The Master sat at the conference room table. They waited while I watched the battle out the window in the highest corner of my castle. Bodies already littered the field, my witches and Alex’s vampires, stepping over each other like enemies of old. The vampires didn’t even know they fought across a gravesite. We’d made short work of the previous inhabitants of this castle. Some of the snake creatures had escaped, but the rest were buried under the lawn, once again drenched with blood.
The grass had never looked so green.
“Why have you called me here, Deathbringer?” The Master’s voice rang through my head. Their people fought on the field, too, black-robed apprentices wielding spells against the bloodsuckers.
“I have to disband the Order of Spellcasters.” My voice turned hard, uncompromising.
The Master remained silent, but the mood in the room shifted. Something cold and damp crept along my skin, despite the dryer climate in this region. I resisted the urge to rub my arms. The Master didn’t deserve to know my discomfort.
“Why?” The word was almost a hiss.
“I can’t train both spellcasters and soldiers and win this war.” The vampires were stronger and faster than us. Magic was our greatest asset, but anything that wasn’t battlefield magic was a waste. Healing, physical, and even elemental affinities had to be retrained to use their magic during wartime. It costs too much time.
“Perhaps there are other options.”
Anger flashed through me. I turned from the window and smacked my hand on the tabletop. The noise hung heavy between us.
I pointed a finger at the Master, and although they didn’t flinch, tension tightened their cloaked shoulders.
“There are no other options.” I closed my hand into a fist. “We underestimated our opponents and are facing destruction. The snake people took too many from us, and I refuse to let them be the reason the vampires defeat us.”
“It was not our fault the Snakes were more devious than we’d expected. Once we realized their promise, the Order shifted spellwork immediately. Except for the few that fled, they fell beneath our feet.”
“And you still let us lose so many witches. Useless.” I whispered the last word and turned back to the window. Two soldiers engaged in battle. A witch flung spellwork at the vampire, but a second bloodsucker approached the man from behind. A sword cut through his chest, and the witch fell into a puddle of blood.
I flinched.
“The Order is over,” I said. “My decision is final.” There would be little need for them in my new land, my own Eden, the kingdom of Ededen.
A heavy pause filled the room, and, for a moment, I wondered if the Master had disappeared.
“What do you wish me to do?” An edge cut through my mind in a way I’d never felt from the Master before. Something vulnerable and afraid.
“I don’t care,” I said. “Throw away the robes and join the army. We need every fighter we can get. I want this war to end before springtime.”
The chair slid across the polished stone floor. The door opened and slammed shut.
I let out a sigh of relief. By tomorrow, anyone in a black robe would be relieved of their duty as an apprentice for the Order of Spellcasters and retrained as a soldier. Our kingdom would be better for it.
When I turned around, a crimson red robe draped across the empty wooden chair.
* * *
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