Chapter 25: Intruders (4)
Vaelira shifted her grip.
Both hands curled firmly around the handle of her floating sword, the steel humming faintly under her touch.
The room, already dim, seemed to collapse inward, light struggling against a tide of oppressive shadow.
The air pressed down like a storm-brewing sky.
One of the intruders, his confidence long gone, spun in place, eyes wide, desperately searching for the door.
It was gone.
Or rather, it was still there, but smothered beneath a veil of black so thick and unnatural that it may as well have been a wall.
“W-What the hell is this…?” he breathed.
The other two faltered.
One’s knees buckled slightly.
The slickness of sweat clung to the back of his shirt, clumped at the nape of his neck.
Their pulse thudded loudly in their ears, only it wasn’t just their heartbeat anymore.
The shadows were whispering.
And then.
Vaelira whispered too.
“Lady Nyx, let silence softly grow Guide the shade in curling flow. Bind their steps, their senses sway- old them fast till break of day.”
The words were soft, like a lullaby whispered over a cradle.
And the shadows obeyed.
They moved.
The room rippled with sudden magic, like the floor itself took a breath.
Darkness crawled, coiled, slithered like living ink toward the three men.
Before they could move, it grabbed them.
A gasp, choked. A blade raised, too slow. A step back, interrupted by invisible weight.
In an instant, they were caught, paralyzed in place, their bodies bound mid-motion by tendrils of shadow that clutched their limbs and rooted them in disoriented dread.
Vaelira stepped forward.
No war cry.
No fury.
Just swift, clinical precision.
Her blade sang once-
Shhk.
A flash of steel.
One screamed as his wrist was neatly severed, his dagger clattering uselessly to the floor.
Ssst.
Another staggered as her blade carved through leather and flesh across his chest, not deep, but jarring enough to knock him into the shelves.
Thunk.
The last dropped to one knee with a guttural cry, his leg opened at the thigh, rendered useless by a single slanted slash.
None of the wounds were fatal.
But all three were now groaning, writhing, immobilized in a pool of dark so dense it blurred the lines of the room around them.
Vaelira stood over them in silence for a moment, breathing controlled, shoulders still, lips tight.
Then.
BOOM.
A sharp, echoing bang.
Like a cannon, but not quite.
Too clean.
Too mechanical.
Another followed, BOOM!
And this time, it shook the shelves.
Vaelira’s eyes shot toward the door, where it should have been.
The darkness peeled back like retreating fog, and light spilled in as the spell unraveled behind her.
The exit, now visible again, seemed to beckon.
Her sword floated beside her as she moved.
"Thalia," she muttered, recognizing the cadence of the shots.
"Or worse."
And with that, she dashed out of the room, nightgown flowing, blade gleaming, and slippers clicking softly against the floor.
The sound of thunder followed her down the hall.
***
Earlier, down the west wing hallway…
The three intruders advanced with quiet confidence, steps rehearsed and coordinated.
They’d done this before, get in, subdue, extract.
Clean and efficient.
They opened the door.
And stopped.
Thalia was already sitting upright on the bed.
Not startled, not groggy.
Sitting there.
Awake.
Back straight.
Barefoot, in a long shirt, spectacles resting low on her nose, and hands calmly placed over a small silver on the table next to her.
She was watching them.
Not blinking.
The kind of stillness that made the skin crawl.
“…You were awake?”
“Light sleeper,” Thalia said quietly.
One of them twitched.
Thalia tilted her head.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
They hesitated, unsure.
She touched the pin with one finger.
“I’m giving you a chance to leave.”
They moved.
Thalia twisted the pin.
With a burst of arcane silver light, the compact trinket exploded into a gleaming magical musket, its barrel engraved and humming with containment sigils, the breech snapping into place with a hiss of steam.
The room lit up with magic, humming like a live wire.
The intruders froze.
“That’s a gun,” one of them said hoarsely.
“It’s mine,” Thalia replied, standing up with the gun in her hands like it weighed nothing.
“And I’ve been very patient.”
They raised their hands.
She pulled the trigger.
BOOM.
***
Now.
The three intruders ran for their lives.
Thalia walked after them, her gun magically reloading as it drained mana off her hands that glowed an arcane hue.
“You break into my room,” she said to no one in particular, “step on my rugs, breathe in my air… and then run?”
She fired again.
BOOM.
The hallway shook as another chunk of wall exploded beside the intruders.
“Cowards.”
From the adjoining corridor, Vaelira turned the corner, sword at her side, eyes sharp.
She arrived just in time to watch one man scramble over a side table, the second barrel into a vase, and the third shriek as Thalia calmly leveled her weapon again.
Vaelira raised a brow.
“What… are you doing.”
“Herding,” Thalia said evenly.
“With intent.”
“Are you missing on purpose?”
Thalia paused.
“That depends. Are we legally required to keep them alive?”
“…Maybe.”
“Then yes. Missing. Technically.”
One of the intruders, gasping and near tears, nearly collapsed at Vaelira’s feet.
“Please- please make her stop- she’s insane- you’re sane, right?”
Vaelira looked down at him.
Then at the hole in the wall.
Then at Thalia.
“…Strip,” she said, voice flat.
“W-what?”
“Clothes, weapons, charms. Everything and anything. Now.”
Thalia added, voice soft.
“It’s not a request. You’ll find she doesn’t bluff.”
“Do you do this often?”
Vaelira asked, gesturing as the intruders began slowly, miserably undressing.
“Is this a pattern of behavior now?”
“Only when people come into my room uninvited,” Thalia replied, inspecting her weapon.
“And try to kidnap me.”
Vaelira blinked.
“You shot at them six times.”
“Technically five. One was a warning.”
“You obliterated a painting.”
Thalia glanced at the wall.
“It was a copy.”
Once the men were in their underclothes, they were shoved into a broom closet and the door was locked behind them with a resounding click.
Thalia exhaled slowly and leaned back against the wall.
“Well,” she said calmly, as if she hadn’t just stalked three armed men with a magical shotgun in pajamas, “that’s one problem solved.”
Vaelira didn’t respond.
She was too busy staring at the ruined hallway, trying to decide if she was hallucinating.
***
They didn’t notice it at first.
The rush of adrenaline.
The breathless pace.
The shared glance between them as they locked the supply closet shut, satisfied, for the moment, that the intruders had been handled.
But then Thalia looked down the hall.
“…Wait,” she said quietly.
“Where’s Lucien?”
Vaelira froze.
Her fingers twitched slightly on the hilt of her blade.
The calm melted from her face in an instant, replaced by a slow, creeping horror.
“His room’s on this floor,” she said.
“It’s on this floor. Why hasn’t he-”
She didn’t finish.
She ran.
Thalia followed, silver musket in hand, slapping another cartridge into the chamber as her bare feet pounded against the hardwood.
They reached the corner.
And stopped cold.
Bloody footprints led away from Lucien’s room.
Barefoot.
Dragged.
Unmistakable.
Vaelira didn’t hesitate.
She kicked the door in.
It clattered open with a crunch of torn hinges.
Inside was carnage.
One intruder was tangled in the window curtains, head hanging at an impossible angle, his body limp like an oversized doll someone had angrily discarded.
The other had been shoved headfirst up the fireplace- legs splayed out from the hearth like a cartoon reindeer jammed into a chimney.
His boots were still smoking.
“...I think that one’s still twitching,” Thalia said.
“I think that isn’t twitching,” Vaelira muttered, staring wide-eyed.
Furniture lay overturned.
One of the dressers had a man-shaped dent in it.
A pillow had been stabbed.
Not for defense- just violently, repeatedly stabbed.
But there was no sign of Lucien.
Not on the floor, not hiding, not even huddled behind the curtains or under the bed.
Just destruction, and blood, and chaos.
“He was here,” Vaelira said, heart pounding.
“He fought them. He beat them. But he’s not here now.”
She was starting to breathe faster.
Thalia rested her hand on Vaelira’s shoulder, voice low.
“We don’t have time to panic. He’s not dead, and you know it.”
Vaelira turned toward her, eyes wide and wild.
“If he was taken-”
“He walked out. Look at the prints.” Thalia gestured with her weapon.
“That’s roughly his foot size. Barefoot. His gait’s off, but not unconscious.”
Vaelira’s jaw clenched.
She stared down at the bloody trail again.
Thalia manifested another shell and then chambered it with a smooth, practiced motion.
The gun clicked with a deadly finality.
“There might be others in danger,” she said, grim.
“If he’s moving, then we should be too.”
Vaelira nodded, albeit shakily.
They stepped out into the corridor, the bloody trail continuing into the distance.
Vaelira’s knuckles whitened on her sword.
“We find him,” she said, “now.”
***
