Capítulo 89: Chapter Eighty Eight.
Chapter Eighty-Eight: Blood Trail…
Shalia's eyes fluttered open as sleep escaped her. Some small lazy part of her was tempted to just let her eyes drift back closed and let herself sleep in for the day. Given that she was almost always up before the sun, it'd be hard for most to guess just how much she hated early mornings. Still, the old woman who had been her master for years before she died had inculcated into her the idea that she needed to be up before everyone else, and much to her chagrin, it had stuck. With a sigh of resignation, she rose and began her morning rituals. After a cold bath to fully wake her up, she donned her clothes for the day and started towards the front door ready to head toward the infirmary.
"Mother, you should be resting" Shalia spoke when she found her mother in the living room laying out two bowls of broth.
Her mother wasn't sick, but given that she had given birth just a month prior and was taking care of her younger brother, she needed all the rest she could get. After his injuries forced her father to pass on the title of Town-head, the number of servants in the house had gone down to almost nothing. A few of the town's women would come by and help her mother with this and that, but in the end, she had to do many things by herself. A smile crossed the woman's lips even as she rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. "Your brother woke me up long before you were even awake," she said.
It would have been easy to believe her if not for the fact that she did this regularly. Not every day, because sometimes she was just too tired, but two out of every three days at least. "Come, sit," Her mother warmly called to her even as she took a seat herself. Reaching forward, she wrapped her hands around one of the steaming bowls and smiled as the warmth seeped into her palms. Despite wishing that she would take it easier on herself, Shalia couldn't help the gratitude that she felt as she acquiesced to her mother's invitation. That feeling only compounded when she took her first sip of the broth.
"How are things at the infirmary?" Her mother asked. They engaged in small talk about her role as the town's healer. Who was well, and who wasn't? Eventually, the talk came around to what her mother had probably been aiming for from the start. "Word has reached me that a certain boy has been making frequent visits to the infirmary," She said, a knowing smile playing on her lips.
Shalia, who'd been about to place her half-empty bowl back on the table, once again brought it to her lips hoping to hide the sudden spread of color on her cheeks. "I don't know what you are talking about," She said from behind the bowl, hating how squeaky her voice sounded. While she did her best to drag out the sip for as long as possible, eventually, she had to put the bowl back down on the table.
The smile remained on her mother's lips, Shalia's denial clearly not convincing her. "Well, that's too bad. I was thinking of inviting Bran's family over for dinner. You know, to allow us to get to know them a bit better. But if you are certain that I'm wrong, then there's no need," She said with feigned resignation.
Unable to meet her mother's eyes, Shalia spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. "It… it wouldn't be a bad idea to have them over," She muttered, sneaking a glance at her mother who seemed to be enjoying this a bit too much. Shalia wasn't stupid. She knew that this was how marriage negotiations between the two families would begin.
This would have been a lot trickier if her father had still been Town-head. With the three families eyeing power, the other two families would never have sat by and allowed one family to get such a leg up on them. The past winter, however, had been rather harsh. Many had fallen and her father had almost been one of them. The injuries he'd suffered had left him weakened and unable to carry on as Town-head. Not naïve, Shalia knew that on any other occasion, the three families would have spilled blood for the title of Town-head. Fortunately for the Aria household, the other two families were badly weakened by their losses last winter and thus didn't raise much of a fuss when they took power. Now, with her father having given up power, and his having peacefully taken power, there was no reason why Shalia couldn't be married to Bran.
The thought caused butterflies to flutter in her stomach even as her mother continued to relentlessly taunt and tease her over it. In the end, with a quick kiss on the cheek, Shalia ran away from the table. The sun was just cresting the horizon as she stepped out the front door ready to start what she believed would be just another routine day. Her steps, however, were brought to a sudden halt as she watched two massive airships slowly moving through the air toward the town…
***
Hira calmly stood in the chilly predawn air on the bow of the ship. Her gaze was aimed at the mountain off in the distance. Given how thin the mana in the air was compared to more central parts of the continent, she couldn't help but be skeptical at the idea that a high-tier mage would stay in such a region. Sure, high-tier mages have a large pool of mana that's hard to exhaust but, by the same token, they have a large mana pool that's hard to fill if the ambient mana is so thin. It was a fact that left her unsure whether to be happy about this assignment or not.
On the one hand, the Draknar alliance was in a precarious position. They really needed this clue sent by Mage Shia to be true. After they lost the only high-tier healer they had in a strange set of circumstances, the rate of attrition for their members had gone through the roof. Despite her aloof and standoffish demeanor, no one in the whole alliance could argue that Mage Alena wasn't a brilliant mind that ran the healing arm of the alliance with damn near perfect efficiency. There weren't many healers out there who could claim to never have failed even a single assignment that they'd signed onto. And of the few that could, the majority of them could only do so because they turned down any assignments that were too hard. Hira, however, had watched Mage Alena take on assignments that no one else was willing to touch. Several times, she had been certain that the woman had finally bitten off more than she could chew. However, time after time, she was proven wrong as the woman's mind proved to be simply unmatched.
It wasn't just her unparalleled abilities as a healer that made her such an invaluable asset. Even the alliance's healers who worked under her had been progressing by leaps and bounds in their ascension. Her insights into the field would probably still be pushing the school of life forward a thousand cycles after her unfortunate demise. She was such a giant in her field that the alliance never wanted for healers. They'd come from far and wide just for the chance to learn under her. After news of Alena's death spread, that had changed. The sixth-tier healer that took over after her was Alena's protégé. A gifted healer in his own right. A few more centuries under his late teacher and he would have risen to untold heights. Unfortunately, for him and even more so for the alliance, his teacher fell too early and he was forced to fill a role far too large for him. The first few cycles weren't that bad, as he strived to live up to the lofty image of his teacher. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before the power that came with his new rank turned what could have been a very promising healer into a fool drunk on power. His teacher would be disappointed.
It never ceased to amaze her just how quickly even large alliances could fall apart. In her close to fifteen hundred cycles of life, however, she had seen it happen so many times that it really shouldn't surprise her as much as it did. In a few instances, it was because an alliance had provoked the wrong enemy and been obliterated for it. In the vast majority of instances, however, it was rot from within that killed behemoth alliances that by all appearances should have survived another ten thousand cycles. Five cycles! That's all it had taken for the healer wing of their alliance to go from the envy of other alliances to one that was uncontrollably losing its healers to other alliances. The effect of this rippled out to the rest of the organization in the sense that their members were no longer guaranteed as high a quality of healing as they previously were. This in turn made them less willing to take risks for the alliance that they previously would have. The fall of Mage Alena might not have killed the Draknar alliance, but there was no question that it had weakened it.
This was why Hira was hoping that the high-tier mage did indeed exist. Even if they were just a sixth-tier mage, it would still bolster their alliance. Ironically, if what she hoped to be the case turned out to be true, then Hira knew that she had an uphill task before her. If a high-tier mage had chosen to stay in such an area where the mana was so thin, then chances are that they were the kind not to want to entangle themselves with the mage world. Part of the allure of ascending to higher tiers, apart from the power it conferred, was the increased longevity. What most didn't understand, however, was that eventually, the cycles themselves started to weigh on the mind. Take her for example, if nothing unfortunate befell her and she managed to live to the end of her lifespan, then she'd live to a little over four thousand cycles. Meaning that at one thousand five hundred cycles, she hadn't even crossed the halfway point of her life.
Different mages dealt with the press of cycles differently. Some chose to indulge themselves in whatever pleasure they could find. Others chose to amass political power and influence in whatever way they could, from creating organizations that operated across many kingdoms and empires, to creating the kingdoms and empires themselves. Some with living descendants focused entirely on their families and creating as powerful a lineage as they could. And some, like their supposed target, chose to entirely separate themselves from the mage world and become hermits of a sort. Hira didn't have any personal opinions on which approach to life was better than the other. That being said, Hira couldn't help her displeasure that this mage seemed to be in the last category. Of all the groups, hermits were the hardest to recruit. If you knew what drove a person, it was easy to convince them to come over to your side. If, however, their motivation was to not be associated with anyone or anything, it became a lot trickier to rope them in.
"Have you spotted them yet?" Came a teasing voice from behind her.
Hira turned around to find a short but stocky Dwarven man with a thick mustache and an even thicker beard, standing a few paces away from her. "Grenad," Hira gave a nod of acknowledgment to the only other mage of comparable rank on this recruitment journey.
Just because mages belonged to the same alliance, didn't mean that there weren't factions in them. The whole point of joining an alliance was to gain more benefits than one could accrue on their own. And where benefits were involved, factions motivated by self-interest were the natural consequence. This was why it was important for any alliance that didn't want to fracture to balance out the growth and power of those factions. That's one of the reasons Grenad had been sent alongside her. It was not an iron-clad rule, but whichever faction did a recruitment, usually gained the new member as a part of their faction simply because they were already familiar with them. By having more than one faction take part in the recruitment process, the one being recruited is given a broader choice of where they want to land.
The other reason for having two seventh-tier mages come was because one was there to back up the other just in case the negotiations turned hostile. After having lived so long, no seventh-tier mage was naïve enough to not plan for a situation where they found themselves in a battle to the death. Of course, by the same token, two seventh-tier mages approaching one who was on his own might be considered threatening, so only one of the two of them would be the negotiator, Hira in this case. Grenad would be hanging back in the airship, as her security. It went without saying that she was rather formidable a fighter. One had to be if they hoped to make it as far as they had. She, however, wasn't arrogant enough to believe that she'd be able to take anything that might be thrown at her. Having a second seventh-tier mage as backup gave her a considerable advantage should any fight break out. Of course, Hira knew that Grenad was also waiting to see if she succeeded or not. If she failed to win the prospective mage over, then he'd also have a shot at it as per the rules of their alliance, in which case she'd be his backup.
"They were just about to approach. Unfortunately, with your face close by, I don't think they'll be as inclined to show themselves anymore," She teased right back. They might not have belonged to the same faction, but all said and done, Hira was happy that he was the one who had tagged along on this mission. Not only was he a powerful fighter, which would make him a good backup in case things went poorly, but even more so, he was a straight shooter almost to a fault. A brawler at heart, the body-enhancing mage was in a way just as direct as his fists. If he said something, you didn't have to worry about double or hidden meanings. Like a punch to the face, you wouldn't have to sit for long hours trying to decipher what he meant to say. And as an added bonus, he wasn't a snob stuck on formalities like most other mages at their tier. Once little more than a street rat herself, it had taken Hira a long time to figure out the circuitous and often indirect way most people in the higher echelons of society spoke. There were always a dozen insinuations and implied meanings with each statement they uttered. It usually left her with a headache. To her, someone like Grenad was a breath of fresh air, which is why she could so easily banter with him.
A snort left the dwarf that barely came up to her waist. "If they've seen my face, then you've already won half the battle of winning them over to our side," He stated with his usual brash arrogance.
Rolling her eyes at the remark, Hira pulled out a communication crystal from her storage ring and spoke into it. "This is close enough,"
The Seven airships that had been flying in a V formation slowly drifted to a stop. The mountain was still far off in the distance, at least another hour by airship. This, however, wasn't a problem. Just like two seventh-tier mages coming together could be perceived as a threat, showing up with seven airships could easily be misconstrued as an attack. "Captain Vena, Captain Krix, advance," she added. The two airships at the tips of the V pulled away from the rest advancing towards the mountain.
Hira wasn't being creative, this was already established protocol for approaching potential recruits to the alliance. First, send in fourth-tier and fifth-tier mages with gifts to the prospective mage. This way, they'd be the more powerful party in that first meeting and wouldn't be threatened. The gifts are to create a favorable impression and smoothen any following negotiations. If they are receptive the advance team will inform them that a seventh-tier mage is following behind to negotiate their joining the Draknar alliance. At this point, the mage can either choose to meet or refuse to. If they aren't receptive then the meeting is delayed as they try to figure out what the prospective mage might want to make the meeting happen. Oftentimes, the first one or two refusals are just a ploy to milk out more gifts from the alliance, which is why they usually never hand out everything they planned to give right from the start. Majority of the gifts would be held back and be given in batches depending on how long negotiations lasted.
The mages on the two airships weren't just there to give gifts. They'd also covertly observe the new mage and bring back information about them to whoever the negotiator would be. Were they a man or a woman? Which school of magic do they pursue? What is their demeanor? Are they easily irritable or staid and calm? What about resources? Do they seem self-sufficient or are they low on resources? Heck, even things such as vices of choice were crucial negotiation information. That's why the advance team was always filled with alluring men and women just to see if one would catch the fancy of the prospective mage. In a day or two, they could return and report on all their findings, arming her with the information she'd need to negotiate as effectively as possible.
Or at least, that's what she had expected. Just six hours after the two airships had departed, one of the fourth-tier mages under Captain Vena came back with an unexpected report. There were only mundane people in the town. Exchanging glances with Grenad, Hira saw the same frown on his face that she had on her own. "Are you sure?" She asked the fourth-tier mage currently bowing on the deck. It was a frivolous question. Given the difference in tiers between them, Hira knew that they wouldn't dare come to her with a shoddy report, lest their lives be forfeit. They had probably figured out that there was no high-tier mage within the first hour. The following five had probably been spent looking for any scrap of evidence for where they might have gone, or even if there had ever been a high-tier mage there to begin with.
"A runner," Grenad muttered, the displeasure in his voice clear to be heard. Hira could understand why he wasn't happy. What was supposed to be a two or three-month mission would now drag on for much longer than they'd initially anticipated. They wouldn't chase the new mage to the ends of the realm, but it was protocol to pursue for at least a cycle. There were, after all, several reasons why a mage would flee from attention. A hermit not wanting their lives interfered with. A criminal running away from due judgment. Or even fear that one's enemies had found them. More often than not, the latter reason turned out to be the motivation for most runners. Again, more often than not, they were mistaken about who exactly was coming after them, but every now and then, they were correct. Whether this turned out to be the first case or the second, they had to find out.
"And the boy?" Hira asked. From the report that had been sent by Alchemist Shia, a young man named Lothar was the reason they'd even stumbled upon the high-tier mage. In a move that was either really bold or stupid depending on who you asked, for some reason, he'd chosen to stay behind. An airship was supposed to pick him up a little over a month ago. The airship had shown up at the town next to the mountain where it was supposed to wait for the boy. The week-long window that he'd given himself before the airship was released from any obligations had come and passed. Unfortunately, the boy was a no-show.
"Nowhere to be found," the fourth-tier mage answered, causing Hira to scowl in displeasure. It wasn't that Hira cared all that much about the boy's fate. Her displeasure was more from the fact that she couldn't interrogate him for information on the high-tier mage.
"Any other leads?" she questioned the fourth-tier mage.
"None. The townspeople don't have any recollection of a powerful mage or any mage for that matter living among them, and outside of that there are no traces of magic being used anywhere in the town" came the answer. Though he was a good actor, Hira noticed the fear in the slight tremble of the fourth-tier mage that brought the report. Not everyone that reached their heights of power was reasonable. Some would take their displeasure out on their subordinates when met with bad news. She, however, wasn't one of them. While she didn't forgive stupid mistakes, she also didn't lash out like a child throwing a tantrum when she heard something that she didn't like.
"Have you investigated the mountain top?" Hira questioned.
"Yes. We found the abyssal ooze as indicated by Mage Shia. There was, however, no formation anywhere in the clearing around it" The fourth-tier mage gave his report.
Arching an eyebrow, Hira couldn't help but ask. "What do you mean no formation? Was the area dug up? A formation as powerful as the one Shia reported doesn't just up and vanish," she countered.
Doing his best not to let his voice shake, the man before her answered. "We carefully scoured the whole area around the mountain for any signs of a formation and couldn't find any trace of it. We couldn't even find signs that the earth had been disturbed," he relayed.
Hira was quiet for a second before asking. "Could it be the work of an earth element mage?"
"If it is, then any trace of their mana has been scrubbed from the scene," Came the quick answer.
Once again, Hira went quiet trying to find the missing piece to the puzzle before her. Frustrating as it was to not get any real answers from his subordinates, Hira knew she couldn't place the blame on them. As a seventh-tier mage, if she wished to disappear without a trace, no fourth-tier mage would have even a ghost of a chance of finding her. If they wished to uncover something, they'd have to bring in more powerful mages to the case. "
"Go back, and take Mage Aran and Nasik with you, have them thoroughly investigate everyone and everything in that town" She spoke. While she was a seventh-tier mage, Hira was an elemental mage of the rare blood element. Powerful as she was, her school of magic didn't really lend itself to investigation. Mage Grenad, on the other hand, was a body-enhancing mage who focused primarily on strengthening his body and brawling. He was perhaps even less suited than she was at investigations.
Aran was a gifted mind mage of the sixth tier and Nasik was an even more rare mage of the time element. Despite the latter only being at the fifth tier, few mages even at the sixth tier were willing to mess with someone who could manipulate time. The two were perfect for the role of investigators. If the minds of those in town had been tampered with in any way, Aran was sure to uncover it. Nasik could cast spells that would allow them to look back through time at events that had already happened as if they were happening in the present. With them on the task, Hira was certain they'd have answers, one way or the other.
The fourth-tier mage all but ran away even as Hira turned to the Dwarf by his side. "What do you think?" She sought his opinion.
"Did anyone even lay eyes on this so-called high-tier mage? The only thing we have a confirmed sighting of is the abyssal ooze. Even the supposed formation that had been around it no longer exists" Grenad voiced.
"Are you suggesting that the mage doesn't exist?" Hira questioned with an arched eyebrow.
Grenad shrugged as he answered with a question of his own. "Have you read the alchemist's record?" Hira had, but recognizing it for the rhetorical question it was, she allowed the dwarf to continue. "Supremely gifted, but as troublesome as they come. Her inability to manage her anger is, in fact, the reason she was sent to the city of Varun to begin with. Who knows, perhaps she got tired of being in this region and needed some excuse to try and win some favor back with the alliance," He suggested.
"By lying to the alliance?" Hira asked, not hiding her skepticism.
"Genius in one area doesn't mean that one isn't stupid in others," Grenad easily answered. "It wouldn't be the first time someone thought to try and get one over the alliance," He added with a shrug.
"Or maybe you just want this assignment to end early?" Hira questioned, a knowing smile on her face. She couldn't really blame him. People rarely got to the seventh tier by being the idle kind. Like her, he probably had projects that had been put on hold by being asked to play the role of recruiter. Neither one was happy with the prospect of what should have been a two or three-month task turning into a cycle-long one.
"And miss out a whole cycle of traveling with the blood rose?" Grenad countered, his eyes roaming the curves of her body with feigned desire.
Hira just rolled her eyes, knowing that Grenad was just teasing her. The dwarf was married by Dwarven tradition, and whatever else his faults might be, he had never been accused of infidelity. He might joke about bedding her, but if she actually made an advance on him, he'd find a way to extricate himself from the situation. "Genius or not, she knows that wasting the time of two seventh-tier mages like this is probably not very conducive to a long life. The alchemist doesn't need to be a genius in all areas to not want to die," The words were casually spoken, but both of them knew that they were the ironclad truth. Either one of them would probably kill her if they found out that the alchemist had sent them on a pointless chase based on a lie.
A sigh left Grenad. "Well, if we are operating from the assumption that this high-tier mage exists, then our chances of recruiting them are already abysmal," Grenad grumbled. Hira's lips pressed together in quiet agreement. She didn't know who it was that had done the calculation, but only one out of ten runners were actually recruited in the end. In most cases, they were either never found, or just plain refused to join whatever alliance they were being recruited into. That this mage had chosen to disappear means that they'd probably seen the symbol of the Draknar alliance, recognized it, and chosen to disappear before they could even open negotiations. Grenad was right. Their prospects weren't looking good.
"Let's just wait and see what Aran and Nasik uncover," She said in the end, choosing not to engage in pointless theorizing. Whatever turned out to be the case, whether the mage did indeed exist, or the alchemist had chosen to forfeit her life, they would find out soon enough.
Soon enough turned out to be early the next day.
The ship they had been on was specifically designed to carry high-tier mages, with the formations on them helping to keep their auras suppressed and hence relieving them of the burden. That, however, was no longer the case as she stepped down on the ground near the top of the mountain. Both she and Mage Grenad had to tightly clamp down on their aura lest they agitate the abyssal ooze that remained placidly at the center of the clearing. And that was to say nothing of Mage Nasik, who was already struggling as is. Powerful as his element was, the element of time exacted a harsh toll on anyone who wielded it. Even simple spells would leave them more drained in terms of mana and energy than equivalent spells in other elements or schools of magic. With a bow, the fifth-tier mage brought them to the edge of the clearing. "Mage Shia was correct," the pale man spoke up.
Hira watched as Nasik waved his hands before him, his fingers moving in arcane patterns as he weaved into being a window into the past. Hira watched the vegetation that had been vibrantly growing start to retreat into the ground. At first, it was slow and hardly noticeable, but quickly picked up speed such that it seemed like the plants had chosen to bury themselves in the ground to hide there. The ground which had been flat and featureless for a few seconds, suddenly had a complex set of lines running through it in a pattern that Hira easily recognized as a high-end sealing formation. She couldn't help but glance at the abyssal ooze behind her. Why would a high-tier mage waste time trying to seal such a creature? If it was a nuisance, a single spell from a sixth or seventh-tier mage should have been more than enough to end the thing's life!
"Did they have some other use for the abyssal ooze?" Grenad asked as he picked up on the same problem she had. Of course, they both knew about cleansing pearls. But for a high-tier mage, all they'd have to do was wait for them to be ready, kill the abyssal ooze, and take them. There was no need to go through the trouble of sealing the creature.
Nasik, who had grown even paler, shook his head. "We can't tell. We've had a few healing mages observe the ooze to see if anything has been done to it, but they couldn't uncover anything. Stranger still, this formation, incomplete as it is, isn't the work of one day. I can look back as far as three months and every day, only a small section of this formation was carved," He laid out.
"Wait, that means you can see the one that created the formation!" Hira pointed out, not sure why Nasik hadn't started with this.
Much to her confusion, however, Nasik shook his head. "That is the strangest part in all this," He said, his mana flaring up as he pushed the window into the past back further. The oddity didn't need explaining. They watched as the formation was carved into the ground. The one carving it, however, was nowhere to be seen. It's almost as if they had been erased from the past. Part of why time scrying was very effective was because unless you knew it was coming in advance and took precautions, there was no way to change the past to hide yourself. Was the person they were dealing with paranoid enough to hide themselves when no one was chasing them? Or did they somehow know what was going to happen? Both were questions that Hira couldn't answer definitively. One thing was for sure though, the alchemist hadn't been lying. There had been a high-tier mage on this mountain.
"What about in the town? Anything of interest there?" Grenad chimed in.
With slightly shaking hands, Nasik let go of the spell. Time in the area before them, which had been rolled back a few days, flowed forward once again at a breakneck speed, seeking to catch up to where it should be. The plants which had reverted to seeds in the ground, grew out as if they were in a time acceleration chamber. "Mage Nasik has confirmed that the minds of the people in town have been tampered with and any trace of the high-tier mage's existence wiped from their memories. The method used, however, was so thorough that outside of the fact that their memories were tampered with, he couldn't piece together anything else.
A frown crossed Hira's expression. "So you are saying we have nothing," She questioned, her displeasure evident.
"No, the healers believe they might have stumbled onto something," Nasik, answered immediately, the nervousness in his voice hardly hidden. Moving over to where a teleportation formation had been set up, Nasik indicated with his hand and a bow, "Please," He said
A few moments later, the three of them reappeared in the middle of the town. The former Town-head's compound from what she had been told. The other mages were already there, awaiting their arrival. Curiously, there were also two groups of mundane women huddled together close by. One group only had four and the other group, a little under forty women, from first-pass appraisal. The one thing that both groups had in common was that they all seemed to be in different stages of pregnancy. From the fear Hira could see in their eyes, she could already tell that the mages under her hadn't been too gentle with them. They'd probably started out polite, but once it was clear that the high-tier mage had abandoned these people, the gentle approach had gone out the window. Hira didn't care one way or the other. If they got a high-tier mage out of this, then even wiping out the whole town was acceptable.
One of the mages that had been standing by, a fourth-tier healer, approached and gave a bow. "Mage Hira, Mage Grenad, I am Tema, a fourth-tier healer from house…"
"We were told you found something," Hira coldly cut off the man. Both she and Grenad had been in this position enough times that they could easily recognize someone who was trying to establish a connection with them. The line of people trying to establish connections with them, however, was long enough that they could spend a cycle trying to meet everybody and they still wouldn't make it halfway.
The man stiffened with fear before bowing lower. "Of course, right this way," he said turning and walking over to where the women were huddled together. "In the course of our investigation, I found that a lot more women than you'd expect to find in such a small town, were pregnant," The man began explaining his findings. "That in itself wasn't enough to warrant further scrutiny. However, choosing to be thorough, I cast a bloodline resonance spell. I had to cast it two more times, just to be sure. Fifty-seven out of the sixty-one pregnant women were pregnant with children whose blood resonated with each other. And there is enough resonance that the children can only be siblings. With their memories tampered with, they are all convinced that they are carrying their husband's child. But out of the sixty-one women that were pregnant, this is only true for four of them" the healer revealed, pointing to the group of four women standing off to the side of the larger group.
"I fail to see how any of this is important. We all know that mages can't impregnate or be impregnated past the fourth tier," Hira spoke up not seeing why the indiscretions of mundane women were of any relevance to them. Whoever impregnated these women, it wasn't who they were after.
"Yes, a high-tier mage can't, but their student probably can," answered the healer with the proud smile of one who'd solved a riddle no one else could.
"Even if you are right that all these women were impregnated by the same person, how does that tell you that the one that did it is the high-tier mage's student?" Grenad asked the very thing she had been wondering.
With a motion of the healer's hand, one of the men who stood guard around the women brought two women forward. One was from the group of four women and the other from the larger group. The woman from the group of four women looked scared but still retained some measure of composure to her. The one from the larger group, however, was futilely struggling against the man pulling her forward, tears streaming from her eyes as she begged in what was probably the local tongue. None of the mages present paid her any heed other than the healer casting a silencing spell on her.
Pointing to the one on the left from the smaller group, the healer spoke. "This one is pregnant by her husband. With a simple spell, I can extract a small amount of blood from her child," He said. The women had been allowed a small piece of clothing to wrap around their waists and chests, so they weren't exactly naked. Still, the clothes barely came halfway down to their knees, and with a wave of the healer's hand, the woman winced and a large drop of blood emerged from between her legs. "Using a spell developed by my family, I can use this drop of blood to track down the father to the child," The healer stated before demonstrating. With a few muttered arcane words, the drop of blood reshaped itself into a crimson arrow. The arrow was pointing in a fixed direction, no matter which way the healer turned. Using her blood magic, Hira took control of the blood arrow and turned it in a different direction. Sure enough, after she let go, the arrow reverted to its initial position pointing in a fixed direction. Not stupid by any means, Hira could already understand why this was an important discovery if the father to the children in the other women was indeed the high-tier mage's student.
"The reason I am confident that the father to the children borne by these women is the high-tier mage's student is because of what happens when I try to do the same with any woman from this group," The healer stated with an unconscious look of disgust marring his face. Directing his hands to the woman on the right, the healer recast the spell meant to extract blood.
The effect was instantaneous.
Rather than blood coming out of her, the woman went stiff, her eyes turning glassy. Hira found herself glancing at Nasik to see if he had cast a spell to speed up time as they all watched the now-dead woman rot in seconds! Her skin, which had been a healthy bronze just a second before, turned a pallid grey, before turning a sickly yellow all in the space of three seconds. A second later, her very flesh started to fall off her bones even as she collapsed to her knees and fell forward onto her face. By the seventh second, only her skeleton remained, all her flesh a stinking goo on the ground. By the tenth second, even her skeleton collapsed, joining the rest of the sludge on the ground. Hira could now understand why there were only about forty women despite the healer saying there had been fifty-seven. He'd probably already tried several ways to get to the blood of the children in the womb, all with the same result. It was probably also because of this that the second woman had been struggling and begging when she was picked out of the larger group.
The healer didn't have to try and convince them any further, as Hira turned to look in Grenad's direction, she could see that he too had felt the aura given off by the aspect of decay. An aspect that was common to both healers and necromancers. While it wasn't exclusive to these two groups, it was rare enough in other schools of magic that she could reasonably deduce that they were either after a healer or necromancer. Only someone of a high tier could leave behind such a spell that would only trigger when the right conditions were met. However, a high-tier mage had no reason to bother with pregnant women who weren't in any way linked to them. If the high-tier mage had taken the time to secure these women against an in-depth investigation by other mages, it's because they could somehow lead back to the high-tier mage. This lent credence to the healer's theory that the father was the high-tier mage's student, seeing as high-tier mages themselves couldn't have children. Otherwise, why bother?
It was the perfect solution. If their pursuers didn't discover the link between the pregnant women and the high-tier mage's student, then the women would be safe and go on with their lives. If, on the other hand, they were found out, then, like a lizard casting off its tail, the women and their children would die long before anything meaningful could be done with them. Against anyone else, this would have been the end of the road for them. Unfortunately for their target, however, she hadn't anticipated the fact that it was Hira, the blood rose, that had been sent after them. As a seventh-tier blood mage, Hira would quite confidently pit her mastery of everything to do with blood against anyone else, even healers of an equivalent rank.
"Tell your men to step back," Hira instructed. The fear was clear to be seen in the faces of the women even as she approached like a wolf approaching a flock of sheep. Not bothered in the least, Hira came to a stop in their midst. Once the mages had retreated far enough, Hira stopped clamping down on her seven-tier aura, allowing it to wash over the mundane women. The unmitigated exposure immediately killed them even as she took control of every drop of blood in their bodies and that of the children in their wombs. Hira's regard for their mysterious mage went up several notches as she found herself having to stave off the rampant decay that threatened to turn the blood she was controlling into black sludge. She even found herself respecting their cold ruthlessness when she noted the fact that the decay began from the children in the women's wombs and not the mother. Still, she wasn't deterred from wrestling for control of the blood from the children.
Hira's pride and confidence in the domain of blood were knocked down several notches as more and more of the blood she controlled was infected by the decay and rendered useless. The other mage wasn't even here and yet, their aspect alone was enough to rival hers. Gritting her teeth, she gave up control of the blood of the women and only focused on that of the children. It stung her pride when, at the end of it all, she was left with less than ten percent of the blood from the children and none from the women! Whoever this was they were after, they were formidable. Still, Hira couldn't help but smile as she looked at the small ball of blood before her. This was more than enough for the spell…
End of Book One.
PENSAMENTOS DOS CRIADORES 
BlaQQuill
BlaQQuill Please vote and comment. Chapter Six of Book Two is up on my Patreon. If you enjoy my work, please consider supporting me. Golden tickets and Power stones are also welcome.
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