The Forsaken Hero

As the army began its march, I turned to R’lissea, who walked beside me. "What did Fyren leaving have to do with us passing near a city with a shard?"

She glanced up, her brow furrowing slightly as she considered the unexpected question. After a moment, she nodded, her expression softening. "I suppose you never did it much, so you wouldn’t have thought of it. Heroes use the shards to teleport around, remember? That’s how we were able to keep on top of all the demon gates."

"You mean they’ll send a hero for me?" I shuddered, the image of Soltair flashing through my mind.

"I doubt it," she reassured me. "With Levin and Victor gone and with me, Grace and Korra no longer helping, there aren’t enough heroes left. It’s just Soltair, Alex, Connor, Ronin, and Verity. Soltair was supposed to go to the southern continent and clean up the rest of the demon hordes there. Ronin will be in the Blacksand Empire, but the rest are probably doing as much as possible to clean up gates and keep more demons from spilling into the world."

"So who might they send to capture me?" I pressed.

She shrugged. "The ninth-level mages and warriors are too valuable to mobilize for something like this. They all guard key resources and cities where their absence could be exploited. I imagine they have a few elite units of seventh or eighth-level beings, but I doubt it’s too many. There are only a handful of such people in the world, so risking more than one squad on a mission like this would be too risky."

"Inquisitors?" I asked.

"Perhaps," she conceded. "But more likely just people like Royal Guards or legendary mercenaries."

I nodded, feeling a wave of relief wash over me. While eighth-level souls were formidable opponents, it was comforting to know we had a fighting chance. And, from the sound of it, every mage or warrior of that level we defeated would weaken the overall combat power of the world, making it even harder for them to target me in the future.