Beneath the mask, Charlotte allowed herself a predatory smile. Perfect, she thought. These idiots really are just how I pictured them. She had to stifle a laugh; the mask wouldn’t hide the noise and she needed to uphold a certain image if this was going to work. Pulling her focus back into her act, she surveyed the unfolding scene.

She could hear it all clearly. The shouting from the gathered courtiers and the accused, the scraping of metal on metal as guards tensed, even the soft, sharp inhale coming from the princess before her. 

“You cannot be serious! You dare enter this court and accuse-”

“Your Majesty, may we have your permission to apprehend this foul-”

“To present such an absurd tale about not only a Royal Knight, but two Magicians of the Collective without even a shred of evidence is-”

And finally:

“Filthy bitch,” someone muttered beneath the roar.

Charlotte tracked that last comment to a man standing to the left of the throne, slightly lower than where the king sat but in a clearly defensive position should anyone attempt to assault His Majesty. She could not see him, obviously–the mask she wore had no eyeholes. Instead, she was relying on her spirit to feel out the room. 

The feedback she got from this was mixed. She saw each individual as a sort of outline with a cloud of mist swirling through it giving them shape. It was like looking at a container full of holes attempting to seal in a cloud. The clouds were all slightly different colors, though most were some shade of gray or white. 

Charlotte was irritated by this. It was already difficult enough to maintain this state seeing through her spirit for such a long time, but these morons didn’t even have the decency to know they had a spirit in the first place. If they had even the faintest awareness of their own power, Charlotte wouldn’t have to be sifting through this wretched haze of loosely managed spirits. 

Still, it did make identifying her targets pretty easy. In a room filled with idiots who can’t even rein in their own essence, how do you find the magicians? You look for a spirit that isn’t just a tumbling mess completely separated from the shell of their bodies, or you look for a spirit with a tinge of some color.

By process of elimination using these fairly rudimentary ideas, there were only four people in this room who were of any actual interest to her. Of those four, only one was actually her target. The other three came as something of a shock, but she decided to hold off on considering them until she had completed her task. 

Still, that princess even noticed…

Shaking the thought from her head, Charlotte took a step forward. She saw the prince and princess flinch, but she paid them no mind.

“You see now, Your Majesty, why I could not bring the accusers with me? If I were to allow them to step foot in this room, I have no doubt that your attack dog right there would forcefully wrest them from my side and explain it all away as if I were some wandering drunk. My mistress, just as she brooks no quarter for abusers, will not allow harm to befall the abused under her protection.”

Said attack dog, Jack Ames-Bough the Royal Knight, stepped forward with his hand on his sword and began barking.

“You dare spout such disrespectful slander not just of a Royal Knight, but of the king himself? You suggest that His Majesty would allow harm to come of the petitioners? I will have your-”

Good boy, she mocked silently as she lifted her left hand to point at the knight, her masked face never once turning from the king. The knight seized immediately, held in place as if grasped by the hand of a god. He could no longer move even enough to continue shouting and he hung precariously in the process of descending the stairs with one foot still suspended in the air.

It was a difficult thing to pull off, even for her, but it served her purposes insofar as it was a shocking display of magic that even trained mages of the Collective could not perform. It was purely physical manipulation akin to telekinesis, essential magic with no attribute. It was made even harder by the fact that she couldn’t see her target and had to rely solely on his spiritual outline.

As if to accentuate that fact, she felt one of the man’s ribs snap. Whoops, might have been a bit rough. Still, I can’t exactly ease up and give him the chance to wiggle or shout. That would ruin the effect.

The hall was silent for a split-second, not even for a breath, before it erupted into panic. Notably, the panic was mostly coming from the gathered nobles and guards. The commoners behind Charlotte’s back seemed more curious than worried. After all, almost all of them had probably never witnessed magic, let alone in such close proximity. Charlotte could imagine the bug-eyed stares of the nobility contrasting against the looks of awe and wonder from the common folk. It was a funny visual.

Whoops! Looks like I got distracted. Millson is trying to run.

Charlotte pointed to the fleeing magician–easily identifiable to her through her spiritual sight as the one with their spirit most under control–and again froze him in place. She then took it one step further and made a beckoning motion with her hands. The two frozen men were forcefully pulled down in front of where she now stood at the center the hall, then lifted off the ground to hover in front of her. She couldn’t make out any expressions on the outlines of their faces, but she didn’t need to. Just barely brushing her own spirit against theirs was enough to feel the raw, primal terror they now felt. It was refreshing.

“What are you doing?!” shouted a voice she recognized as the prince. “Capture her! NOW!!” His voice was firm and commanding, and he seemed like the only one in a state to be giving out orders. Truly commendable, if a little pointless.

The knights and soldiers in this room snapped out of their panic at the sound of their prince’s voice, but they were too late. Charlotte waited until the first soldiers came within fifteen feet of her, then flicked a wrist and summoned a ring of virant blue fire to surround where she stood with her prey. Nobody was caught in the blaze, but it did remain in place as a ward against interference.

Three complex tasks while blinded, not bad.

Charlotte’s attention flicked down to the two glowing spots on the magician’s figure, but she held herself back as she prepared to finish this performance. She turned to face the gathered commoners, then began speaking loudly enough that it could almost be considered yelling. 

“If the kingdom will not pass judgment on these criminals, then I will. My mistress, Saso Rhanna, will not allow those who trample upon the weak to walk freely. What punishment befits their crimes, you may ask?”

She paused, reveling in the attention she commanded as the commoners waited with bated breath, then turned back to her captives. Raising her right hand into the air for all to see, she wreathed it in brilliant blue flame.

“Jack Ames-Bough, Royal Knight, I name you Criminal. I name you Abuser. I name you Rapist. Forevermore, you shall wear this mark for all to see your shame, corruption, and putrid heart. Just as this mark will serve to lay your crimes bare before the people, it shall also serve as a reminder that your life belongs to my mistress. Should you stray from the path of good, you shall burn under my hand.”

With those words, Charlotte pressed her hand to the paralyzed man’s face. She gripped him the thumb and middle finger pressing into his temples and held that position as his flesh began sizzling and popping while letting off an unsettlingly sweet smoke. If not for her years of exposure, Charlotte might have gagged at the smell alone. 

When she was sure a defined handprint would remain even after healing, she released the man from both her burning hand and his invisible restraints. He collapsed to the floor unconscious, the only noise coming from him being a whimpering moan and the scraping thud of his armored body hitting stone.

She moved then to the frozen mage–her real target–and positioned herself as close as she could to the hovering man. 

“Dorian Millson, mage of the Collective, I name you Criminal. I name you Abuser. I name you torturer. Just as this mark will serve to lay your crimes bare before the people, it shall also serve as a reminder that your life belongs to my mistress. Should you stray from the path of good, you shall burn under my hand.”

And she repeated the process, her flaming hand gripping his face. While this spectacle played out for the crowd, she searched out the two glowing points on the man’s figure and prepared to tug them into her own robes. When she was ready, she released the man and used his short tumble to disguise the two gemstones she pulled off of his body. She felt the stones slide into her robes and settle in a hidden pocket, then breathed a sigh of relief. 

Now I just need to escape.