Seraphina Pov

The darkness lifted in an instant. The light was blinding for a moment as the obscuring mass of the undead abomination vanished. By the time my eyes adjusted, all I could see was fire and moonlight. The very ground aflame in places, pools of molten rock and the massive beast that Mr. Germaine had been battling was gone. Now he stood across from something else, a knight in glowing orange armor, a blackened sword with skulls and bones adorning it and a flaming whip in its hand.

Something indecipherable came from the figure, a single sound that hurt my ears to hear. Then the figure and Mr. Germaine both vanished, their forms replaced by a clash of silver and orange light that seemed to flicker from place to place. My breath hitched in my chest as I realized they were simply that fast. Dawnbreaker pulsed in my hand and for a moment everything slowed down, slower, slower, they came into focus, two figures clashing blade to blade time after time. And then I threw up blood as the world resumed its normal flow and the two battling figures turned once more into a pair of blurs and flashing lights.

Mr. Beuforlos steadied me and both of us snapped around as a SCREECH of inhuman volume rang out into the night from behind us. We turned around just in time to see a red blur burst through the roof of the building behind us, stones and wooden beams sent flying as it fled into the distance. Gone in the time it takes to blink twice. And then before us was Mr. Crimson. I blinked. The barrier was still in place, and I had not seen him approach. I sniffed the air instinctively, confirming that the figure before me was real. It was easy to trick the eye and even the ear, but most sorcerers did not bother with smell even if they were capable of it. Another piece of advice from the family journals.

“How did you get inside?” Mr. Beuforlos snapped at Mr. Crimson.

“This is my property; I go where I please” Mr. Crimson waved a hand as if brushing the question aside and then half his eyes turned to me. I shivered a bit, with Dawnbreaker in hand I could feel it as he looked through me. Literally seeing through my body in ways that I knew would reveal whatever he wanted to know.

“You need to rest and eat young lady; you have only just gotten that blade tonight. Far too soon to be pushing your bodies new limits.” Mr. Crimson spoke matter of factly.

Mr. Beuforlos turned from glaring at Mr. Crimson and then over one of his eyes I saw a magical circle form, and then he too looked at me. Though I felt Dawnbreaker pulse heat through my body and then he covered his eye with a hiss.

“We need to get you safe, your body is showing clear signs of stress” He commented even as he held a hand over his eye.

I shook my head and turned back to Mr. Germaine's fight. “What about…”

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Was as far as I got before a soundwave hit us. The force physical enough it formed a ripple on the barrier still maintained by Mr. Beuforlos. The silver glow that was Mr. Germaine flew backwards to the edge of the cliff as it dimmed. And then a new moon seemed to appear for a moment. Mr. Germaine stood glowing, his sword facing downwards. The afterimage of a glowing guillotine of moonlight fading from my eyes.

“Wha…what?” Was all I could say. I knew something had to have happened, but I couldn’t see it. And then Mr. Germaine fell forwards, his sword beneath him in a way that had me hoping he didn’t cut himself.

“Just my student overexerting himself” Mr. Crimson spoke and waved his hand and appeared beside Mr. Germaine. This time I saw the red symbols appearing on the ground when he arrived. His wards I realized, and I turned to Mr. Beuforlos who after looking around dropped his barrier finally.

I made it to Mr. Germaine's side as Mr. Crimson slipped a slippered foot beneath him and kicked him over. I winced, patting him down checking that his sword hadn’t cut anything during the fall or being flipped over.

“Now dear, I’m sure that my student has quite the amazing body, but that is no excuse to feel him up while he is unconscious. Wait, are you old enough to be feeling men up? I ahem, forget, when do humans go through puberty again?” I blushed redder than Mr. Crimsons robes as he began to talk nonsense.

“That's not what I’m doing!” I yelled certain somehow that this was worse than having a legion of monsters trying to kill me.

“Do we even have time for this? What if they return with reinforcements or ambush us with the dragon eye?” Mr. Beuforlos interrupted, and I grabbed my teacher's blade from the ground. Trying for a moment to figure out where his sheath was before just holding the blade as Mr. Crimson spoke.

“There is no need to worry about their reinforcements, even if they had any. We will be leaving shortly. And as for the dragon eye…” Mr. Crimson chuckled in a way that made me certain whatever he had done was terribly unfortunate for those he had done it to. “It has been dealt with.”

“Dealt with? Dealt with how! That is a forbidden item by the Treaty of Silverymoon!” Mr. Beuforlos demanded.

“Of which I am not a signatory and as such am not bound too.” Mr. Crimson calmly responded as a single gloved finger twirled around and a circle of glowing light appeared beneath Mr. Germaine. The circle lifted him into the air and started drifting back into the castle as Mr. Beuforlos continued to be ignored by Mr. Crimson.

I followed behind them, carefully trying to avoid the corpses scattered about. “Um, where are we going?” I asked as Mr. Crimson led us back into the keep, which was in the middle of burning down.

“To the escape passage, I need to check on Veronica and Belladonna as well as likely provide severance packages for the members of staff that will be leaving after this” Mr. Crimson explained.

“Veronica is a truly capable butler, but he can be exceptionally over enthusiastic about removing problems. Belladonna can only do so much to restrain him, and likely considering the forces my wards detected waiting at the end of the tunnel she would have been busy guarding the others.” Mr. Crimson continued, before yet again being interrupted by Mr. Beuforlos trying to find out about the eye.

This continued all the way through the house and down the stairs to a tunnel with…A bunch of rails and minecarts with padded seats? I looked questioningly at Mr. Crimson as he dropped Mr. Germaine into one of the carts before gesturing to me to climb in as well.

“You’ll want to catch him near the end, I didn’t install any protective harnesses. This system was not intended to transport unconscious idiots.” Mr. Crimson explained with a very dry tone. He turned to Mr. Beuforlos and asked “Do you need an explanation of how to avoid hitting your head when it comes to a stop? If you want, I could go ask one of the nightbeasts who survived to be a passenger with your unconscious body?”

Mr. Beuforlos growled through his mustache before stomping over to a cart. Without another word between us all we left, Mr. Crimson pulling a lever that released each cart in turn and sending us through the tunnel miles away. As above the keep burned, a light so bright that the sky was orange for miles around. A false dawn, arisen on a bloody night. The first night that I truly experienced what it was to be a Verain, and met the man, the monster, the red eyed sorcerer.

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