The tall stone wall of the Seeker compound looms above Reud, its blackened surface an ominous omen of what he is about to do. Reud takes a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. Hopefully this whole plan wasn’t a complete mistake. Absent-mindedly, he touches his bandaged left ring finger, the stump of the severed digit still throbbing with dull pain. He is as prepared as he can be, and delaying any longer would put Jessabelle’s life at risk. It was now or never.

The gate groans open as he approaches, a pair of soldiers striding out from inside whilst pointing their spears towards him.

“Halt! What is your purpose here?” The soldier on the left demands.

Reud puts his hands in the air. “Seeker Dain told me to come here. Tell him it’s Reud.”

The man on the left looks to his comrade, and they both raise their spears. “The Lord Seeker said to expect you, follow us.” He says.

Reud nods, and follows the two men into the compound. The place is a hive of activity, packed full of people in armour, as well as a number of others in a more regular clothing. Reud looks around with curiosity. The compound didn’t seem to be a purely military station, the atmosphere was wrong for that. The air itself is thick with the tang of expelled mana, the results of many years of heavy magic use. A glance through a window reveals a room with a number of large boards, covered in chalk drawings of mana circles. Definitely more than just a military base.

With a wash of relief, Reud spots three huge black wagons standing to one side of the compound, their painted sides wrapped in bands of rune inscribed bronze. Those must be the black wagons Cecily mentioned. As he thought, the children were definitely here. It would have been a shame to have put all these preparations in place to only save Jessabelle.

The soldiers lead him to a large building at the heart of the compound, a huge windowless cube. With fascination, Reud inspects the walls of the building as they approach. Unlike the rest of the buildings in the compound, that are a standard wood and stone mix, this one seems to be constructed purely from some sort of seamless stone. Something he hadn’t seen before. Reud frowns as he looks it over, he was really going to need to get his hands on some of these technologies Lightire had developed since the war. They seemed to have made some impressive leaps.

One of the soldiers opens the building’s heavy door, and gestures for Reud to enter. Stepping past him, Reud walks inside. The moment he is through the threshold a sickening feeling drives him to his knees. He couldn’t touch the mana here! Normally, it would be running through him constantly, making him vibrantly alive. Here, however, each time he reaches out for the mana, something in the walls of the building pulls it away from him.

Turning, Reud tries to step back outside, but the soldiers follow him in, grabbing his arms and hauling him away from the door. Reud fights against their grips, but his body feels sluggish, weak.

“You seem surprised, free mage.” A familiar voice says.

Reud turns his head, fighting down his rising nausea. Dain is sat in a large chair on the far side of the room they entered. Standing, he walks over.

“You know, I expected you to either come immediately, or not come at all.” Dain says, walking around to close the door to the compound. “Showing up after a couple of days is strange. You obviously care for this companion of yours, or you wouldn’t be here, but you care little enough to leave her at my mercy for days. As always, you are an interesting contradiction.”

The Seeker’s words wash over Reud, but he isn’t listening, his mind racing as he tries to analyse the mana in the air. Why was it behaving in this way? Was it Lightires doing, some sort of advanced enchantment? With everything that Reud knew, such a thing would be impossible, but a seed of doubt had sprouted within him after seeing the crystal Sar had used. Had Lightires mana research advanced so far beyond his own over the last few centuries?

A little flicker of worry shoots through Reud’s mind. Hopefully his preparations were still enough, even with this. The urge to test the spell was great, but he resists. It was too early to risk it, and the last thing he wanted to do was to show his hand before the opportune time. Maybe this was good, if they thought him helpless, they would lower their guard.

“Where. Is. She.” Reud gasps out, glaring at Dain.

Dain waves a hand. “Ah, so you do care for her. Don’t worry, I’ll take her to you right now.”

With a gesture, he commands the soldiers to pull Reud along the corridor, to a heavy metal door set into the featureless wall.

Turning to Reud, Dain laughs. “As fun as seeing you so helpless is, I do have things to attend to today. You were quite inconsiderate showing up so late in the day. For now, you can get acquainted with your new home. Tomorrow, we can get to how you can finally make your miserable life be worth something.”

Dain pulls the door open, and nods to the soldiers. They take a half step forward and throw Reud into the room beyond, sending sprawling to the ground. The laughter of the Seekers wash over him as he struggles to rise, until it is finally cut off by the door booming shut.

On all fours, Reud sucks in desperate breaths, panic rising within him as he struggles to reach his mana. Any mana. He’d never felt quite this cut off from the universe, like he’d been dropped into a hole of endless nothingness. It shouldn’t be possible, nothing should be able to restrict mana like this. This couldn’t be real. It had to be impossible.

And yet, it wasn’t.

When Reud comes back to himself, there is a hand stroking his back.

An unfamiliar female voice is speaking to him. Soft and comforting. “It’s okay, you’re okay. It affects everyone like this.”

“Lord Reud... Please be fine...” That voice he recognized. Looking up, Reud spots Jessabelle kneeling a short distance away. As soon as their eyes meet, a smile breaks out on her face. Looking up, her mouth moves in a silent prayer to Idia.

Finally in control of himself again, Reud looks around the room. He’s in a fairly large chamber, with a number of tables, chairs scattered around it. Along the walls are a number of doors, of which four stand open. The room is packed with people, all of them looking at him with concern.

The woman by his side steps back from him, smiling widely. Long, red hair frames delicate features, but it’s the eyes that Reud notices first. In them is a kind of muted emptiness, a longing for something lost. Reud glances over the others in the room, everyone except Jessabelle have the same look. There is a young man, his tousled hair and blackened eye giving him a wild look. Behind him hide a young boy and a girl, both of them looking similar enough to be twins. To the side stands another young boy, glowering at Reud.

“You’re a little old, aren’t you?” Asks the young man, his mouth set into a frown.

“Leo, be nice. If he was one of them he’d have a ring.” The woman beside him chides the man. “You know that no one with the magic curse would willingly come in here without it.”

“He could be some sort of trap!” Leo argues.

Jessabelle steps forward. “He isn’t, he’s the Lord I was telling you about.”

Leo rounds on her, glaring fiercely. “Don’t think we trust you either, you showing up in here was far too suspicious. You don’t even have the curse!”

“Leo, stop it!” The woman beside Reud shouts, stomping her foot. “You’re scaring the kids.” Leo around to the children behind him, looking guilty. She turns back to Reud, a smile on her face again. “I’m sorry about that, you just don’t fit the pattern, and that makes us jumpy. I’m Aleida, that’s Leo, behind him are Marla and Vorlo, and other there is Hamo.”

A smile spreads of Reud’s face. Those names, just like what was reported in the Littlestream records. It was them, the taken children.

“What are you smirking about?” Demands Leo.

Reud stands up, brushing dust off his trousers. “I wasn’t smirking, it’s just…” He looks at the children. “I was asked to come here by your mother, Cecily. You are her twins, yes?”

The faces of the twins light up. “Mummy’s here?” The boy, Vorlo, asks excitedly.

Reud shakes his head. “No, but she wanted me to bring you home.” He looks up everyone in the room. “In fact, I’ve come to bring you all home.”

Aleida speaks up. “Your friend was saying your name is Reud, is that right?” Reud nods, and she continues. “Okay, Reud. Don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe you should take a look around before you start making these bold claims.”

Leo nods. “She’s right, we all have the magic curse. Well, except her.” He gestures at Jessabelle. “I’ve been here the longest, almost eight years, and in that time no one has come even close to leaving.”

The boy standing to one side, Hamo, steps forward. “I’m going to escape. I’m going to learn to use my magic and break us out.”

“Hamo, you know that-” Leo says.

“Shut up! You’ve just never tried to learn it!” Hamo shouts, his fists clenching.

“Hamo, it’s okay.” Aleida says, her voice smooth and soothing. “Leo didn’t mean anything by it. Let’s all just calm down.”

Turning to Reud. “How about you just catch up with your friend, then later we can properly introduce ourselves. The Seekers won’t be back until tomorrow anyway.”

With that she ushers the others to the far side of the room, leaving Reud with Jessabelle.

“My lord, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I came here.” Jessabelle says.

Reud smiles, trying to reassure her. “It’s okay. The Seeker here can influence your mind. It wasn’t your fault.” Reud looks over at the mage children on the other side of the room. “Is that all of them? All the children they have here?”

Jessabelle nods. “It seems to be. At least, I haven’t seen any others.”

Reud does a quick mental count, if Leo had been here for eight years, then in that time the Seekers would have taken between four and five children from there alone. However, there was at least four other villages the Seekers drew from. Where were the other fifteen to twenty young mages?

“Lord Reud, your hand!” Jessabelle exclaims.

Reud follows her eyes to his bandaged finger. “Don’t sorry about this, it is part of my plan to get you free.”

Jessabelle smiles, but her eyes are sad. “You shouldn’t have done, not for me. The Seeker in charge gloated about this trap. About how I had doomed you.”

Reud frowns. “Don’t let that snake get into your head. It’s what he does.”

Jessabelle shakes her head. “You don’t understand, apparently they’ve cleared anything dead from the camp. There’s nothing for you to use your magic on.”

Reud shrugs. “I know.”

“Yes, so you see-” Jessabelle looks confused. “Wait, what do you mean you know?”

“I knew he would remove anything I can reanimate from the compound. It would be the only prudent thing to do when facing a necromancer.” Reud settles himself down in a chair. “It doesn’t matter, I’ve got something else planned.”

Reud gestures at one of the other chairs. “Just get comfortable and rest. By the morning we will be back on the road to Srinaber.”

Closing his eyes, Reud feels out for the missing part of his body, and the spell hidden within. It was close, maybe a few buildings away. Just as planned. With a thought, he activates the spell within. Thankfully, it was already charged with mana, or the whole plan could have been jeopardized.

With the spell activated, Reud relaxes into the chair. He hadn’t expected to be locked somewhere without access to any mana. That changed things. He was going to need to adjust his plan on the fly.

It was time to think.