The siege on Lemora started when the birds started singing, as if their happiness wasn’t allowed, and Quell and Markon wanted to punish them for it. That drew bad emotions from Edico—dark emotions, the emotions that he hid from his wife—Rebe—and prevented him from having kids. Those types of emotions. And that was all and well because blood would feed the crops this cycle, and he needed to do the slaughtering—fast.

Most people wouldn’t understand how insane the onslaught was. Usually, the opposing side would encircle and isolate the city, cutting off trade routes and building what was known as a circumvallation, which were fortifications that prevented attacks from the city or reinforcements. It was a massive undertaking and represented a defining feature of siege warfare: a plan to starve out the people locked inside the city. It was a long endeavor, allowing attackers to build equipment like siege towers, which are large and aren’t easy to move. They also tunneled under walls to bypass barriers, used earth magic to destroy the foundation of the walls, or just sent rocks hurdling at the main wards that prevented magical attacks from touching the walls. Throughout this whole process, armies needed to set up their base and establish their own supply lines to ensure that they didn’t starve. When someone yelled “Siege!” citizens went shopping, attended funerals, and nobles went to balls and parties until the first parlay said that fighting was about to begin. Then the fighting began, and it’d be a six-month endeavor unless one side had overwhelming firepower that could break through a six-layer ward around the city, walls, and other massive defenses. And the fact was—Quell and Markon had only slightly more soldiers than Lemora’s twenty thousand and no siege equipment. Despite that, King Lemings hadn’t continued his advance—leaving Quell and Markon out to dry—and Lady Reece was returning. So Quell and Markon were desperate, so they were releasing everything they had, hoping for reinforcements from the east and west, even though one of the armies wasn’t likely to arrive. That’s why Edico’s army of 20,000 was posted behind the labyrinth walls like ants, covering the ground and why the opposing army was lined up in waves, as if they’d charge all at once. This was desperation—and when animals are backed into a corner—

—they bite.

Twelve massive balls of black gunk shot across the battlefield ( above the labyrinth of walls), slamming into the barrier—and sticking. This was not normal by any means. Physical barriers weren’t windows; when something hit them, things slid off. That proved that whatever was in those balls that splat against the barrier, sticking there, creating ripples of blue light just by existing, had magical properties.

Next came the fire, coming in waves from four-layered spells. They slammed into the black gunk and set it ablaze.

“They’re eating the ward!” Edico yelled. “Add soap to water launch. Go!”

In a reminder that not everything had to be magical, mages created a massive ball of water and civilians threw bars of soap into it. Then the mages swirled it in a cyclone before launching it at the black gunk. It worked better than magic. Once the soap broke the surface tension, the fire slid down the barrier smooth like water on a window—bringing the fire with it. Once it hit the ground, it set everything nearby ablaze. Unfortunately, that included some people who got near the splash since the labyrinth walls had people blocked in.

“Rocks! Work around the bodies. Go!” Rocks was the name for earth mages, and everyone knew what was happening before it even began. The earth mages kicked up the ground under the fire, churning the land to snuff it out like shoveling dirt over fire coals. The mages were extremely skilled, burying dead bodies that weren’t savable and rolling everyone off with earth techniques that created steep hills that people were forced to roll down.

“Start counter!” Edico yelled.

Mages lined up on the embattlements, lifted their hands, and started chanting in unison, creating massive balls of fire in the sky. That was a huge benefit defenders had in Reemada: attacks can shoot out of barriers, but not in. That said—

Dozens of massive fireballs shot across the battlefield, raining down on the lines of enemy troops. But before the fire hit, the sky lit up a vibrant gold, showing a barrier over the enemies, as well. That said, building a barrier on the spot and creating a ward was a different matter entirely, and after Edico screamed, “Stress it!” the mages doubled their efforts, and catapults from within the castle walls shot massive flaming rocks across the walls, right into the enemy encampments. The barriers quickly broke, killing hundreds as the fire scorched the earth.

That was the first fifteen minutes of the siege.

2

Raul had never felt so incompetent. He had led the heroes way too far from the capital and let most of Quell’s forces pass. Honestly, how, in the fuck, did he, Raul Martinez, think—for even a second—that he could push back an entire fucking army over the span of a practically limitless number of miles. He might as well have stood on a mountaintop and thrown rocks at a duck floating in the water. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The problem was that King Quell got his message loud and clear and was now desperately attacking with full force, hoping to gain collateral. So, in essence—Raul made things worse.

Raul wrote Sara for the first time, telling her what happened, and she said, “If I expected you to do what I felt was best, I would’ve given you orders. So if anyone’s to blame—and God knows this isn’t my fault—it’s me.” That made Raul chuckle, but it didn’t make him feel better. He saw things differently. His father said that if he improvised instead of taking the tried and true method of doing something, it was "Es como meterse en camisa de once varas" (like getting into an eleven-yard shirt), a phrase that meant that making things more complicated than necessary results in situations that are difficult to get out of. And in this case, the problem wasn’t that he wasn’t killing anyone—it was that they put too much value in sending their message when only a few at the start would’ve sent that message loud and clear. In retrospect, they were just gratifying themselves, running around, showing off their power. He should’ve made his demonstration, wrote Sara, and then returned if it didn’t work. But he didn’t; now, he was over a day’s flight away from Lemora while two armies were attacking.

Please be okay, he thought, thinking of Emma as he gripped his silver glider’s reins and soared home.

3

Emma rushed to the scene of the fire with a group of medics. Edico called down to her from the embattlements. “Stay away from the hot zone!” he yelled.

“I know my role!” Emma yelled back. “Now let me do my job!” She lifted her hands and created a flat, tilted barrier that extended 50 yards to the wall. Soldiers brought in burnt troops, picking them up and dropping them onto the barrier like it was a slip-n-slide, while other mages slowed the descent with magic.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A dozen medics then grabbed the wounded and packed them into wagons to move them to the medical pavilion. Smooth—seamless. It was a conveyor belt manufacturing approach to medicine—but it was effective. Using this method, they loaded up two dozen screaming soldiers in five minutes. Then Emma turned to the wagon and released a massive area healing spell, turning the haunting screams to a soothed whimper before looking up at Edico. “Point out the hot zones!” she yelled. “The sooner, the better!”

Edico turned down to her with a silent expression before nodding. “… Okay.”

Emma nodded back and ran back to the medical tent, lifting up her sleeves, trying not to let people’s coddling bother her. She used to be naive—or at least unwilling. Unwilling to commit to this world of violence. Emma had always seen the best in people—yet recently, she had seen the worst in them. It wasn’t that there were a few atrocities—it’s that war bred atrocities. Hatred, fear, and uncertainty turned to violent swings and tight grips, making monsters from men—wraiths of women. So Emma’s mindset, where everyone had some good in them, had some massive amendments to it, and her mindset that people were fundamentally equal had taken a nosedive after her tour with Sara. There was no longer any doubt: if the decision were between her people and their people, she’d choose her own. And with the amount of death and killing she had seen over the last two weeks, she wasn’t going to rush out into the fray to save one person. She was just going to commit to her role—saving people from the sidelines—and remind herself that she was casting miracles. No, Emma was not the same person, and she wished that people would stop treating her like she was. Yet she wasn’t going to rebel against it—not anymore.

Emma put on a mask, cast a water spell to fill tubs with sterile water, and passed soap bars to her medical team. “Let’s get started!” she said.

4

Zora Fell sat on a log outside of Lemora, cheering on her soon-to-be-butchered brethren with a cheery smile. “You’re doing great!” she yelled when a meteor barrage destroyed one of her side’s barriers, killing a hundred soldiers who were hiding below it. “Keep it up!”

“Do not disrespect my soldiers!” General Bellac said.

“Look,” Zora said. “I don’t want to hear about disrespect from someone leadin’ a suicide charge.” She honestly couldn’t believe he had the audacity to complain about her sarcasm when he was sending 8,000 soldiers to attack a fortified fortress with a six-layer ward protecting it—especially since they were outnumbered. With Markon forces attacking from the south, they technically had more soldiers, but they were two armies—who weren’t communicating—attacking a major city without serious planning. Of course, she was sarcastic about the situation!

“Enough!” General Bellac said. “Stay silent, or face reprimand!”

“And just let ‘em die?” She presented his hand to the massive barrier lighting up. “That’s a six-layer ward! Even if you sacrifice all your soldiers killing the ground troops, it won’t mean shit when you finally reach that gate—and can’t even touch it.”

“Honorary Fell,” General Bellac said, breathing deep through his nose. “You have three seconds to sit down.”

Zora snorted. The general didn’t have the power to stop her when push came to shove. Zora wasn’t the strongest, but she was the 24th strongest in the middle continent—that was her rank. That’s why the military hired her. That’s why she was there. That’s why if the military needed someone to break a fucking barrier, it was best to get her to do it. “You don’t get it, do you?” she asked. “That shit ain’t moving!”

“Three….”

“Here. Since you clearly don’t get it. Let me fucking show you what you’re up against.” Zora lifted her hands and started chanting a four-layer meteor spell while General Bellac screamed for her to stop.

5

Edico watched a massive meteor develop in the sky, and the first thing he thought was: They’re here. They, of course, referred to Matt, Riley, and the other dissidents. It was a massive attack that the heroes were known for. Yet he could tell by the way the meteor spun, collecting rocks and grass evenly, that it was a high-level spell and whoever was using it was a skilled military officer or adventurer. He’d guess the latter, considering that the meteor attack had no tactical purpose. Quell and Markon were using spread attacks to obtain kills through rebounding. When fireballs hit the barrier, they bounced downward into the labyrinth, where Edico’s soldiers were waiting. With any luck, the fires would disable traps and wards set up within the labyrinth of walls. But more than killing soldiers, it was a resource strain; Quell and Markon wanted to know how many mana crystals the Escaran Kingdom had in reserve, how many mages were around, and how long they could keep things up. Wards were semi-permanent, but they ran out of mana eventually—and they couldn’t recharge. That’s why armies slowly whittled down the ward so that when the main attack came—using heavy hitters like the person making the meteor—it would break the ward, and it would allow for a free-for-all. Yet that didn’t happen. Someone was acting on their own, and all Edico could think was, They’ve bought some heavy hitters. We may need the heroes…. Tim. Will. Elizabeth. Every noncombatant. Ultimately, they just needed to hold out for a day until Lord Martinez arrived. But that would be impossible if there were many combatants who could cast four-layer spells—or higher.

Suddenly, the massive sphere of ignited rock flew across the sky at high speed, smashing into the barrier with a massive crack. Dust and debris exploded from the area, temporarily revealing the full curvature of the ward’s dome from dirt sticking to it.

“Get the wounded!” Emma screamed in the distance. Then, as if her words were the signal, the haunting whine in Edico’s ears disappeared, and he could hear screaming. Yet the barrier remained. We’re definitely going to need the heroes! he thought.

6

Zora presented the ward in a grand motion of her hand. “You see? Even that attack didn’t do shit. You need to assemble the strongest and—“

“You just revealed our strength, you fucking idiot!” General Bellac yelled, clenching his fist. He looked at a few high-ranking soldiers. “Seize her.”

“Woah. Get the fuck off me!” Zora yanked herself free from two men trying to restrain her. “Are you fucking stupid? Are you… gah!” Zora released all her magical pressure, sending the troops and General Bellac to their knees. “Don’t you dare put your hands on me. I’m a mercenary—not your dog. If you don’t want me, I’m sure the other guys will pay. Got it?” She dropped to her haunches in front of General Bellac and repeated, “Got it?”

Suddenly, an even more unbearable power crashed into Zora’s head like a sledgehammer—and she realized something was very wrong.