Ulya’s fist pounded against the door, her fist matching up with the throbbing headache gripping her skull. Her breath came out in short gasps and her runes were completely drained to the point where her stomach had clenched itself into knots that felt like they never might unscrew.

She raised her hand to knock again, but it swiped through the air as the door swung open.

“What in the Damned Plains do you want?” Gero demanded. “It’s the middle of the–”

The rest of his sentence faded into the darkness as he got a look at Ulya’s harried expression and damaged clothes. Blood has soaked her leg where the thorns had grabbed her, and blood still dripped onto the ground at her feet.

“D-did anyone show up tonight?” Ulya asked, bracing her hands against her knees and doubling over in attempt to catch her breath. She could barely even believe she was alive. By all means, she shouldn’t have been.

“What happened to you? No, nobody showed up.”

“Turn around,” Ulya ordered.

“What? You’re talking nonsense. What’s going–”

“Turn around, damn it!”

Gero blinked, then slowly turned to follow her directions. Ulya grabbed a small dagger from her waist and poked at the back of his neck. The blade passed through it harmlessly and Gero glanced over his shoulder at her.

“That’s not going to do anything.”

“Turn it off,” Ulya snapped. “Now.”

“Why?”

“Just fucking do it,” Ulya snarled, clutching the dagger before her. “I’ll explain after. I need to cut you. Just a little.”

“If this request was coming from anyone else, I’d think them insane.” Gero turned away again. “Go ahead.”

Ulya’s breath caught in her chest as she pressed the dagger to the back of Gero’s neck, drawing a thin line of blood. The lack of anything green nearly made her weep in relief. Her hands dropped.

“Satisfied? Nell me what in the Damned Plains is going on,” Gero demanded. “Were you attacked?”

“Will is dead,” Ulya said bluntly, pushing past Gero and stumbling into his house. He closed the door behind her, a frown deepening on his features.

“At your hand? What did he do? That’s an over-reaction, Ulya. Are you insane?”

“Not my hand,” Ulya snapped. “He was killed. Some form of powerful plant mage had turned his body into a puppet. Completely replaced his innards with some disgusting plant magic. Will got slammed into a wall and I noticed the plants inside him. Barely made it out with my life.”

“You were fighting Will?” Gero crossed his arms in front of his chest. “If you’ve come here to avoid the law, you made the wrong choice.”

“That’s not it,” Ulya’s exasperation built and she dropped into Gero’s expensive chair, staining it with blood. Gero walked to stand in front of her, not looking particularly pleased – it was hard to tell if the anger was about what she was doing to his furniture or what had happened with Will. “Someone else attacked Will. A powerful mage related to Vermil’s group.”

“Another one?” Gero asked in disbelief. “How many are there?”

“Two, as far as I’ve found.” Ulya pulled her wounded leg up, rolling her ravaged pant leg back to examine it for any remaining pieces of plant matter. She didn’t know what the plant mage could do, but she had absolutely no plans of sitting around to find out. “I was visiting Will to discuss the results of the tests, but there was someone already there toying with him.”

“He was strong enough to beat both of you?” Gero asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Hard to say,” Ulya replied. She pulled her shirt up, biting into it as she dug into the wound on her leg and ripped out a thorn. Letting out a muffled hiss of pain, Ulya dropped the thorn to the floor. “He was willing to talk when I got there, but his demeanor felt like a powerful mage, and he had a domain. Claimed to be Vermil’s teacher. Didn’t get a chance to see how large his domain was, but it doesn’t matter. After he left, I saw a green nub sticking out of Will’s neck.”

“And he attacked when you pointed it out?”Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yes. I think he was going to try to steal my body,” Ulya replied with a shudder. She spotted another thorn and ripped it free, repressing a curse at the daggers of pain that tore through her. “Barely managed to muster enough magic to teleport out. The plant bastard destroyed my puppet in an instant.”

That isn’t true, though. I know for a fact I didn’t have enough magic to teleport. I should have died – but I somehow teleported anyway. Damn it. Why is my memory so blurry?

“Shit,” Gero said, his expression darkening. “Will’s definitely dead, then?”

“Absolutely dead. I saw his corpse pop like a full water skin in front of me. The plant mage would have killed me too if I hadn’t been on guard already. I was worried he came after you already.”

“The plant mage?”

“Or the other one,” Ulya said. She twisted her leg to try to get a better look at it, then looked up to Gero. “Do you see any more thorns in me?”

Gero reached down to the back of her calf, yanking a thorn that Ulya had missed free without warning. She let out a pained yelp.

“You could say something,” Ulya hissed.

“Faster to get it over with,” Gero replied, dropping the thorn and letting it join the pile. He held a hand toward them and a translucent pink box of energy materialized around the thorns with a subtle pop. The box floated up to Gero’s hand, then sunk in on itself and vanished. “I’ll contain these.”

“Thanks,” Ulya said through a grimace. “You’ll need to keep an eye on me as well. I – I don’t know how his magic works. I could be infected.”

“Your Domain appears natural. If there was another mage’s influence on you, it should have been apparent,” Gero said with a shake of his head. “Did you find out what the mage wanted?”

“The first one was mad because Will threatened Moxie and because you messed with Alexandra’s training. The second one – I have no idea.”

“Meaning the plant mage was likely the one that antagonized the first one,” Gero concluded, completely ignoring the part that he’d been involved in.

Ulya glanced around Gero’s living room for something to use as a bandage. She spotted a shirt lying discarded on the ground and limped over to it, ripping it into strips before Gero could protest.

“Probably,” Ulya said as she started to wrap her leg. “I just don’t know why. Do you have a healing potion, by the way?”

“No.”

“Figures,” Ulya muttered, grimacing as she tightened the makeshift bandages. “What do we do? Tell the others? Confront Vermil?”

“How do we know the plant mage and Vermil’s benefactor aren’t working together?” Gero asked. “If someone was strong enough to catch you this badly off guard, we have to assume that they’re probably controlling more puppets somewhere. Vermil might be one.”

That was a harrowing thought. Ulya swallowed heavily, then finished tying her bandages off. She sank back into the seat with a groan. “We should get Enforcers on this.”

“We will,” Gero said. “Silvertide is in the area, and he recently joined the advanced track as well. He’d be a perfect resource.”

“Shit, I nearly forgot,” Ulya said. The tension in her shoulders didn’t completely vanish, but it receded. “What about Vermil? If he isn’t involved in this, he probably will be. The plant mage was pretty pissed that he got revealed because Vermil’s teacher went around beating Will up.”

“Did you get the feeling that this first mage – the one that claimed to teach Vermil – was he powerful? Would he be able to help us, assuming he wasn’t working with our opponent?”

“Probably,” Ulya said after a moment of hesitation. “He seemed reasonable. A little insane, but reasonable. He didn’t ask for preferential treatment for Vermil’s group – just that we not single them out.”

“Then you should establish contact with Vermil. Test his group. Find out if they’re with the plant mages and see if you can convince the strong one to stick around. If someone’s powering puppets with enough strength to give you this much trouble, their true form is going to be uncomfortably strong. Rank 6 at the minimum, possibly with multiple Runes. I hate puppet and construct users. Annoying little bugs are impossible to root out.” Gero paused, then glanced down at Ulya. “Present company excluded.”

“Thanks,” Ulya muttered. She tested her weight on her leg again, then slowly rose to her feet. “Why do I have to be the one to interact with Vermil?”

“You already met his mentor. We don’t want it to seem like we’re leaking information. Also, you’re down two of your puppets. You can’t fight properly until they’re fixed, so it makes no sense to have you hunting this plant bastard. I’d direct your searches toward Moxie – she’s a Torrin, and plants are their domain.”

Ulya let out a sigh. Her stomach was still clenched and her headache was only just starting to pull back, but the adrenaline was fading. “Okay. Fine. You need to go check on Will’s corpse, though. I don’t know what those vines are doing, but we need to make sure they don’t spread.”

“I will. I’ll get an Enforcer while I’m at it,” Gero said. “Good job on surviving and delivering the message. First thing tomorrow morning – find Vermil and figure out what in the Damned Plains is going on. Avoid bringing any other members of the advanced track into this. They may be similarly infected, and we can’t give away our plans.”

Ulya grimaced. She didn’t want to do anything other than sleep for the next week, but she settled for giving Gero a nod. Then she slumped back in his chair – it was already bloodied, so there wasn’t going to be any saving it – and let an exhausted sleep take her.

It was hard to tell how long Ulya slept, but when she woke, she determined that it hadn’t been enough. She let out a groan, squinting through the sunlight filtering down on her through a window.

There was a loaf of bread out on the countertop that hadn’t been there the previous night, but no sign of Gero. Ulya stood, wincing at the flicker of pain that ran down her injured leg, and walked over to the counter.

“Who eats a bloody loaf of bread for breakfast?” Ulya muttered, taking a bite out of it. Gero’s diet was about as much of a mystery as how his Matter Runes actually worked. Ulya’s leg throbbed again and she cursed under her breath, limping out the door to go buy a potion – and possibly something a little stronger.

If she was going to have to talk to Vermil after the shitshow that was last night, Ulya got the feeling that she might need it.