POV Olivia

  Olivia lay in bed, drifting off to sleep after settling her brother’s dispute, when Kurt burst into her room.

  “Lady Olivia, we need to go.”

  Olivia gets out of bed and grabs her staff. She doesn’t grab her armor, but she’s learned to sleep in her traveler clothes just in case. “What happened?”

  “Benjamin saw the wilder’s undead minion rush through the streets. He followed it to the local bathhouse, Lucian said he was going to take Jason to. There are a dozen guards surrounding the entrance. We need to go before the situation escalates anymore.”

  Olivia throws on a robe, and they take off down the street. In the night, there are lamps lighting the street, but the dozen torches in front of the giant oaken doors let her know she has reached the right destination. Benjamin, already there, steps forward to meet her first.

  “The guards say they got a report that one of the patrons went crazy and started killing people. Then five guards went in to subdue the perpetrator and locked the door.”

  Olivia nods and walks up to the first guard. He looks like he is about to tell her off, but in her commanding voice, she announces, “I’m Lady Olivia Heartbran. You will allow me to enter.”

  He blinks, realizing he is talking to a mage, not some curious citizen sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong. “Make way, we have a mage who wants a crack at the psycho.”

  The door opens, and Olivia slips inside with Benjamin and Kurt. She summons forth a ball of light to see, and the light reveals a room covered in the blood and bodies of guards. In the middle stands a man covered in nothing but blood and a thing cloth, with a blade in each hand. Fear claws at her throat, and it takes all her control not to blast the monstrous form in front of her.

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  “Olivia?”

  “J-jason? Is that you?”

  The blood-soaked naked form lowers his swords, “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “What happened?” This time it’s Kurt who asks.

  “Assassin came for us. Got Lucian. I was able to take him down, but when the bathhouse saw me. I found the assassin’s accomplice and killed him before they summoned the guards.”

  “What happened to the guards?”

  “They weren’t keen on asking questions, so I didn’t ask questions either.”

  Olivia blinked. He was caught naked in a bathhouse and managed to kill not only two assassins but also five guards.

  “You expect us to believe Lucian got his throat slit and you managed to come out unscathed,” Benjamin asks. Olivia is about to shout at her brother. He had just made good terms with Jason.

  “Nah, they slit my throat, too. I was able to heal, though I need a soak to close my other wounds before we leave.”

  Olivia feels the cold realization sink in that Lucian is dead, and Jason should be dead. She always knew there was the chance a knight in her service would die, but not like this.

  Olivia points to Jason, “Kurt, go help him clean up and get his things. We should get out of here before the guards decide they need to do something, like burn the place down instead of sending more people in.”

  “Benjamin, watch the door.”

  Jason waves one of his hands tiredly, “Morgana has the door.”

  Olivia looks behind her to find the undead women perched on the wall, looking down at them like a spider, with the neutral gaze of a predator. Her mouth and hands drip blood from the others who sought to attack Jason. She feels her hair stand on end. “Morgana” could’ve killed her before she even knew the undead was there.

  As Jason moves to one of the clean baths to heal his wound, Benjamin grabs Jason’s and Lucian’s stuff. Olivia walks into the bathroom where Lucian is. She grits her teeth when she sees the pale body of her former knight and friend. Rage blossoms in her at what was done to him.

  Then she looks down to see the brutalized remains of the assassin, and her rage flees. She turns the body over, hoping to find anything identifying. When she turns him over, his face is too broken to get an idea of what he looked like before Jason got hold of him. She checks his clothes but finds no clues as to who could have sent them.

  She wanders the hall, finding the dead guards. She didn’t expect to find anything of significance, but she did find one of the chests of the guards pried open and his heart removed. It only takes her a moment to realize it must have something to do with Jason’s magic. She will need to burn the bodies, if not the entire bathhouse. She can’t risk the guards getting worked up over this.