The teleportation circle spat us out with its usual, nauseating pop, and the first thing I registered was the stench. Not of brimstone, though there was plenty of that now, but of violation.
My wards. My beautiful, meticulously woven wards that had taken three months of my life and a frankly embarrassing amount of my qi, they weren't just broken. They were unmade. Torn apart like a child's cobweb in a hurricane.
I could feel the ragged edges of them screaming in the metaphysical space around us, a phantom limb pain that made my fingers curl into fists.
"My lady, the tower—" Sir Alex began, his hand already on his sword hilt, ever the loyal, predictable fool.
I cut him off with a raised hand, my gaze fixed on the panoramic window of the Agro Mage Tower's top floor. "I can see the tower, Alex. The question is whether there's still a territory attached to it."
