“You can’t keep doing this, Eriadren,” Alouin said.
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As white light flashed around me, I gasped, sitting upright while slapping at my chest. It didn’t matter how many times I died. Coming back still surprised me.
While checking for enemies, I said under my breath, “You want me to stop, Alouin? You’ll have to force it from me.”
No one was in sight. Delicately, I slipped off of the stone slab I’d been lying on, ignoring the pool of dried blood that I’d left behind. If that did nothing to me, maybe the bodies on all sides should, but after eleven years of wading through similar scenes, such houses of horror no longer affected me.
This was what Doldimar had made of me and the others living in his chaotic kingdom: someone who walked through mangled corpses as if it were nothing. I had become immune to horror.
Hope, on the other hand…
Twelve years had passed since the empire had fallen. Ten years ago, Doldimar had slaughtered the leaders of the human kingdoms, taking over from them, and even still, my allies and I toiled to bring our enemy down. It had been a long, frustrating decade, filled with many promising opportunities, and all had proven infeasible in the end.
That would never stop me from seeking new ones, though.
Tonight, I’d infiltrated the fortress of Doldimar’s top lieutenant, letting myself get captured. I’d let an absolutely sick man plunge his dagger into my heart, all so I could stand here, completely undetected.
After clothing myself in an illusion, I stepped into the hall, hurrying to find the lieutenant’s bedchamber. This didn’t take long. The man was known for his paranoia, so all I had to do was look for the thickest clump of soldiers, guarding a hall or door.
From there, it was a simple matter of finding an isolated corner, shucking my illusory clothes, and assuming an insect’s mindset.
Stars, but once it came, the energy drain for using so much magic today might knock me out. It would be worth it, though, for the time it would save.
By the time I’d flown into the lieutenant’s bedchamber, I’d fallen so far into a fight against the mindset I’d assumed—by the stars, if I wasn’t still horrible at magic—that I almost shape changed in the middle of the room. Considering it was occupied, this would have been disastrous. Fortunately, at the last second, I remembered where I was, flitting beneath the bed before becoming human again.
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Holding still, I listened as the lieutenant bowed and scraped to his guest, someone I hadn’t expected when planning this mission. I wondered who it could be.
“-done as commanded, great one,” he said. “How else may I serve?”
“Hmm.”
A pair of feet moved into view.
“You’ve done ‘as commanded’. I suppose you think that you deserve praise for your competence.”
A woman? And not only that but she’d sounded so young…
Oh, no. It couldn’t be. Could it?
“My dear guardian doesn’t reward mere adequacy,” the woman said. “In fact, he’d probably praise me if I punished you for failing to go above and beyond expectations.”
As the lieutenant thumped to the ground, presumably knocked there by the woman, I absently hooked my fingers into the bed’s slats, pulling myself off of the ground so he wouldn’t see me, if he was still alive.
Doldimar’s ward, a she-demon responsible for several atrocities that matched her patron’s, stood not a dozen paces from me. What an opportunity I’d stumbled upon. If I eliminated my old friend’s heir, it would set his plans back, at least a little.
Was it worth abandoning a chance at killing the man himself, though?
“Please, great one. You’ve seen my performance over the years,” the lieutenant said. “You know that mere adequacy isn’t typical for me. Give me another month to prove I can continue with that excellence.”
The problem with this opportunity was that if I chose to take it, I didn’t know if I could kill this woman. Given that she rarely left people alive, reports on Doldimar’s heir had been sparse on details, so I didn’t know if black lines crawled under her skin. I didn’t know if my body would let me make a killing blow.
“Get up,” the woman snapped. “You have a month. Do not disappoint me, or I’ll tell my guardian that he should visit you personally.”
“Ye- yes, great one.”
Something scraped along the floor, letting me lower myself back to it, but I didn’t roll out from under the bed. In this case, I’d rather be cautious than attack these two. Another opportunity to kill my enemy’s heir would come along, and besides, what could happen until then? I died?
Ha!
“Until next time.”
A set of small feet strode into a patch of darkness before… vanishing. What-?
“Bitch,” the lieutenant muttered.
A few heartbeats later, a door slammed, and I got out from under the bed. Casting aside thoughts on what I’d heard, I searched the bedchamber as swiftly as possible. When I found a piece of parchment that described the realm’s troop distribution for the next month, I let a rare smile cross my face. This was perfect.
After memorizing it, I began the process of shifting to an insect but paused when I spotted the lieutenant’s specialized insignia lying nearby. That could be useful, and it was small enough that a larger bug, like a beetle, could carry it.
Snatching it up, I softly hummed to myself. This had been a ridiculously successful mission, even if I’d died to accomplish it. Hopefully, something in what I’d gained would get me to my end goal.