Law of Shadows

“Some things exist even though we can't see them.”

- A memory of the Old Ones.

***Carinthia***

***Sely***

I howl in frustration and rattle at the magical restraints which bind me. Tina and Magnus are so dead! And by dead, I mean dead! But first I have to get free.

After they restrained me, Magnus rushed off to invade Fairy while Tina stayed and tried to calm me down. Traitorous bitch! She even rolled the operating table onto the veranda to allow me a nice view of the reality marble.

“Say, 'aah'.” Oilell tries to feed me another spoon of her handmade ice cream, but I don't oblige. Instead, I strain my muscles and try to burst open the restraints.

Oilell's expression turns worried. “Please stop doing that! It could hurt the baby.”

“Free me and I'll stop.” I try to turn my head to Tina, but the restraints hamper my movements. My aunt is sitting in a chair next to me. She is reading a book and seems unperturbed by my situation. “You'll pay for this!”

She shrugs. “If it keeps you and the baby out of Fairy, then I'll happily endure your wrath. You can stop struggling by the way. You can't follow him at this point. He surely left the Veil by now and he locked you inside.”

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I fume. “He promised that he would never throw his life away just like this. That he would always take me with him if he had to go into a dangerous situation.”

“Master would never allow you to risk your life in your state,” Oilell points out.

I turn my frustration against the brownie. “You aren't any better! You are doing nothing to help me!

Oilell clicks with her tongue. “I am not only a bad fighter, I am also a pacifist. There is no way that I can free you while Tina is standing guard.”

“Aren't you supposed to serve the Bathomeus? You are somehow leeching on our power and you can't even undo a few restraints? No wonder that Hatlix had to rot inside a chest.” I spit the words out.

Oilell's expression turns sour. “It's not like the bloodpact is a direct link to each and every member of the clan. Yes, I sensed your child, but that's because I was touching you. The power which I receive through the ancient pact doesn't come with a head count. Each person provides a different amount of power. Additionally, that amount rises and falls with your ability to share your power. I only get what would be excess to you. There are times when I feel nothing from a particular clan member.”

She allows her head to droop. “Hatlix was sealed in a magical chest and needed all his power for himself in order to survive. I felt nothing from him. I didn't even know that he was alive until we found him inside the dungeon.” The brownie looks heartbroken.

“Tina? Why is my daughter bound to that table?”

Cecilia's voice gives me new hope. “Mom? Help me! Tina and Magnus did this to me!”

Tina doesn't even look up from her book. “We did it so that Sely can't follow him to Fairy. Sely is the type who would risk her child in order to protect her partner. Even though she isn't of much help in her condition.”

“I am a big help! I can take on a fae any time.” I complain loudly.

Tina lowers the book. “It doesn't matter how many fae you can take. His whole plan stands and falls with the ability to stay undetected. Once they become aware of you, you are against the entire damned race. You may be a match for a few fae, but in your current condition you are definitely slower and clumsier than you would be in your prime. It makes detection much more likely. Therefore you are a risk which Magnus can't take. His whole reason for doing this is to preserve the clan's reputation and therefore your home.”

“Gnus oit of ae?” Hatlix asks.

Cecilia's voice turns soft. “Don't worry. Magnus has held this territory alone for over a century. I am sure that he can survive a few fae. Especially since he doesn't intend to fight them.” Then Mom steps into my field of vision and pets my head. “I am sorry, but I've to take Tina's side. You are much safer where you are right now.”

***Hungary***

***Magnus***

I watch the little meadow from afar. In the last hour I observed several fae coming and leaving through the fairytree. So far, I haven't noticed a pattern. I reach up and touch the newly made amulet around my neck. My idea is so bold that it might work, or it fails horribly and I die a very embarrassing death.

There are four permanent guards. It doesn't seem like a lot, but since every fairytree has its own little Veil, it should be enough. If the tree gets attacked, the Veil should buy enough time for the guards to retreat back to Fairy and shut down the doorway. It would leave the attackers with nothing more than an oak tree. They can only destroy the tree in order to ensure that the fae don't reopen the connection. That's it.

It wasn't very hard to find this place, which tells me a lot. I knew that a tree must be close to my territory, so I checked all the neutral zones for magical disturbances.

Admittedly, this meadow is in a neutral zone between my territory and a neighbouring clan, so the fae aren't completely obvious about their operation. Though they aren't as careful in staying undetected as they were a hundred years ago. They are definitely past the point where hiding themselves is an important point in their plans.

I wave a hand in front of my face to make sure that my stealth enchantment works. I attached it to my armour. The idea to bend the light around me came from the female assassin who I fought some time ago. She knew a spell which made her almost completely undetectable.

Since she wasn't an enchantress, she had no artefact for me to study. But like with physics, the knowledge that something is possible is often enough to reverse engineer the principles behind it. The nuclear explosion is a perfect example. As soon as the Americans revealed it to the world, the other nations knew that it is possible. Their scientists used their heads and a short time later every mentionable nation on the planet had nukes.

When the assassin used her invisibility against me, I simply needed to have that skill. But the only thing I knew about it, was that I couldn't see her. In the end I studied which approaches the humans would take to become invisible.

Their most promising approach was to bend light with a mirror, and to guide the light-rays around an object. When I thought about ways to use magic for such a feat, I immediately realized that bending energy and space is a very basic ability. In fact, it's one of the basic concepts of a reality marble. The ability is so natural that most Old Ones don't even think about it.

Like humans breathe, we are able to manipulate energy since we were born. What the assassin realized, was that she doesn't have to bend the energy around her so completely that she also folds space and creates a reality marble. She only had to redirect all radiation of a certain frequency around her.

That still left her with the ability to attack.

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After working out the details, I enchanted my combat suit with a similar spell. The energy drain is about as strong as it would take to power a flash-light. At this level, I can keep the spell going for quite some time. I shudder at the thought of fighting the assassin under different conditions.

She had to fight me in snow. Had she walked around, I would've found her because of her footprints. So she had to levitate, which takes a lot of energy. She had a mana stone, but her time was still limited. She tried to end it quickly by using all of her power to attack while using levitation at the same time. In a situation in which she hadn't been forced to levitate, she would've had a much better chance at defeating me.

With the confirmation that my spell is working, I step onto the meadow and approach the fairytree. If I was completely paranoid, I would levitate all the way there.

But I want to conserve my strength. I also recharged the assassin's power stone. It can't store a lot of power, but the enchantment is still a good one. There are almost no emissions coming from it. I guess using the orb would defeat the purpose of having invisibility. My orb is obvious to every magic user in the vicinity. The assassin's power stone is the perfect boost for someone who wants to be stealthy.

The final test comes when I reach the fairytree. I reach out and touch the Veil. First, my hand passes through, and then I am inside. The fae didn't even look in my direction.