17-year-old Avera Ibori is a girl who has always longed for a life of adventure, but when her father mysteriously vanishes, she gets more of it than she can stand. Thrown into a hidden world of magic, intrigue, corruption, and kings, Avera must choo...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Adrien's sword clashed against metal and he performed a sweep kick maneuver, knocking his opponent to the ground just as he had done with many men before him.
"Stay down and surrender your sword," he commanded, holding the pointed blade to the guardsman's chest.
Adrien smiled with some faint relief as the man did as he was told. It would only take one of the guardsmen not cooperating to force him to sully his sparkling white blade with the stains of crimson death.
'Ah, good.'
"Thank you, Benson," he said, returning the sword to its sheath and offering a hand up to the fallen intelligence officer. "Now, please," Blackridge instructed, helping the baffled man back to his feet, "go and surrender yourself to the men in the back there with the grey haired man on the chestnut horse."
"Do it, Benson, and I'll kill you myself," a voice sternly warned from the other side of the field.
"Kallida," Adrien stated, unenthused with the appearance of his former colleague.
"I can't allow you to come here and steal my soldiers, Blackridge," Kallida told him, slowly approaching.
'I can't let him prevent this.'
Benson was looking at Kallida, eyes wide with fear.
"Last chance, Benson," Adrien told him sternly, taking his sword back in his hand. "Surrender now or you will die with the rest of them."
The man turned, looking back at the former Archmage with a questioning glance.
"We will win this," Blackridge assured him with a voice of warning, "and once we do, you will all be tried for treason and executed. So, I suggest you surrender now while mercy is still an option for you."
Benson looked at him with wondering eyes and he bowed his head in consideration. Then, with a quick nod, the officer sprinted back behind him to surrender himself to Jordan and the others that Caliphus had appointed to receive the repentant guards.
No sooner had he ran than Kallida raised a hand and cast a spell of magic.
"Die!" he commanded as a purple hand extended from his own like a ghostly shadow that began to race towards Benson's neck.
"No!" Blackridge cried, breaking the magical tether with a flash of his fiery blade.
The magic dissipated, and the hand faded and fell just as it had begun to grasp at the back of its victim's neck.
Kallida turned his eyes towards Blackridge and stared at him, stunned. "Fine," he said begrudgingly, his words brimmed with irritation, "take him."
"Benson, go," Adrien told him, and he quickly continued his course, not looking back. "What is it you want, Demetrius?" he asked the Inquisitor as he watched him with ireful skepticism.
