37/61

Chapter 35 – Investigation

It was night and I was already lying down when I felt the sharp sting. I knew that sensation perfectly: the bracelet was giving an alert; Yara was in danger. What I had given her was simple and effective, a psionic link, operating with adrenaline at its maximum level, in the very same millisecond, I expanded my psychic waves through the telepathy channel, firing an alert signal of extremely high intensity straight into the minds of the four most important people in the fortress.

— Wake up! Emergency! Castle invasion, Yara is in danger!

My telepathy system could project the message directly into others' minds, but the real obstacle was how each one would react to that sudden impact.

I knew that mental intrusion would cause severe cognitive shock, but time was a scarce variable. Without waiting for reactions, I put on my light armor, polarized the magnetic edges on my back, and bolted through the stone corridors. Through the residual telepathic channels, I could already catch the mental echo of my father barking orders and the Captain of the Guard dragging the steel of his sword to mobilize the sentinel squads.

When I reached the guest quarters in the north wing, the scene materialized before my eyes was worse than my estimates had predicted. The two guards posted next to the main doorframe were fallen in rigid, lifeless positions. In the inner corridor, the routine rustic patrol soldiers lay fainted, their bodies showing symptoms of induced asphyxia or gas dispersal. That was not an operation by common citadel criminals; it was the clean, surgical work of a professional assassin.

It didn't take seconds for my father to appear in the corridor.

— What does this mean, Kaelen?!

Thundered the Marquess, his face pale with fury upon seeing the blood on the tiles.

— How were you able to project your voice so clearly into my mind? What happened to Lady Yara?

— This is called telepathy, my father. Some court mages manage to replicate the effect in a rustic way, but I can establish data flow regardless of physical distance, as long as there is a prior connection — I replied with total coldness, kneeling near the bodies.

— Then can you find Yara? What happened to her? — asked Arl, his voice heavy with apprehension.

— I can't hear her thoughts. She must be sleeping or unconscious, though my instinct points to the second option.

— Master Kaelen, how do you know all of this? — chimed in the captain of the guard.

— Because of the gift I gave her. If she were safe, I would feel it... I need time inside the room, and I ask you please not to comment on what you see me do now...

With a dry gesture of my left hand, I applied a gust of direct psychokinesis against the jammed oak doors, forcing the iron latches to break with a violent snap. The Captain and my father stepped back a step, astonished by the practical demonstration of that invisible force. Katriny only kept her expression tense; she was already used to my actions.

— Position yourselves behind me. As soon as I establish contact with the ground, place your hands firmly on my back to anchor the flow — I instructed in a low voice.

I crouched down and pressed my right hand flat against the cold floorboards, activating the peak of my Psychometry, the world around faded, dissolving into a gray and ethereal mist.

Through the residual echo, I saw the entry of a hooded intruder. His silhouette behaved in a bizarre way; the projected shadow seemed to have a mind of its own, detaching itself from the body to move independently outside, and it was that dark projection that slit the door guards' throats with terrifying speed. Yara had awakened in a start, but was summarily neutralized by a sleep dispersion spell. The intruder was capable of manufacturing and extending multiple living shadow projections.

The hooded entity searched the room, noticed the imminent movement of the captain in the corridor, the figure crossed the hall, searching the chests, and in a quick evasion maneuver, jumped out the high window carrying the girl, leaving a dagger stuck in the body of the soldier closest to the tower. When I spent my breath and returned to reality, I stood up abruptly, meeting the stunned gazes of the three.

— Kaelen... How can you see all this in an empty room? — murmured the Marquess, with a tremulous voice.

— Katriny will take care of explaining the details to you later, my father. I don't have time now — I replied, drawing two of my short swords. — I need to know where they went, and I'll only achieve that by using the weapon the man left behind.

Without giving time for prohibitions or my father's orders, I turned toward the balcony and jumped directly through the open window. It was a reasonable height, equivalent to the third floor of a house, enough to leave the three adults looking over the parapet in absolute panic. I used mind force under my boots a few meters from the ground, dampening the impact and landing softly on the dark grass of the lower courtyard.

I ran to the body of the fallen soldier and pulled the bloodstained weapon from his chest.

— I'm sorry, but I'll need this weapon to find your aggressor — I whispered.

I touched the metal, reading the criminal's trail. Now I had a clearer view: this soldier was the first to notice something strange and tried to fight the man. This assassin truly manipulated shadows, jumped through them, and created them in a very complicated way. But there was a limit; I only saw three shadows helping him.

— He went toward the west region, near the poor area of the citadel.

Using the invisible platforms and mind force to accelerate my speed across the rooftops, I started running to find the next contact point. I stopped for an instant over a chimney flue, touching the stone. — Yes, he was here. He changed paths to the east, near a boat warehouse — I calculated. If they took the river, my chances of finding them would decrease greatly.

I kept running desperately through the dark streets when I felt the sting again. Yara had woken up; the bracelet had sent the signal back. Now it got easy.

I used telepathy to speak straight into her head.

— Yara... Don't say anything. I'm talking to you directly inside your head. Just tell me what you're seeing. I can't see with your eyes, so I need your help.

Her mental response came filled with surprise and fear:

— Kaelen?! I'm in a dark room... Soon a boat is going to pick us up. There are four men here and one of these men is dressed all in black...

— Stay calm, I'm arriving — I replied, cutting the contact.

The creaking of wood and the gentle swaying of the waves dictated the silent rhythm of the environment. Inside the boat's cargo cabin, the smell of mold and sea air was dense. Yara was tied to a support pillar at the back, gagged, with her eyes wide with affliction, but alive.

In the weak light of two lanterns hanging from the beams, three of the thugs were completely relaxed, laughing low about the job completed at the castle and sharing a bottle of drink. They wore light leather armor and carried small hatchets and daggers at their waist — easy targets for quick reactions, but which would make noise if they hit the floor.

The assassin, however, was an absolute contrast. He remained leaning against the darkest beams of the lower deck, with his arms crossed, keeping a safe distance both from his subordinates and from Yara. His posture was completely motionless; he didn't drink, didn't laugh, and kept his gaze fixed on the access stairs. The aura of dark magic around him made the shadows under his boots look alive and dense, ready to bend to his command. Any light projection from the lanterns created perfect points for him to jump to.

My ability to predict the next three seconds buzzed softly at the back of my mind. For now, the vision remained stable: they didn't know I was on the roof, near the cabin entrance.

The boat was entirely made of dry wood on the inside — using the maximum heat of my power here could burn the hull right away or put Yara at risk of suffocating from the smoke, while extreme heat could make the wood brittle or freeze the oil lanterns, extinguishing the lights instantly. My four short swords swayed lightly in their scabbards, and the weight of the small metal spheres in my pocket was ready.

— I need to clear the path first — I decided.

With a mind command, I sent two short swords spinning like boomerangs to cut down the two thugs closest to the entrance. The blades sliced through the air in silence before they realized the change in pressure. Blood splattered on the dark wood and the bodies fell heavily, making a medium noise through the cabin.

The third thug, more alert, heard the noise and turned around in the exact millisecond I released a wave of cold across the floor. The wooden floor around him and Yara turned into a blue-white ice mirror, making the man slip and lose his balance. Taking advantage of the distraction moment, I used my mind to yank a wooden stake from the nearby wall and threw it like a dart. It hit the slippery thug right in the chest, pinning him to the opposite wall.

With the helpers out of combat, I leaped into the cabin to run straight to the girl. However, my three-second prediction failed at the last instant regarding the exact positioning of the boss. He was no longer where I had seen him. Using dark magic, the assassin had instantly jumped into the shadow projected by one of the lanterns put out by my cold.

He reappeared crouched on the ceiling beam, right above my head as I ran toward Yara. He wasn't trying to flee; he was positioning himself for an attack coming from above. The man was already pulling two black stone daggers, and the dark aura around him transformed into a dark claw ready to tear my back the moment I passed under him.

The boat's wood cracked with the intense cold. The air was thin.

I immediately grabbed the metal pellets in my pocket, released them into the air, and used my power to heat them to the maximum, making them spin furiously around me. I heated one of my swords until it glowed red-hot and began cooling the other until it froze. I divided the floating spheres: I sent four spinning around me as a fire shield and sent the rest (about six) flying to form a glowing protective ring around Yara. Their heat was so strong that the wood and ropes near the girl started giving off smoke right away.

The assassin leaped from the ceiling when I started the movement, hoping to find my back unprotected. Instead, he collided straight against the barrier of fire spheres I created around me. His black stone daggers hit the superheated metal and shattered into melted pieces, while the dark shadow claw dissipated like vapor upon contact with the heat.

The internal environment of the cabin was now a terrible thermal shock zone. The air was full of smoke clouds mixed with residual cold. The wood of the ceiling and walls, superheated by the spheres and the hot sword, began to crack and create fire foci on the beams. Yara was protected by the metal ring, but the heat was getting unbearable for her and smoke was starting to fill the space.

The assassin landed on his feet on the frozen floor, three meters away from me, panting and surprised. His shadow aura was weak and messy because of the brutal temperature change. He was without weapons, but remained in combat stance.

— Where there is fire, there is ice, and we are close to water — I thought. I couldn't create water out of nothing, but I could manipulate the river water from outside.

With a mind command, I broke the boat's wooden wall and pulled a huge amount of river water inside. The liquid entered the cabin under high pressure and, at the same exact moment, I released a total cold wave into the water. The flow approaching Yara froze almost immediately in the air, forming a thick and protective ice dome around her. The heat of the spheres was contained, creating a safe air pocket for her inside.

A second circular ice barrier formed on the internal walls of the boat, enclosing the entire perimeter and locking me in a frozen arena together with the assassin and the bodies. The boat creaked dangerously under the ice pressure.

To cut off any chance of him using shadows, I sent my hot sword and glowing spheres straight to the burning ceiling. When they hit the top, I ordered them to release a blinding luminosity, as if it were midday sunlight. The cabin was flooded with pure white light. Without any point of shadow or darkness, the assassin completely lost the ability to use his tricks or jump through shadows. He became visible and cornered by the ice barrier, shielding his eyes from the brightness.

I ran swiftly across the frozen floor, passing right by the stunned man and stopping near the ice dome where Yara was. I undid the structure and pulled her behind me.

— Stay behind me! — I shouted, using mind force to create an invisible shield around her.

My three-second prediction flickered, warning that the assassin, even blind and cornered, was trying to gather his last dark forces to create a shadow explosion as soon as the ceiling light started to fail. I needed to act right away.

I pulled another large amount of river water into the cabin, forming a thick wall between us and the assassin. I used freezing power to turn that water into a massive ice barrier, isolating the man in a closed cubicle. I drove my sword at 1500°C into the floor and made all the remaining water and ice converge on that central point. The instantaneous thermal shock between the negative pole and extreme heat generated a colossal explosion of superheated steam.

A dense, white cloud expanded violently through the room in milliseconds. The steam explosion hit the entire cabin, bombarding the wall where the assassin was isolated. The temperature in there rose drastically, turning his cubicle into an unbearable heat sauna and melting the ice, preventing him from escaping the light. Yara remained safe behind me, hearing only the muffled crash.

The blinding light on the ceiling finally went out with a snap, leaving the cabin in twilight. The steam mist dissipated quickly, revealing the assassin on his knees, defenseless, dizzy from the heat, and with his body marked by burns.

Taking advantage of the remainder of my mental energy and acting under peak exhaustion, I concentrated all my focus on a direct attack on his mind. There was no sound, only an invisible and heavy pressure that cut through the air, projecting the order straight into the man's head:

— Sleep. Immobilize.

The effect was immediate. The assassin's eyes rolled back and his body lost all strength in a second. He collapsed forward, hitting his face on the wet cabin floor, completely unconscious and harmless.

Silence returned to the damaged boat, which creaked under the weight of the water. The smell of steam and burnt wood filled the air. I undid the rest of the ice and Yara dropped to her knees on the wet wood, coughing a bit because of the smoke, but looking at me with a huge mixture of relief and astonishment. The assassin was knocked out; the thugs, dead; and she was saved.

I approached her with shaky legs, feeling extreme exhaustion start to black out my senses and blue spots appear in my vision. I rested my hand on her shoulder and whispered, weak:

— Soon my father will be here... Please, take care of me... I need to sleep a little...

My knees gave out and I blacked out completely, falling into a deep sleep right on the boat's floor.