It was morning. Dene sat in bed by herself, while Jonathan left to talk to the Earl about their coming journey. He invited her to come along, but she decided to stay, in case another wave of morning sickness hit her. She would need to tell him soon, preferably after they had talked to his grandmother.

In the meantime, she attempted to distract herself by reading the books they had received yesterday. It wasn’t going well.

In public events, nobles tended to talk more to hear the sound of their own voice than anything else. They would find every opportunity to tell tales of honor, courage and all of that. That was in public only. In private — exemplified by Richard — they could be as vicious as any highwayman, with the difference being that they were the ones sending people to the gallows.

As such, they tend to exaggerate their feats, if one wishes to put it mildly. And it seemed their autobiographies were no different. She never heard of Jarvas Knigh up until then, but she doubted he did actually manage to slay a dragon by himself. Her ancestors once fought against a wounded dragon, and they needed almost two dozen Paladins and Warlocks to kill it.

“What a load of crap,” she muttered before dropping the book on the floor where it fell open. She headed to the hole in the wall they called a window, hoping for any sort of entertainment. Not that there were many differences.

The morning sun cast its rays over the battlements and would soon be reaching the empty courtyard. Yesterday, the workers had finished replacing the shingles and now they were applying a coat of varnish. And as for the pigeon loft…

Dene froze, her heart stuck in her throat. “No,” she mumbled, her vision fixed on an empty pigeon cage. “No no no no no no no!” She rushed to grab her cloak and was immediately out of the room, covering herself up as she ran down the tower’s stairs. Reaching the courtyard, she then ran with the walls to her left, towards the pigeon loft.

It was a large wooden shack with the bigger part of its walls made up of a chain-link fence. Dene entered the shack and stopped in front of the empty cage.

Homing pigeons worked because they instinctively knew the way to their nests and would fly towards it when released. To keep track of where each pigeon would head to, its destination would be written down on its cage.

The name on the empty cage confirmed her fears. “Lastan,” she muttered to herself. They had been betrayed.

Dene ran out of the building but stopped after just a few steps.

Five guards were running towards her, all Crusaders, none looking friendly. Five Crusaders versus her alone, not so different from when she fought Richard and his goons, but this time she didn’t have a knife. This time she had something better.

Dene retreated into the building where it was darker. The five followed suit and formed a semi-circle around her with their weapons in hand. They showed no sign of fear, worry and more importantly, no sign of triotium. A mistake, probably none being accustomed to fighting someone who uses both body and spells. Most people weren’t.

An Archmage will lose against a Crusader ten out of ten times. Their Mage spells would only serve to harass until they exhausted themselves, while any Archmage spells would leave them defenseless long enough for the Crusader get in close range.

But an Archmage and a Crusader? That’s when things get interesting.

Three guards rushed her together while the two others remained behind, both for support and also so that they wouldn’t get in the way of one another. Smart, but they had already lost from the start.

From a dark crevice, Dene created a shadow leash that pulled on the sword of the man to her left, throwing him off balance. She then formed a ball of shadows around the head of the woman to her right. Now she only had the woman in the middle to worry about.

It took some effort, but Dene managed to dodge her downward cleave. From there she grabbed her head and pulled it down to meet with Dene’s rising knee. The woman fell down cold and Dene took her sword.

The ball of shadows remained around the other woman’s head as she swung her weapon left and right in the hopes of hitting Dene. The man she threw off-balance was already getting up, while the two who stayed behind were now lunging forward with their swords pointed at her chest.

Dene feinted right and jumped left, confusing one of the men rushing her, and sending him straight at the madly slashing woman. Her sword cut flesh and the man was down.

The second one was still coming towards her while the guy she threw off-balance was up already. Dene once again pulled at him with her shadow leash, but this time he was prepared and stood firm.

No matter, for it delayed him long enough for her to deflect the second one’s attack, trip him and pierce his chest while he was down.

The last man standing tried to catch her by surprise with a sideways slash. Dene abandoned the sword, rolled beneath the man’s attack and grabbed another sword from the ground, dropped by the man she’d just killed.

Desperation was clear in the last man’s eyes. He looked towards the door but Dene stood between the two.

“Not so valiant now, are we?” She mocked.

He attempted a diagonal slash that was met by Dene’s blade, same for the subsequent thrust and upwards cleave. He then messed up, tried an overhead slash and she took the opportunity to sheath her sword in his unprotected stomach, its tip protruding from his back. He collapsed with a grunt.

Dene stepped on the neck of the woman she knocked unconscious and crushed it, making sure she was dead. Right then, her ball of shadow dissipated and the other woman could finally see again.

The man she cut was now bleeding out on the ground while all the others had been killed by Dene. She then took the logical course of action; screamed in horror, dropped her sword and ran towards the doorway.

Dene tripped her with a shadow leash just as she crossed the door, causing her to fall face-first on the ground.

The woman tried to beg, but Dene didn’t care for it and pierced her back with her own sword, bringing out gasps from the surrounding. Her fight didn‘t go unnoticed, it seemed, as servants stared horrified at her through the keep’s windows, not unlike the few guards atop the battlements.

But there were no signs of the Earl, and more importantly, no signs of Jonathan. ‘I need to find him fast,’ she thought when something crashed down a few paces in front of her. No, not crashed. Landed.

The man had jumped from the eastern tower where Dene had stayed, and so she knew he had been after her. And most importantly, he was a Paladin. He was running as soon as his feet touched the ground and then hit Dene with a flying kick.

She barely managed to raise her arms in front of her body before being hurled back through the doorway. The pain in her forearms hadn’t even registered when she crashed through a wooden pillar and finally stopped after hitting the wall, crushing any birds that had been placed there.

Ignoring her aching body’s protests, Dene quickly stood up to defend herself against the follow-up attack that didn’t come. Instead of rushing after her, the man first pulled the sword from the dead woman’s back, then carefully entered the building, taking note of his surroundings and the fresh bodies.

He was dressed in a brown tunic with golden accents, silk breeches, and leather gloves, all too nice and intricate to not belong to a noble. His dark beard was perfectly trimmed, while his shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

This would be a hard fight. The reason she could so easily defeat the Crusaders were her Mage spells, which would be mostly useless against a Paladin.

Dene flinched after feeling something warm flowing down her forehead. She understood what it was the next instant. Blood. Her blood.

That’s when she realized there was a way for her to win this fight. The technique that she gained from the Secret Realm, blood magic.

‘No!’ She quickly abandoned this line of thought. That was the last option, it had always been. The price was already too great when her life was the only one at risk, nevermind now.

No, she had to survive this on her own. Dene snatched a sword from the ground just as he finally focused on her once again.

Without a word, he lunged at her with an upwards slash. She knew that trying to block it would end up with her being cut in half. Instead, she jumped to the side while pulling herself away with a shadow leash.

Even so, the blade passed mere inches from her face, a gust of wind blowing in her ear. He changed to a sideways slash, and once again she pulled at herself to help dodge it, this time the blade cutting her cloak.

Dene formed a ball of shadow around his head, hoping to take away some of his vision. Instead, he didn’t even flinch or hesitate, continuing his flurry of attacks as if he could still see her.

He probably could, a Paladin’s vision being too good to be disturbed by such a simple spell. Three more times he attacked before a shout from the outside caught them both by surprise.

“Dene!” Jonathan called out. Through the chain-link fence, she could see him sprinting in her direction, sword in hands. “Harrin, stop!”

The man ignored him and continued his attacks.

Dene wanted to run out towards Jonathan, but the slightest distraction could very well spell her end. So she would have to gamble.

She created a shadow leash from behind him and used it to pull on his leg, knowing that it wasn’t strong enough to trip him. Fortunately, it didn’t have to.

The man Harrin reacted by instinct, slashing back at an opponent that wasn’t there. He quickly realized what had happened and slashed at the escaping Dene, still managing to cut an inch deep into her side.

Regardless, she didn’t stop. One moment she was out of the door, and the next she was in Jonathan’s arms.

Harrin seemed ready to give chase when a loud, “enough,” rang out and he stopped.

Over Jonathan’s shoulder, she could see a tired-looking Earl Williard walking their way.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jonathan demanded.

“I’m sorry,” he caressed his golden ring, “but this is for your own good.”

Jonathan was about to speak again when Dene turned his head towards her, “he sold us out, your father knows we-”

She didn’t even get to finish before a thunderclap echoed through the skies.

Thunder? Without a cloud in sight? No, this was no thunder.

Gale eagles could fly at extreme speeds, enough to cross the Great Plains in a couple of hours. And whenever they reached a certain speed, something inexplicable would happen, a sound explosion of sorts.

They all looked to the skies where one such gale eagle approached from the southeast, carrying on its talons a giant litter, but it might as well be bringing Dene’s death.

Jonathan held her tighter, apprehension clear in his eyes while strangely, Dene was getting calmer by the second.

Before the Olsen’s soldiers arrival, there were still multiple paths she and Jonathan could take. Not now. Now, there was either death or using her technique.

“Jonathan,” she gently asked, “do you know how to ride a gale?”

With tearful eyes, he looked back at her not knowing how to answer.

The gale eagle was getting closer by the second. She could already discern the people inside the litter.

“Everything will be fine, trust me,” her hands cupped his cheeks. “But I need to know, can you ride it?”

He slowly nodded, “Ye-yes.”

Gusts of wind filled the courtyard as the gale prepared to land. Some of the Paladins were already jumping out of the litter towards them, while two Warlocks chanted their spells from inside.

“Good, I’ll take care of this,” Dene showed a gentle smile at the man she loved. “You just worry about getting us out of here.” Then, without warning, she brought her hand to the fresh wound at her side. Instead of holding the bleeding, her hand dug deeper inside.

The pain was… less than she expected. But that was just the beginning. It was hard for her to think about the harm she was about to inflict upon herself, and at the same time, also liberating in a sort of way.

She thought back to when she gained her technique, the message shown to her.

Blood magic.

With this technique, you can become the greatest spellcaster that ever lived, even if for just a moment.

Normal spells worked by burning the mana in the surroundings as fuel, and the more powerful the spellcaster, more powerful the spell.

Not blood magic, though. Using blood as a sacrifice, one could create spells as powerful as they wanted, regardless if one was a Mage or a Warlock. With the price being one’s life. Every spell cast would cost them years from their lifespan.

The first of the Paladins landed on the ground and she cast her spell. From the Paladin’s shadow rose a pitch-black arm.

That was it, no time wasted casting the spell. She just willed, and it appeared.

When the man noticed the arm, it had already coiled itself around his body. Its hand forced its way into his mouth and down his throat, destroying every organ it found.

The second Paladin followed closely behind. A second arm sprung up from the wall’s shadow, grabbing the man and pulling him headfirst into the stone wall.

A third one tried to run away after landing, but a new arm wrapped itself around his neck and crushed it.

Two more arms rose from Dene’s shadow, rising towards the litter, grabbing the two defenseless Warlocks, and pulling them outside towards the ground at maximum force. Their bodies crashed down with a sickly, but oddly satisfying splat.

Maybe following its rider’s orders — or maybe on instinct — the gale eagle dropped the litter and flapped its wings to escape.

It didn’t get very far. Ten, twenty, forty arms sprung up from the ground, grabbing its legs, wrapping themselves around its body and holding down its wings. Try as it might, it could do nothing as the arms forced it to land on the ground.

An escaping Williard was lifted in the air and thrown against the keep’s walls.

Harrin tried to rush her from behind, maybe thinking he could catch her by surprise. He thought wrong. Four new arms rose to meet him, each grabbing a limb, then pulling in four different directions.

The gale kept struggling. Dene willed more arms to hold it down and for the first time, none came. The world started to spin around her. She knew she still had more power in her, but her body couldn’t withstand the blood loss any longer.

But that was good enough. Anyone who hadn't fallen victim to her spells was now running away as quickly as they could.

“Get us out,” she spoke in a croaked voice to a wide-eyed Jonathan and pointed at the magical beast. With the last of her forces, she ripped the rider from the gale’s back and flung her over the castle walls.

That was the last thing her mind registered before the world turned black.