Liliana sat in her coach, swaying as it carried her home, thoughts of Riley and Austin lingering at the back of her mind. The boys had seemed warmer than she remembered them. Was that because her reality differed from the game’s, or because she’d only ever seen them through someone else’s eyes?
They made a much better impression, in any case. Maybe I’m just misremembering them, though; I wasn’t all that engrossed in the game in my past life.
Liliana was struggling to gather her thoughts when the coach came to a halt. It was far too soon for them to have arrived. She frowned, wondering what was happening, when one of the escorts outside the coach called to her.
“Please wait a moment, my lady.”
Even without opening the door, Liliana felt the tension outside. Her hair stood on end.
Is this...malice?
A new sensation pricked at her skin. Someone wanted her dead. She raised the curtain just enough to peek outside without being seen and watched as, in one smooth motion, a mounted escort drew his sword and split an arrow mid-flight. Then, as if on cue, the air filled with the clash of swords.
After a moment, Liliana lowered the curtain and lightly shook her right hand. She could use magic whenever she wanted—but since she wasn’t yet accustomed to it, she found it easier to focus on the flow of mana when she had an actual reason.
Rekke, she said in her mind.
The spell was most commonly used to search for intruders in the palace and estates, usually by detecting nearby mana. Since it couldn’t find those without mana, Liliana had modified it to detect body heat as well, effectively creating a magical form of thermal imaging. A map that only she could see appeared before her eyes, showing the locations of everyone around her. By combining it with a spell that let her distinguish people’s mana, she could tell friend from foe.
There are four enemies fighting my escorts, eight waiting a short distance away, and one farther back. Maybe the last one isn’t part of the ambush—but even then, this feels like overkill for an attack on just one girl.
Why would anyone want Liliana dead to begin with? She suspected it had something to do with her father, but why her? At least there were no innocents around.
My two escorts are holding their own. As usual, father knows the right people for the job.
Even if he was the reason she was being targeted, Liliana was at least grateful to her father for assigning her such talented escorts. Their enemies must have realized their current force wasn’t enough, because the eight on standby soon joined the fray.
I should protect the coach, just in case.
Liliana’s two escorts were greatly outnumbered, and even one attacker breaking through would put her in grave danger. So, she would take matters into her own hands. Many of her new spells had been studied only in theory, and she welcomed the chance to put them into practice.
In truth, Liliana saw the battle ahead as trivial. She could take down a dozen bandits with ease. The only reason she’d spared them so far was that she didn’t want to take her escorts’ jobs from them or reveal her newfound magical expertise.
Liliana reinforced the coach and checked the escorts’ and attackers’ positions on her map. Her escorts were going all out, having already taken down four opponents, but something about their movements seemed off.
Do they not see this one? she wondered, furrowing her brow. One assailant was close enough to demand their attention, yet her escorts ignored him. Is he hiding with illusion magic?
The escorts could hardly be blamed—illusion magic was imperceptible to those without enough mana or knowledge of magic. Liliana’s scouting spell, however, had no such trouble. A small, graceful smile lifted the corners of her lips.
Now that I can finally test my spells, which one should I pick?
After memorizing the attackers’ positions, Liliana dismissed her map and focused on her targets. Ordinary barriers blocked magic, which was why she had only reinforced the coach. Now, nothing stood in the way of her spellcasting.
Dissipé.
No sooner had Liliana silently cast her spell than she once again peered through a gap in the curtains. She felt her magic working. The concealed assailant had moved from his last position, but any advantage that gave him vanished with his illusion—much to his wide-eyed surprise. Liliana knew her escorts were capable enough to deal with him, but they were busy fighting the rest of their attackers. They weren’t well placed to subdue the enemy behind them, nor even aware of his presence.
In that case, I’ll catch him for them.
Suppressing her excitement, Liliana unleashed another spell: captari. A clot of mana visible only to her seized the stray attacker in an instant.
“What the hell?!” the man cried, flustered, collapsing to the ground.
Regular immobilizing spells relied on plants or earth to physically restrain a target. Liliana suspected that taking the same approach would make her use of magic too obvious, so she had instead developed a spell that temporarily controlled and weakened the muscles in a person’s limbs. Focusing the spell was crucial, lest it also shut down the target’s heart and lungs. That was why she hadn’t cast lethàrge; its uncontrolled range of exhaustion would inevitably have proven lethal.
Liliana invoked rekke again. Her escorts had slain all their assailants except the one she’d captured. Thermal imaging alone wouldn’t have been enough to deduce that, since fresh corpses still retained some warmth, but the mana inside a person returned to nature the moment their heart stopped. If rekke showed a warm body without mana, it was either a brand-new corpse or someone—or something—who had never possessed mana in the first place.
My escorts didn’t spare a single one of them... Did it never occur to them to take someone alive, so that we might learn who’s behind this?
If the escorts saw no need to take prisoners, they were less useful than she’d assumed. Perhaps the thought had never crossed their minds—but knowing her father had hired them, Liliana had her doubts.
Let’s see how things go for now, she concluded with a small sigh.
Once the confusion over the spared man subsided, one of the escorts knocked on the coach’s window and reported to Liliana. “My apologies for the wait, my lady. We were attacked by bandits, and we’ve just finished dealing with them. What shall we do with this one? Should we leave him here?”
“Good work,” she wrote. “Bring him with us, so we can find out who hired him.”
“As you wish.”
The escort nodded and tied the bound man securely to the outside of the coach, which resumed its journey as if nothing had happened. The escorts remained on high alert, but the rest of the trip passed without incident.
I need to refine my spells. If I can target only the somatic motor nerves to inhibit their activity, I might be able to exhaust the skeletal muscles without affecting the smooth or cardiac ones. Neural circuits are mostly ionic, so in magical terms, I’d need to use wind and earth elements.
Settling into her chair on the coach, Liliana reflected on her magic arsenal.