Kommora gestured and, ignoring Southwark's spluttering, was helped towards the hole in the wall by Liore. Seiren was dismissed. Stepping back, Seiren took in the ruins, her fingers intertwining with Madeleine's. Both their palms were sweaty.
"You shielded me with burst magic," Seiren said, the images of the explosions coming back to her. "That was so reckless!"
"You'd frozen on the spot. I had to do something."
"You're not a soul any more! You can get hurt!" Seiren grabbed Madeleine's shoulders and ran her hands over her sister's arms and hands. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"I'm glad it took you half an hour to remember I did that," Madeleine said with a laugh. "I'm fine, seriously. I'm the older sister. I have to look out for you â especially as I have my own body now."
Biting her lip, Seiren's eyes found Kommora again, clinging onto Liore and trembling, pressing a green rune onto her own chest. The twins followed her out of the hole in the wall. Seiren had been so distracted by Kristen's escape she'd forgotten about Madeleine â she kicked herself for being blinded by the moment again.
"Issue a warrant for the capture of Kristen Harred," Kommora said to Liore. "I don't know who we're up against or what they're up to, but the sooner we get word out, the harder it will be for them to hide."
"You want to release details about the execution too?"
"Too late to hide it. Saving our pride won't do us any good now."
Ash, Kommora's broad-shouldered aide, approached after having spoken to the medics tending to the injured guards. Liore nodded and passed Kommora over before hurrying off, her thin brown hair flying in her wake. Ash could probably pick up Kommora with just his forearm.
"No witnesses," he said in a low voice. Seiren could barely hear him. "They said the explosions came out of nowhere."
"Nowhere, my ass." Kommora closed her eyes and grimaced in pain. "Who can hide three explosive runes and not be seen?"
"They're honest soldiers, Mage. I know them personally. They wouldn't have betrayed the councilâ"
"Tents. Now."
Ash took Kommora over to the makeshift tent where the injured men were being tended to. Two were carted away on stretchers, heads lolling like a doll's. A medic opened his mouth at the sight of the approaching group and caught sight of the injured Kommora.
"Mage Haigh â lie down and let me check yourâ"
"Soldier!" barked Kommora. The nearest injured men did their best to snap to attention and salute, limbs permitting. The medic shrank away from the blaze in her eyes.
"Mage Haigh," said the nearest one in a rasping voice. Thick bandages covered half of his face and his hair was crusted with blood. "I swear on my honour â none of us saw anyâ"
"Tell meâ" Her voice could have frozen molten metal. "âexactly what you saw."
"I... Yes, ma'am. I stood guard on the second post along the walls of the Chamber of King Cole Miracle at two fifty-five as planned. We heard nothing. We saw nothing. No civilians passed. No suspicious activitiesâ"
And there, Seiren saw it. For a fleeting moment, his eyes glazed over as if he spaced out, and then he blinked, as if nothing happened.
"âand then the explosions happened. There was smoke everywhere. We followed protocol and evacuatedâ"
"That's enough." Kommora gestured at Ash, who fished out paper and chalk. It took her longer to draw a rune this time, having to pause several times to regain her concentration, but she managed a variant of the violet rune Seiren had seen earlier. "Bear with me, soldier."
The man shuddered when Kommora applied the rune to his chest and activated it. Seiren and Madeleine watched in silence. The rune glowed violet and bathed the man in a low light. His breathing became heavy and laboured, his eyelids fluttering, but he clenched his jaw and persevered. Beneath Kommora's rune, another came into being, unlike any traditional runes Seiren had seen. It bore eight circle locks and barely-visible sigils in each lock. In the centre was a delicate drawing of the intertwining symbol of the first twins of Karma and Hanna: two hearts linked, with an infinity sign weaving through.
"What does this mean?" Seiren said, staring. The symbol was well-known in history books in every chapter depicting the original twins who brought magic to this land.
"This is an indigo rune, that's what it means." Kommora's voice dropped an octave. "That's why none of the men saw anything outside. Because they were all runed."
"All the more reason we need to go after Kristen now. The chamber's stable. People are evacuated. The medics are here." Seiren grabbed Madeleine's hand. "Let's go."
"And, pray tell, where, Nithercott?" Kommora's voice could cut glass. "We have an unknown group of people charging in wielding magic â powered by god knows who â overpowering fifty military personnel and taking twenty mages by surprise, and now they've disappeared like chalk drawings in the rain with a convict who shouldn't have magic any more. If you've any idea where we can start tracking one of the most proficient killers in our history, I'd be thrilled to hear it."
Seiren hesitated. Kommora struck true, as usual. She had no idea who these newfound allies of Kristen are, nor their objectives beyond rescuing her. They could be anywhere, but charging like a headless chicken without supportâ
"Zor Jarsdel."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Zor Jarsdel." Seiren whirled around. "He's the last remaining king's mage from that generation. Either we can get to him before this group busts him out, too, or he'll know names."
"And what makes you think he'll be so gracious to spill his guts for us?"
"I'm sure you have your ways, Kommora."
Kommora's lip twitched. Her face became paler by the minute but her eyes remained bright.
"Or maybe we can threaten him. He'll be executed too, if he doesn't tell us."
"That's... not how our justice system works," Madeleine said, aghast.
"He doesn't need to know. And besides, the system's been overturned. He doesn't have to know what we can and can't do. If worse comes to worstâ" Seiren cracked her knuckles, a familiar sense of fire running over her body. "âa little flash magic will definitely make him talk."
Madeleine's grip on her elbow tightened. Kommora gave a shaky grin, showing a sliver of approval.
"I think we can make a military mage of you yet, Nithercott."
The last time Seiren descended the spiralling stone steps, she was dressed in prisoner drabs and chained by the wrists and ankles after being arrested for abandoning her post in Acrise. The familiar, nauseating sense of dread seeped into her soul. Thinking back now, she wasn't sentenced to exile by Pollin. Pollin had long died â he died around the same time as her father and Madeleine, which prompted Zor Jarsdel to seek Kristen at her Finberry home for help. Kristen, manipulating Pollin like Seiren manipulated Kori's toy soldiers in a dance back in Hartley, opted to exile Seiren instead of executing her after a farce of a trial by the reanimated Pollin and a few king's mages. Everything had been according to their plans.
When Seiren's foot hit the bottom of the steps, she gasped aloud. Her magic reserve plummeted to nothingness, leaving her body a tingling shell of numbness. She grabbed the condensation-covered wall, fingers digging into the slimy cracks, lightheaded.
"Seiren â are you okay?" Madeleine rushed to her side, laying a hand on her back and helping her down the last few steps.
The dull ache in her chest reminded her vividly of that moment when she and the other state mages activated the city-wide nullifier in a failed attempt to cut off Kristen's sacrificial rune. The shadows thrown by fire torches danced on the walls.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you I nullified the shit out of this place. I'm not risking another Harred incident again."
"How come I'm not affected?" Madeleine said under her breath. Seiren straightened up, trying to ignore the trembling in her legs and the waves of nausea sweeping over her. Guards stood at the base of the steps, snapping to attention when they approached.
"Maybe it's the celestial energy..." Seiren swallowed bile. Madeleine's soul was tethered to Maura's body with celestial energy. Her magic was likely sourced directly from celestial energy, rather than a trickled-down version as passed down by the original twin Karma like Seiren's and Kommora's. Perhaps that was why mere runes wouldn't affect her magic source.
"You okay?" Madeleine whispered.
"Yeah." Seiren panted. It was worse when Madeleine had first come back to life. Seiren's magic took ages to trickle back â she'd half-expected it never to return. The weeks of being nullified left her weaker than the time Halen Ashworth gutted her with a throwing knife.
"You'll get used to this," said Kommora over Ash's shoulder. She'd grudgingly accepted being carried in his arms after eventually failing to stand on her own two feet upstairs. Her voice had gotten higher, thinner. "And besides, seeing this would make your day better."
She gestured to Ash and he set her on the ground. She barely made the last few steps, but she kept her spine straight, her demeanour confident. No weakness in front of the enemy for Kommora Haigh.
"You pretend to fight for the good, Kommora Haigh," rasped a voice Seiren hadn't heard in almost six months, "but you're just as sadistic as us."
"I know when it's appropriate to throw people under the train and when it's not, whereas you old king's mages seem to lack that thing called conscience."
Flickering torchlight fell on the haggard face of Zor Jarsdel. His beard, previously well-trimmed, had grown into a thick, curly, black bush covering his angular jaw. He snarled at them, showing the jagged teeth and bulbous nose. His pale eyes were wild and animal-like as ever. Overlong brown-black hair covered one side of his face.
"Ah, you bring the Harred brats." He coughed. With his sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, he reminded Seiren of the starving orphans in the impoverished city of Danaway. "Enjoying the show? Nothing like six months of nullifying magic to really make you appreciate how hollow and crippled a magic-less body is."
Madeleine shuddered beside Seiren. She could see why. The last time Madeleine saw this face was at twelve years old, before she died.
"I'm here to speak about Hanna."
Jarsdel's face gave away nothing, his lips curling back in a sneer. "What makes you think I'll say anything?"
"Who were the contacts in Hanna? Who were you selling the runes to?"
His expression didn't change. He truly had no plans to cooperate.
"If you don't talk, we'll just blitz your brain with an indigo and get our information that way." Seiren scowled, squaring her shoulders. To her irritation, Jarsdel chuckled.
"I don't think lady dragon here would even let you sneeze near her precious nullifiers."
"Less of the snark, Jarsdel. I don't have time for that shit." Kommora leant into the bars, heat radiating off her short form. Seiren could hardly believe she was near the front of the blast merely hours earlier. "Tell me who your Hannan contacts were. Was it someone you know from your mother's side?"
Jarsdel merely smirked.
"Are you getting scared, Haigh? My incarceration hasn't been unnoticed by the holy country of Hanna. They might have tolerated the past few months, but you're asking for war by treating me this way."
Kommora's gaze remained unchanging, but Seiren noted the subtle shaking of her hands. Kommora couldn't hold out the interrogation for much longer.
"If you value however many pathetic lives remain after what we've done and want to avoid the wrath of Hanna, you'dâ"
"They won't," Seiren said at last. Kommora turned to look at her with icy eyes. "Hanna won't do anything. He's not Hannan, not really. His mother was Hannan. She was raped by a Karman soldier during one of the fights over Acrise. He said she smuggled him over when he was a kid and he never saw her again. He grew up Karman."
His face contorted, and Seiren knew he'd been speaking the truth when he caught her moments before she found her mother six months ago. His banking on her death, and thus revealing personal information, would be his last mistake.
"How interesting." Kommora scrutinised Jarsdel with renewed interest. "Your Hannan source decides to take Harred â a pure blooded Karman, who has never, until recently, had reasons to ally with Hanna â and leave you behind?"
Jarsdel's hands shook. His chains clinked against each other.
"And yet you're of holy blood â that's what Hannans believe so devoutly, right? Holy blood is worthy blood. I guess even your half blood isn't as worthy as Harred's foreigner blood. Guess you really aren't of any use to them after all."
He leapt at her with a roar, bouncing off the bars on contact. Kommora didn't flinch.
"Blasted Daemonium â may their blood blacken to hell!"
Kommora grinned with satisfaction â and then fainted.
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