by Keith Walter
◆◆◆
“Why isn’t this working?” Serin growled in frustration. For the past twenty minutes she had been pouring out as much healing magic as she could. Still, the captain did not wake up and his condition didn’t seem to improve.
“It is working,” Charles replied as he stared intently at Barclay’s unconscious body. “Magic attacks are harder to heal because they disrupt the body’s regeneration. Damage of this magnitude means we have to fix his insides before we see any changes on the outside.”
“Well, how do I know if his insides are healing?” Serin replied in exasperation.
Charles caught her eye and smiled. “You trust me.” He smiled wider as Serin scoffed and rolled her eyes.
Leslie stood on the opposite side of the captain, enjoying the conversation. Looking at him, she tried to feel for the internal damage with her senses, but felt nothing different from his normal power. When she had first arrived, the sight of him took her breath away. His right arm was nearly gone, while black and red burns covered most of his body. Now the stark white sheet covering his battered body belied the damage below. Unable to continue looking, she turned to Charles, trying to distract herself. “So are you a sensor? You can see him improving?”
“Not…exactly,” Charles replied, looking away. At Leslie’s questioning expression, he added, “I’ve always been able to see the flow of magic better than normal.” He gave her an amused shrug. “But a few decades of watching every shadow and movement around me has done wonders to fine-tune my senses. And, yes, I can see the internal damage healing.”
Leslie felt there was more to that answer than he let on, but let it drop. “So how long do you think this will take?”
“How long did it take me?” Charles wondered aloud. “I had to be in even worse shape last night.”
The women exchanged glances furtively. “We didn’t actually see you until earlier today,” Leslie admitted. “Grace mentioned that there was someone else in her bunk that needed healing, but we weren’t really keeping track.”
Charles tried to do the math in his head. The last thing he remembered from the previous night was unleashing his magic against the majors and their men. By the time he woke up, it was light out again. “I must have been out for half the night,” he announced.
“And that was with Grace doing the healing,” Serin reminded him.
“The captain shouldn’t be as bad, though,” Charles declared. And it was true—even unconscious, the spells and runes that held his own power in check remained. When Grace had been healing him, she had to fight them to help.
“How do you figure?” Serin demanded. “Even if you were worse off, I’m not in Grace’s league.”
“Charles is uniquely obstinate when it comes to accepting help, even while unconscious.” Three heads whipped around to the sweet voice behind them. Grace stood in the doorway, smiling sadly. Her dress and hair still appeared unkempt, but she no longer sported cuts and burns.
“Grace!” Leslie shouted. She turned to hug Grace, but remembered the job at hand. Instead, she nodded and smiled at the woman. “You’re looking much better already.”
Grace smiled shyly, nodding in greeting. “I’m feeling much better as well.”
“Well enough to help us out here?” Serin questioned tentatively.
“I think I can spare the magic,” Grace replied, smiling at Charles as he quirked an eyebrow. She stepped forward and laid her hands on the bed. The sheet covering the captain turned a faint green and began to glow softly. “There. You should be able to let go now.”
Serin watched Barclay’s eyelids flutter momentarily, but saw no difference in his injuries. She glanced to Charles, who stared hard at the bed. When she caught his eye, he gave a small smile and nod. She stopped the flow of magic to her palms and leaned back against the wall. Healing like that right after a battle was wearing her out. “Thanks, Grace.”
“Of course,” she responded. “You should get some food and rest. The galley is open again.” She glanced at Charles, nodding apologetically. “I am well aware how important a little rest can be.”
Leslie exhaled as she moved toward the door. “Jason and a few others were injured in the escape. It didn’t look life threatening, but I’ll go check on them.”
“It’s already done.” Grace smiled brightly. “Given their minor injuries, all non-magical in nature, they should be up and about in short order.”
Leslie paused before embracing Grace in a hug. “I’m sorry we could not protect you,” she whispered. Pulling Grace forward, she placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. Serin followed suite and the two left.
◆◆◆
Charles stepped up to the bed, waving a hand over the green glow and feeling the intense healing energy being exuded. “Is this what you did with me? I thought I remember you being a little more up close and personal.” He smiled, trying to lighten the mood.
Grace glanced at her handiwork before addressing Charles. “I did try. I wasn’t lying when I said you were uniquely obstinate. The spells and runes you keep would repel this level of magic.”
Chuckling softly, Charles agreed. “Yeah, I have been told I am pretty tough to deal with.”
“Why don’t you tell them the truth?” Grace blurted out suddenly. Her face suffused with red at the shocked expression on her companion’s face. “I just… We’re all in this together. Are you afraid they’ll think differently about you? That they won’t accept you anymore?”
Charles became aware of the fish face he must have been making, letting his jaw hang free. It wasn’t that she knew his secret—no, that much was expected. It was the sudden fierceness with which she brought it up. He closed his mouth and purposefully relaxed. “You were listening in on the captain and myself,” he stated. When he saw the embarrassment on her face, he added quickly, “Don’t worry, I’ve known ships like yourself in the past, I was fully aware you hear everything onboard.”
He sighed, bringing a hand up to try and wipe away the tension. “I suppose now it’s a little pointless to keep hiding, eh? I mean, we just launched an attack on a government portal, sunk a handful of their ships, and all but declared war on the Union. If they ever had cause to let the others go before, they don’t now.” The weight of his life seemed to press down on him, and he moved to sit on the edge of the captain’s bed. “That life was so long ago, I barely feel like the same person anymore. I’m not afraid that the others might know that I fought in the war, but I don’t want them to see me as someone I’m not.”
“You aren’t afraid they might find out something else? That you have some dark secret you didn’t even tell the captain?” Grace prodded, her eyes too suspicious to have simply come up with such questions on the fly.
Charles was keenly aware that he did, in fact, have dark secrets. But there was no reason Grace should know about them. If she did know somehow, she should know they were the kind that hurt him—the kind that only mattered to the person who had to live with them. “Why are you asking this all of a sudden?”
Grace flushed, admitting, “When the Entregon spoke to me, she said that there was a war criminal onboard. I knew she was talking about you.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “She said you killed thousands of innocents, and that you are the only one she wants. She said the rest of us could go free if we give you up.” Grace seemed shocked to see tears on Charles’s face when he looked at her.
He didn’t bother to wipe away the drops drawing glistening lines down his face. He could no longer muster emotion in his voice as he asked, “Do you believe the Entregon? Do you really think they’d let you all go?”
“No,” Grace replied, turning away from the pain in Charles’s eyes. He knew she wouldn’t She didn’ want to believe that he could have done as the Entregon said. But, too, he hadn’t denied it. Against her own peaceful nature, she forced herself to ask, “Is it true?”
Charles stared at his hands, hands that once had the power to change the world. He remembered the cheers
of the men and women so happy to have a way to contribute to the cause—through him. He remembered their awe as they gave him everything he could ask for, and then more. They saw him as a god. He remembered the distinct loneliness in those moments after the battle, when he should have felt the strength of thousands, but instead realized the true cost of the plan. Barely loud enough for Grace to hear, he answered, “Yes.”
He watched Grace’s reaction as that single word hit her like a punch to the gut. He saw a multitude of emotions play across her face: denial, anger, disappointment, disgust, and finally a cold sadness. “Why?” she found herself asking.
“Forbidden magic,” Charles answered, speaking as if on auto-pilot. “No fey has the power to challenge the Ancients. But maybe a hundred together…maybe a thousand, maybe ten thousand could. If only there was a way to join all their strength—if only there was some fey just strong enough and just stupid enough to try taking it all himself. To tell the soldiers it’s safe, that all they have to do is complete the ritual and pledge their souls to their leader. Tell them to give everything they have. But don’t tell the leader what it really means, that those lives are part of him now, that asking even a little too much is asking for everything. Then put him in a position where he needs more power than he can imagine, force him to fight so hard that he loses himself…and loses everyone else in the process.”
Charles finally lifted his head, looking Grace in the eye. “They trusted me, and I killed them. And for what? To put a bunch of new tyrants on the throne?” He closed his eyes, face scrunching in memory. “I can still feel it, like a chain reaction. The first power snuffed out, but I still needed to win, so I demanded more and more of the rest, never paying attention as this caused more and more to snuff out faster and faster.”
“They knew what they signed up for.” A rough voice cut through the air.
The voice broke Grace from a spell, and she quickly moved to the captain, placing a warm hand on the less damaged side of his face. “Captain, you should not be awake.” Noticing the captain’s clenched jaw, she added, “Does it hurt?”
Ignoring her question, Barclay choke out, “You son of a bitch.” The outburst caused a fit of coughing, and Grace reached into the bedside table to pull out a glass of water with straw. She held the straw to the captain’s lips and he drank shallow sips, forcing the water down through dry passageways. After a few sips, he pushed the straw away and addressed Charles again, the timber of his voice returning more to that of the captain they knew. “You shame the memories of those men and women.”
Charles lowered his head. “I’m sorry, I—”
“No, you don’t get to be sorry,” Barclay interjected. He cracked open his good eye to bore into the younger fey. “You should be proud.”
“What?” Two voices nearly shouted in unison. Grace and Charles exchanged perplexed glances before looking to the captain for explanation.
Charles could tell from Barclay’s glare that, would it not hurt like all hell, he would have tried to punch the younger man. “You killed a damned Ancient. Me and any one of the grunts on the ground would have sold their souls for that kind of power. Hell, how many thousands of us died before that day, fighting for our lives against enemies we had no business opposing?” He spit toward the crying man, managing only to moisten the sheet covering his chest. “How dare you demean what they sacrificed?”
“I’m not demeaning them,” Charles replied, confused. “I’m demeaning myself. I killed them for nothing.”
“For nothing!” Barclay shouted. “Fuck you, you selfish prick. You killed them, and you decided it was for nothing. For fuck’s sake, you couldn’t get over yourself for even one minute in the last forty years, could you? Nobody signed up to fight for you, nobody died for you. Every soldier out there fought for a cause bigger than themselves, bigger than you. Did you ever consider for one moment that those soldiers died happy, died knowing they were making a difference in the most important event in all of history? No, of course you didn’t, because you were sad about being broken and about losing your friends.”
The air seemed to drain from the room, and in his current state, Barclay had to pause to take several labored breaths. Still, he continued. “We’ve all lost friends, and I know I’ve been the cause myself. I don’t get to sit around guilt tripping about it—not because I’m over it, but because they deserve better. You wear your friends like an anchor when they should be a medal. You should remember every fallen soldier with the pride they deserved, the pride they earned. You don’t get to saddle them with your baggage.”
The room fell silent, one voice having run out of steam, the others too shocked to reply. Charles dropped his head into his hands. He did respect those fey that fell, but he couldn’t divorce the action from the outcome. Ten thousand dead, by his hands, in a battle that solved nothing for them—what was there to be proud of? The Union didn’t care for the converts, and consistently treated them more like commodities than people. What had the battle accomplished? “I do respect them,” he started, “but I can’t forgive myself.”
“Forgive,” Barclay scoffed. “It doesn’t matter if you forgive yourself. It doesn’t matter if anybody ever forgives you. Those soldiers were already dead, but they got to go out like heroes.”
“Already dead?” Charles demanded. “They had families, friends, and you’re saying they were dead from the get go? Why, because they were converts?”
“Go away, Charles, I’m tired of your face and your stupidity.” Barclay closed his good eye again.
“No, old man, you started this and now you’re trying to send me away? That’s bullshit.” Charles was livid, standing and glaring at the man lying a little too serenely on the bed. Grace put a hand to his chest, and Charles was glad to realize he couldn’t move forward even if he’d really wanted.
Barclay rolled his head minutely from side to side, trying to settle on the dark pillow underneath. “What was the fate of every convert everywhere had we lost?” he asked. Charles opened his mouth to retort, but snapped it shut in realization. To the Ancients, converts were an abomination, a plague that needed to be rooted out. As the silence stretched on, Barclay added, “You let the way you were hurt, personally, color everything and everyone. You’ve disgraced the memory of the soldiers you led by saving yourself all these years and not trying to make things better. Leave me alone now, I don’t want to deal with your self-centered moping anymore.”
Charles gaped, trying to find words to respond, but none would come. He glanced to Grace, who looked away, then he dropped his head once more. He shuffled out the door, closing it gently behind. He propped himself against the wall of the hallway and tried to walk to his cabin. He made it only ten steps before falling to his knees. He slumped against the wall and leaned his head into the cold steel. Placing a thumb and pointer over his eyes, he tried to hold back the ocean of tears that threatened to down him.
◆◆◆
Seafood was never a favorite of the land-bound Fortier clan. When the great hall was filled with guests, business partners, and members of Serin’s extended family, no sea creature would tarnish the overflowing tables. Pig, cow, turkey, and more exotic creatures were the norm. Always things that lived on land, always seared to perfection—which for a family of fire elementals meant black and crunchy. Serin, thus, found herself continually surprised by the delectable flavors of the food from the galley.
She wasn’t sure if Grace was somehow catching the fish, shrimp, crab, and lobster as they rode along, or if she could just conjure the sweet flesh by pure magic. Looking around the admittedly smaller dining area, she caught sight of the fresh clothes everyone wore. Was there really a difference between the clothes that appeared in their previously empty drawers and a crab leg? A wool jacket is made of hair from a living animal. A cotton shirt is made of strands from a living plant. What is a crab leg but the no-longer-living portion of something that once did?
All were the seeds and soil of Behemoth when their lives passed. T
o the great grower, flesh was but the stalk of your life. He planted your soul like a seed, tended your life as you grew to fruits and grains, then harvested or culled you for the good of the entire field. If you led a good life, your harvest would create new seeds for great Behemoth to sow once again. Your flesh returned to the soil to nourish the next crop. Grace was no Behemoth, but she seemed to be able to create anything that lacked the seed of life. That manifestation of hers seemed very real, so it probably wouldn’t be much effort to manifest some fish meat that had never felt the spark of life.
“You are a million miles away,” Leslie said, cutting in to her companion’s thoughts.
Serin shifted her eyes around the table full of her family only to stop on the woman at her side, eating heartily. “Sorry,” Serin replied, “I just can’t seem to turn off.”
“A lot has happened,” Leslie soothed between bites. “The important part is that everyone is safe for the moment and we are together.”
“A little worse for wear, but still better that in a cell,” Jason chimed in. “Though I suppose that option is gone now anyway.”
Serin and Leslie stared at the other people at the table. “Our plan remains unchanged,” Serin replied. “We escape to the south and disappear.”
“Is Grace coming with us?” a child blurted out. “She is really nice and I think she would be sad if we left again.”
Serin paused, contemplating their next step. “As far as I’m concerned, Grace is family. She will always be welcome in our home. But—” she stared at her hands as she remembered the reason they’d split in the first place “—staying with us may be more difficult than would be fair to her.” Serin patted the young girl’s head and tried to offer a smile. “Grace will be okay. And we’ll get through this just like everything else—together.”
Mumbles of agreement echoed from the others at the table. Serin was glad that everyone seemed to understand where they stood without having to talk about it, but she was still on edge. She offered for the others to head back to their cabins, to try and get some sleep while they had the chance. It was a luxury she couldn’t afford herself.
