Imogen glanced at her traveling companions with a faint grimace of distaste as they flew from the site of Maria’s capture. Why couldn’t Damien have come with her on this mission? She would have loved to spend a week or two in the field with him. No princess to distract him, no one to interrupt. She licked her lips. It would have been the best mission ever.

Instead she was stuck flying over the middle of nowhere with Lon, who she acknowledged as a fine sorcerer, and his apprentice who was considerably less impressive. The boy—she found it hard to believe that he was the same age as Damien—didn’t have a great deal of power and when his field work was complete Imogen suspected he’d end up working in The Tower or as an advisor to some minor noble. He seemed a steady young man so that might actually be a good fit for him.

The little group was currently flying toward the last known location of Kormac Slider, a veteran inquisitor who’d been patrolling the kingdom since before Imogen was born. He’d missed his last check in a few days after Maria. At first no one had thought much of it. Apparently Kormac was known to be less than diligent about checking in, but when he went a week overdue someone decided there was a problem and put him on Imogen’s list. If he was just futzing around in some backwater village and had forgotten about reporting in Imogen would be upset.

Below them a desolate expanse of rugged mountains and scattered mining camps spread for miles in all directions. According to the report Kormac had actually requested this wasteland as his patrol area. It looked more like a punishment, but to each his own.

His last message came from a flyspeck town called Last Tailings. The town apparently served as a sort of hub for all the others where assayers bought the miners’ ore and taverns and whorehouses separated them from their newly acquired coins.

“I believe that’s it.” Lon pointed to a scattering of rough-built one- and two-story buildings. He rode, as was his habit, on a golden griffin, his apprentice behind him.

A single, central road ran through the town. Not a soul stirred in the streets and no sound reached Imogen’s ears. Granted it was still early afternoon, but there should be some signs of life. There didn’t appear to be any damage to the buildings so an attack seemed unlikely. Where the hell was everybody?

“I don’t like the looks of this,” Lon said, echoing her thoughts.

She sensed the corruption a moment before hellfire streaked up from the town. The blast missed them by a comfortable margin, almost like whoever fired it was trying to not hit anyone. Lon and Imogen dove. Imogen conjured her golden armor and an ax appeared in the air beside her. She was looking forward to carving chunks out of whoever had begun collecting sorcerers.

“Do you see anything?” Imogen asked.

The streets rapidly approaching looked just as empty up close as they did from above. The corruption she sensed didn’t have a definite source, instead it seemed to come from all around them. Either they faced multiple enemies capable of wielding hellfire, or their opponent had prepared the town before they arrived, seeding it with dark constructs so Imogen and her companions wouldn’t be able to sense where the attacks came from.

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“There, Master!” A soul force blast shot from Eli’s outstretched hand. The golden dart struck the ground near a two-story hardware store.

They landed opposite where Eli’s blast had struck. No sign of an enemy presented itself.

“What did you see?”

“I thought it was a woman. She ran into the alley across the street.”

Lon hopped off his construct but left the creature intact for use in the coming battle. Imogen had no doubt a battle was coming. She’d been in enough of them to know when someone was toying with her. She didn’t like it, and when she got ahold of whoever was out there they wouldn’t like it either.

“You didn’t try to hit her very hard,” Imogen said. “A blast like that wouldn’t even dent ordinary armor, much less a warlock’s shield.”

“If it was a civilian I didn’t want to risk hurting her. And if it was a warlock my strongest blast wouldn’t have taken her out anyway.”

“It’s fine.” Power gathered around Lon’s hands for ready shaping. “The important thing is you gave us a place to start searching.”

They crossed the street, the griffin construct in the lead and Eli bringing up the rear. He didn’t complain and Imogen found his lack of bravado a pleasant change from some of the people she’d worked with. Knowing your relative strength was an important skill for a sorcerer.

The alley between the two buildings was narrow and dark. Lon’s construct gave off enough light for them to see, but it also cast flickering shadows that made it hard to tell which movements were real and which illusions.

Imogen studied the hard-packed dirt, trying in vain to spot anything that might be an enemy’s track. She had no skill at hunting and since Lon kept his eyes ahead she doubted he did either. The scuff marks in the dirt could have meant anything or nothing for all she knew.

“Where’d she go?” Imogen asked.

If the others had any ideas they kept them to themselves. They were probably as confused as Imogen. She reached the end of the alley and caught movement to her left. She spun in time to see a swirl of cloth disappear inside a saloon.

Her jaw clenched. The bitch was playing with them. Whoever she was, Imogen would make her pay for the insult. She stalked down the loose boards that made up the sidewalk and pushed through the swinging doors. Inside sixteen bodies littered the floor. There was no blood, but she sensed no soul force either. The people were certainly dead, but what had killed them?

A gasp came from behind her.

“Heaven’s mercy. What happened?” Eli asked.

No one had any answers for him. A floorboard above them creaked. Maybe whoever lurked up there knew what happened.

Imogen blasted a hole in the ceiling and flew through it. Standing there barefoot and staring back at her with glowing red eyes was a petite woman with straight black hair, pale skin with black veins running close to the surface, and a deep blue dress. She held her hands behind her back and her blue-tinged lips were turned down in a slight frown.

Lon and Eli landed beside her. “You!” Lon’s lips peeled back in a snarl.

The girl’s solemn expression brightened. “We meet for a third time. How nice. The only shame is Master Connor forbade me to kill you.”

“You know her?” Imogen looked from Lon to the woman.

“Her appearance has changed and she’s become a warlock, but I’d never mistake the she-devil that captured me in Port Valcane then murdered one of our comrades.”

The three of them drew power at the same time. They’d obliterate the witch with a single combined attack.

The woman swung her hands in front of her body. She held one of the black urns.

Black lightning shot out. Pain filled Imogen as her soul force was torn from her body. Beside her Lon howled and Eli collapsed. Imogen and Lon slumped beside him a moment later.

The pain stopped and Imogen blinked up at the woman standing over them.

“You’re still conscious. How impressive.”

A second blast of lightning sent Imogen to oblivion.