Something warned the man. He spun to face her.
It was not a guard, it was the man she knew as the young mage. He had directed the hunt for her, and he had murdered her father, and the knight, and his servant, all three who had tried to care for her. His face was older, but the same cruel nose, cold eyes, and thin mouth were unmistakable. The lantern displayed an evil and confident expression, like the one she’d first encountered as a child.
“Hannah. I should have known better than to leave you with a single guard.” His voice was soft, his grin more a leer. His eyes fell to her wet pants.
She backed to the wall fighting to bring the trembling in her hands under control. His was the last face she wanted to see.
He said in a tone almost sweet with contempt, “I see you’ve had an accident, but that’s the least of your worries.” His arms raised, all of his fingers aimed at her.
“Don’t do this,” she begged.
“Why not? I’ve waited years for this moment.”
“You killed my father.”
“And his friends. And now his daughter,” he chuckled.
She felt the heat building inside him for the flame he would cast. He drew not only his own heat, but that held within the floor, walls, and even the dead guard. He pulled it and concentrated it, ready to use it as a weapon. The very air dipped in temperature.
Her arms rose reflexively higher in a defense mode, and she drew air inside herself, more and more until she felt the room should be a vacuum. When the first hint of crackling occurred from his fingers, she waited. The weight on his toes increased as he drew back to cast. She still waited.
His eyes and smirk told her when to react. She cast a wall of air as he cast a flame long enough to reach her—but the strength of the wind she created pushed back, and him along with it. The Young Mage struck the wall as if shoved by the hands of a giant, but he remained on his feet, dazed and confused. “What trickery?”
Before he could recover, she cast a ball of fire the size of her fist at his chest. She wanted to aim for his face but feared he might duck. The fire flew from her fingertips directly at his chest and almost reached him before a sphere of water appeared in front of it. The fire sizzled and went out, falling to the floor with a splash.
“Only mages control fire,” he growled, puzzled and sounding scared.
Hannah fought to remember another spell, mage or sorceress based, but a tiny crack of lightning gave away his next move. The Young Mage was going to throw a bolt of lightning inside the room, a dangerous move that might well kill them both. Once lightning is released, it has a mind of its own and might attack him, her, or both.
He wouldn’t dare!
He would.
Not only that, but she’d taken him by surprise with her first defense—but that wouldn’t happen again. Instead of contempt and amusement in his eyes, she saw fear as he realized he faced a woman mage. For him, there could be no greater evil.
However, if he looked into her eyes, he’d see her fear also. Now that he knew she controlled mage powers, no matter how few, or how weak, he would kill her. Elenore might want her alive or wish to witness her death, but the young mage wouldn’t wait. He would kill her as fast as he would a dog with rabies, and regret it as little.
He’d trained as a mage his whole life, and he was older. His powers were probably stronger or more developed. She was going to die.
The training by the combat master took over her conscious thoughts. She wouldn’t give in to panic or quit while she was still breathing. She needed to attack. Her hand settled on the rapier stuffed into her waistband. It was too long and handle-heavy to throw accurately, but the words for the enchantment that would carry it to her target passed her lips as her hair reacted to the pre-lightning by standing on end.
The mage looked a wild man, his shoulder-length hair at attention, his lips pursed, his eyes centered on hers. He transmitted the impression of pure hate. His arms raised, fingers hissing and steaming as he increased the spell to unleash a full bolt of lightning. But, he could only perform one task at a time. All his attention was on the lightning building inside him.
Her arm acted on its own accord, cocking and releasing the knife in almost the same motion. She was looking into his eyes, still expecting to burn in a flash of fury and sound when the rapier struck, point first, above the bridge of his nose, and the slim blade entered to the hilt.
A look of confusion passed his face briefly, then quickly dissolved as his knees buckled and he slid slowly to the floor. Dead.
A sizzle of dissipating energy filled the room. She’d killed the man who had killed so many of her family. Relief or vengeance would have been natural, but all she felt was dull and sluggish. She went to him. She had no weapons, but the knife that killed him wouldn’t touch her hand again. It looked spoiled. Evil.
Hannah thanked the knife, knowing how silly that was, but it had done all it could for her. She stood upright as another door down the long hallway closed. Her mind was still slow from the effects of the spell, she stood in a room where she’d killed two men, and another approached.
She had no weapon, magic took concentration she didn’t have tonight, and worse, she was in a building she had never seen, not even from the outside. Thinking of outside, she realized the chill permeated the room, and probably the building. There were surely more guards—and then Elenore and Jeffery would arrive soon, probably this day.
Carrying the lantern would tell anyone looking where she was, but she couldn’t move in the utter darkness of the stone monastery. She snatched it and stepped to the doorway. Footsteps echoed off stone walls to her right, but they seemed to be getting fainter. Escape or follow?
The young mage had come from the same direction. Chances were, all the guards and people working with Elenore were to her right. It made sense that they would remain close to each other. Brice had described the rest of the building as a maze, and she could lose herself there until rescue arrived. But she still hesitated.
If an entire day had passed since her abduction, Brice and the general might have already arrived. If they had, they might hold off any attack if they believed Hannah was inside and being held hostage.
She would seek a way outside. Mind made up, she turned away from the footsteps, but mentally kept track of where she was in relation to them. A turn to the left, then one to the right, kept them behind her. A doorway beckoned. A horizontal timber held a door large enough to fit a carriage through. Iron straps held it in place. She shoved the wood in the tracks to one side and opened one of the doors enough to look out.
Through the darkness, she saw a moonless sky with stars so bright they nearly produced shadows on the snow. However, snow lay on the ground as deep as her waist, and the cold sucked the air from her lungs and hurt as she inhaled again.
Hannah wore only her wet pants and shirt. Her coat, backpack, and blankets were missing. Fortunately, she had gone to sleep in the pants and shirt, and boots. The hallway had grown colder as she walked, and ahead it was probably as cold as outside. The relief guard would soon find the dead guard and mage, and the hunt would be on. She left the door ajar, thinking it might distract them, giving them a reason to search outside. The snow may have covered her tracks—an unlikely story, but the other reason was it might give access to Brice and the soldiers.
Instead of going deeper into the cold, dark warren of unknown passages, she made her way back to the original room. A single peek inside told her nobody else had been there to discover the bodies. She continued, pausing at each doorway to listen.