For the first few moments of the video footage, everything was quiet. The camera recording the footage must have been mounted above the front reception desk of the High Council building. The camera was aimed at the front entrance, which was quiet at that time of the morning. According to the timestamp on the footage, the video was from just before seven-thirty. The front entrance would have been unlocked at that point, but there weren’t many people around, making it the perfect time to easily break in.

After the brief calm at the beginning, a large group suddenly burst through the door. There were several large wolf shifters, all in wolf form. Then there were about a dozen wizards, all wearing black robes, their magic rings held high in the air. They must have been casting some sort of spell, although Leif couldn’t tell from the video what it was. The wolves were baring their teeth and running back and forth in front of the wizards, who looked like they were shouting. There was sound on the video, but it was poor quality and kept coming in and out, so Leif couldn’t make out their words. Behind the wizards, two bear shifters in bear form were standing on their hind legs and swinging their giant heads back and forth, growling.

And in the middle of all of this chaos was Sofia. She was being held by two wizards, one on each side of her. They each gripped her upper arms with one arm, and pointed their magic rings at her menacingly. Her face was contorted in pain, and it didn’t take an expert on magic to see that some sort of torture spell was being used to keep her under control. Leif chewed on his lower lip, feeling horribly uncomfortable. The woman he thought he’d hated just hours earlier was not at all who he thought she was. What’s worse, she was suffering a great deal, and it was his fault. He never should have approached her in the supermarket like that. He’d cornered her, and she’d felt compelled to defend herself.

Leif watched with growing horror as the video footage cut to the group of Dark Warriors walking down the main hallway of the High Council building. Whenever they came across a startled employee, they set off a dark magic spell. Leif still couldn’t tell what the spells were, but it was obvious they were causing a lot of pain. Eventually, some security guards appeared on the screen, but the dark wizards easily took care of them as well. Whatever magic they were using was strong.

The footage continued on as the group made its way deeper and deeper into the High Council building. Eventually, they came to a top security area. The wizards tried to push Sofia forward to use her fingerprints to open the door. She balked, and tried to get away. The video showed her thrashing about and screaming, trying in vain to escape their grasp. There were too many of them, and they eventually overpowered her, forcing her finger onto the fingerprint sensor. The large metal doors slid open, and Sofia stepped inside.

Leif himself had never been in the room they entered. It was a records vault of some sort, and he’d never had a reason to request access. His eyes widened now as he saw it on the screen. There were hundreds and hundreds of metal boxes that looked like small safe deposit boxes. Each one of them must have contained records of some sort, but Leif could hardly fathom how there were already so many records in a town this young. Torch Lake had only been in existence for about three years.

The dark wizards seemed to know exactly where the records they wanted were located. They dragged Sofia over and started yelling at her, pointing at the records box. She resisted, and they started slapping her and then pointing their magic rings at her, casting torture spells no doubt. Suddenly, the sound on the video came back in, and, in the enclosed vault room, the words the wizards were speaking were clear and easy to make out.

“You’ll open this vault now, or we’ll kill you.”

“So kill me,” Sofia yelled back. “It would be an honor to die for the side of good.”

“Traitor! Fool!”

The dark wizard spoke some words in Latin that Leif didn’t understand, but he knew they were a dark magic spell. Sofia screamed in pain as the spell hit her, and she fell backwards against the wall. Leif winced as he saw her head slam against the hard metal, and then she slumped lifelessly down to the ground. For an awful moment, he thought she was dead. But then, another one of the dark wizards came up and pushed aside the first wizard.

“You idiot. You knocked her out. Magicae vivifica.”

Sofia’s eyes flew open as she rapidly regained consciousness, and she let out another howl of pain.

“Listen to me,” said the wizard who had just revived her. He bent low to crouch over her. “You open this vault, or we’re not only going to torture you, we’re going to torture and kill the dragons. We’ll kill them off one by one until you do what we’re asking.”

Sofia remained defiantly silent. The wizards started casting more torture spells on her. She howled in pain, but still said no words. Eventually, one of the wizards shook his head.

“This isn’t working. She’s going to let us kill her before she opens the vault.”

Another wizard got directly in Sofia’s face. “Open it, now, or Leif Redding’s blood will be on your hands.”

Leif felt all eyes in the room turn to look at him. He had no idea why the wizard would have chosen him as the first dragon victim. Perhaps it was because he had been the one talking to Sofia in the grocery store, or because he was the one who had been seeing her every day while she performed her “audit.” Whatever the case, they seemed to think that threatening Sofia with his name would move her. He wanted to laugh. His name was probably the worst they could have chosen. Sofia hated him. He’d treated her like crap.

But Sofia didn’t laugh and spit in their faces, telling them that they were going to have to do better than Leif Redding’s name if they truly wanted to threaten her. Instead, her eyes shot up to the dark wizards, filled with fear.

“No, don’t hurt Leif. He’s not going to harm your cause. You could…um…watch his methods for keeping dragons around and use them yourselves when trying to recruit dragons. He’s really talented.”

Sofia was grasping at straws, and the wizards knew it. They all laughed at her desperate attempt to persuade them that hurting Leif was a bad idea.

“Well, boys. Looks like we found someone she cares about. Who wants to volunteer to go find Leif and rough him up a bit?”

Before anyone could volunteer though, the sound of loud sirens suddenly started on the video. Bright red lights filled the vault with their angry flashes, and the wizards and shifters all looked around in dismay.

“Enough playing around. Someone’s set off the red alert sirens,” one wizard said as he stepped up and pointed his ring at Sofia. “Magicae moderor.”

It seemed like everyone watching the video gasped, except for Leif. He looked around, hoping someone would explain what kind of spell they had cast to cause such a reaction among the High Councilors, but everyone was too busy watching the video to bother explaining things to him.

Sofia howled in pain again, then went limp. One of the wizards picked her up and pushed her toward the vault. She stumbled, then said some words Leif couldn’t understand before collapsing again. The vault opened, and the wizards laughed and cheered. The bear shifters roared and pawed at the air in triumph, and the wolves howled. Leif blinked in confusion, feeling disappointed. Sofia had given up. She’d let their torture get to her.

The rest of the footage unfolded quickly. The wizards grabbed several folders from the open vault, stuffing them into a messenger bag. Then they grabbed Sofia’s limp form from the ground and started running toward the exit. They zapped several bystanders with spells as they left, and the footage ended with them dashing out of the building. The red alert emergency responders would arrive less than a minute later, but it was too late. The wizards, the records, and Sofia were all gone. Leif turned toward Councilor Morgan as the footage ended.

“What was that spell they cast on her at the end? It must have been truly awful for her to give in so quickly like that.”

Councilor Morgan’s face looked drawn and rather pale. “It was the moderor spell. It’s a dark magic spell that allows its user to essentially take over another person’s body and force them to do something. It’s not an easy spell to perform, which means that at least one of these dark wizards is becoming quite skilled in dark magic. That’s worrisome, as is the fact that now Sofia is gone.”

“This video didn’t really help much with telling us where they might have taken her, or whether she’s still alive,” Councilor Ceyus observed.

“No,” Councilor Morgan agreed. “All it tells us is that she was still alive when she left. But it’s been over an hour since then, so that could have changed. Have we received reports from any of the soldiers searching the city?”

“Yes, they’ve been keeping us updated, but it’s not exactly good news,” Councilor Ceyus said. “They haven’t found any trace of her. They’ve looked in her home, as well as the homes of all identified Dark Warriors. They even raided the Dark Warriors’ headquarters. Nothing. They haven’t found a body, at least. But that doesn’t mean much. If they killed her, they wouldn’t have necessarily left her where we could easily find her.”

Leif felt his stomach turning again. Was it really possible that Sofia was dead? That she had died in the process of defending him? He couldn’t stop seeing the panic in her eyes when the wizards had threatened to kill him if she didn’t help them. He could not deny that she cared about what happened to him. Her reaction had made that plain. But that knowledge only made him feel ashamed. He’d been so rude to her, and had written her off as a nosy, annoying junior auditor who didn’t know what the hell she was doing. Turns out, she knew exactly what she was doing. And now she was paying dearly for one small slip where she ever so vaguely hinted to him that she was on his side.

Councilor Morgan was shaking his head slowly. “I don’t think that—”

Before Councilor Morgan could finish his thought, a woman in military uniform burst into the room without knocking.

“We’ve had another S.O.S. transmission from Sofia! We’ve traced the location to the southwestern quadrant of the Gray Oasis Forest. It appears she’s not far from where the Seth and Evan are on their dark monster mission.”

Leif felt his heart start to pound. “She’s alive, then?”

The woman nodded. “She must be. I don’t think any of the Dark Warriors know how to send an S.O.S signal. Even if they did, why would they?”

Leif jumped up. “I’m going after her right now.”

Jake looked up at him in surprise. “Leif, we still aren’t sure exactly where she is, or how many dark wizards and evil shifters are with her. We need to plan a bit.”

“Jake’s right,” Councilor Morgan said. “We need to have more information before we rush out to get her. I think that—”

“No!” Leif said, feeling like his heart was about to pound right out of his chest. “It’s not a time for thinking or planning. It’s a time for action. Sofia is in trouble, and if we wait to sort out the details, it might be too late.”

Without giving anyone another second to protest, Leif ran for the door. He heard Jake and the High Council members calling after him, but he kept running, making for the building’s exit as quickly as he could. He heard Jake’s voice behind him, yelling at him to stop, but he kept running.

“Leif, don’t be an idiot!” Jake called. “You need to at least pack some supplies. You’re not helping Sofia by running blindly after her with no preparation. You don’t even know exactly where she is.”

Leif whirled around to face Jake. If it had been anyone else chasing after him, he would have kept going. But Leif knew how much Jake cared about him, and about all of the citizens of Torch Lake. Jake deserved at least an attempt at an explanation.

“I’ll find her with my dragon instincts. Don’t you see? They are planning to kill her, probably in front of Seth and Evan. They’ll use her as bait to drag the two dragon shifters in, and then make an attempt to kill all of them.”

Jake slowed his run as he caught up with Leif. “They can’t possibly kill two dragons.”

Leif shrugged. “They might be able to, if they have enough dark magic on their side. I’m not going to sit around here and wait to find out. You should come with me to help instead of wasting time on that High Council meeting.”

Jake shook his head sadly. “I’m People’s Governor. My place is here in Torch Lake, protecting the citizens.”

Leif nodded. He had known this would be Jake’s answer, and he didn’t fault his friend for staying. It was true that, as People’s Governor, Jake needed to be in the city during a time of crisis. And this was definitely a time of crisis. But Leif’s greatest responsibility was to protect his dragon trainees, and to save Sofia. After all, it was his fault her cover had been blown. He couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to her. He would have to live with the guilt for the rest of his life.

Several High Council members had appeared at the end of the long hallway now, shouting out Leif’s name.

“Let me go, Jake,” Leif said. “You know I have to follow my dragon heart.”

Jake glanced back at the approaching Council members, then turned to look at Leif once again. “Fine. But if you’re going, then go. Now. Before the Councilors get close enough to know that I’m letting you slip away.”

Leif nodded and turned to run again, but Jake grabbed his arm one last time.

“Godspeed, Leif. You’re going to need it.”

Then he let go, and Leif was running out of the building as fast as he could, his clothes already tearing off his body as he began to shift into dragon form for the long flight to Gray Oasis Forest.