We should have fleed when our friends warned us, back then portals were still working. And now our capital is surrounded, with us trapped here. Our capital, Luara, is the most fortified city in our kingdom, but with waves of the enemy approaching from all sides, we stand no chance.

My brother Bolton and I are hiding at the moment in our manor with few servants and one guard. Mother should be on the outer wall with all our remaining forces helping with defense. She is one of the last remaining mages of our House.

I, Celina Darkmoon, am the youngest of three children, but as the only one with magic, I was destined to be the future head of our house. However, when the war started, I didn’t even get the chance to start studying at the academy.

Brother wanted to help mother at the wall, but she persuaded him to keep me safe instead. Father and most of our Household died in the battle of Reino two months ago. Only mother and few uncles managed to escape, but this time Darkmoon House might lose everyone leaving only my sister Alice and some cousins. They were married off before the war has started.

'Why isn’t the Emerus Union here yet? If Raldus Kingdom falls, they, as our allies, will be next on the list. Could it be that they could have abandoned us? No! I can’t think like this, most likely they are still rushing here after being delayed by some diversion.'

"Young masters! ..." our guard rushed in with pale face and lost his voice mid-sentence.

"Young masters ..." The guard tried to speak again.

"What is it Claud?" asked my brother with concern.

"Th ... The wall has fa ... fallen, the enemy is swarming our streets as we speak …" Claud barely managed to finish a sentence.

Soon we could hear some voices in the distance from our manor, they were getting louder with each passing second.

"Dammit!" roared brother, servants started to quiver with the realization of what will come next.

"M …Mother" I whispered silently while tears run down my cheeks as I fell down on my knees.

"Y...Young Masters, w...we must run!" shuttered Claud.

"Where?!" shouted brother "The city is surrounded and none of the portals are fixed since the day we tried to send off Celina."

"M...Maybe..." started the guard only to be violently interrupted by loud bangs outside the manor’s outer gates.

"Hey, Jack I think this thing is enchanted. We can barely leave a dent in it. Could you handle it?" We heard voices outside the manor.

"Maybe we could climb over it?" said another indistinguishable voice.

"Wait! Let me check it first. If this is reinforced with magic, it is very likely there are some other surprises." We heard another voice.

"Damn it, if they have a mage, the gate won’t hold long. I guess it would be too naive to hope that he doesn't have tools for detection. Traps alone will be useless." Angrily whispered brother.

"Sigh... there is no escape for us anyway, we will fight near first trap here, and try to reduce their numbers as much as we can. Celina, you try to find a place to hide, maybe after our fight, they won’t search for you as toughly. The war will soon be over for this City. Eventually, the army will be replaced with some guards to keep order, you will have a chance to slip out" said brother with a heavy tone.

"No Bolton! I will fight with you. I know some magic, I can be of help. If you all die, there is nothing left for me to live for!" I yelled with panic.

"Listen, sister! You are an heir of our House. What do you think awaits if you do that? You are a woman and a noble at that, if they capture you, you will become a slave for their nobles. You know it’s a fate worse than death. I can’t let our House name be tarnished like this. Besides, one spell before you faint isn’t much help. Now go and hide. If you survive this, one day you might avenge us, don’t let our House fall like this" said brother firmly, he checked his gear and started giving orders to our servants and Claud.

With tears flowing like a river I turned around and ran. 'Where do I hide? They will search for wealth so the storage room is no go.' I stopped and started looking around 'they also have a mage, finding if someone is still in the manor without magic interference will be easy... wait, the Study room. Yes. They have enchantments installed to prevent spying on meetings, it should prevent them from noticing me if I hide there.'

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Deciding my course of action I ran upstairs and after entering the study room, started to look for a place to hide. Suddenly I heard a loud explosion echoing through the manor. 'This isn’t form outside! Main entrance! When did they take down gates outside the manor? Was I so deep in thought that haven’t even noticed the previous explosion? No! There is no time for this!' I quickly closed door behind me and started to search for the best place to hide.

'This might be just a study room, but they might search for spell books or documents. I can’t hide in the wardrobe, too obvious. Damn it. How I wish we had a secret room behind bookcase like Alice at her manor'...

After looking around a bit my gaze stopped at the fireplace 'no other choice I guess, the study doesn’t have many places that a few kicks or pushes won’t reveal me.' Heading to fireplace I looked at my dress and frowned. 'This won’t do, the skirt part will get me exposed.’

I quickly started tearing the bottom of my dress and stopped only when the skirt part was barely covering my underwear. 'Now what to do with the ripped cloth?’ I can’t burn it or the smell will expose me. If I leave it as it is, it will be like screaming 'search for a girl.’ My gaze turned to the decorative pillows on the couch.

I ran to them, grabbed the letter cuter from the table and made a cut on pillows, I then stuffed the ripped cloth evenly inside. 'There, now to hide and hope for the best.' I ran to the fireplace and stepped inside, hugging the inner wall as best as I can to not be visible from outside. 'Done. I need to calm down my breathing.

Damn it! Meditation won’t work with my current state of mind'. After some time I somehow managed to calm down and started to listen for noises, sadly without any success. The enhancements of the room were working as intended, no sound comes in or out when doors are closed. After what felt like eternity doors to the room suddenly opened.

"Go search the bookcase on the left, we need to find a way to weaken enchantment of that seal." Said one of intruders.

'To weaken the enchantment?' I thought with a worry 'but they can’t know someone is hiding here.'

"Jack, we have to hurry, others are getting more achievements as we speak. With most generals killed in previous battle, only nobles will get us something. There is no guarantee that we get anything from that storage room. Anything of worth should have been used against us in the war already. We should hurry to search other manors after a quick sweep on this. Head of a noble is worth more than the few coins we get wasting time here. Maybe we will even manage to get some females of noble birth, at the end of war those will be worth a lot as slaves."

"Yes, and if we rush again we can lose another third of our squad. All just because we were greedy. Those bastards didn’t even had a single mage. With the exception of that noble all of them together were weaker than any man from our side. No matter how you look at it, six dead knights is a loss for our House. And for what – a single noble head and a few peasants?" argued the mage angrily.

'A third of our squad? Six dead knights? So brother managed to kill so many while being outnumbered one to six. With a mage on their side. And those were knights, not some mercenaries. Father would have been so proud of him. He should have been given the gift of magic instead of me. Even with it, all I did was laze around, not a behavior of a future head.

If I had spent more time in training like my parents had asked, I could have helped them. Maybe I could even escaped with brother if learn teleportation spell like from those legends. My parents couldn’t escape with the responsibility of a noble, but I could at least saved my brother.

No! Stop getting agitated! I will expose myself like this. I need to survive, only then can I can get revenge for them. Maybe with the help of sister we can get Aizerus involved. They could counterattack while Zolmor is exhausted from the war. As for those bastards from Emerus Union, I bet they betrayed us'.

"Manor is clear, we found no one else. I sent Ren and Zed to double check, but I doubt they will find anything that escaped your eye, Jack. Say, what spell did you use on that noble? I’ve never seen anything like that." said a knight who just entered the room.

"Don’t overestimate magic. Everything has a weakness, detection magic is no exception. As for the spell I used... well that noble got me very angry for killing six our people. I sealed his soul into the crystal to suffer. I can use it as a mana back up later."

'No! Brother!' I got agitated and before noticed, loudly breathed in.

"Did you hear that?" asked one of the knights.

"I think it came from there." said magician while stepping closer to the fireplace.

'I’m sorry brother I failed you. There is no escape from this now ... But I won’t go down so easily. I will drag all of you with me'.

I started incantation of the only spell I’ve ever managed to cast, while revealing myself from the fireplace. I rarely practiced it. Because even if I did it right, I get exhausted to the point of fainting just from one use, I never managed to cast weaker spells.

"Elements of Fire answer my call..." I chanted while drawing every ounce of my mana into hand while pointing at them.

"Whoa, jackpot" said one of knights looking at me.

"She is a mage! Stop her from finishing incantation!" shouted the mage while drawing his orb tool and with just two words 'Wind shied' a small wind cyclone surrounded him.

"Burn the enemy before me... Inferno!" With one knight almost reaching me, I panicked and ended incantation without finishing some of the chant.

The failed spell still incinerated one of approaching knights. His armor melted in a blink and flesh perished in flames leaving only dust behind and a molten puddle of metal. The backslash, from the spell cast wrong, sent a part of my energy back to me. Pain thousands of times worse than what I ever felt in life assaulted my hands, stomach, and lungs.

I wanted to scream but no sound left my mouth. Strength left my body as I fell on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, blood dripping from my mouth. I could see the glowing cracks on the skin of my arm. My mouth still open, from an attempt to scream, let out only a silent breaths. I couldn’t even thrash from pain nor turn my head as I could no longer control my body.

I was facing the open door’s direction with my hand stretched out in front of me, little by little glowing cracks on the skin began to fade. I felt ever increasing pain eating away my sanity, but couldn’t lose my consciousness.