His Captive Sorceress

Chapter 28: Goodbye

I step through Nepolis's gate and find myself in a small stone alcove. The ramparts continue over my head, and a short open courtyard lies before me.

The gate shuts with a clank, and three Mephian soldiers box me in the alcove. Lord Reger stands ahead, and two other men encroach from either side. All are clad in leather armor, with crossbows on their backs and daggers on their hips. They sport beards the length of my hand, a feature never allowed in the Versillian army. While they all have tunics covered in buckles, Lord Reger is the only one with gold. He has thick square eyebrows and a face tanned from a life under the sun.

My posture is as stiff as a board. A noise makes me flinch – it's just the soldiers slotting the door beam back in place. With a glance backwards, it's immediately apparent that I have no chance of moving it. I'm trapped.

"Grand Mage Ametha," Lord Reger says. There's a slight smirk on his face. His address sounds like mockery. Is my disguise falling apart already?

"Don't leave my bodyguard out there. It's dangerous," I say in the sternest voice I can muster. All I need to achieve is to get Trevus inside.

The soldier to my left sniggers, and Lord Reger gives him a sharp look. They don't believe I'm Ametha. They're just playing along. I'm their entertainment.

"Isn't she something," says Lord Reger. He steps closer. I try move away, but my back bumps into the other two men. The three of them tower over my short frame.

Lord Reger looks to the soldier behind me. "Lucas, do with her as we discussed," he says.

With a hand on my back, Lucas pushes me towards a staircase. I move without resistance. They wouldn't push me if they believed I was one of their six rulers. Any semblance of them playing into my story has disappeared. Trevus only trusted the disguise to carry me through the gate before I was discovered. He'd be expecting that I would have connected to these men already.

The stairs take us to the top of the walls, Lucas's hand not leaving my back.

My eyes try find Trevus through the crenellations, but he's not visible. Why does my mind go to him? He can't assist, and he won't be my ally for much longer.

Reger and the other soldiers didn't follow. The ramparts are empty bar myself and the large man, Lucas, shoving me forward. He's going to carry out Reger's orders, and his rough handling brings a fear that this walk will end with my body thrown off the wall.

Lucas grabs both of my wrists. I yelp as he twists them up behind my back, bending forward to relieve the pressure on my shoulders.

His rough fingers grab my bare hands, then his hold suddenly disappears. There's a thud, followed by the sound of a metal blade bouncing off stone.

I whip around, and my hands snap to my mouth. He's lying prone on the ground, still and unmoving. I stumble backwards, nearly tripping over a raised stone. I didn't connect to him. I didn't do this. It wasn't me.

I fall to my knees and examine Lucas, afraid to touch him. His face is hidden between his arms, but his chest shifts up and down. He's breathing, and that means I can breathe again too. He's only asleep.

A horn blares in the distance. I leap up to my feet and peer between the crenellations. The Versillian army is here, and they're approaching fast. There's no more time.

I quickly check my surroundings. The crossbowmen that once lined the ramparts have disappeared. I don't understand how Lucas passed out, but now there's no one left to stop me. I rip the black ribbon from around my waist. Trevus already tied a loop at the end, making it easy to secure around a crenellation. I toss the long end of the ribbon over the wall before peering over and calling – "Trevus!"