Chương 44: Chapter 43 Edited

Cale The reaction came fast. Heat surged up my spine, sharp and instinctive, the kind that begged for motion. This was unacceptable. A child. A girl ten years old. I was half a second away from unleashing hell on the whole building. Every one of these bastards was going to pay for this. They called me a demon. Fine. I'd show them what a demon did when he stopped caring about consequences. Then I looked again. The blood hadn't settled.

It lay where it should have soaked in, too clean at the edges, the air around it holding still instead of recoiling. Mana kept its shape instead of collapsing inward, suspended as though waiting for instruction. The scene itself felt unfinished. That was enough. Cooler thinking won out. I cycled my mana and cast a minor Arcanum Dispel. The illusion didn't break. It failed. Color slid sideways, depth thinning as the blood lost weight and faded.

The body folded in on itself and vanished, leaving bare stone where something real should have remained. They had laughed, actually laughed, at the idea of murdering a child. That decided it. These people were dead. I moved as the last of the illusion unraveled, adjusting my thinking as I went. I banked the anger and contained it. It would no longer choose the timing. I stopped holding myself back. Whether they could track my Expression imprint no longer mattered. There wouldn't be anyone left here to report it.

Aura and Elementa Arcanum surged as I let my power flood my whole being, the Expression trail be damned. I held just long enough to tear away whatever false structure of Illusia still lingered. Kinetica locked in. Reinforcement threaded through joints and spine. The nearest mercenary started to lift his weapon. I crossed the space before his intent finished forming. The strike landed with reinforced weight behind it, bone giving way under force that didn't slow. He hit the wall and stayed there.

The second one, who hadn't even noticed me enter, tried to pivot, boots scraping stone as he reached for distance that wasn't there anymore. Momentum carried me through him and out the other side. He fell hard and stayed down. The impact drew attention. Footsteps thundered in from the corridor, fast and heavy. Two more guards burst through the doorway, already moving, already committing to the fight they thought they understood. They didn't get the chance.

I met the first halfway, redirected his charge, and used his own momentum to put him down. The second hesitated just long enough for me to close. The Elementa Arcanum knife strike to his throat was clean and final. Bodies hit the floor in quick succession. The room went still again, the sudden quiet sharper than the noise had been. Through all of it, the woman in black hadn't moved.

Dark makeup framed her face like deliberate contrast rather than disguise, black lines sharp against pale skin, lips stained the color of dried wine. Her clothes followed the same logic, layered black fabric, ceremonial in cut, practical in motion. She looked less like a soldier than like someone who had decided devotion was an aesthetic choice. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. A goth princess, I thought distantly.

She watched me with open interest, head tilted slightly, smile lazy and amused.

"Well," she said, glancing at the empty floor where the illusion had been, "that was disappointing. Most people at least scream." I faced her, power held in check by habit.

"Where is the girl?" I asked. She laughed softly, the sound warm and wrong in the quiet room.

"Straight to business. No appreciation for the setup at all." I took a step closer.

"That wasn't specifically for you," she continued.

"It was a test, for whoever walked through that door." Her eyes flicked briefly to the bodies behind me.

"Who would have thought someone so capable was coming to see me."

"I'm not here to impress you," I said.

"Oh, I know," she replied.

"You're here because you think you can stop this." She straightened, posture shifting just enough to signal readiness.

"I'm Sala." She didn't offer a hand.

"I'm Cale."

"Cale," she repeated.

"And who are you, Cale? How did you get dragged into this?"

"You talk too much," I said, and moved. She reacted instantly. Sanatio, twisted and corrupted, flared around her in a tight defensive bloom, pale light snapping into place as she twisted aside. The floor where she'd been standing scorched dark as my strike cut through empty air. She was fast, and clearly trained. She came back at me with a healer's precision turned inside out, hands snapping forward, energy biting instead of mending.

The touch scraped my shoulder, heat and numbness crawling outward where muscle should have obeyed. I rolled with it, reinforcement tightening before the damage could spread. Her smile widened.

"Oh. You really are fun." Aura fed speed. Kinetica compressed distance. I stayed inside her reach, cutting off the space she needed to finish the pattern she was building. She tried anyway. Pain-woven Sanatio lashed out, meant to cripple rather than kill. I took it shallow and kept moving. She overextended. That was all it took. I redirected her momentum and drove her into the stone wall hard enough to empty her lungs. She rebounded, staggered, tried to reset, hands already moving, eyes sharp despite the pain.

I didn't give her the time. I flipped her and slammed her into the floor with all my anger behind it. Bone crunched, and she let out a pained gasp. I gave her no chance to recover. The knife slid free and I drove it into her leg, pinning it to the floor. The strike was precise enough to take her leverage without ending anything. Her breath left her in a broken sound as fear finally replaced the amusement. My mask shifted as I leaned closer, the visage of the Ghost of the Wastes rising into place.

The room brightened. She saw my eyes, and whatever devotion she'd wrapped herself in cracked.

"You don't understand," she gasped.

"You can't—""I lived in the Wastes," I said quietly.

"Long enough to learn two things. One, fire has a way of loosening the tongue. And two…" I gave her a cold look.

"Everyone breaks eventually." I drew the Elementa Arcanum up, calling the flame and focusing it, holding it close rather than shaping it outward. I fed it power, the fire shifting from orange to blue, then white. The purifying edge of it coiled around my hands, steady and deliberate. I took hold of her injured leg. She screamed.

"Where are the children?" I asked. She looked at me with hatred and a pained laugh.

"Would you let me live if I told you?"

"No," I said.

"Every single person who touched this will die. You don't get to use a child for your plan and expect to live. I'll kill you quickly, though. I promise."

"Then I'm not telling you shit," she spat.

"You'll burn. The children will burn. The Priest will make sure of it. You Dominion dogs are all the same—""I don't have time for this." I twisted the knife and burned her. Her magic tried to soften it. Good. I did it again. And again. And again. I felt nothing while I did. Her composure broke before long.

"They're not here," she sobbed.

"Separate building, north side, off the main lodge. They're gathering them. Preparing them. Sigils. Anchors. Please—""Look at me." She did.

"I wish I could tell you I'm sorry for this," I said.

"I'm not. May you find yourself purified in the Seven Layers." I reached in with an advanced Arcanum I hated using. The casting came out rough. I was out of practice, and it had never been a strength of mine. I applied the Arcanum to the protective core of her mind, her Aura and Sanatio swirling around it, and tore through the shell like a knife through an onion. Images flooded me in fragments, rooms, children, symbols drawn too carefully, a structure grown deliberately out of sight. I saw the building.

I saw the plan in pieces. More importantly, I saw the intention. We were right. They meant to use spells that consumed the soul as a trigger, turning people into bombs. Seven hells. I pulled back hard, breathing once as her body sagged, empty now. She felt nothing after that. I ended it quickly, the way I'd promised. Then I lit her corpse and let it burn with the rest of my anger. I retrieved my mask and slid it back into place as the last of the heat bled from my hands.

"Bonnie," I said, already moving.

"Off-lodge structure, north side. They're prepping them now." Her reply came instantly.

"I see it. Marking a path." Good. I didn't look back as I left the room. There were children waiting. I would get them out. Then I was going to come back and wipe out every last one of these people. Whatever restraint I had been practicing was gone. The Ghost of the Wastes was going to turn this place into a graveyard.