Lilith noticed Cyla’s unsure look at the end of Malena’s impromptu meeting as everyone got up. Something about it didn’t feel right, and it was the same feeling Hana was giving off now. It was just a sense of wrongness. Not like when she thought Blaise was off, but more like a sense of vertigo, like things would fall out from under her.
“So, can you explain this gun in a bit more detail?” William asked as Cyla flew off.
“Hold on,” Lilith flew after Cyla. “Wait!”
“Huh?” Cyla turned back, then gave Lilith an unsure look. “What?”
“I…” The words caught in Lilith’s throat. She knew how selfish it might sound, but this was important. “I don’t think you should go.”
Cyla raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“You’re not a spy,” Lilith said, remembering some old spy stories Wispy brought from their old world. Cyla didn’t match the characters at all. “What if Alec finds you? He trained Cormac, you know? Hana, er, told me. So he’s gotta be pissed…” She sighed. ”If he asks where I am, are you sure you’re not going to tell him?”
Cyla floated down to the ground in front of Lilith. “I’m not going to do something that would get my students killed. I was just going to send a letter. Do you really think I can’t even leave a letter?”
Lilith nodded. “I-- I killed the Prince, remember? And kidnapped the Princess. I don’t think they’re going to make it easy for you.”
Cyla squinted at Lilith’s hesitation, then relented. “Well, that is a good point, but it’s a bummer.”
“Yeah.” Lilith frowned. “Silene can turn invisible though, so maybe she could send it? Or we could put it onto one of the carts delivering mail. So you can still say goodbye, just, maybe not in-person.”
Cyla took a deep breath in, then let it out. “Fine.” Then she blinked. “Wait a minute.”
“What?” Lilith tilted her head.
“You were just acting all peppy back there, but you’re worried enough to stop me from sending a letter, you’re being hunted by the entire kingdom, and you can’t really leave this cave either.” Cyla tilted her own head. “Is that peppy-ness an act?”
Lilith blinked, then looked away. “Honestly, maybe a little.” She let her shoulders drop. She hadn’t consciously intended to act, but she felt like if she let the fact that they were banned from society get to her, it would spread to everyone else too. “...maybe I did. It would suck if we were all moping and Malena was stressing everyone out even more.”
Cyla smiled. “So you’re trying to cheer everyone up.”
“I guess.” Lilith smiled awkwardly. “I think we all need it.”
Cyla reached a hand up and ruffled the hair on Lilith’s head, between her fox ears, then pulled her into a hug for a while.
Lilith fell into the embrace and calmed down immensely, before pulling herself off, still smiling.
“Well, you don’t have to keep it up all the time. If you need a breather, maybe we could scout the area together. Don’t be the bird that flies into a storm with a smile.”
Lilith nodded. Somehow, being equated to a bird by a harpy was nice.
“I still need to stretch my wings,” Cyla said, and continued walking out of the cave.
“You can do the same with me,” Lilith called out. “The breather!” After all, Cyla might’ve been trapped in here too, and that was never pleasant.
Cyla turned back and waved. “Thanks!” She lifted off the ground and flew out.
---
Lilith glowed purple as she flew back into the cave, stopping before she crashed into the lake, then flew down to some papers and pen by her dad. She picked up the pen, and quickly drew the long barrel and slight spiral along it, then the bullet inside. “Alright, the bullet should be a bit less than flush with the barrel so the grooves can guide it, and the casing will direct the explosion to the lead. Since we’re using magicite, only mages can use it, but if we find other explosives I’ll give you guys your own.”
“I’m good,” William shrugged as he looked over the paper. “Still, for something that’s better than bows, this is pretty simple… the only problem is that it’s impossible to make.”
“Huh?” Lilith blinked and looked up.
William pointed at the spiral she drew. “These are grooves inside the solid brass tube, right? And the tube has to be solid, or else there’s a weak point that the internal explosions will tear at.”
“I can just heat it and move metal out from inside,” Lilith pointed out.
William shook his head. “I see you can fly, but I don’t think even you are that precise, and over a whole barrel. If your heat is uneven, you’ll also weaken one side of the barrel, which will make a weak point. No, this is better if it’s cut or cast as one piece.”
Lilith looked down, her previous excitement diminishing. She could see what he was talking about, even though it was annoying. She started thinking about different ways to cut or cast it, then realized she should be communicating them. “I could make something like a gear to cut it from inside, but that’d be tough. I think it might be better to just cast it, but then I don’t think I could pull something like graphite out if it’s stuck to the metal. Oh, maybe if I carved salt into the spiral shape and then we dissolved the salt?”
William shook his head again. “The salt will melt before the brass does. Trust me, I tried it before… I think cutting might be better.”
Lilith raised an eyebrow. “But how would we get something complex like a gear to cut it at ninety degrees inside the barrel?”
“Don’t? Maybe just scrape at it manually.”
Lilith looked back down at the paper, then drew a bit more. “If I just make a scraper, it could work, but we’d need a guide.” She drew a rod with a sharp piece sticking out at the end. Then, she drew a few spirals “If I make a spiral guide, you could push that scraper up and down and carve away at the inside! But then, how do we make the guide?” She drew a long slot taken out of the metal rod, with a piece from the spiral sticking in.
William started nodding. “Yeah… yeah, I think that could work.”
---
Crowe sat back in a bench after the mages and knights that were around him previously, and were now his ‘party’, came back from the school grounds. He was closing his eyes, listening to the thoughts of everyone around him. “Did you find anything?” He asked when his group came close.
A knight walked up and shook his head. “No. They all say they saw her flying off in different directions. I think they’re lying to protect her, especially the mages.”
“They are lying.” Crowe nodded. He didn’t need to read minds to know that, since he knew where Lilith was. However, he was curious what he should do with this group. Could they help his plans of both protecting Solis and Lilith, or only hurt them? “So, what would you guys do if you were the first to find Lilith?” He scanned for their thoughts.
“Did you find something?” The knight asked instead of leaving room for any answers, but it was too late.
Crowe feigned thinking as he listened to their thoughts. The two mages in the back wanted the money. The guy wanted better weapons and poison tipped arrows, the girl more expensive healing supplies. The knights all wanted fame and an increase to their rank.
He could tell them what he knew, and then they’d accept his gift not from their own merit, but from their mere luck of being near him. Gross. They’d certainly kill the goose that laid the golden egg for their short term benefit.
“Yeah.” He leaned in. “Let’s keep it a secret if we don’t want someone else to get to her before us and take advantage of our hard work, but the kids were all thinking of the same direction when you asked them.” He raised his finger and pointed to the mountains he knew Lilith lived in.
“So Lilith’s initial flight was a ruse?” The knight asked, eyes wide.
Crowe nodded.
The knight smiled, greedy at the thought of the rewards they were all soon to get. “Well, you heard him.” he turned back to the group. “Let’s go!”
“What about…” the healer mage mumbled. ‘telling the rest of Solis’ she thought. But she wanted the money too, and even more, she didn’t want to be the odd one out.
Crowe stood up and followed the group, sighing internally. ‘You could save yourself by leaving this group when everyone’s in the wrong, but you won’t, will you?’ He thought to himself. ‘We can’t all be wrong, can we? Of course we can.’
The girl stayed in the back of the group. She didn’t have a good sense of direction, so she just followed close behind.
---
A few hours later, Crowe and his group were setting up camp at the edge of the forest by the mountain. He could practically feel Ethen with his unique signature and intense focus alongside someone else in the distance, aiming some new type of bow at his group. Normally Crowe couldn’t sense that far, but the forest was much more empty than Solis.
That was fine, but Ethen wasn’t firing. The group wasn’t hiking into the mountains yet, and Ethen probably didn’t want to give away his group’s position. Smart.
If that was the distance Ethen was comfortable with though, their group didn’t stand a chance. It was only a question of how they would die. And what a dilemma that was.
He could also feel a red dragon nearby, eyeing their group. He could’ve got in its head and sent it away or avoided it, but he didn’t.
Lilith was both Solis and Voldia’s problem now. All eyes were on her in the capital. He could sense it. Solis could blame whatever problem they had on Lilith, and so long as Lilith lived, it could serve as an excuse for royalty to do what they needed without getting the community’s approval, and that included him now. Also, while the King and other royals wanted to appease Voldia with gifts, Voldia didn’t need gifts to act kind. That nation couldn’t be anthropomorphized to a potentially loving, normal guy, but more Prince Keith with less inhibitions and more vices. That kind could only be pacified with a knife to their throat and a constant threat greater than the volcano they always worried about.
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So Lilith needed to be a threat, and even more, she needed to stay a threat for as long as possible. Winter was coming, so they wouldn’t send an army until after, or if they knew exactly where she was. If Solis found Lilith, they would send a small army before, and if she was a great threat, they would send everyone. However, if she was a great enough threat and they didn’t know where she was, Solis would at least wait until after winter to send its best spies on a fruitless chase in the wrong direction.
How could he guard Lilith’s location while making her appear as threatening as possible? Breathing above the clouds was good, and everyone in Solis knew about that now. Unknown new weapons were good, but Ethen’s new bow wasn’t as flashy as Lilith’s homing bombs. But the royals feared something else: telepathy was a power that could neutralize even the strongest mages if they didn’t have some of the power themselves, and Solis royalty was glad all their telepaths wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Well, he himself never had a reason to hurt anyone. Not until now.
Crowe held a hand over his mouth as a grin spread over his face for a moment. He could feel the raw pangs of hunger in the dragon nearby, and he increased those. The mage with the bow that could pierce his wings looked the tastiest, didn’t he?
The red dragon dove down, opening its maw around the guy before he had time to react, then closing it around his head and shoulders before he had time to turn around. The body fell, missing its upper torso, and the dragon picked up the body in its maw before taking off.
One of the knights saw it, pulled out his halberd, and swung with all his might. However, he made the mistake of trusting his vision around a telepath, and beheaded the knight beside him he’d served with for years.
“You’ve gone mad!” the last knight shouted, pulling out his own halberd.
The first knight saw the dragon’s maw coming down with a tooth aimed for his head, so he stabbed inside the roof of its mouth. In reality, he hit the neck of the other knight with the spike on his halberd.
Then, the knight finally saw what he did. He turned around to look at Crowe, the only telepath in the group, but the man was just holding his head now like he was keeping it from exploding as he pushed himself against a tree.
“I can’t… stop her!” Crowe gasped out. His acting skills weren’t that good, but in small groups, he could make up for that with his power.
And with that power, he sent the full force of his telepathy out at the knight, who lost feelings in his limb and tried to guard at something from above with his halberd. But in his blindness, his arms raised too high, his head raised up exposing his neck, and his halberd dug through his throat.
Finally, Crowe looked at the girl that was staring at all this in horror and scanned her mind. Could she point to this place on a map? Could she tell Solis where Lilith was and ruin her threat? The dragon could go for seconds.
No, in addition to the horror in front of her, she was worried about being lost in this forest forever. Perfect. He didn’t actually want to kill, and he could use her to explain what happened. So he gave her an image of a girl walking away in black robes.
Then, the imaginary Hana turned back. “Wander this forest forever.” She walked off.
Crowe slumped against the tree, then fell over, feigning unconsciousness.
The girl looked left and right, then ran over to him. She held her hand over him, scanning him with her magic, and breathed a sigh of relief when she found that his heart was still beating.
---
Ethen and Jatte were watching the group from afar, with Ethen aiming his new ‘sniper’ at one of the mages that was holding a bow. They still hadn’t realized they were there yet, but they were well in the distance the ‘sniper’ could hit. In the quick tests he tried with it, it fired a bit off and to the left, but he was sure he could compensate. He held his finger over the trigger.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Jatte whispered, seeing where his finger was.
“I’m going to have to kill them eventually, and Hana said I couldn’t kill anyone.” He held his gaze on the bowman. “I want to make sure she’s wrong now, not when one of us is in danger.”
Jatte shook her head. “No! We’re not needlessly killing! They’re not even heading into the mountains either. They could just be regular adventurers!”
“Regular adventurers and knights?” Ethen shook his head as he kept his eye on the scope. “Unlikely. It’s usually one or the other, and they look pretty important.”
“Still,” Jatte said. “Wait, if we kill them, it’ll give away where we all are. I think everyone’s still searching somewhere else, right?”
Ethen paused, then removed his finger from the trigger. “Good point.” Then he squinted. “Huh, well that sucks for him. I guess I didn’t have to do anything.”
---
The healer lent Crowe an arm as he stumbled forward in the night. She’d gathered what little supplies she could from camp earlier, then picked him up and ran. But whatever that girl in robes did left him with serious injuries.
He couldn’t speak more than mumbling single words like ‘east’, and had a limp on one side, but he kept pointing in a specific direction. He was the only chance of her not ‘wandering the forest forever’, so she followed.
She didn’t know she was being lied to in every way. They weren’t even heading east.
---
That same night, Alec was shifting in his bed. None of the searches had gone his way, and Lilith was nowhere to be found, but that wasn’t the cause for his nightmare.
In his dream, he was floating beside Cormac in the air, who was peering down through a telescope at Lilith. She was standing at the parapets, defending Solis castle.
Somehow, Alec could see past the parapets into the window behind, where the Prince was on top of Liosa and starting to undress. Then, he saw Cormac’s rage and clenched teeth, before he saw him pull his bow and aimed it at Lilith. “Out of my way.”
Alec held his arm out and tried to pull Cormac back with his magic. “Don’t!” But he was already gone, and he’d already loosed an arrow.
Alec sped after him, trying to keep up as Cormac dove past the arrow. He tried to warn Lilith, but it was too late, and the arrow sank into her heart and pushed her off the parapets.
Once she hit the ground with a loud thump, the other flight mages guarding the castle jumped off the parapets to get a better look, then flew down. Other mages and guards followed.
“Lilith!” Ethen and Jatte both screamed, but she was already dead.
Then, there were a few booms from Cormac’s air magic, before he came back out the window carrying Liosa.
“I’ll kill him!” Ethen flew at him and raised his fist.
But Cormac reacted more quickly, slicing Ethen’s throat with a knife and kicking him away with a burst of air, before flying off.
Then, Cormac shot up above the clouds, the other mages following. Alec followed as well, but once he got too high, he started breathing quickly. There just wasn’t enough air up here.
---
Alec woke up panting and sweating, then sat up. He remembered something he said a while ago that fit with that dream, so he repeated it, “In a just world, they would’ve been friends.”
He held his head in his hands. Even here in his bedroom, he couldn’t let the world see the tears leaking from his eyes. After that dream, he understood it all, but it was terrible. Lilith was a good person, Cormac was a good person, and so were most of the flight mages he’d trained. Reports indicated the Prince died on the bed with his shirt off, yet it was obvious to anyone that looked that Malena clearly hated him. So how did he get that way? If anyone else was in Lilith’s position in that dream, would they have done anything different? Would he?
What the prince did was wrong, and what Lilith did was understandable, but what, was he supposed to give up his work as a defender of Solis because of that? Plenty of thieves and murderers argued they did things in self defense or self preservation, even when there was little threat to them, and sometimes nothing could be cleared up even in court. The only difference here was that he knew many of the people involved. He never thought he’d have to put down one of his students, especially if they were still a good person.
But what if Lilith lived? It would mean the deaths of two innocents would go unpunished. It would mean Solis would appear weak, like it couldn’t even take care of its own mages. And now that Lilith killed innocent people already, there would be less holding her back the next time it seemed necessary to her. Despite her age and lack of training, with all the mages she now had at her side and with her ingenuity, she was a serious threat. Also, who knew how Voldia would react to news of her. The letters were still in transit.
No, every moment she lived brought Solis and all its citizens into greater danger. He couldn’t risk everyone’s life by giving up the fight just because it was too personal for him. However, he also wasn’t prepared to go after his own. He was stuck.
Then, he looked at the brass symbol on his wall of an old style house: Haven’s symbol. He nodded, clasped his hands together, and closed his eyes.
“Haven…” He concentrated. “If I can bring peace to this kingdom, please give them a second chance here. They’re good people. They don’t deserve to be punished! If they have to die now, please at least let them live happier lives later.” He closed his eyes and hoped for a response. Practically no one got one, but he needed it now, so he pushed himself towards her with his mind, almost like he was using magic, wherever she was.
He saw a great chair with an impossibly beautiful and decorated giant of a woman in front of him. In his surprise, he almost lost his concentration, but he held it for a second. That was long enough to see her nod her head at his request, before everything faded back to reality.
But that was enough, and his heart was calm, so he wiped his hand over his tears to clear them up, then stood. He would make this kingdom safe, and now that he thought about it, there were two reasons it wasn’t. There was Lilith, obviously, but the real problem was that the Prince was allowed here in the first place. The king in his impotence, both figurative and literally, let Voldia trample on Solis without even a complaint.
Alec took his jacked off a rack and put it on, then walked to and out of his door. There were only a handful of people he’d have to kill to protect everyone. Then, once Solis was safe, he would make sure the reincarnations of Lilith and her friends would be brought up in the best environment he could manage.
He stepped into the castle hallway and made his way to a meeting room.
“Oh, just in time!” One of the mages exclaimed. “You look better now.”
Alec nodded. “I had time to figure things out.”
“Oh, what did you figure out?” The mage leaned towards him.
“I think a lot of people are protecting Lilith,” Alec said. “Not just the ones that flew off with her, but her classmates and teachers too. She was their classmate and no one liked that prince. They don’t wish death on her.”
“But it’s an order by the king,” the mage said.
“That only works on aristocrats and other upper citizens. A lot of the students there are foreigners and farmers that had a knack for magic and reading,” Alec said. “But a lot of the students there still look up to their favorite mages or adventurers as heroes. We might be able to use that trust to find out where she is.”
---
King Voldis looked at a letter from his bed, holding one hand over his liver as he read it.
One of his sons was dead, the Princess of Solis was kidnapped, and the criminal mage had gotten away. It was the worst news possible, and he couldn’t help but think it was partly a lie. Wouldn’t it be awfully convenient for Solis if it was some criminal’s fault for his son’s death after they found him too distasteful. If someone there killed him, wouldn’t they just blame it on some criminal? Probably, and that was just one step below blaming it on one of his knights on the list of the worst things Solis could do.
The knight that delivered the letter waited for the King’s response warily.
King Voldis looked up, and the knight flinched. “This is their criminal and their failure. We’ll send our knights there to ‘help’.”
---
A few days later, in the same small meeting room from before, Alec looked down at a map of different locations Lilith could be hiding in. There were the mountains along the coast she flew off to, the beastmen who pointed in the direction of their old village, and the students and other citizens who pointed to the mountains away from the coast as well as everywhere else. His advice had narrowed their responses a bit, but it was still a pretty wide spread of possible locations, so they needed more time.
Worse, if he sent small groups to search, they’d be outnumbered by Lilith’s group, so the only way he could tell where they were would be by who didn’t come back, and that was if Lilith’s group wasn’t smart and didn’t hunt others away from their base. Alternatively, he could have a large group sweep over several places, but they’d be out for longer, and winter would be coming soon. They might all die from the cold before they found her in the second case.
Unfortunately, it looked like they might just have to wait until after winter to do a long search.
---
As the days passed, things were becoming more and more peaceful at the adit, but Malena held her hand out as a single snowflake fell into it. On one hand, winter meant they might not be hunted for a while. On the other hand, if the river froze over, that meant no more fish, no power for Lilith’s watermill, and they might even freeze if they couldn’t find warmth. But lighting a fire could give away their position, and so could hunting.