'Oh shit'.

Words I could have been saying if I had the breath to spare. But given the torrent of flame that engulfed the position I had been standing in moments beforehand, I didn't have anything to spare.

"I was expecting this to be more entertaining, Gandalfr!" the lunatic taunted, though I didn't fall for suckers bait. Yes, she outranged me. She outranged me by quite a bit. But closing the range didn't seem like a good idea. Every instinct in my body screamed to keep away from her. Whatever it was this 'Heart and Mind of God' did, I could conclude. I ducked under a rock as it sailed over my head, scowling all the while.

Magic. Whatever it did, 'it' was magic, and it was a whole lot of it. Well, not pure magic. There was no wand, no staff, or even blade in use by this woman. It was all rings and amulets, various trinkets and baubles. She wasn't a mage. Likely wasn't. But with all the stuff she had and could bring to bear? The line between mage or not was largely hypothetical.

But there was no way in hell this wasn't energy-intensive. There had to be some type of magical battery for her to sustain such an onslaught. I just needed to figure out where it was.

I hucked a rock in her direction, weaving behind another piece of cover as the crumbled ceiling I had been hiding behind exploded in a bolt of lightning. Nothing indicated I had hit her, or even gotten close.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," I tried to keep my breath silent, as much as possible. Even more impressive than the magic was the fact she was still standing. I'd landed a solid hit on her ribs, probably even broke something, and yet she still didn't seem to notice the injury. Had I misjudged it? Or had she already fixed the damage with magic? Neither was impossible, but I knew I heard something crack, and I could be reasonably certain that something wasn't armor.

I slunk through the rubble, keeping out of sight. She was looking for me, but it looked as if she'd lost track of me. I wasn't exactly silent, but between the crackling of the fire, the groans of the ceiling as walls, and the sound of fighting that got even closer and closer with each passing minute? Made for an excellent cover for my sculking about.

That was another problem, though it was one I could do much less about. For now, I needed to be sure this nutcase stayed away from Henrietta. I waited for the exact moment, springing from cover in a heartbeat. If she wasn't surprised, she certainly did act like it, as I grabbed hold of her arm, pulling it up and away from her body.

My right hand found its target, an uppercut straight into her armpit. This time, the pain was obvious, with her letting out a scream of pain. I couldn't tell if it was simply because I broke the bone, or if I had simply knocked it out of its socket. Then came her other arm, landing underneath one of my ribs, before a blast of wind knocked me backward. I was able to roll, pushing myself back to my feet, only to watch as the woman's bones seemed to twist and contort back into shape. A cruel smirk grew upon her lips, before she launched a fireball in my direction, sending me scrambling for cover.

Right. Magic. Magical goddamn bullshit. The worst part was, I wasn't even sure Agnes's advice of getting the mage talking would work here. Provided she was a mage in the first place. I hucked another decent-sized rock, hearing it clatter against the ground in another miss.

"That's adorable," she taunted as I scowled.

"Oh, you can bite my ass," I ground out, staying on the move so she couldn't easily pinpoint my position. Provided she wasn't playing with her food, an event I simply couldn't rule out.

"How rude. Are you sure the Princess taught you any manners?" I was tempted to flip her off from behind cover, but that defeated the point.

"Oh please. Manners? Why exactly would some twisted psycho like yourself give a damn about manners? You're the one breaking into a palace to kill people, jackass," I shot back, before shifting my weight again as the woman cackled.

"That wasn't my assigned task," the woman let out a tisk as if she were disciplining me. "Sure, getting unwilling fratricide would be pleasant for me and my master, but it certainly isn't our goal."

"I'm guessing the whole stone thing outside wasn't your distraction, either?" I ground out, pushing aside her whole master talk. What the hell did that mean, anyway? Was she bound to follow someone's orders somehow? By magic? That was the only thing I could think of at the moment.

"It was, actually," another ball of flame engulfed my former hiding spot as I growled. She wasn't tired out, and I was running out of cover. Which was, not great. If I completely ran out of cover, I was hosed. And my attempt to break her arm was met with only temporary results at best. The only remaining, even possibly workable option, was to try and bludgeon her into unconsciousness so she couldn't use whatever it was that fixed her bones the first time.

Just attacking did not sound like a good idea. But in the end, what choice did I have? My cover was going up in smoke when it wasn't being blown away or blasted to pieces. So if I was going to do something, I was going to have to act soon.

I grabbed another small rock off the ground, peaking my head out from behind cover. Gripping it to the point my knuckles began to pale, I hurled the improved projectile with all my strength. It flew through the air, connecting with the woman's head. I dashed forward, grabbing the woman's head, bringing my knee up as I yanked down her face to meet it. Once. Twice. Three times.

She grabbed at me, fingers clawing for something, anything to hold on to. I released my left hand, before pushing her head towards the ground with all the strength I could muster. Even then, she tried to grasp at me, as my foot lashed out in a kick, sending her form across the room.

My body quaked, and with the adrenaline beginning to die, I began to notice things. How my body was covered in sweat. The various cuts and burns that now covered my skin. The dull pain of everything hurting all at once. The smoke filled the air at an ever-increasing rate. The urge to just lay down and rest.

I looked over to the woman. Was she, unconscious? She didn't look like she was moving. At least, not anymore. Should I, grab her? She probably had a lot of information, but I had no idea when she'd return to consciousness. Nasty concussion and broken nose aside, how much had I hurt her, anyway?

I coughed, inhaling smoke. Leaving her here wasn't a good idea, but my muscles were screaming at me for breathing. I don't think I could carry her out, even if I wished to do so. I should probably get out while I still had the time.

BOOM!

I heard it before I felt it. Before I could see it. I didn't even think I screamed in pain as a lightning bolt slammed into my chest, knocking me off my feet.

"That was almost impressive," the woman, no, human-shaped monster, cackled. "I'll admit, I felt that. Maybe if you had just a bit more skill, you might have had a chance."

She paused for a moment. "No, most certainly not. The fact you thought you had a chance. How adorable."

There was a clacking of feet, my eyes struggling to open as I felt a weight on my chest.

"Hand over the ring, girl, and I'll make sure you live through this," there was a madness in her voice. "Maybe. But you'll have to kill your master to do it."

I grabbed hold of her leg, before using my free arm to bash into her vulnerable knee. Bones twisted and cracked, but still, she remained almost unphased.

"I was trying to be polite, you know. But it seems like you don't have manners," she giggled at me. "What a shame, I figured we could be such …"

I felt something warm fall on my chest, as her voice cut off suddenly. A moment later, the pressure on my chest was gone. I took a moment to open my eyes, only to see.

The King? What was he doing here? Why was he here? What had happened to?

Oh. She was holding her throat, as blood drippled between her fingers. However, her fingers left her neck slowly, the bleeding having stopped.

"Sheffield, what have you done to yourself?" The man asked with a look of pure disgust written on his face. He, knew this woman?

"My former Master," this time her voice was contorted in nothing but hate and fury. "How, unfortunate, the fire didn't claim you already."

"The sentiment is shared, for once," King Joseph kept his blade up, ready to strike. "Whatever you and your new master's plan is, it ends now."

She let out a cackle, a sound that almost dripped with pure poison and insanity. "Of course, you think that, my old Master. But my new Master? No, no. I'm not so easy to kill now, don't you see? He's showered me with so many wonderful gifts."

There was a faint twitch on Joseph's face that I couldn't quite place. Acknowledgment that she was right, that even hurting her seemed impossible, as far as getting anything to stick went. Or maybe it was something else.

"Ops, I wasn't supposed to tell you that," in a moment, she went from laughing mad to giggling like a schoolgirl. This lady was stark, utter, mad. She was, insane. There was no other word for it. A stark, raving mad, quite possibly immortal nutcase. Pain radiated throughout my body, as I tried to gather the strength to stand. The air was still filling with smoke, and it made it hard to breathe, even as low to the grand as I was.

I felt my fingers grasp for something, anything, I could make use of. Once I found it, I picked it up and threw it at her. It was never going to hit. Even if I lobbed it with all the strength I could muster there was no way it could strike her, much less inflict an injury worth of note.

But it didn't have to.

"Would you stop throwing rocks at me you insolent!"

"Haste!" As she turned towards me, King Joseph spoke a single word. Then the man blurred, his sword once again burying itself in her throat, followed by more. Arms, chest, legs, cuts, slashes, and stabs, rained down on her in a brutal onslaught. I couldn't follow the movements, merely the dance of blood that surrounded the two. With one final thrust, Sheffield fell to the ground. King Joseph stepped back, not sheathing his sword, keeping his eyes on her.

Each second felt as if it went on for minutes, the silence filled with the crackling of flames. A crackling that was drowned out by her laugh as her body began to stitch itself back together. I pushed myself back onto my feet, focusing on the sound of her laughter. Joseph, on the other hand, heard something over it, darting back just in time as part of the ceiling came crashing down on top of her.

But even as the stone fell, I could still hear her laughter. Even after, I could swear I heard her, still cackling like a lunatic.

Or that could have been my body's strength giving out on me. I coughed in an attempt to force the smoke out of my lungs, as the world seemed to dim. Smoke. Needed to get lower, away from the fumes. Needed to prevent the toxin from entering my lungs. Needed to.

Thump.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Your maidservant is very brave," it was a true statement, and saving the young woman's life would at least earn some degree of good grace from her Master. The Princess's heart was just as large as he heard it was, given her concern for everyone caught up in the attack. But little of today had gone as expected. He knew there would be some form of trap. He doubted the events were a coincidence, though he had little proof that it wasn't. There was a fine line between expecting the unexpected, and paranoia.

His agent's suspicions had proven correct. That Henrietta was the Void Mage he had been looking for. Tristan's Void Mage. But today, complicated matters. He had an idea of what Sheffield was here for. However, the odds of her getting to the Void Relic at this point were small. Even if he couldn't kill his former familiar.

Part of him scowled internally at the thought. What had Sheffield been willing to do to herself? The how was obvious. The Mind of God, allowing for the use of magical artifacts, mixed with the Heart of God, which was bottomless magical energy, a wellspring of power. Combining the two Runes, and you had a threat that very few things could match. Especially if one was willing to sink to the depths that Sheffield was willing to. She was likely far from as unkillable as she put on, and the fire would ideally do the trick. Far from painless, but it would work.

He was lucky to show up when he did. There was no doubt in his mind that Sheffield would have killed the newly minted Gandalfr otherwise. And the results would not be pretty. Enough that they could have smothered his plans to stop Albion's descent into madness and the Pope's willingness to retread on the path of Brimir's mistake in grief.

While he would have done so anyway, it still was part of a means to an end. One Void Mage was utterly mad. The other? Willing to slaughter hundreds of thousands, if not more. He needed allies, and while his brother was smart and clever, there was only so much they could do with a single Void Mage without a familiar in play. That Void Mage being a teenager was, less than ideal, but it was the option he had, whether he liked it or not. And it was not as if she had her advisors. The Cardinal was a capable and competent man, to have been able to keep the secret for such a long time.

However, that was a discussion that would have to wait. The situation on the ground was far from resolved. Part of the palace was wreathed in flames, only being beaten back by the Queen herself, with the help of a few other mages, had created a rainstorm above the palace, drenching the flames.

But there was still the golem. How Sheffield had managed to acquire the services of a mage of such caliber was unknown, but he had every reason to believe it wasn't willing. That had proven to be the biggest problem, including the many escaped prisoners running amok. A golem of that size wasn't impossible to deal with, but it had managed to stay standing, weathering the storm of attacks launched against it with strange ease. The mage was perched atop its shoulder, using part of the stone as cover.

And with a handful of criminals also providing cover, possibly forced along by the same means as the golem summoner, it was difficult to get an angle on the target. A firearm at sufficient range might do the trick, but to pull off an accurate shot at that range would be difficult.

Unless. The Gandalfr might be able to pull off such a shot.

But the girl was currently being healed by Crown Princesses Minette. And even if her healing was enough to return the girl to a conscious state, that didn't mean she'd be able to shoot, much less fight. He was surprised she managed to remain standing for so long with her injuries. None of them looked immediately life-threatening, but that was to say nothing of the injuries he couldn't see.

Not to say that the ones he could see were pleasant. Parts of her uniform, clearly not an outfit designed for fighting, and been blasted, burned, or cut away, and had taken parts of her skin with it. Cuts and burns were the most prominent injuries, mostly burns, and while Minette's magic was doing what it could, she was young, and under considerable stress. A more advanced healer would be required to fix the worst of the burns. However, the Queen was busy putting out the fires, and many other healers were sorting out the other injured.

Truthfully, he was surprised she had remained conscious for that long. Still, things could not be maintained much longer. The golem, and this rate, its master, would need to go. Too much had been destroyed, and there was still Sheffield to possibly worry about in the aftermath of this chaos. At least what happened could be spun as an attempt to kill both rulers, giving a better excuse for an Alliance.

Suddenly, there was a loud crack, the sound of a gunshot echoing through the air. Joseph watched as the mage on the golem's shoulder suddenly fell off, the golem starting to crumble away into a harmless pile of dirt. A griffin dove towards the ground, managing to grab the mage before they splattered against the ground. He recognized the man riding on the griffin's back, even at a distance.

That was good. While many would be baying for the death of the mage involved, they had information. Information that was worth its weight in gold. They had been shot, of course, so they weren't out of the woods yet. But if they managed to survive, then he would try and get every ounce of information out of them that he could.

He needed to know who Albion's Void Mage was. Sheffield had made a mistake. One that she tried to laugh off, but it was information that he knew would prove most valuable. Even a gender was more information than he had at the moment, even if it was vague. While it could be any number of descendants born from the loyal line, illegitimate ones by volume, the fact that they were male was telling. However, that might not be the case. King James had many sons, though significantly fewer were among the living than was the case a few years ago.

Had one survived where they were otherwise believed to be dead? Or had something even worse come to pass?