Camaz tamped down the feeling of anticipation. He wasn’t about to ruin Laell’s hard work. The sun rose, the first rays hitting the ground to cast deep shadows. A few heartbeats later, the runes deepened in shadows cast by the first rays of light and Laell slammed the stick down into the dirt. All the runes she drew on the dirt suddenly glowed a deep gold color, spreading out much further than it initially looked.

Moulu and four of his men were fully standing on the ground with gold runes, the two that overlooked the manus boys were standing just outside of it. Verne quickly picked up on what was happening and forced Dori and Raka to stumble forward. Reflexively, the two other guards lurched forward to either stop them or catch them and stepped into the runes.

Camaz immediately felt a surge through the Great Solvent. Moulu swore and he saw something on his chest glow brightly. The front of his shirt caught on fire. Laell immediately started moving away from her guards. Camaz saw that the talisman that was dampening his abilities had caught fire from Laell’s complicated enchantment. The fire went out as quickly as it ignited, but Camaz knew the talisman was now damaged. He reached out to grasp Moulu’s Solute, just enough for him to freeze.

“Now!” He bellowed to Verne. The young man dropped Raka immediately and attacked, smoothly elbowing one guard before they could draw weapons and leaped straight at the other guard who hoarded their weapons.

Camaz turned his attention to the other two lunging at Laell who scrambled towards one of the torches on the ground. It was difficult targeting more than one Solute at a time, but Camaz took hold of the one closest to Laell and squeezed. The man froze in his tracks.

Verne managed to grab his sword back and judging from the gurgling sounds, Camaz knew he had disposed of at least one of the men. There were more grunts of a scuffle. Then a dagger whistled past Camaz and landed true into the back of the other man going after Laell. Dori ran past, his other dagger clutched in his hand. The man he struck disengaged and staggered back away from all of them and ran. Dori went after him, both of them disappearing into the trees to the side of the farmland.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Moulu managing to slowly move towards his sword. Camaz’s heart pounded as he knew he had to first dispose of the man close to Laell, who was now standing with just a torch in her hands.

Do it, he told the man’s solute. Do it do it do it. Do it.

Shaking, the man took out his weapon. Laell staggered back in shock. But instead of lunging after her to attack, the man turned the sword to his own throat.

Camaz curled his fingers, palm upwards. “Do it,” he whispered in a shaky voice. Euphoria burst across his chest as he kept squeezing the solute, molding it, forcing it. Blood spewed out of the man’s neck as the sword plunged in. Gasping, Camaz let go of the man’s solute to turn his full attention to Moulu who almost had a hand on the hilt of his sword.

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“You… always were… sick in the head,” Moulu said in a strangled voice.

Camaz gave the other man a scornful look. “You were no better,” he said. “You’re still no better. I at least try to be a better person, Mo. I left Sekrelli back then because I wanted to be a better man. And what of you?”

“No… I have… changed,” Moulu gasped. He was resisting with every bit of his strength even as Camaz squeezed his solute as hard as he could. “I have… I have…”

“You what? You found a god?” Camaz couldn’t keep his voice down or his temper from rising. The unadulterated joy of doing what he was meant to do - using his abilities - combined with the sheer rage of the words coming out of Moulu’s mouth was enough to make him lose his mind. “You try to kill my students, innocent people, Moulu, all for the sake of a god? You had never cared for enlightenment. You never fucking believed in any of that, old friend. You only ever cared about yourself. Now speak.”

“No.” Moulu tortuously made for his sword.

“Speak,” Camaz repeated. “Who is your master?”

The groans broke into a raspy cry and Moulu unsheathed his short sword. Verne immediately took position in front of Camaz to defend him, his own blood covered sword returned to him. However Moulu turned the weapon onto himself and ran it through his torso in one desperate plunge.

“NO!” Camaz tried to stop him too late. Moulu has had experience resisting his abilities. His solute simply didn’t obey Camaz. “Tell me!”

Moulu collapsed on the ground as Camaz continued trying to make him talk. The sword was pointed up wards and drove through the lungs. Camaz gave up using his abilities and lunged at the fallen man.

“Who wants Aris dead, Mo?” Camaz demanded, clutching the dying man’s collar. Moulu opened his mouth and a death rattle came out, then his eyes blanked.

Camaz weakly shook him again, even if he knew Moulu was gone. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked up to see Verne’s grim expression. The young man shook his head and offered a hand to help him up. A long silence stretched out as Camaz stood over the body.

He and Moulu were never friends; they were simply unfortunate acquaintances. Still, Camaz had to fight the growing ball of despair gripping his stomach. It took a long time before he was able to look up from the corpse to look at his students.

“Dori went after - ”

The sound of rattling foliage grew louder and louder until Dori’s form burst forth. He now had both his daggers returned to him, one coated with blood. He shouted something and an arrow whistled, narrowly missing his head and landed with a thud into a tree trunk.

“… Yscians!” he shouted again.

Camaz helped Verne haul Raka onto his feet and they staggered back towards the village. More arrows came flying out of the dark of the forest. Laell took the torch still in her hand and gestured down to the ground still covered with her runes. The wooden arrows burst into flame, the combustion weakening their flight and causing them to drop out of the air.

“I will never doubt Laell again,” Camaz heard Raka mutter as they took cover.