So this is how it ends.Not with a spell, but with a piece of sharpened iron in a burning hallway.
Then, the guard stops.
He does not freeze in fear. He does not hesitate. He simply… halts. His arm locks in mid-swing. His eyes glaze over, the pupils dilating until they are black voids.
He turns.
Not toward me. Toward his comrade.
With a fluid, mechanical motion, the guard drives his short sword into the chest of the spearman.
The spearman gasps, looking down at the blade protruding from his ribs. The leader, still clutching his ruined knee, stares in horror.
"What are you doing?" the leader screams.
The third guard does not answer. He pulls his blade free and swings again, this time taking the leader’s head from his shoulders in a spray of crimson.
Then, he drops to one knee. He bows his head, presenting his neck to me.
"Master," he drones, his voice flat and devoid of inflection.
I stare at him. The silence in the corridor is sudden and absolute.
I look at Leora.
She is standing behind Asema, her hand outstretched, fingers splayed. Her eyes are pitch black, the sapphire swallowed whole. Sweat beads on her forehead, and a trickle of blood runs from her nose. She is trembling, her whole body vibrating with the strain of an invisible weight.
"Leora," I breathe.
She blinks. The blackness recedes, leaving her eyes wide and terrified. She staggers, and I catch her before she hits the floor.
"How?" I demand, gripping her shoulders. "How did you do that?"
"I... I just wanted him to stop," she whispers, her voice shaking. "I pushed. Not calm. I pushed... obedience. I remembered how the guards look at you. How they fear you. And I put that fear inside him."
She looks at her hands, as if they are covered in blood.
"I didn't know I could make them kill," she says, a tear tracking through the dust on her cheek.
I look at the kneeling guard, then back at her. She is not just an empath. She is a puppet master. She reached into a man’s mind and rewrote his loyalty in a heartbeat.
It should terrify me. A woman who can turn an enemy into a slave with a thought is a threat greater than any Sorcerer Lord. She could do it to me. She could make me kneel.
But instead of fear, I feel a fierce, wild pride bloom in my chest.
"Good," I say. I wipe the blood from under her nose with my thumb. "Do not fear it. Use it. We are at war, Leora. And you are a weapon."
"I don't want to be a weapon," she cries softly. "I just want to keep you alive."
"Then be a weapon for me."
I pull her up. Asema is staring at us, her good eye wide. She says nothing, but she shifts her grip on her sword, moving closer to Leora, placing herself as a secondary shield.
"The stables," I command. "We move."
We run. The estate is a labyrinth of violence. We fight our way through the servants' quarters, then the kitchens. Leora does not use her power again—she is too drained, leaning heavily on me as we move—but her presence is enough. The air around us feels charged, heavy with the potential of her will.
We burst into the main hall.
