Supreme Magus

The Marchioness kept her cool despite Lith's threats and made him see reason.

'How does she know about our conversation with the Queen? Isn't she just a Marchioness?' While Lith fell into fury, Solus sought solace in cold logic.

Yet she didn't fare any better as her brain refused to find answers. She hated her own inability to close her eyes to the horror around them and her senses that picked up the slightest detail of the wounds on Lark's body.

Solus would have liked to weep, but she had no tears. Solus would have liked to scream, but she had no mouth. The only way she had to express her feelings was through Lith, but he was already burdened with more than he could take.

"I'm very sorry, Lith, but there's only a limited number of Royal Fortress armor and you have no idea how many of those cards we have received." Mirim showed him her own along with a list containing several names.

"The detail was perfect, reinforcements arrived barely a minute after the arrays were breached, yet it wasn't enough. If you want to blame someone, blame me but know that I did all I could to keep Lark safe as I always did for your family."

Lith couldn't refute her words. For a long time, he had a single unit of the Queen's corps assigned to his entire family and it had taken him years to fortify his home with proper arrays.

Yet logic didn't relieve one bit of his grief.

"If there's anything I can do for you, just tell me." The Marchioness tried to touch his shoulder but Lith pushed her hand away.

"I want Lark back or at least know who I have to kill! Give me a name!" Lith clenched his fists as his eyes turned into blue-violet pyres of mana whose bursts of energy rose of several meters in the air before fading away.

Solus was doing her best to keep his aura from manifesting, but there was only so much she could do, even with the help of the two cloaking rings. Sparks of lightning surrounded him and clouds started to gather.

A low rumble spread throughout the ground, rising in intensity by the second and making the guards think that a second attack was incoming.

'Calm down, Lith! If you release your aura, everyone will know you're an Awakened.' Solus said. 'We need to go back home before the cloaking rings break. You're pushing them too far!'

"I request an urgent leave." Kamila said after her efforts to soothe him failed as well. "Archmage Verhen needs to get back home and can't be left alone in such a state. He would be a threat to himself and others."

"Agreed." Jirni said while arranging for an emergency Gate. "Where to?"

"Belius." Kamila said.

'What the f.u.c.k?' Solus thought. 'I meant Lutia! Lith needs his family.'

Two Royal Guards raised their hands, looking like prancing Griffons and the Gate appeared between them. Kamila quickly dragged Lith through it, ordering the clerk on the other side to open another Warp that would lead near her apartment.

Solus was still cursing Kamila's alleged stupidity when suddenly the pressure she and the rings were under plummeted, allowing their self-repair ability to mend the cracks before it was too late.

'Thank the gods.' Kamila thought while looking at the flames in his eyes disappear. 'Lith always says that being under so many elemental sealing arrays feels like being under a wet blanket to him. A wet blanket powered by an entire city.

'It should be enough to suppress his powers before he loses control of them or of his life forces as it happened in Jiera.'

'I hate to admit it, but it was a damn smart move.' Solus thought once she calmed down enough to understand what had happened.

Kamila dragged Lith to their apartment, locked the door triple-dead bolting it, and activated all of its security systems so that nothing could get in and they could get emergency Gated anywhere at a moment's notice.

It was enough to quell even Lith's paranoia and the familiar space dispelled the images of the ruins of the Lark Household from his eyes, allowing him to finally start to breathe again.

Kamila forced Lith to sit down on his favorite sofa and then she remained beside him, holding his hand for several minutes before the calm and the arrays allowed him to speak again.

"Thanks, Kami. If I stayed there one minute longer, I would've gone insane." He said while still wrestling with his feelings, to keep them under control.

"Don't mention it. Can I leave you alone here for one second and make some tea or do you want me to stay?" She asked.

"I'm not going to fall apart. Not anymore." Lith said, letting go of her hand.

"I can't stay the night either, though. I need to go back to Lutia and make sure that my family is alright." He said on Solus's cue, fearing that something might happen to them as well.

"It's not necessary." Kamila shook her head. "Jirni sent Royal Guards to your home and I've already received their report. Everything is fine."

She handed him her army amulet where a new status update from the Guards popped up every five minutes and they were all green.

"That said, I'm not letting you out of that door unless there is an emergency. Tonight, this is your home." Kamila said.

"What do you mean?" Lith was still in shock but he knew that it wasn't like her being so ins.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e.

"If you go to Lutia now, you'd be forced to suppress your feelings and to act strong to reassure your family, worrying about them instead of yourself. I want you to stay here, where you can openly grieve Lark's death without any worry.

"If you keep your emotions bottled up for too long, they will leave a scar that will never heal and you already have too many of them." Kamila placed a steaming cup of tea in front of him along with some biscuits before sitting beside Lith again.

"Everything is fine and we're safe in here." She said while putting her amulet where he could see the latest green notification. "It's just you and me now. You can scream and cry all you want."

Kamila never let go of his hand nor did she touch her cup as new notifications kept piling up. They just sat in silence, without even moving while the tea got colder.

Her tenderness moved Solus, who started to weep as she could finally let go of her feelings without the worry that they would negatively impact Lith. She sobbed, mourning both her loss and the realization that she was too close to Lith to offer him the help he needed in times like that.

When Lith suddenly embraced Kamila and started to weep as well, it flabbergasted her. It usually took him days to manifest the slightest emotion to others.

Away from the scene of the massacre, away from the burden that caring for the grief of others was, all the good memories Lith had with Lark flooded his mind, making him realize that the Count was gone and that they would never speak again.