Verdan managed several hours of focused work on his spiral, ending with just eight more layers between him and completing his fifth spiral.

“Verdan,” Kai opened the door to his room, breaking Verdan from his meditation.

“What is it?” Verdan asked, already getting to his feet as he took in Kai’s serious expression.

“They’re here, but there’s more than Albin expected,” Kai said, moving aside as Verdan joined him in the hallway. “There are four Weeping Death Sorcerers, but there’s also a trio of Defiant Flame with them and a dozen retainers split between the two groups.”

“Seven Sorcerers?” Verdan echoed with a wince. Verdan and his allies outnumbered them, but Verdan was their only true caster, and there was no way to know what sort of Sorcerers they were facing until the fight started.

The fact that there was going to be a fight was undeniable. Verdan knew without question that whoever had come to speak with Albin had been lying through their teeth.

Hurrying downstairs, Verdan moved cautiously to a window and peered out at where Albin and a few of the other villagers were talking with the Sorcerers.

Whatever the Sorcerers were saying, Albin and the others weren’t taking it well. Verdan could see a growing level of tension in their posture that screamed out their discomfort.

Eventually, one of the Sorcerers made a mocking gesture before turning away from the villagers, seemingly dismissing them with an offhand comment.

Verdan could almost see the anger radiating off the villagers, but none of them was stupid enough to pick a fight with a Sorcerer, which Verdan was thankful for.

“Verdan, do you have a moment?” Zhalia touched his arm to get Verdan’s attention before nodding off to one side. The Airta had a serious expression, so Verdan carefully moved away from the window and followed her over to the far corner.

“What’s wrong?” Verdan asked, part of his mind lingering on what he’d seen outside. His guess would be that violence would be coming soon, so they were rapidly running out of time to deal with anything else.

“Remember the uneasy feeling this place gave me?” Zhalia waited for Verdan to nod before taking a breath and continuing. “I took a look around this morning to try and pin that down. I wanted to see what might be familiar, and I figured it out. I have seen this place before, but not as it is now.”

“What do you mean?” Verdan asked, unsure what she was pushing at.

“I saw this place in the vision that the Laethir gave me, but in his vision, it was one of the settlements that had been burnt down. It had changed a few key things about it, which is why I didn’t click at first, but the landscape and the overall look of the place is exactly the same.”

“Abyss take it,” Verdan muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose as he considered Zhalia’s words. “Is there any way to tell if anything that he showed you was real or not?”

“Not that I can think of,” Zhalia said, sighing before giving Verdan an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I should have caught this sooner.”

“No, it’s okay. None of us questioned the damn thing,” Verdan said, cursing himself silently for not questioning the odd setup more. “Kai, we have a problem.”

“What is it?” Kai came over to join them, his countenance turning stony as Zhalia explained. Once she was done, the Sorcerer shook his head slightly, his brow furrowing as he glanced between them. “I don’t understand. Why lie about this place being burnt down?”

“Let’s play it through,” Verdan said, running a hand through his hair as he gathered his focus. “If he’s showing us a fake one, that means that either the whole thing is a lie, or only parts are. We can see the Sorcerers outside, so we know that at least part of it is the truth.”

“So, you’re saying that the vision was a lie, but the rest was real?” Kai cocked his head to one side. “But why?”

“If I knew that, I’d feel a lot more comfortable right now,” Verdan said, shaking his head as he put it all aside. “We don’t have time for this right now. Let’s continue with the plan as intended. We’ll question the Laethir’s motives later.”

Uneasy about the whole thing but unable to do anything about it, they waited impatiently for Albin and a few of the other villagers to return.

“It was what you said,” Albin explained once they were inside. There was an almost resigned look in the man’s eyes that concerned Verdan. “They want food, supplies and anyone between the ages of sixteen and forty. Apparently, there is an ‘opportunity for us to serve our betters’ that we can take advantage of.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t let them take anything,” Verdan said firmly, the rest of the group echoing the sentiment.

“It’s not so simple. They say they’re just the forward party. They want the supplies, but the ‘volunteers’ will be joining the group arriving tomorrow.”

“That complicates matters,” Verdan said, sharing a concerned look with Kai. One group of Sorcerers wasn’t an insurmountable problem, but a second one arriving so soon afterwards meant that if they dealt with this and left, the villagers would pay the price.

“You need to leave. This won’t end anytime soon,” Kai said, putting voice to Verdan’s thoughts. “Either to Hobson’s Point or somewhere away from this. It doesn’t matter where you go, just that you get moving.”

“But what about them?” Albin asked, nodding at the closed door behind him. “Even if we did run, they’d know straight away and stop us.”

“Oh, we’ll deal with them,” Verdan said with a tight smile, thinking about how much he owed the Weeping Death and how much he was looking forward to paying some of that back.

-**-

It took several precious minutes to arrange things as best they could, which really came down to surreptitiously moving all the nearby villagers further away from the Sorcerers.

While Verdan did his thing, they would be getting ready to leave, and all being well, they would be well on the way to Hobson’s Point before the next set of Sorcerers arrived.

“I grow weary of this wait. The longer you stall, the more I will demand as tribute,” the seeming leader of the Weeping Death called out in a bored tone that had just the right amount of frustration in it.

No doubt these arrogant bullies were ill-used to people disobeying, or resisting at all for that matter.

“You can demand all you wish, but you’ll get nothing,” Verdan called out, stepping into view and announcing his presence as loudly as he could.

Verdan didn’t particularly care for this part of the plan, but at the same time, it was somewhat freeing to play the role they’d given him.

“You are a fool to interfere here,” the Sorcerer reached down to his waist, drawing his sword and squaring off against Verdan. “This land is being claimed by the Weeping Death Sect. Stand against us at your own peril.”

“I’ve been standing against your sect for some time now. I don’t think this motley group is going to make a difference,” Verdan adopted his best arrogant posture, noting with satisfaction that all eyes were on him.

“Ah, the ‘Wizard’ we’ve been hearing about,” the Sorcerer said, nodding slightly with a growing smile as he started to walk towards Verdan. “We were told you were too afraid to leave your city, but I’m glad they were wrong. It will make delivering your head to Elder Budaev all the more rewarding.”

Verdan knew full well what was coming, so he wasn’t at all surprised when the leader kicked off into a run, poisonous Essence flowing from them and concentrating in their blade.

Oddly, the other Sorcerers made no move to assist or otherwise be involved, letting it be a simple duel to begin with.

“Aer,” Verdan made two quick gestures, sending two compressed blasts of air at the charging Sorcerer, more than willing to kill them one by one if that was what it took.

Unsurprisingly, the Sorcerer was agile enough to dodge around the two projectiles, but as far as Verdan could tell, he lacked any real defence against magic.

“Aer liff,” Verdan created a second, larger spell that swept out as a concentrated bow-wave of Aether-infused air. It had enough force to knock back anyone it struck, opening them up to further attacks.

“Hah, is that all?” The Sorcerer mocked as he cut forwards with his blade, its infused Essence slicing through the fabric of Verdan’s spell and causing the air spell to lose coherence.

Verdan nodded to himself, understanding how melee fighters such as this fool were able to survive against Sorcerers with more wizard-like capabilities.

“Tyn,” Verdan reached out and pulled, bands of invisible Aether pulling the Sorcerer’s feet out from under him. The man made a good attempt at tumbling with the spell and keeping his balance, but Verdan channelled a touch more Aether into the spell and pulled again, knocking his recovery off and sending the man sprawling.

It had taken Verdan an embarrassingly long time to realise that he was subconsciously treating the Sorcerers like restricted Wizards, but that wasn’t the case at all. They couldn’t see the magic, they couldn’t feel it like he could, and he was so very tired of their grandstanding.

Magic unbridled was the cause of so many issues, and Verdan still feared the knowledge he held becoming widespread once more, but he’d taken that too far, feared to use his own power too much.

The scales had long since fallen from Verdan’s eyes, leaving only burning anger wrapped around a cold core of determination.

“Theriad,” Verdan said calmly, his expression impassive as a wave of Aether slammed into the Weeping Death Sorcerer and saturated his clothes, skin and hair before erupting into flames.

The screaming Sorcerer writhed in agony, his companions looking on in horror as Verdan started to calmly walk towards them, finishing the dying man with a slash of air as he stepped past.

Any plan was long forgotten as Verdan decided to show these scum what an Imperial Wizard could do.