Snippet #2679201

There she was standing before her, the runaway mage that had kept the Academy anxious for so long. For stealing forbidden secrets and witnessing events that somebody of her petty magical caliber should not have witnessed, the penalty was death. The Academy was the judge, jury, and through Ada Capet, the exeuctioner.

That red hair, those green eyes. Apart from the dirt that clung to the harrowed girl's face, Ada had to admit that the young girl had some beauty. Not quite unlike herself. Yet, it was a form that the older woman was more than ready to purge from her memory with arcane fire. She drew her blade and her hand began to pulsate with purple energy. It coalesced and swirled malevolently.

Beside the young girl were her comrades, the fledgling exiled mage, Antius Gemini. The years had worn on him, and he'd survived. She had not anticipated his quick alliance to Lir Syoelle. He could prove to be a threat, and she could sense that he already was. The air stung with his magic, charged, but not ready to dampen her own.

Beside them were two other women warriors. The first stood tall with a heavily built physique, the Sivyne woman seemed as intimidating as her hook swords. The second was much more slender and her movements seemed graceful and poised.

Lieutenants Farnham and Gabeil rushed beside Ada Capet, their hands on their swords as more of their soldiers formed a line beside them. Ada Capet wondered if she should have instructed the Imperial soldiers to bring embrium equipment. Embrium was a substance that dampened magic. That would have negated her powers and that of Lir and Antius, and made it easier for the soldiers to overwhelm them through sheer brute force.

No matter, it was those four against some sixty soldiers. She felt comfortable with those odds.

"Antius Gemini?" Ada Capet knew his name and his history.

A wayward mage whose father had failed to respect the traditional mechanisms that ran the Empire.

"You are under arrest for treason, aiding and abetting a traitor, and abrogating your sentencing."

She turned to Lir Syoelle, "Lir Syoelle, you are under arrest for stealing from the Academy of Arcane Arts, for insubordination and disobeying the authority of the Academy."

Now the sentencing, "Surrender now, and we may spare your lives. Resist, and you forfeit any other option other than death."

She raised her sword and pointed it squarely at Antius Geminus, "What will it be?"