Chapter Eleven #3
No. They didn’t care enough to notice, too delighted that their champion had won. The crowd burst into cheering, buoyed into
stepping closer as one, tightening the circle once again.
Cyrus lowered a trembling hand to the wound, sitting low to the left of his abdomen. His fingers brushed Maximillian’s blade. It seemed to jar Maximillian into action, his eyes following the movement. Cyrus’s breath heaved. His fingers were already wet.
Then Maximillian’s eyes snapped back to his, and Cyrus saw reality rush in.
There was only one thing he could do. Cyrus saw it coming, tried to steel himself for the rush of pain, but even so he was
unable to bite back a howl as Maximillian stepped back and yanked his blade from Cyrus’s flesh. Cyrus fell to his knees, no
longer supported by grasping hands. Distantly he was aware of the uproar around him, the spatter of his own blood painting
Heliarth’s dust a deeper red. He was aware of something else too, familiar heat rushing down his arms and into his fingertips.
His magic, erupting in response to his pain. Cyrus had no control over it. He only knew that it was surging through him somewhere,
somehow.
Someone touched his face, trembling fingers grasping his chin and tilting his face up. Maximillian. Cyrus would know his touch
anywhere.
Maximillian stared down at him. Cyrus’s own eyes ached. Were they glowing purple? He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t think past
the fire in his side. Couldn’t see anything but Maximillian, drawing every part of him in.
A voice, oblivious and shrill, breaking through the crowd’s jubilance.
“You did it! Maximillian, you saved us!”
Maximillian let go of Cyrus and stepped back. He looked disorientated, blinking hard. Despite everything, Cyrus wanted to tell him to pull himself together. He needed to keep up the act. He had Cyrus kneeling in the dust at his feet. He should be triumphant. He should be celebrating.
The crowd had started to chant his name. Max-i-mill-ian, Max-i-mill-ian. They stamped on the ground. It reverberated beneath Cyrus, like they had called their own quake. A sea of faces stared down
at Cyrus, mouths twisted into grins of delight, eyes hard and cruel and pleased. But they all morphed into one, into nothing.
Blood pulsed insistently against his hand. He pressed tighter, trying to stem it. His arm felt heavy as rock, like he’d been
hewn from Heliarth’s russet stone.
The people around him were beginning to spin, undulating and writhing in a sickening loop. Exhaustion crept like ice through
his limbs. Cyrus blinked laboriously. His head threatened to droop and he fought to keep it up, only half aware of the way
Maximillian’s gaze snapped to his face.
It must have triggered something within him, for in the next moment Maximillian raised his head and shouted in that champion’s
voice that silenced all others.
“This is not how our feud shall end!”
The crowd quietened. Cyrus breathed shallowly, forcing himself to stay awake and watching through half-lidded eyes. Maximillian
was looking not at him but at the crowd, turning in place to ensure he had everyone’s attention. He was back in control, self-assured
and smiling, his sword loose by his side. Cyrus’s blood gleamed on the blade.
“Earthshaker has haunted my steps too closely over the past months. He has caused too much chaos and fear to earn such a simple end. I do not find it within myself to provide a quick death here. Alas, I cannot find the mercy.”
The crowd broke into cheering again. They liked the sound of that.
“And so I suggest that we make an example of him,” Maximillian continued. His powerful voice rose above the crowd. “We will
imprison Earthshaker and have him stand trial for his sins. And then, people of Heliarth, we can decide upon an ending befitting
of his crimes!”
The cheering reached new heights, loud enough to batter at Cyrus’s eardrums. Maximillian turned back towards him. His expression
was that of the sneering champion, but his eyes seemed to be saying something else, boring into Cyrus like he was willing
him to pick up on something unspoken.
Like he was urging Cyrus to go along with whatever he had planned. Like he wanted Cyrus to trust him.
Cyrus shouldn’t. His side throbbed with a stark reminder of exactly why he shouldn’t. But it didn’t matter. Somehow, against
the odds, he did.
“My assistant will personally oversee his detainment,” Maximillian said. He held out his arm, gesturing Balthazar forward,
and looked at him.
Balthazar’s expression was unreadable. For a second, Cyrus wondered if he might refuse.
But then he stepped up beside Maximillian and inclined his head in a short, terse nod.
Kneeling there in the dirt, fighting with every breath to keep his eyes open, Cyrus saw why.
Like Cyrus, Balthazar could see past the facade Maximillian presented to the world.
He could see the plea for help in those eyes.
And Balthazar might detest Cyrus, but he loved Maximillian more.
He would never refuse him, not when Maximillian truly needed him.
A hand landed on his arm, tugging him roughly to his feet. Cyrus jerked, a hiss escaping from between clenched teeth.
“Get up.” Balthazar’s voice was harsh. His fingers dug into Cyrus’s bicep.
Wadding was pressed to his wound, a bandage wrapped about his waist to keep it in place. His arms were pulled forward and
rope knotted around his wrists, pulled tight enough to hurt. Cyrus felt every jostle as two men moved around him, checking
him for weapons. An elbow brushed his side, perilously close to the wound, and he failed to stifle a hiss of pain.
Balthazar held up a hand. “Keep your distance. Wouldn’t want him to die on us before we reach the gaol.”
He sounded like he was hoping for that very outcome. But Cyrus knew the truth of it. He held on to that truth as somebody
yanked on the rope around his wrists, pulling him forward.
Maximillian, despite what had happened today, did not want Cyrus dead. And so Balthazar could never let that happen.
He would hate every moment of it. But he would help.