It didn’t take long for everyone to gather their things and leave. They worked efficiently and within only a few minutes Helianna found herself talking to Reina as they boarded the boat. Apparently, her and Vir served as the teams’ spokesmen, Vir because he was the leader and Reina because she was the best socially. Seeing how the introductions had gone, Helianna couldn’t help but agree with Reina’s assessment.
Unfortunately for Helianna, this trip was also on a ship. Her seasickness reared its head once more, but not nearly as bad this time, partially because it was shorter. Her instructor had also taught her a few methods on how to reduce seasickness, including some forms of meditation. Unfortunately, their benefits were limited. She still spent several hours bent over the railing, but was able to get herself together just in time for them to arrive.
Reina had been quite sympathetic of her seasickness, but Helianna had felt Zoe’s eyes boring into her back. Even through her sickness, Helianna found it entertaining how much Zoe fit her stereotype. This was the perfect example, as Zoe was glaring at Helianna for something she could barely control.
Once the team arrived on land, they bought a simple carriage with the academy’s funds. It was quite small for the five of them and their luggage, but most of the team was used to each other. Helianna was the only one uncomfortable, primarily because she was concerned about her facade slipping. The carriage ride started out fairly silent regardless of Helianna’s attempts at conversation, even with Reina. It felt strange and Helianna couldn’t help putting her guard up.
Once the carriage had left the city in the distance, the team finally acted, confirming her suspicions. She barely had a moment to recognize movement before she found Vir launching a blast of ice at her. Due to her training, she didn’t even flinch, instead rushing through the magic and grabbing the hand that he had used to shoot at her.
She quickly twisted his wrist and locked it into a painful position, providing her leverage. She applied pressure as she rotated her body, forcing him to follow along or have his wrist shattered. He stumbled and she took the moment to shift her grip and twist his arm behind his back. Once again in a painful position, he was unable to resist as she pulled him backwards. Helianna now had her back to the carriage door with Vir blocking any of the others from approaching her. The rest of the team stared at her in shock, none of them having time to register what she’d done
“What the fuck is going on?!” Helianna yelled.
Nobody responded, all too shocked to formulate a response.
“Explain before I dislocate his shoulder or shatter his wrist! I can do either one right now.”
“Calm down for just a moment. It was a misunderstanding.” called out Jayen. She inexplicably felt her magic react to something like it did during their initial introduction. This time, her magic seemed delayed, almost as if it struggled to resist whatever Jayen had done. There was silence throughout the carriage as the moment passed. Jayen was the one to break the silence.
“How’s that possible?” Jayen asked in disbelief.
“What are you doing?” Helianna demanded. “And why won’t anybody tell me what’s going on?!”
“We thought you were lying!” blurted out Reina. “We thought you were pretending to be a null! And this mission is very important for us…” the last sentence seemed to come out unbidden, tapering off at the end so Helianna could barely hear it.
“That still doesn’t explain attacking me!”
“We thought you might be dangerous if we brought it up normally. We just wanted to immobilize you so we could talk.”
“I am dangerous. I’m an assassin! That’s my job! That was a stupid idea! And why did you think I wasn’t null?”
“That was me,” responded Jayen. “I have a habit of passively using my sovereign magic when talking to people. But when it hit you, instead of influencing you or being absorbed by you, it was rebuffed. That only happens when the other person has their own sovereign magic.”
“He made a mistake,” interjected Reina. “And we acted on it. Please-”
“I didn’t, “ Jayen interrupted. “I didn’t make a mistake. It happened again just a few moments ago. So I repeat what I said earlier. How’s. That. Possible?”
Helianna’s mind immediately went into overdrive and she had to focus on not panicking. This was her biggest secret and they had discovered it immediately. It took her a few moments before she had a handle on her emotions, where she then focused on making a response. The others saw none of this however, only seeing her stone-faced and silent.
“How am I supposed to know?” Helianna asked, still unsure what to say but realizing she needed to respond.
“Are you sure it was her?” Reina asked Jayen. “Maybe there’s sovereign runes on her clothes and that’s what you’re combating?”
“That wouldn’t make sense,” responded Jayen.
“Also, that’s not how nulls work.” Helianna injrected. “Our nullification affects our clothes as well. Otherwise, you’d see naked nulls everytime they ran into a fire user.”
“We’re getting off topic!” retorted Jayen.
Vir finally spoke despite the pressure on his shoulder and wrist.
“Look, we did this because we believed that you were a sovereign mage pretending to be a null. With that information, we thought that you were jeopardizing and likely actively sabotaging our mission.
We now know that you’re not. And regardless of what’s going on with his sovereign magic, it doesn’t matter. You’ve now proven both that you’re null and capable, so we have no quarrel with you.” He then looked directly at Jayen as he continued speaking.
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“We understand you may have your secrets and we will let this go.”
“But-” Jayen tried to interject, but Vir spoke over him.
“We attacked through a false assumption and in return, we can at least afford her some respect and privacy, assuming she doesn’t dislocate my shoulder right now. Understood?”
Almost like a switch was flipped, Jayen’s face instantly shifted from serious and accusing to the laid-back and relaxed manner she was used to.
“Yeah, I can do that,” he said as he relaxed back against the seat.
“Now Holly, you’ve heard what I’ve said. We’ll forget whatever that is if you’ll forget our blunder. Will that work or is there something else you want?”
Initially confused by being called by her fake name, silence reigned throughout the carriage as Helianna took her time responding. For Vir, who was still held in a painful hold by Helianna, it seemed to last forever, almost going on for a whole minute before she eventually spoke.
“Your silence on this. Even from the academy.”
“Done,” Vir instantly responded. “It never hurts to have something in your back pocket, especially if we can work alongside each other. Anything else?”
“Jayen helps me prevent that from happening again. I don’t want this to be discovered by every person who has sovereign magic.” She saw Jayen blink in surprise for a brief moment before recovering.
“I can do that.” Jayen said slowly. “A warning though, I’m not sure how successful I’ll be. Normally, it’s the opposite issue. Fighting back against other sovereigns is normally difficult, instead of struggling to avoid fighting back.”
“Fine,” Helianna stated and let go of Vir, causing him to stumble forward rubbing his shoulder. “On a different note, that was a very stupid plan. If freezing me somehow didn’t work, like it did, we were in very close proximity. I had the perfect opportunity to retaliate and you guys wouldn’t be able to fight without hitting each other.”
Vir blushed slightly and scratched his neck. “Yeah, maybe not my brightest plan. But I’m certainly not going to be forgetting that mistake anytime soon,” he said as he rolled his wrist. Zane finally spoke up as he sat down and relaxed slightly.
“So regardless of how, we now have a null that can at least partially utilize sovereign magic. We could use that for the mission, couldn’t we?”
“Possibly,” Vir responded. “It depends on her capability.” He nodded to himself before continuing. “Well, it looks like you’re definitely getting trained. If not just for the agreement, it could be useful here.”
“If that’s the case, you will still have something to fulfill afterwards.” Helianna declared. “I assume you’ll have to make a report. It will need to be fudged. I do not want people to have knowledge of this.”
“Understandable, and we can do that.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Reina interjected with a wink. The atmosphere slowly relaxed as the carriage trundled down the road at Zoe’s direction. She’d been guiding the carriage and had missed the entire altercation. She was called in and updated on the situation before she went back up to guide the carriage for the rest of the morning.
While she was there, the team started planning, which continued over the following days. Zane, Reina, and Vir were the primary contributors of the plan, while Zoe occasionally joined in if she wasn’t sleeping or ‘scouting’ outside the carriage. Honestly, Helianna simply believed she didn’t want to be in the carriage with the rest of them, particularly her. Zoe had she didn’t like or trust ‘Holly’, which was largely due to the rough introduction. Helianna’s saving grace was that her revealed ability would likely help their mission go smoother.
During this time, Helianna and Jayen spent much of the time trying to train her in magic. Apparently, Helianna’s magic worked completely differently than sovereign magic normally would, despite Jayan confirming that it was indeed sovereign. It was completely different from any magic as far as Jayen knew.
Normally, learning magic was intuitive, although difficult. The basic knowledge of what to do was ingrained in people’s heads, but they lacked the skill. Having the understanding was only the first step. Learning typically required an immense amount of training, both in controlling the power of it as well as its direction. He could have taught her entire lessons on the methods of learning and each step of the process, but they quickly threw that out the window.
Her magic seemed to work completely opposite of normal magic. She had no clue what she was doing. Her countless hours trying to practice while hidden in her room were testament to that. Additionally, her magic never felt like the complex, arduous and finely tuned craft that it was for others. She simply had to guide it and her own magic would do the work. This was apparently what happened earlier. She had been on guard and wary of them. When his sovereign magic washed over her, her own magic instantly fought back. While interesting, it was also frustrating. Once she realized what was happening and stopped it, they were able to confirm that she could absorb sovereign magic like a normal null. Which brought up an important question to Helianna. What was the point of her sovereign magic reacting?
While these discoveries were important, moreso to Helianna than the rest of the team, it wasn’t the primary goal. He wanted to teach her how to cut another sovereign’s magical tethers. When he had said that, she had been confused, requiring him to give a proper explanation for what sovereign magic was. She was surprised to realize that she had never been properly taught, but chalked it up to not being important to learn as a null. After learning what it could do however, she quickly changed her mind.
Sovereign was the magic of leaders. That seemed like stupid statement, but helped her more than she’d like to admit. One of the big things it could do was help read and bolster other’s emotions. This was part of what Jayen did passively. He passively tried to bolster the feeling of security and trust in others, which didn’t entirely sit right with her. The capability to shape and influence thoughts seemed too manipulative for her taste.
Sovereign magic also helped with command in that the user could help guide others to work together. If used by a powerful individual, they could even command someone to do something against their will. Of course like every magic, it could be used for good or evil. In good hands, it can help a leader hold their people together, on and off the battlefield. In bad hands, it could be used to manipulate and essentially brainwash people
In her case, she couldn’t do any of these things, and wouldn’t need to either. The team of ithrax would first infiltrate the city. They would then assault the castle by themselves, which seemed absurd to her, but they claimed they would be able to hold out. Her job was to sneak in and reach the duke. He would undoubtedly be using his own sovereign magic to significantly boost his own troops coordination and morale. Instead of killing the man, she would use her own sovereign magic to assault his, cutting off that connection to his troops.
The team would then use the following disorientation and weaker defenses to punch through the defenders and enter the castle. They would then come to the duke and publicly denounce him as they executed him from atop the castle. As far as the crowd and rest of the public would know, she would have never existed and a single team of ithrax would have successfully defeated an entire castle and punished the duke.
To her it seemed like a simple plan, and one that was way too dangerous. She had no idea how they were supposed to fight the defenders for an extended period of time, much less beat them with only slight disorientation. It seemed impossible, but they were an experienced team that had been on a good number of missions, so she decided to trust their competency. After all, she wasn’t the one who would be fighting in the battle.