bag of popcorn to her. “I’m going to watch. Popcorn?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The entire village was outside, incongruously dressed in cloaks now that the rain had stopped. Embers drifted on the wind again—beautiful, if you didn’t know what they were. The people crowded close to the fountain in the middle of the square. Half seemed to have decided it was safer to look down, while others looked up unwillingly at the man above them.
Sephith’s age was difficult to determine. His hair was still a glossy brown, tied back from the sides of his head in ornate braids. He would have looked like one of the elves from Lord of the Rings if it weren’t for his clothing. It was black, ornate enough to show his wealth and faintly ragged enough to suggest decay and violence. Knives were thrust into his belt together with a rusty flail, both of which had old blood on them.
The wizard looked around with an expression of utter contempt. He saw the villagers before him and he hated them intensely. It was abundantly clear to Justin that he did not simply use them as toys—he wanted them to suffer.
“Certain thoughts and words have reached my ears,” Sephith announced. His voice was amplified to boom around the town square. “Some of you are plotting to kill me. You believe that your pathetic lives have worth and that your feeble attempts to kill me will come to fruition. You wish to rally your people to attack me together.”
There was a murmur of dissent. No one wanted to speak out too openly but people shook their heads as if they tried to assure the wizard that nothing was afoot that he should be angry about.
“Do not deny it,” Sephith snapped at them. “You know what you must do. When someone speaks against me, you are to mete out justice in this very square. You are to keep the peace rather than let rebellion foment and spread. But have you done so?”
A tense silence followed his challenge.
“Or have you decided to protect the heretics among you?” he asked. “I think you have.”
Justin was done with this speech. He began to push toward the front of the group. Someone caught his hand but he shook their grasp away. He intended to do this and he wouldn’t let anyone stop him.
“I am a kind master,” Sephith said. “Far kinder than you deserve. In the west, whole villages have their minds enslaved. They live only to serve wizards and are killed on a whim. Do I do such things? No. I kill only when my experiments require it and to keep the peace.”
A little impatiently, Justin shoved people out of his way. They didn’t seem to want to move but he wouldn’t let them continue to be cowards. This man was a bully and a game boss, and he was determined to get the XP and the ten gold for defeating him, stat.
“And because you continue to force my hand,” Sephith said, “I must keep the peace now. I require three lives to atone for this rebellion. Three, and my anger shall be sated. You may choose which three to give me.”
The village erupted into cries for mercy. People shoved Justin out of the way as they crowded close to the fountain. They fell to their knees and stretched imploring hands to the wizard as they begged piteously for mercy in a community appeal.
“There shall be no mercy,” Sephith thundered. “I gave you mercy when I let you live your pathetic lives without slave crowns on your heads and this is the thanks I get for that mercy. No, mercy only causes rebellion. If it is justice you require, it is justice I will give you.”
Someone pulled Justin back sharply and a figure in all black pushed past him. Anna had her gaze fixed on the wizard and she muttered something under her breath. One hand hovered near the hilt of a dagger at her belt.
“Oh, no you don’t.” He clutched her cloak and yanked. She stumbled back with a yelp and the two of them struggled. They were close to evenly matched and for a few furious seconds, the sound of the crowd faded and all he could hear was the rasp of their breath and the regular dings as his Grappling skill updated itself.
“He’s mine,” she whispered in a tone close to a hiss. “You know nothing about him. You’ll get yourself killed!”
“If you intended to kill him, you would have done it