The Illusion of Safety JASMINE 

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FLAMESWORTH

Wearing a little frown, Camellia sat down awkwardly in a stiff wooden chair, then stood up and examined it. She turned the chair around and sat on it backwards, rested her arms on the low back, and gave herself a satisfied nod.
"Human furniture is weird," she informed me. "You're using it wrong," I shot back.
"I'm pretty sure I'm not," she said, shaking her head. "Anyway, the bed here is nicer than the one at that inn—and a lot better than sleeping under piles of muddy leaves."
"I thought you elves liked sleeping in leaves," I teased through a mouth full of fresh eggs.
Camellia pulled her own plate toward her, her nose up in the air. "Mama told me it's rude to speak with your mouth full. And even ruder to use stereotypes, like that all humans are dangerous barbarians that eat with their bare hands!"
I paused in the act of lifting a bite of scrambled egg to my mouth with my fingers, then scoffed and ate it anyway. When you spent most of your life on the road, silverware wasn't always available, nor was eating with proper etiquette a priority. Plus, my father had always been very strict when it came to table manners.

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Camellia snorted out a laugh and began shoveling eggs into her mouth.
We were sitting at a small round table in the living area of a modest three room house that Halim had arranged for us. It was comfortable enough, but I was already wondering if I'd been rash in accepting the merchant's proposal to stay in Greengate.
Despite my discomfort, I couldn't see an alternative, and I'd gone round and round with myself all night as I lay sleepless in my new bed. The village seemed relatively safe, regardless of the people's fears about Alacryan vengeance. The truth was that Greengate wasn't important enough to be a target.
"What do we still need?" I asked as Camellia finished her eggs.
She plucked at her worn robes, one of the sets I'd gotten from the almoner back at the Wall. "New clothes? Oh, and some utensils," she added, wiggling her eggy fingers at me.
"Right. You know where to go?"

 She nodded seriously before jumping up from her backwards chair and wiping her hands on her dirty robes. "Jarrod showed me where all the still-open shops are this morning."
Camellia had been eager to help out however she could, and I'd let her go on a town tour while Halim and I had met with a few of the ranking villagers.

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The old mayor had vanished two nights after the Lances fought the retainer, and a sizeable chunk of the town had followed him. The new mayor was a spirited woman in her fifties whose name I'd already forgotten, and she'd built a sort of council of long-time residents who wanted to keep Greengate alive.
They'd been happy enough to have a battlemage staying in town. The only other mage in Greengate was their apothecary and healer, who I hadn't met yet, but apparently the man was long past his prime and no longer fit for combat. The townsfolk referred to him jokingly as "the antique mage."
I followed Camellia out of the house and we turned toward the village square. We hadn't gone twenty feet when we heard the first screams. She turned to look at me, her face suddenly white.
"Go back to the house," I ordered before rushing past her. More shouting followed. It was easy enough to track the noise toward the south edge of town.
I passed a few people hurrying in the opposite direction, away from a group of soldiers gathering about a hundred yards out from the edge of town.
By their uniforms and armor, which left their spines visibly exposed to show off the runic tattoos there, it was obvious they were Alacryan. There were six carts pulled by mana beasts, and around eighty soldiers, most of which were hurrying to set up some kind of long tubes.
I wasn't sure what the tubes were for, but I knew it couldn't be anything good.
My mind raced. There were too many of them for me to fight head on, and I couldn't even hope to shield a whole village against a barrage of long-ranged spells. If I assaulted them directly, it might give the villagers a few extra minutes...at most...maybe.
Then again, if I retreated back into the village, I could help guide the townsfolk away. If those tubes were some kind of weapon, though, pinning people down inside the town might be exactly what they were hoping for.

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Before I could make up my mind, I was distracted by the sound of approaching footsteps. I spun around, ready to tell whichever foolish farmer had grabbed his pitchfork and come running to get the hell out of there, but was surprised into silence by the sight of Halim's orphans—all the older ones, at least—being led by Camellia.

 I glowered at her. "I told you to—"
"But we're here now!" she said over me, practically shouting.
Looking toward the Alacryans, I bit back angry words. "Listen, there isn't anything you—any of you—can do here."
"I can't just keep running," Jarrod said softly. I could feel his gaze burning into the side of my head, but I refused to meet his eye. "We're all academy trained mages. We can fight. We—"
"—will die quickly and painfully," I finished for him. "Unless you all run. We need to get the villagers away from the town before..."
I trailed off as two nearby apple trees shivered, causing a cascade of unripe fruit to tumble to the ground. Roots pulled up from the soil, supporting the trees like legs as they half walked, half slithered across to stand at either side of our small group.
Nodding proudly at her spell, Camellia slid her hand into mine and squeezed. "I'm not going anywhere without you."

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I ground my teeth, but all around me Jarrod's adopted siblings were casting defensive spells, their faces grim. "We can't win this fight."
"But we can give the rest of the town time to escape," Jarrod said with a wry smile.
"Yes we can," shouted the mayor as she led a couple dozen men and women around the corner of the nearest house. They were garbed in whatever ramshackle bits of leather or iron they could find, and wielding spears, clubs, and—I rolled my eyes—even a couple of pitchforks.
"Those are Alacryan battlemages!" I said, pointing at our attackers. "They'll slaughter you."
Though their fear was obvious, none of the villagers backed down, and neither did the young mages. I targeted my growing frustration on Camellia. "No," I said firmly. "The trick with the trees is cute, but I didn't drag you out of the Beast Glades just so you could get murdered by the first group of Alacryans we stumbled into."
She shrugged, an infuriatingly simple gesture. "They already took my whole family. If you're going to fight, so am I."
My teeth creaked as I ground them together, glaring daggers at my ward. "What is the point of being the sheriff if no one is going to listen to me?"
"Something's happening," Jarrod said, pointing toward the line of Alacryan soldiers.

 

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