Chapter 21: Shared Power❤
SERICA:
I followed Illia through instinct, to a small inn, little more than an Bed and Breakfast, a little over a block from the Durough manor, as I dwelled on my conversation with Regis. I'd made it clear to him that I would not brook injury upon Cora and Selenee, and was prepared to terminate Reilin's tutelage on that basis. I didn't trust him to honor my wishes, but I had little recourse that wouldn't harm our plans for Reilin and her sister.
As I approached the inn, a tracking gust I'd commanded whispered to me that the three were sharing drinks and a meal. I had it round for another pass and ducked inside. The inn's proprietor, a middle-aged halfling woman with a light-blue tint to her skin, was in the process of restocking a wet-bar. I made my way to the stairs, silent, and crept up them.
Illia pounced on me as I slid through the door, snaked her tongue into my mouth, and I let my hands wander and grasp. Her hot breath in my mouth was my own, it had been torturous maintaining this distance from her. We settled for a shared mental image of our bodies, entwined and spent, before returning to the matter at hand.
Through our window, a couple-hundred meters away, Purfree stood watch at the Durough manor gate. I still strained against my skirt with my holster burst open. I teased her adding details to the scene playing within our minds, a trickle down her thigh, bruising bite-marks along my neck.
"Cut it out," she laughed, "I can't project with you thirsting in my head."
I'd never grasped projection, it wasn't pivotal to a Tactician's role and as such, the elements didn't want to work with me in that way. I had a basic understanding of the process through Illia's shared memory, but it was engrossing, watching it play out live through our connection.
My craft was in ordering the elements, maintaining control. Illia's lay in deep understanding, geometry, and enticement.
Wind cared little for her, so she navigated Growth through our floorboards, down the walls of the inn and into its cellar, where Shadow greeted and directed her to an old oak's root that had pierced its bedrock. From there her mind's eye crept through a network of chatty underground nooks and inter-twined root-channels leading closer and closer to Purfree.
She barked no orders. Her work was silent, deeply involved with natural forces I treated as little more than peons to drive toward my ends.
Illia cajoled a dandelion seed set in the cobblestone beneath his feet to sprout, it rose, spun into his pant-leg, and then she bargained with the dark under his uniform. It paid the man little fealty, but wanted reassurance that she wouldn't tarnish his position, it enjoyed its place of limited providence in the city.
Darkness wove across his form, the process was cold, unnoticeable. Illia clasped my hand, this is where she needed my Radiance, our paired connection.
An acord was struck, she could work upon Purfree, but not through him, and he would be sidelined, not removed, in the ensuing storm.
We loosed our mantles, twilight extended from our palms and stretched over us. Her vines flared bathing Purfrees soul-form in invisible cold light, Illia hid while I pierced him with Dawnlight's quiet brilliance.
The core of this man was compliance, a sickening softness to authority. His soul-form swung its chains like whips.
I pressed in, enquiring with my memory of the girl with the rose-tinted spectatcles. He gnashed, unaware of the mental image's source, but not wanting to dwell on it.
No, you don't get to turn a blind eye. Who is she?
Colors warped and twisted around us, then solidified in the form of a red door. The sound of merriment bloomed, and piercing behind the door I saw her again, alone in quiet, nose-deep in a book, "Keep Areli from the halls when guests are about," Regis's voice commanded.
A woman pled in a room full of hunting trophies silhouetted behind a stained-glass window, "Haven't you done enough?", but Regis offered no quarter, "You gave up the right to ask me that."
"She's your-"
"Stop." A slap echoed and the glass shattered.
That woman, she may be our in.
I'd never met her in person, Reilin's mother, Persephine. Illia recognized her voice straight away, "I'd hoped she didn't know," she said. So had I.
I collected that Illia didn't know her too well. She'd checked in on Reilin a few times during her tutelage, had always seemed on the up and up.
If she knew...
"How could she live with that secret?" I asked out loud.
"We can go to her after the fact, when we know more." Illia suggested. I agreed, right now the girls were more important. We needed to get Areli out of that place, secure both her and Reilin.
Easier said than done. The place was well guarded. Purfree and his crew had left themselves open to social and mystical espionage, but they were a considerable force against foes they could actually strike.
We were in agreement that once Areli was free, she would stay in Illia's care. I would be deeply suspect already, and Illia's deep affinity with shadow would help conceal the girls' whereabouts.
With that accomplished, I'd continue Reilin's mentorship as we worked on a more permanent solution to the problem that was Regis.
We still had to figure the how. I pressed in again on Purfree, pored through every patrol route, shift-change, and security incident he was aware of.