Algernon Black

(Chapter 99) Mine Stone

Devane and Jared's farewell by the royal family of Lorencica went as elegantly as it was designed. The elder princess led the send-off, loading a dozen bottles of the rich ivy-infused nectar the country's distilleries were prized for onto the men's carriage. Lorissa did an excellent job, as always, of contriving the ideal display of sophistication as all cordialities proceeded accordingly, except Omry. The youngest princess only stared at the men, with her hands crossed, but with an ounce less bitterness than she customarily directed at people. Jared waved his goodbye to the scowling princess, getting none in return. He laughed her rudeness off, still feeling a sense of closeness with the girl for her similar age to his sister and her transparent nature.

"I expect to hear from you if anything changes," Zar Druard spoke to Devane, as Jared entered the carriage.

"You'll be the first," Devane replied.

The King studied the Emorain getting into the Etilian style carriage. "I better," He warned but doubted.

Devane nodded to the Zar, walking down the marble stairs to his carriage. He was about to enter when a steward stopped to whisper something into his ear, something that made Devane's eyes narrow and his jaw tighten.

Devane stepped inside, slamming the carriage door shut behind him as he cursed Loy in his mind. Jared debated asking what was the issue, but the advisor opened the small window to the carriage driver. "Change course to Merra." He ordered.

"Wait," Jared protested though Devane had already closed the window. "You said we would be going after the coordinates."

"Something comes up," Devane wretchedly shot back, "I have to go see how much trouble Loy's caused in Merra."

"Merra?" Jared furiously repeated. "That will take us too far away. We have to get to that person before the end of winter. Before I go back to retrieve Lucy-"

"I don't care," Devane interposed, "Your fantasy trip is the lowest thing on my properties."

"You swore," Jared fumed, magic pooling in his hands from his swelling anger.

"You don't want to do that," Devane warned, not at all threatened. "Trust me."

"From what you've shown me, you're not a man to be trusted." Jared retorted, his magic sharply humming.

Devane kept watchful of Jared's hands and opened his mouth to reply when suddenly his eyes jerked to the window, and he lunged from his seat. Less than a second later, the entire back of the carriage was destroyed, and still on fire as Jared and Devane rolled out of the front end.

Jared was too stunned to process the attack, but Devane was an experienced soldier, and immediately dragged him to cover in the woods.

Jared peered from around the truck, and an immense blast of dark energy seared past his face. "Is this an ambush?" He asked as attackers dressed head to toe in black nylon maintained a ruthless assault of magic.

"Obviously," Devane seethed, retaliating with a surge of light magic, from both hands. It split a wide x in the direction of the attackers, burning through branches and forcing the assailants to a momentary defense.

Jared counted the number of attackers, during Devane's retaliation. "12," He remarked, "Who would send 12 assassins?"

"Someone that really wanted me dead," Devane responded, "And understood how hard of a thing that was to accomplish."

Devane spun out of his hiding spot, firing magic at the two closest attackers, hitting the weak spot under their ribs from yards away with his hyper keen abilities. They crumbled to the ground and were immediately replaced by two others. One used light magic and the other dark. A common tactic against someone outnumbered, but Devane was the rare breed of practitioner that could use both hands with two separate magics. He only had to put in half his potential to kill these two.

Jared's mouth gaped open watching the scene. He wasn't fully recovered from the sudden ambush and was even less recovered from witnessing firsthand Devane fight. The advisor always had a lethal underpinning to him, one that Jared saw now stemmed from a true adept soldier. But no matter how good he was, all men had a weakness, and Jared saw a stealthy assassin fall on him from behind, his hands gleaming with destruction magic.

"Behind you!" Jared shouted, firing his own magic. The assassin was still able to get his shot in, but not as deep into Devane's side as he had planned, as Jared's notice alerted Devane and he was able to draw his body out of the way, for the most part. He still got a deep layer of his skin eviscerated in a patch as big as the man's hand.

Jared finished off the assassin with a pellet of light magic and Jared ran over to Devane, who was clutching his side. Blood spilled from around the wound, and Jared seared it shut with magic.

The pain was blazing, but Devane powered through it to rip free the space stone sowed into his jacket. He crushed the marble, and from it came the light blue transportation stone to take him back to Estera. "Hold on," He told Jared, transferring magic to activate the stone as the assassins preyed closer.

Jared gripped his arm, hearing the familiar compressed whistle of the stone being charged, but once it was energized enough to activate, the sound was off.

"No!" Jared yelled, seizing the stone and hurling it at the band of still firing assassins.

A ground-splitting explosion erupted from the stone, taking out more than half of the remaining attackers in an instant, and blinding the lucky ones who had been further enough away from the mine stone to survive it.

Devane gaped wide-eyed at the scene. Sound hadn't returned to either of the men from the defining loudness of the blast, but Jared reacted first, grabbing Devane by the side, and hosting him to his feet.

"That wasn't a transportation stone!" He yelled, escaping with him into the forest, while Devane stared behind him in utter disbelief.