Tap. Tap. Tap.

Slow, deliberate footsteps approached the tree from the shadowed road, tapping against the cobbles. Passing into the thin light, a dark figure approached the tree. Save his face and hands, no part of him stood exposed, all of him cloaked in pitch black. He faced the tree with palms outstretched, red eyes gazing at the charred stump and cracked branches. About Oz’s apparent age, his skin was deathly pale, making those ruby eyes stand out ever brighter.

Oz frowned. Where have I seen that guy before?

Aisling took a sharp breath. She glanced at Oz.

Eh? Is it someone I should know? I’m struggling over here. So many faces, so many names. Like at the party. That was way too many people.

Wait! The party. This guy—that’s right. Baltair! The one who plucked Ossian’s eye out! That fucker.

Hold on. But if he’s in charge, that means it’s not the Sun Heart Sect at all. He’s part of some semi-dark sect, or something like that.

Oz snorted silently to himself. And on the other hand, wouldn’t that be the perfect way for a ‘righteous’ sect to cover up their crimes, by putting it on a dark mage sect? I’m not so naive to believe the first thing I see.

“Who did this?” Baltair murmured, in a deep voice entirely unlike the voice he’d used to attack Oz during the party. He knelt beside the tree, closely examining the ashes. Holding his hand toward the glow, he snatched it away. “Still hot…”

“Baltair.”

Oz jolted. Someone else is there? I didn’t sense a thing.

He turned, facing someone Oz couldn’t see from his vantage point, no matter how he craned his neck. “Yes?”

“The tree served its purpose. We move on.”

“Someone deliberately destroyed it,” Baltair pointed out.

“It is meaningless. We would soon have destroyed it, anyways. There is nothing anyone can do to stop us, not at this late juncture, and we have no time to waste chasing flies. We proceed with the plan.”

Baltair straightened. He bowed. “Yes.”

Who is he talking to? Who else is there? As desperately as Oz wanted to know, he equally knew that to see would mean to die, in his heart of hearts. Instead, he sat completely still, afraid to even breathe.

Baltair stood there for another few beats, still bent in a bow. When no voice sounded after a minute, he stood and walked away, not giving the tree another glance.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Oz waited. Only once half an hour had passed, and he could be absolutely sure that the man was gone, did he dare climb down from the vines and look around. No sign of Baltair or the other speaker remained.

That other voice didn’t sound like Cecil Daggarty. Is someone else behind all this necromancy? Or was that voice perhaps the voice of the necromancer? A necromancer who isn’t Cecil Daggarty? Was my suspicion incorrect?

Ah, well. In the end, the perpetrator is immaterial to me. It doesn’t have to be Cecil. As long as it’s someone from the Mages’ Quarter, it’s all good. I only need a rumor, not to rub Cecil’s name in the dirt, specifically.

Though it would be a little unfortunate if it turned out to be Baltair’s sect who was behind it all. Since they’re already considered dark mages, it wouldn’t be as much of a bombshell as it would be if a righteous sect committed necromancy. It would still be bad, I’m sure, but it wouldn’t be as world-destroyingly distracting.

Oz sighed aloud, staring up at the distant, purple sky. How difficult, to manage so many layers at once…

“Are you alright?” Aisling asked, peering at his face.

Oz startled. He shook his head. “No, no. I’m fine.”

Aisling hesitated, then nodded. She stood up. “We should move on. They might come back.”

“Right. That nonsense about ‘our plan,’ that concerns me,” Oz agreed.

“The whole ‘there’s no stopping us’ part?” Roan asked, stepping out from behind them. His head bobbled a few inches above his shoulders, his neck entirely gone, lost somewhere along the way.

“Yeah, that,” Oz confirmed. He glanced at the others as he started walking, leaving the tree behind. “If it’s an evil mage’s plan, and they’re raising a secret army of undead this close to the Mages’ Quarter, there’s only one assumption, right?”

Aisling nodded. “They’re going to attack the Mages’ Quarter.”

“But if that’s the case…” Oz put a hand on his chin. He frowned, thinking. Sachairi isn’t the most powerful mage in the Mages’ Quarter. There’s plenty of powerful mages, strong enough to blast undead out of the water. This kind of army…I’d put my money on the Mages’ Quarter.

What are we missing? There must be something more to this.

Or…could it be?

Loup dropped down from the opposite side, jarring Oz out of his thoughts. She tossed a nod at the rest of them. “Come this way. If you walk at random, you’ll never escape.”

Oz nodded. Following her, he hurried to keep up with Loup. “Do you know this city well?”

Loup nodded, then paused. She shook her head, then nodded again. “I know this Underhill. The human city…not so much.”

“Oh? That’s right, you’re half fey.” Oz glanced back at Aisling. She didn’t seem to mind that…but then, it’s demons who killed her family, not fey. I suppose it makes a certain twisted sense to hold a specific grudge against the people who attacked you, even if I can’t agree with it.

But then, I’ve never watched anyone kill my family in front of me. Nor do I want to experience it. I can’t understand her experience, so I can’t make any absolute statements about how she should feel or not.

Loup took a sharp turn. Oz almost missed it, and planted his foot to whirl about and follow her. They squeezed through a narrow alleyway, sidling left and right around the trees that had grown into it.

“But this city was abandoned a long time ago,” Oz muttered.

Loup looked back. Her yellow eyes glittered in the low light.

Ducking his head, Oz looked away. Right. Part fey. Her life is a lot longer than mine. Who knows how long she’s already been alive? Decades, even centuries…anything is possible.

In short order, they wound through the city and came out to the ordinary part, where the marketplace carried on and villagers chattered in the streets. Now, though, the villagers’ voices sounded repetitive, like the background mumble on a television show, where no one actually said anything meaningful to anyone else.

The gate loomed at last. Oz hurried toward it, breaking ahead of Loup in his haste to escape. I’ve had enough of this town. Let’s press on.

“Leaving so soon?”