Sophia

I stared at him, speechless by his bluntness. I suspected he might have been part of it since any of those scholars could have been there that night, but I didn’t think any of them would be as straightforward about it as he was.

The scholar had his eyes plastered on the ground, and his hands were shivering. I kept waiting for anger to take hold of me, to lash out at him. But nothing of that sort happened. The anger I expected to feel laid dormant in me, sleeping tightly.

“So, to make this clear. You brought me here to tell me you killed my family.”

He cleared his throat and pulled his coat tighter around him. “I want to help to bring your sister back.”

I nodded slowly. “I’m sure you can understand my confusion. First, you help to kill my family and kidnap my sister, and now you want to help me bring her back. Why did you even admit you were part of it?”

He jumped up, pacing the room. “I wouldn’t have been able to look you in the eye and hide what I had done. I know what I did was wrong, and if I could, I would undo it. But I can’t. All I can do now is to help you with your sister.”

“Aren’t you worried I would report you to the council?”

He stopped and looked at me over his shoulder, his brows arched. “You could do that, but they wouldn’t believe you.”

I bit my tongue, glaring at him. He was right, but it was upsetting how confident he was about it.

He slumped back in his chair, his eyes darting around the room as he avoided my gaze. The silence in the room suffocated me, and I had plenty of questions only he could answer, even when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have them answered.

“How did it happen?”

His head snapped up, gaping at me with wide eyes.

“I want to know how it all happened,” I repeated.

He brushed a hand through his dark blonde hair, nodding. “Do you know anything about the blood bond between scholars and mentors?”

I tried to remember if I heard anything about a blood bond before, but I couldn’t come up with anything. “I don’t think so.”

The scholar leaned forward, clasping his hands together on the table in front of us. “It all depends on the mentor you join, but for the most parts around here, entering a blood bond is a bit like selling yourself.”

His head was hanging low as he whispered those words, his shoulders slumping down more and more with each passing second when there were no words exchanged.

“Would you mind elaborating on that?” I asked.

He sighed. “As a mage, you usually either take over your family’s business, which mostly has something to do with potions, spells, or magical services or you join the military alongside humans and provide magical support. Some scholars can also become mentors or at least tutors. For that, you need to have excellent magic skills though. But most scholars enter a blood bond with a mentor to improve their magic and offer their strength to earn money that way.”

“Okay, but what does any of that have to do with the death of my family?”

“I will get to that. Usually, the scholars entering blood bonds are poor or have a low magical level. It’s the last resort for most people because it gives enough money upfront, without a long training phase. So, most scholars are in very desperate situations when they join a blood bond. Especially with mentors like Samuel.”

I leaned forward. “What’s different about Samuel’s blood bond?”

“In the mage community, Samuel is known for taking anyone in, regardless of background, skill or knowledge. To him, we are all just energy sources and minions for his agenda.”

From the sound of his voice, it was obvious what his thoughts were about Samuel, but it made me wonder why he would join someone like him then.

“I suppose you also had no other choice than to join him?”

He nodded. “I joined Samuel to offer my parents a better life. They were ill and needed medical care but we didn’t have the money to afford that, so I had no other choice than to join him. You always get money upfront when you enter a blood bond, but usually that is only a tiny amount and you will receive more when you have proven yourself. But there is no such thing with Samuel. You get a lot of money quickly, but then you’re also stuck with him for a long time. The more money you received, the longer you had to stay.”

“That sounds incredibly fishy,” I said, shocked that there are people out there who had no other choice than to pile on debts to survive. Of course, I knew that not everyone had such a comfortable life as I had, but it never occurred to me that mages had to live like that. Most mages I met during my night out were businessmen or women, and they never even mentioned the darker sides of being a mage.

“Everyone knows it’s not pretty at all. We also don’t get a lot of free time, often only one or two days. We aren’t allowed to exit the compound on the other days unless we’re on a mission. So, most days, we either train or go on missions. Everything we do and learn strengthens us, and in return will strengthen Samuel.”

I crossed my arms. “Okay, so you strengthen Samuel and he will give you money for it. But you still have to tell me what my family has to do with any of that.”

He winced. “Well, another side effect of the blood bond is that we don’t remember our missions. Before we start, we are getting put into a trance. Samuel will then assign roles and tasks to us and will tell us about our objectives. We’re sent out to finish the mission, and when we return, the trance will end. But we will have no clue what we did or what happened during the trance.”

It was slowly sinking in then. The scholars working for Samuel could do all sorts of things without even knowing what they did. “Why would there be such a concept? Isn’t that illegal?”

He laughed, which sounded more like a bark than a laugh. “The trance brings out our best potential and to be our very best. It will stop us from having thoughts of uncertainty and doubt in ourselves and we try everything we can to finish a mission. That way, the success of those missions is high, with little human error. Besides, if you send out your scholars to do something they shouldn’t remember, it’s better to wipe their memories clean than to risk one of them spitting the truth.”

Now it was me pacing the room, my thoughts whirling around in my head like a tornado. There were people living in Tierelia who did many horrible things and they didn’t even have a choice in the matter. “How come this is allowed? Aren’t mentors under strict rules and have to follow the law like everyone else?”

He shrugged. “On the surface, all mentors have a white vest. They have an excellent reputation, help the communities and offer services. When they take care of bothersome creatures in the forest, they usually help the human farmers and when they donate potions and spells to poor and homeless people, they get even more recognition. Mentors show enough goodwill that no one checks their background to see what sort of shady things are going on with some of them.”

This wasn’t right at all, and it should change, but I had a more urgent matter at hand, and my sister was more important to me at the moment. And I wasn’t still completely certain that he was telling me the truth. “You said no one remembers what happens during a mission. But why did you remember?”

“I wish I could tell you. I think seeing you there shocked me enough to pull me out of the trance.”

“Do you also remember your other missions?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s only the last mission. Well, and I guess all the following, if the trance won’t work for me in the future either.”

I tried to make sense of everything he told me. A part of me was still waiting for the anger to wreak havoc in me, but looking at him, all I felt was sympathy. He was a puppet in a sick game Samuel was playing, just like everyone else, and I didn’t think he was lying to me about the blood trance. I believe he was being truthful, but there were still a few unanswered questions.

“How did you sneak up on my family? They are all highly trained and very cautious, so how did you do it?”

He rubbed his neck, glancing at me through his long lashes. “Samuel called your parents at night, stating that there was an emergency, and they had to meet immediately. He claimed that the safety of the vampires was at risk if they wouldn’t act right now. Your parents trusted Samuel and took his warning seriously. They wanted to protect the community at all costs and invited him to discuss the matter. But it wasn’t Samuel arriving, it was his decoy with two scholars, but they didn’t know that. Decoy spells are very hard to see through, especially without magical powers, besides it’s technically an illegal spell, so they probably also didn’t expect it. The rest of us were outside, waiting for our signal to immobilize the guards. After the decoy planted the spell inside the house, we only waited for it to do its job. It was a very potent sleeping spell, very expensive, and also illegal. The side effects are pretty bad, and you might kill someone with it if the dose is wrong. But it didn’t take long for everyone in the house to fall into a deep slumber. At least that’s what we thought, but your family was incredibly resilient, and still awake when we entered the scene.”

His voice broke, and he grabbed onto the armrests of the chair. I clenched my hands into fists, my stomach turning, imagining how that played out.

“Did they have to suffer?” I dared to ask, my voice nothing more than a whisper.

He stared at a spot on the floor in front of him, his jaw ticking as he slowly shook his head. “They fought as good as they could in their condition, better than some of the trained scholars who were with us, but eventually they had to surrender to the spell, too. Their death was painless, I assure you that.”

I wished that would have calmed my mind a little, but it didn’t. More so than before, I felt like I had let them down, and I was so utterly disappointed that no one believed me when I told them who the real culprit was.

“But why did no one else remember that it was Samuel calling? All the other staff claimed they didn’t know why my family was in the living room,” I asked.

“It’s because the sleeping potion alters your memory. You won’t be able to remember anything that happened two to three hours beforehand. That’s why no one remembered that Samuel was going to visit.”

The audacity that man had to play such dirty tricks while sitting in the council meeting acting as if he had no clue. He was evil, through and through.

“And what was your role?”

He swallowed audibly. “I’m a protector. My only task is to protect the other scholars from attacks. I wasn’t supposed to use much magic unless it was necessary. Protectors need a lot more energy than the other mages to cast spells, so we usually split our energy. I was protecting the scholars during the active part, while the other one shielded us when we were leaving.”

“But what about Samuel’s signature I saw, why was it there?” I asked.

“He provided us with a transportation spell he created. Those are very complicated spells, and can go wrong if they aren’t prepared beforehand. But that also meant his signature would be on display when we activate it, and that’s what you saw.”

“Isn’t that too risky for Samuel? Shouldn’t he hide his tracks as best he can?”

“You would think so, but Samuel is clever. He can hide his signature very well, which, by the way, also isn’t allowed. Most wouldn’t be able to spot it, so I’m surprised you even recognized it,” he said with a soft smile. “Besides, signatures disappear fast, and if our plan had worked like he had planned it to, no one would have found your family or the spell anytime soon.”

I huffed. “I guess Samuel can’t plan so well.”

“Samuel forgot to mention how many people were supposed to be there. During our briefing, he was talking about your parents and their children, and we were supposed to bring the youngest. He never stated how many there were, though. When we couldn’t find anyone else from your family, we suspected we had finished our mission.”

“What does he want with my sister?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m trying to get on Samuel’s good side right now, hoping he will take me with him most of the time so I can find out more. But I’m not sure how long I can keep the act up.”

“Considering you’re meeting with me in the middle of a forest and telling me confidential information, I also wonder about that.”

A smile spread over his face. “What can I say? I doubt I’m the best scholar out there.”

“What’s your name?” I asked, realizing I didn’t ask yet.

“Adam,” he said.

I nodded. “Okay, Adam. What’s your plan? How do we get my sister back?”