The Heart of a Mage
This was the right choice
Every step Arad took, the look on her face grew in his mind. He told himself this choice made everything right. His own powers, this the penance for attempting to accept them. Still, the devastation in her eyes when he betrayed them tore at his soul. There was no sun to blame for the wetness that rolled down his face.
He marched with his heavily armored team of LightFleet soldiers towards an arbitrary spot deep within the West forest. It was the one place the mages would gather in dire emergency, and he was not supposed to know about it. Right now, they waited for Mator to join them. Instead, he would arrive with nine other men in anti-mage mechs. As wanted felons for charges both real and fabricated, they would be given no quarter if they offered resistance. And they would resist.
Gritting his teeth he fought to make peace with his choice. With Ali’s tears when he told them, and told her she meant nothing to him. I’m telling you so you have a chance to run, he said. Horrible, awful lie. Her training had been a means to an end. Nothing more. The trees began to thin and Arad felt fire and lead running searing through his veins, constricting around his heart. He stamped his feet within the march viciously; he should feel victory, clemency. This was the right choice.
“Halt. Engage Silencers, we are close.” The words broke out of his mouth like bricks off an assembly line. Cold, dead, automatic.
The marching stopped and a high whine cut across their comms for a fraction of a second, before all ten of them vanished. He toggled his visor and the shimmering forms of his group painted the display in ghostly form.
Fist open, palm up. Each suit hovered into the air.
Fist closed, index finger extended. Slow advance.
The keenest eye would not have seen their path as they glided through black night, passing trees that slept on, and ferns that shivered as if to ward off omens.
Fist closed and high, thumb and short finger extended. Stop, and fan out.
The hill before them had a careful grass on it, something too uniform. The soldiers could see it. Mages tended this forest. The light in his helmet went green.
His body moved for him, as his mind screamed. Fist closed, index finger extended. They moved up the hill and in the clearing six figures paced back and forth debating. They were invisible killers, and none would know after today that victory was bought with betrayal and slaughter.
Ali looked tired and worried, glancing repeatedly at the treeline for Mator. Her eyes passed over him though she did not know it. For a split second, Arad breathed out and forgot his control, for one instant he let himself touch that power again. His suite faltered for only a moment, but he became visible and dropped to the ground.
“LightFleet!” Ulrich dashed forward, his hands moved in complex patterns and the familiar haze of magic grew between them and LightFleet.
“OPEN FIRE!” came shouted static through the comms, not his. Plasma weaponry glowed, and men dropped back. Arad raised his weapon, thumbed the switch, and aimed it. He met Ali’s eyes.
Everything was screaming. This was the right choice.
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If that was the prologue, and chapter 1 jumps a year back in Arad’s life, would you keep reading?