Page 49 of Veil of Vasara (Fate of the Five #1)

CHAPTER 49 – NEMINA

T he man closed the bathroom door behind him.

I glanced down at the scrap of paper he had pulled out from his pockets. The Prince had ordered for me to retrieve it, but I had seen, I had watched as this man examined its surface. I had seen the blood drain from his pale ‘sandy’ complexion, and his ‘violet’ eyes flutter in confusion and distress.

I waited for a minute or so. I had been concealing my appearance, shrouding it with the shadows. I was lucky I had mostly mastered translucency, one of the five basic spells. I had acquired mastery of them all, other than levitation. That would have been useful, considering how often I was climbing through windows recently.

I had been surprised the Captain had left his window open, but had figured out that was because he needed the moonlight to be able to read the paper, as well as the blade, and so, he had opened the window for maximum luminosity.

I didn’t truly have the time to read this here, but I couldn’t steal the blade myself. Theoretically, I could, but despite the fact I had handled these blades a few times, I still wasn’t confident in their use. I would have preferred to leave it behind and get back to the Prince swiftly.

Besides, touching those blades brought back…difficult memories.

I needed to retrieve my enolith as soon as possible. I truly wished I hadn’t needed to bring one in the first place.

Yaseer might assume I had lost the stone but Baz, against his better judgement, would assume that I was dead. I could not afford for them to follow me here. This task had already become far more complicated than I would have liked, and there were several days I had contemplated abandoning it all together, leaving as I had initially intended to.

My task, to infiltrate the draining centres, and put measures in place to facilitate the escape of a Vessel. A Vessel, Yaseer had stated, they desperately needed.

I could have been somewhere, in some quiet corner of the world, where people barely crossed. Tucked away, at peace.

Or maybe that wasn’t true. How could I find peace, after all that had happened, after everything that continued to happen? How could I find anywhere, where people would not regard a newcomer with suspicion? It seemed that I had no choice but to stay, to fight, against my will.

I wanted to rest.

But I was here.

And I was walking towards the scrap of paper.

I lifted the blade slowly and stood, it only took seconds for the words to form on the paper. They were silver and bled onto the sheet like liquid ink.

I read it four times.

Over and over again, I took in these words, their weight, their meaning.

And still, air had become a foreign object to me, I could not grasp it with my lungs, I could not breathe.

Transference? They were attempting to transfer magical cores into human beings? They were conducting experiments on Vessels and humans. Which humans? How? How many had they done this with? Some of the Vessels, some of them were humans beforehand?

I’d heard screams. I’d heard so many…I never thought…

Kalnasa…why there? Who was betraying them there? Without Vessels Kalnasa would not survive for long. Who were these people they were marking? And what with? Kalnasa wouldn’t last without the drainings. Neither would Athlion.

And that signature.

N.A.

The Prince knew. He knew about this torture. He’d in all likelihood sanctioned it, had allowed this to happen. Some of the sorcerers were the products of experiments, and they were being transferred, deliberately.

Was Baz? Did Baz…

There were footsteps. The man was standing across the room.

Staring straight at me.

He could see me. I had lost focus, in the midst of my emotion, I had dropped the invisibility, the translucency.

I didn’t have time to deal with the man now. I had planned to kill him if he had detected me, despite the Prince’s threats.

But now, now I had other plans.

The man charged towards me, grabbing a spear that leant against the wall. As he did, his hair flew behind him, caught in the wind.

Using speed enhancement, I spun around him, and reached behind his head, grabbing his hair pin.

The insignificant details had mattered after all.

The man’s hair came undone, and I pressed his hairpin against his neck, nicking the blood slightly from a vein. He stilled. He’d realised by now I was a sorcerer.

I used his confusion and panic to grab the paper off the floor, and in one swift motion, imperceptible to the human eye, climbed out of the window.

There was another window, waiting for me, open.

And a man sitting behind it, who would not survive the night.