Elia pulled out one of her knives and charged. She ducked just in time to avoid a spell aimed at her head. Moving with lightning speed, she ran at him and they both fell down with her momentum. Elia crouched on his chest and pressed a knife against his throat. "Move or scream and I will kill you," she threatened.
The mage took a deep breath and replied calmly. "You know, if you wanted to talk to me privately, all you had to do was ask."
Interesting. Not exactly what she'd been thinking he would say. "What makes you think I want to talk?"
"You have a knife at my throat, and I'm still alive, aren't I?" he pointed out. "Therefore, I deduce you're not here to kill me but you want something from me."
Elia pressed the knife deeper and beads of blood started to appear. To her mean satisfaction, he squirmed. "If you think your bodyguards can save you-"
"What bodyguards?" he interrupted her. His brows furrowed in confusion.
Elia was puzzled. Surely someone as clever as the chief mage would know about his own protective guards. Unless he was tricking her. "Don't lie. I saw them posted outside the tent. They're not very good at disguising themselves."
"I'm not lying," he insisted. "Nobody's supposed to know I'm here today. This was supposed to be a surprise event! I even made the decision to perform only recently. How did you even know-"
"I told her about it," Another voice interrupted him coming from the door behind Elia.
She didn't need to turn around to know it was Eden. Where exactly does he fit into all this?
A slow whoosh of breath released from Devlin as he rolled his eyes. "Of course it'd be you, Eden," he muttered. "You're the only one I told about this."
"And I told Elia," Eden replied, impatiently. "We don't have time for this. There's a bunch of thugs coming here right now and they want to kill you."
As soon as he said those words, the group of men Elia had spotted earlier lurking outside the tent entered the small room. All carrying weapons.
"Get up. Now," one of them barked at her. Elia looked up from where she was crouching over Devlin. She counted five of them. They were mercenaries, she realized, not guards as she had first thought.
"Now, gentlemen," Devlin started to say, still on the ground. Elia had to admire the man's calm confident facade no matter how out of his control the situation was. "We can talk about this."
"Shut up," said their leader.
Elia analyzed her current situation. Devlin would be no good to her if he were dead. She would have to fight them off and quickly.
There was no other option apart from using her magic. She saved her powers for only the most dire of situations as it would always leave her considerably drained. Focussing her mind, Elia began pulling power from around her, namely the shadows. That was her element. Luckily there were many thanks to the lantern hanging from the post. She called them to her command.
At least two of the mercenaries were armed with crossbows. They were the most dangerous. They needed to go first.
Dark tentacles rose up from behind each man as she used their own shadows to bind and strangle them. The men tried to yell in surprise, but all that escaped their lips was a dry rasping as they struggled to escape.
Whilst the remaining mercenaries were confused at what was happening, Elia moved quickly and slashed the throat of one crossbowman but the other was out of her reach.
The second one let loose a bolt aimed at her. She dodged and threw one of her knives in retaliation. He let out a strangled scream as it struck his jugular. The man dropped his weapon to pull out the knife. Not that it helped him. Blood sprayed everywhere as he died.
When she had dodged that last crossbowman's bolt, Elia had lost her focus and her weak magic dissipated. The remaining three swordsmen broke free of her shadows' hold. As the men charged toward her, Elia palmed the darts she had prepared for the night's task. All were laced with a sedative she specifically mixed up herself.
The first two she threw struck their targets, but the last one missed. The two men that got hit by the darts almost immediately dropped to the ground.
There was only one remaining now. He charged. Elia ducked under his swing, danced closer to him so the sword would be useless with the minimal space between them. She took the chance to stab him in the heart with one of her throwing knives. The dying man's eyes widened in fear, blood spurted from between his lips. With one last cry, he dropped dead besides his comrades when Elia pulled out the knife with a sickening twist.
Warm thick crimson still dripped from her bloodied hand as she turned to Devlin and Eden, who were regarding her with something akin to horror. Devlin was the first to recover, "Well, that was over quickly."
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