Those wizards probably didn't know who she was, otherwise they wouldn't have gone to so much trouble to stop her from using magic. Holding both of her arms, they made her walk through what she assumed to be the courtyard. From there on, among so many curves, corridors and creaking doors, it was difficult for her to distinguish the way, but when she suddenly realized that they were going down some stairs, she was sure that she was being led to the dungeons.

She confirmed it by hearing the metallic sound of the door of the cell, and inmediatly she was forced to sit down to be fasten to the wall with chains and shackles, without removing the hood. After her captors left her alone, she heard the key turning inside the lock.

What a mess Rovenna had thrown her into. To think that right now she could be enjoying the warmth of the sun and the murmur of the sea on one of the northern islands, if only she hadn`t been so easily swayed.

If the Master Arcanist did not keep her word, she would not only expose her, but she would find a way to blow up the entire Council.

“I-I-I- demand an ex-ex-ex-planation!” Fidelia heard Myrius' muffled voice very close, trying to sound authoritative. “With-with wh-wh-what right...?”

“Master Myrius!” exclaimed Fidelia.

“Miss Fidelia!”

“Fidelia!” it was Korinna's voice.

“Fidelia?” asked a male voice that, despite the years apart, she knew so well.

“Leander?” Fidelia asked surprised. “What are you doing down here?”

“I was about to ask the same question!” Leander's voice sounded a little farther away.

“I'm on a mission!”

“From the Council? Then you...?”

“No!” Fidelia didn't want to add anything else, because they were being heard.

“Ah... How then?”

“It's too complicated to explain!”

“Silence!” the voice of an unknown man reverberated throughout the dungeon.

No matter how many questions she had, it would be impossible to talk to Leander at that moment. Now she needed to assess the situation, and determine whether an escape plan was possible.

While in the distance Fidelia listened to her captors talking, she tried to whisper as quietly as she could.

“Korinna? Myrius? Are you here with me?”

“Yes,” Korinna whispered in reply.

“What happened?”

Korinna went on to tell her that, at first, everything had gone normal. They were received by a Master of the Order and taken to the Leader's desk, but he wasn't there. So they were asked to wait there until his return, as he was supposed to be studying in the library. Some time passed but no one arrived. Then some servants served them lunch. Another wizard appeared, and told them that the Leader had to go to the forest because of some business with the elves. Myrius then asked about the Count, but was told that he was also absent because, as every year, he was participating in the Return of the Sirenians.

“What did they tell you about the illness?” Fidelia asked.

“What illness?”

As Rovenna had assumed, there was no such illness. It was a lie to keep the villagers away, so that they would not come out to tell what was really happening, and it had to be something very big for even Leander, the Leader's assistant, to end up locked up in the dungeon. But what did the Elementals have to do with all that?

“Not important. How did you end up here then?”

“We don't know. We fell asleep.”

“What?”

“It must have been the food. When we woke up, we were already here. The chains must have annulling seals on them, because we couldn't do anything.”

Myrius struggled to control his anger.

“This is a clear uprising against the Council! When the Concavle hears of this...”

A cry of pain came out of Myrius' mouth, and Fidelia heard his body fall to the ground. One of the wizards had thrown a shockwave, causing him to hit the wall.

So she took advantage of the noise to manipulate the chains that held her.

When wizards lost their magic the first thing they felt was helplessness. Fidelia hated that feeling, so, after being expelled, she started to travel and worked on learning new tricks that had gotten her out of several situations like that one. On the inside of her sleeve there was a hook that she managed to tear off with her fingers and began to manipulate the lock on the chains. In a few seconds her hands were free.

The first thing she did was to slowly lift her hood, and found herself in a dark cell, barely illuminated by one of the torches that stood a few meters away, just above where the men who were holding them were killing time playing cards. Carefully she began to manipulate the chains that held her legs.

Now completely free, she reached out to Korinna and shrieked at her not to say anything while she manipulated the chains. Then she did the same with Myrius who had to suppress a little cry of surprise.

It was two against two, plus a wizard with no magic and another one still imprisoned, though she still wasn't sure what role was Leander playing. Added to that were the rest of the wizards of the Order.

“You take care of those two and I'll go free Leander,” she whispered to her teammates.

“What?” Korinna sounded surprised. “You expect me to fight?”

“You were trained when you were an Acolyte and then when you joined the Council.”

“Yes... but that was a long time ago... Since then...”

“And you, Master Myrius?”

“I... well... I have to admit that... I did very badly...”

They were the worst Task Force in the entire history of the Council or even the kingdom.

“But I can't fight with magic!” Fidelia was trying to keep her voice down, but she was losing her patience. “Do you want to take a shot or stay here for we don't know how long?”

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“The door has a seal on it,” Korinna warned.

“Can you decode it from here?”

Korinna's chest swelled with pride.

“Well, that... I do know how to do it.”

If they couldn't fight one-on-one, the advantage was in the surprise element. So Korinna not only deactivated the seal on the lock, but also knocked down the cell door with a shockwave, which flew out and smashed into the two wizards before they could manage to fight back.

As they tried to get the heavy door off their bodies, Myrius took the opportunity to throw more shockwaves at the two, making their task even more difficult. Korinna ran to Leander's cell to deactivate the seal. Once that was accomplished, Fidelia yelled for her to go help Myrius while she proceeded to remove the chains.

Due to the many attacks he had launched, Myrius was already at the edge of his resistance. His captors managed to remove the door and threw it at him, but just at that moment Korinna threw a shockwave that caused them to miss the shot, and Myrius narrowly escaped being hit.

That allowed Fidelia the time to finish freeing Leander, who ran out of the cell to assist the two strangers who, by a miracle, had come to his rescue. To her regret, Fidelia could do nothing but watch the fight from the darkness, as she would be more of a nuisance than a help.

Leander proved to be a skilled fighter, something Fidelia knew very well since both he and Eldrin had been her first teachers. With a combination of shields, shockwaves and paralysis, he managed to stop the two keepers, who were busy stopping Myrius and Korinna's attacks. Once defeated, he sealed their power with the same chains with which they had bound them. In what involved magical combat, the Order of Shadowrock had nothing to envy, not even to the wizards trained in the capital.

Myrius and Korinna celebrated that victorious outcome, but Leander and Fidelia, both cautious, turned their eyes towards the stairs. They still had to deal with the rest of the wizards who might have been alerted by the commotion.

And it seemed that had been the case as it wasn't long before they heard running footsteps coming down. Myrius and Korinna raised their arms and conjured shields to protect themselves from the first attacks. Leander would take the offensive.

Fidelia broke a wooden chair to use its pieces as projectiles. She didn't have much hope. She would be the first to be captured again, but at least she could leave a bruise on the face of one of her attackers. From what she listened, it seemed like at least ten people were coming to them.

The glow of a torch peeked around the bend in the stairs. The four of them stiffened. Fidelia's breathing quickened. The shadow of a man appeared first, then stopped in front of them.

“Master Leander?”

Fidelia recognized the voice. It was Harald, the castle steward. An elderly man, with white hair and restrained gestures, whom she had known since she was a child.

“Harald?” Leander sounded astonished.

The steward bowed his head.

“Master, I'm glad you managed to get out on your own. I'm afraid none of us stood a chance against two wizards of the Order,” his eyes met Fidelia's. “Master Fidelia, I am pleased to see you in good health after so long.”

“We?” Leander seemed not to understand anything. “Who?”

“Well, the service, Master,” Harald stepped aside, and pointed to a group of tall and muscular servants carrying sticks and tools, as ready to attack as the group was just a couple of minutes ago. “In cases like these, His Excellency already had a plan prepared.”

“What do you mean in cases like these?” Leander asked.

“Extreme cases. Milord did not entirely trust wizards, and he did not think it was wrong to resort to the same servants who would not be considered a threat. Several of them were trained by Sir Cormac for such eventualities.”

“I see... no one ever tells me anything...” Leander mumbled before continuing the interrogation.

“But... What happened to the rest of the Order?”

Harald signaled them to go upstairs. When they reached the corridor, he led them to the dining room where dinner had been served as usual. There they saw about twenty wizards, Masters, Acolytes and some Initiates, snoring on the tables. Some of the other servants were already putting chains of magical nullification on their wrists and dragging them towards the dungeon.

“If I may be so bold, Master,” said Harald. “Wizards tend to look down on us. They think that, because we do not possess magic, we will do everything they tell us.”

“I see, Harald. I will keep that in mind in the future...”

“You have always treated us well, you have nothing to worry about.”

Leander cleared his throat a bit.

“The bad thing about all this... is that the Order has run out of wizards...”

Fidelia decided it was time to interrupt them.

“Leander, what is all this?”

Leander asked the team to follow him to the Master Leader's desk which, to Fidelia's disbelief, he had been occupying for the past few weeks.

“I'm afraid what I have to tell you is very delicate,” he looked at Miryus and Korinna. “We wanted to resolve this before it reached the Council's ears.”

“They can be trusted,” Fidelia assured him.

He took a few seconds to continue.

“Anyway, I don't understand what you are doing working for the Council, since...”

“It is Rovenna's business, we have come on her behalf. Only she and her assistant know that we are here on a secret mission. It's not in our best interest for the Conclave to know either.”

Leander raised his eyebrows. Myrius was about to say something but Fidelia stopped him. She didn't want him to start talking about chimeras right now.

Apparently Leander took her word for it, and told them that the reason he was in charge was because Eldrin had betrayed the Count. His daughter Olivia had disappeared, and Eldrin was responsible. Since then, the Count had been scouring the entire area of the Circle, as well as the nearby areas in search of the girl.

Meanwhile, Eldrin had been left in Leander's custody but, just a day before the Task Force arrived at the castle, most of the wizards of the Order, under Eldrin's own instructions, rose up against the new Leader. Thus the old wizard was freed, and he was locked in the dungeon. Eldrin was now either on the run or in search of the Count's daughter. Leander was betting more on the second scenario.

“I-I have heard something about it,” said Myrius.

Lately there had been a lot of talk in the Council. The king wanted to marry his heir to the Count's daughter. Something that made no sense to anyone, as she would be the one who would eventually have to fill her father's position as Keeper of the Circle. There were many nobles against the marriage, as well as wizards. But of one thing Myrius was sure, and that was that everyone was aware that the person behind the alliance was Eldrin Caedos himself, who years ago had lost the position of Arcanist Master to Rovenna Astra.

“But that doesn't make sense,” said Fidelia. “If Eldrin wanted the Count's daughter to marry the prince, why did he let her go in the first place?”

Leander would say no more. Fidelia knew he was hiding something.

“So the illness was all a sham to keep the news from leaking to the outside,” she continued.

Leander nodded his head. Fidelia didn't want to stop insisting until she got something else out of him.

“What about the Elementals? Was that part of the plan too?”

Leander's eyes widened.

“You also know about the Elementals?” he asked.

“That's why we're really here.”

Master Myrius let out a gasp.

“But...”

Fidelia felt sick at that moment. Damn Rovenna.

“I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Master Myrius, but Rovenna has been fooling you from the beginning. We never came here to look for chimeras, but to investigate an attack the Count and his soldiers suffered at the hands of the Elementals.”

Leander jumped in his seat.

“What chimeras?” he exclaimed, running out of breath.

“Relax, Leander, there is no chimera, it was all a lie. Rovenna made up that there were chimeras roaming the area to have an excuse to send a unit to investigate what was really going on in the castle.”

“Ah... that was it,” Leander seemed relieved that there were no chimeras. Fidelia was struck by his reaction, as if he really believed it was possible that there could be chimeras roaming around Shadowrock.

“So... the Chimera Protection Task Force was also a sham?” Korinna asked with a sad face.

“I'm afraid so,” sighed Fidelia, scratching her head. “Rovenna didn't want anyone to know about the Elementals' attack.”

Master Myrius threw himself on a chair, totally dejected. His image was that of a man who saw the grandiose illusions he had nurtured during so many years of tireless hope shatter before his eyes. He had reached the end of the road, and there was nothing there waiting for him.

With a shadow in his eyes he asked again:

“There are no chimeras?”

“There are no chimeras,” Fidelia answered with sorrow.

“There were never any chimeras,” the Master's eyes became wet.

Korinna placed a hand on his back in an attempt to comfort him.

Fidelia bowed her head in apology.

“Forgive me, Master, you are a honorable person, and I am a despicable being. I didn't want things to end like this between us. But, even so, chimeras or no chimeras, you are part of the mission, and you will be able to help us solve the mystery of the Elementals. I am sure Rovenna will appreciate your services, even if you were unaware of the truth. ”

A few seconds of intense silence passed. None of the three members of the faked Task Force felt like saying anything else, but Fidelia found herself in the predicament of resuming the conversation about the events that had taken place in the castle, and how they should proceed from that point on.

Suddenly, Leander's coughing was heard again.

“Well...” he began to say. “Perhaps, in the end, there may be some truth in all of this.”