dressed beautifully but looked at her with frayed nerves and shuffling feet. They’re nervous…they’re nervous to talk to me. Again, another odd feeling, quite, quite odd in fact.

  “Hi, I’m Yelena,” one said. She was the tallest, perhaps the oldest and the least nervous. “Y-you look amazing by the way!” she smiled brightly, shakily, and expectantly.

  Ksenija felt herself fluster at the girl’s words, and a sudden realization hit her: though she was currently surrounded by upper-class girls, for the first time ever, she was the one with power here. Memories flashed of her few encounters with girls like these—the best were the ones where she was barely even noticed by them; the worst ones were when they seemed affronted at being assailed with her presence. Now was her chance to get back at them—her chance to make them know how it felt to be treated as beneath a person they admired. No, she wouldn’t. She was better than them, better than that. She gave them what she always had wanted back from them—respect. “Thank you,” Ksenija smiled. “You three look amazing as well,” she extended a hand. “I’m Ksenija, Ksenija Lyubushkina,” she smiled warmly.

  All three girl’s eyes widened with a shock, and the moment Ksenija had realised what she’d done wrong, it was already too late. Yelena burst out laughing. “D-do you actually talk like that?!” she asked, breathless. “Oh my, I thought you were a—forgive me,” she laughed harder, and the girls joined her this time.

  Ksenija was smarter than these girls by half and more; she knew she could have cut them to pieces with her tongue but doubted they’d even hear her over the sounds of their own laughter. Her brains were no match for the world’s stupidity, never had been.

  Her hands vibrated, a lump rose in the back of her throat, she felt her eyes begin to wet. And then something slammed into the girls, softly, gently, but violently enough to pour the new arrival’s chocolate drink all over Yelena’s dress.

  The girl screeched like a nosferatu cast in sunlight. “Zcigmagus! What have you done!” she rounded on the offender like a viper. “You’ve ruined my dress, you damned—”

  “—My sincere apologies,” the stranger interrupted. “I will ensure my Father, General Volkov, pays for the damages.” And Ksenija saw now that it was Navtej, wearing an easily-seen-through look of anguish.

  Yelena could see through it as well, but the Volkov name had halted her tantuming rage and turned it into an impotent fury. The girls behind her were silent as ghosts, scattering now, and Ksenija watched as Yelena made her way over to an adult couple—her parents perhaps—and began crying. From this far away she couldn’t hear what was being said. All she saw was the cunt pointing at Navtej and her parents looking apologetic at their inability to take any action.

  Ksenija couldn’t help but grin ever so slightly at the sight. She rarely got to see justice being done, so she appreciated a novel thing while she could. She pulled her eyes away and towards Navtej. “You didn’t have to do that,” she told him, still smiling.

  Navtej met her eyes with raw warmth. “Oh, but I did.”

  ###

  Death was everywhere. Sasha could not be its victim, so she would be its herald.

  The Sorcerers came with angry magic spitting out of ringed fingers, and she met their energies with fire. Stream! She roared, and orange fury lurched out of her palm, turning a row of people into charred corpses and leaving the air pungent with the smell of burnt meat.

  It was a familiar scent, one she’d both woken up and slept to, one she’d once thought she’d left behind. But she could never leave it behind, it would never let her.

  The world seemed to slow to a stop as she killed the men, not just for her, but for all on the battlefield—the sight of a Sixty-sixth tended to do that. Sasha knew what was coming next, braced herself for it, and met it head on.

  The Sorceres raced at her, palms splayed, magic flying—she’d made herself a priority target, and all Voin wanted to be the one to claim the glory of slaying an elite Mage on the battlefield.

  Sasha dodged the magics she could, took the brunt of the many she couldn’t and felt her flesh and bone strain under the combined efforts of the Sorcerers. She stumbled back, dug her heels in, and felt the stone ground give way as the magic pushed her further and further back.

  Contrary to popular belief, Sorcerers and Mages really were no different from one another. The average Voin Soldier might say Sorcerers lacked spirit and the average Deputy might say they only held only low cunning. But Mages, true Mages, who had met Sorcerers in the battlefield knew that there truly was nothing closer to [Mage] than [Sorcerer]. Which meant Sasha needed only count. ….Five, four, three, two, one.

  The attack ceased, the magic in the enemy’s palms died, and before they could master themselves and regather the arcane along their fingers once more, Sasha burst into action. “Wave!” she growled her spell, clasped her palms together and watched as an infernal tide washed over the enemy, enveloping them completely, and burning them to ash. Or at least Sasha hoped that was the case.

  She did not get to see the outcome of her attack before something in the corner of her eyes caught her attention. Sasha leapt backwards, ducked a blow, and caught a cyan bolt to the chest a moment later. It took her off her feet, she clipped a building, took a chunk off it with the impact and rolled when she hit the ground.

  Sasha scrambled to her feet, coughing and feeling every fibre of her being burn as she did. In front of her was a Sorcerer—lean, tall, and with a goatee. “Women Mages, the republic must be getting desperate,” he hummed—tongue noble, eyes vicious.

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  Sasha did not know his magnitude, but she knew it was greater than hers by a measure that left his victory doubtless… in his own mind. Behind him Sorcerers flooded through the gates, many made new breaches in the walls, the City was straining against the tide.

  And Sasha could not help, not without ridding herself of this Sorcerer first.

  Sasha weighed her options and decided a fight was best. It was as good as signing her own death warrant, but she had very few options.

  The Sorcerer raised ringed fingers and bolts of blue spat out of his palm. A Force Sorcerer, and judging by the speed of those projectiles, certainly not a weak one. Sasha braced herself, covered her body, and felt each impact rattle her teeth.

  The man moved at her and she sent an arc of fire his way. He tried to dodge, failed, the fire clipped him, sent him stumbling, but didn’t halt his momentum completely. He met Sasha with a fist to the face, and the difference in strength was clear.

  She saw stars, stumbled, and felt something hard hit her in the stomach. Sasha spat fire blindly, heard the man roar as it clipped him, opened her eyes to see him stumbling back, body alight with flames, moved in to attack and was sent to the floor with a cruel fist to the liver.

  Sasha met the ground palm-first, then the Sorcerer’s knee slammed into her face. Sasha felt her nose crunch under the impact and went reeling. She saw the Sorcerer splay his palms out once more, but only felt the impact of what hit her next. Again her feet left the ground, again she landed in a heap.

  Sasha began crawling to her feet once more, but it was a laboured thing, not fast enough, not for the heat of battle, and not when her opponent was charging a vicious blue magic above his palm. The Sorcerer aimed his palm at her head, Sasha’s vision was still spinning. She couldn’t dodge, she couldn’t run, all she could do was wait for oblivion.

  But it never came.

  Lightning crackled through the air hotly and slammed into the Sorcerer from one side. It took him off his feet, but the enemy landed skidding rather than falling on his back.

  Sasha’s eyes flicked over to Governor Viktor Kudrin—eyes burning with heat, one good arm outstretched for violence. To take a Mage’s arm away was to cripple them, leave their spells less than half as effective as before, but he was still [Mage], and nothing could take that away. Especially not from Viktor Kudrin, a man who once commanded the wrath of the Eighty-Fifth Magnitude.

  A stream of lightning spat out of his palm, the Sorcerer met it with a line of cyan. The pair struggled for but only a moment, the Sorcerer was winning the contest—Viktor Kudrin now perhaps only as powerful as Sasha was. That put him at a clear disadvantage against his opponent, but the Sorcerer wasn’t just fighting the General.

  Sasha sprang into action. She grabbed a rock, Erupt! Threw it at the enemy and willed it to explode into a conflagration of fire in his face. The Sorcerer stumbled back at the attack, magic shooting wide and lightning meeting him in the chest.

  He took to the air from the impact and Sasha’s flame caught him before he could land, slamming into the Sorcerer and smashing him through the air. He landed harshly, tried to scramble up to his feet, but the Governor was upon him within moments—Sasha the next.

  Together they descended in wordless synchronicity, not because they had served together, but because to [Mage] was to know how to depend on your allies. Lighting and Fire merged into bright conflagrations, striking the man from every which way he could be stricken.

  He roared, he screamed, he cried, he begged, and Sasha didn’t know when he died; she just realised that she was burning a corpse and stopped doing so.

  She was panting when it was done, her breath visible and hot in the air, the tip of her fingers burning with exertion. She knew there’d be scars from this battle, another mark that she was a conjurer of the flames. Sasha turned to Kudrin. “Thank you.”

  He barely seemed to register her words. “Still no sign of the King?”

  “No sign of him, sir.” She told him.

  He clenched his jaw. “No sign of Ludwig either,” he growled. From the way he said it, Sasha almost thought it was bad news. And then she realised it was.

  “Fuck, he’s planning a breach from somewhere else.” The realization filled her with dread. Sasha began heading deeper into the city. “I’ll try to find out where, report to you when I have something.”

  “No.” The Governor shook his head. “You’re to stay here, the both of us are staying here,” he said, and Sasha looked behind him and to the wall, where more and more Sorcerers flooded through, breaking lines of Mages, and carving their way deeper into the city. Unpinned by the constant artillery blasts, they were able to bring sheer numbers to bear and winning easily. “We need all the elites we can spare on this section of the wall. Otherwise the city falls.”

  Sasha wanted to argue, but knew that would just waste breath and lives. She met the man’s eyes with a nod, coiled the flames around her palms, and charged back into the carnage.

  All while knowing that something was terribly wrong.

  ###

  “They’re late…” Maksim said.

  “But they’re here, and that’s what matters,” Ksenija replied.

  She was standing in a long-abandoned warehouse, at the opposite side from where much of the city’s fighting was happening.

  In the middle of the building was a hole with a ladder in it, and out of that hole climbed out Voin men—Sorcerers to be exact. Though most of the old tunnel systems of Snegovetska had been collapsed, either on purpose or by the weathers of time, once Ksenija had found one that was still in reasonably good condition, it had not been hard making the adjustments needed to ensure it was usable.

  Finally, once all the Sorcerers had emerged, the man himself decided to make his entrance. Duke Ludwig—the titan of a man that he was—barely managed to squeeze himself through the hole without using Sorcery to break through the earth. That, however, did not ruin his good mood.

  There were three dozen Mages around him—practically guaranteeing him the city once he attacked from behind enemy lines. If combined with Ksenija’s dozen men, that made it an effortless victory. But he had not paid her to help him take it, so she would waste no men or blood aiding him.

  He set happy eyes on Ksenija and walked over to her. “Your low cunning has bore fruit, Woman!” Duke Ludwig ‘praised,’ and Ksenija spat on his boot.

  “Payment,” she demanded.

  He did not look pleased, but snapped his fingers and ordered his men to bring her the bags of zlakta. Ksenija and her men counted it, all seventy thousand of them, and only when she was certain they were all there did she begin to make her way for the hole. “Nice doing business with you.”

  “You would have made more if you joined us in the fighting,” the Duke said, voice trying to be enticing.

  “Not a huge fan of killing children, sorry,” Ksenija told him and kept on walking.

  “You should hear what I have planned for the King,” Ludwig hummed.

  “I really shouldn’t,” Ksenija kept her eyes forwards, and buried the stupid impulses that threatened to rise. Exia would, she knew, be fine. People like him didn’t die—they were too important. He’d either be smuggled out or simply fuck off from the city, and be nowhere to find by the time Ludwig went looking.

  Ludwig laughed. “Such a woman!” He thought her just squeamish, which would have been good if Ludwig wasn’t the type of man to poke at perceived wounds. “When I have broken the spirit of this city, I am going to find the boy King, and break his body, break his soul, and finally I am going to take him home.”

  Ksenija stopped at the hole, looked at the ladder, and turned to Ludwig. “Just stop Duke. Just stop,” she suggested, for his own good, and for her own good too. “Have your city, have your fun. I don’t need to hear a word of any of it.” All she needed him to do was heed her words, turn around, leave, and make Snegovetska his.

  Instead, the Duke laughed, and so did his men. “I haven’t even gotten to the best part. Where I take him home, and make a woman out of Bessmertnyy’s King. I’ve been waiting for years to do this, girl, years. I will not be denied now. If I have to end this campaign and chase him across the country, the King of Besmertnyy will be my whore.”

  Well there it was then, Exia was in danger. Ksenija drew in a breath. She knew he wasn’t going to listen. She should have just walked away when she had the chance, or pretended to be uncaring of the matter in the first place. She knew he’d continue, she knew it the moment he’d begun. And yet she asked him not to. Why?

  “You really, really shouldn’t have said that.”

  Duke Ludwig grinned wider now. “Why? Does it hurt your feelings, girl?”

  “Yes,” Ksenija admitted. “Something like that.” Wordlessly, she slid her gloves on, and suddenly the world was blood and magic.

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  [Discipline: Mage]

  [Sect: Blood]

  [Magnitude: Seventy-nine]

  [Gifts of Kroviz:]

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  [Will of Kroviz - Spells]

  (Thread)

  (Coat)

  (Scythe)

  (Blade)

  (Shield)

  (Lattice)

  (Chase)

  ────────────────────────────

  [Curse of Kroviz - Spells]

  (Sense)

  (Surge)

  (Writhe)

  (Bind)

  (Distraught)

  (Writhe)

  (Bind)

  (River)

  ────────────────────────────