"Great job, Bastian." I smiled, strolling closer to the bone mage.
His eyes were a milky white, and his hair was a burnt orange color. He looked like an ordinary mage. His spirit didn't evenfeelsinister. I could tell right away that he wasn't the bone mage we were looking for.
"Here's how this is going to work," Cas mused as he crouched down next to the bone mage. "My brother is going to ask you some questions. You're going to answer them. Got it?"
Silas's magic pulled back slightly, and the bone mage managed to nod his head.
"Good." Cas slapped his hands on his legs and stood back as Jasper prowled forward.
"What's your involvement with the wholetaking over Hexariumplan that your emperor and empress are putting into action?"
"Loyalty," the bone mage choked out, face twisting in pain as he tried and failed to fight the truth potion.
"Who are Emperor and Empress Hayes working with?"
"I don't know," he gritted out. "But Emperor Hayes has been silent. Haven't heard a peep from him in months."
Silas cleared his throat, pulling out some of the documents from Aimon's satchel. "What are these journal ramblings about potion experiments?"
Jas looked back at him before stepping toward his brother, and Silas moved closer to the bone mage, passing the journal to Jasper.
The mage stilled, zero-ing in on the journal. "How did you get that?"
"Answer the question," Silas growled.
"I've been helping a potion mage oversee certainexperiments," he hissed out the last word.
"Who is the potion mage?" I asked.
"And what experiments?" Silas added.
"The potion mage is the imperial potion mage on Empress Hayes's council." The bone mage bit his lip so hard it bled, but his mouth continued moving anyway, ripping his tooth from the flesh of his lip. "The goal is to create a memory loss potion."
"Why?" Silas tilted his head, brows furrowing in confusion.
There already was a memory loss potion, but the potion only worked for what had happened an hour prior. Any other potion attempted to make the timeframe longer led to the mage taking the potion either facing dementia or turning into a vegetative state.
"I don't know," he growled out. His muscles in his neck flexed. "I'm just following orders."
"How long have you been working on potions?"
"The empire's goals shifted about a year ago. I will follow orders regardless of the consequences because Empress Hayes took me in when I had nowhere else to go. I'm not the only bone mage involved--there are mages of all classifications backing them." He spat blood at Silas's feet and glowered at him. "You won't be able to get out of this without a war. My orders were to kill or capture you. I intend the latter."
Silas's expression hardened as he stared at the bone mage. It was a typical response of a loyal imperial guard.
I was just surprised the mages involved truly had no empathy for what a war would do to the innocents in Hexarium--throughout all three empires.
Mages had no idea what their destruction would do long-term, but I supposed I couldn't fault them for that. They wouldn't be alive to see the true consequences of their actions--nor would they bear the burdens of them.
"What other potions are you experimenting with?" I asked.
"Rage potions."
"For whom?"
"For the monsters," he gasped, wincing.
"Have you given the monsters the potions yet?" I ran a hand through my hair. We hadn't really run into a monster that was aggressive due to something like a potion, to my knowledge. I had thought they were motivated by their young being taken from them--that seemed more effective than a rage potion in my eyes.
