3 #3
It was enough. Slowly, silently, Felix lay back. The realization rolled over him, as heavy as the ocean.
“Aurelias,” said Gloriana, stepping inside. “You’re still on Draevund Heath. They couldn’t move you.”
“The battle?” he asked. His voice came steady, Pantheon knew how.
“Won. The infantry’s marching for the capital as we speak,” she said, moving to his bedside. “How much do you remember?”
“I stepped into the way of the bolts.” His body tensed at the memory of that all-consuming light. “I’d meant to draw the fire, dampen it. I thought some of the others might survive if I . . .”
“You did more than that. You mirrored it back. Split the cannons wide open. All that arcana flooding out . . . it wiped out a whole battalion. Broke their formations. After that, we won in minutes.”
He felt no surge of victory in answer. Nothing but a buzzing in his ears, like the sound of a thousand wasps coming slowly nearer.
“It should have killed me,” he said.
“It almost did. The surgeons still don’t know how—”
“No. It . . . should have killed me.”
For a while, the centurion said nothing. Her eyes roved around the tent, resting everywhere but his face. Then, she set her jaw.
“I’ve spoken to the therical surgeons. They gave me their findings,” she said, drawing a glass disc from her pocket. She tapped the center, and a webwork of gold light shot into the air above it. Felix blinked.
The image of his own arcanic faculties hovered there: the horseshoe arc glimmering at the center, the wellspring at its heart, the delicate channels spidering away down phantom arms and fingers.
She tapped it again, and the image crumbled. A vise gripped his gut at the sight. The hair-thin conduits were reduced to splinters from his left hand back. The thicker ones lay shattered like pottery. A crack ran through the central arc, and black bonds choked the channels to the wellspring.
“I’m afraid there’s no fixing it,” Gloriana said softly. “The force of that strike fractured the whole system. Use your powers, and your arcana could flood out through the gaps. It’d incinerate you from the inside out.”
“Then the power’s still there? It’s still inside me?” Felix asked, doing all he could to suffocate the flame of hope.
“Yes,” said Gloriana, “but you’ll almost certainly kill yourself if you ever use it again.”
A long silence followed. The knowledge batted about like a frightened bird in his head, unable to settle anywhere. Gloriana tapped the glass, and the image vanished.
“The surgeon wanted to excise your faculties,” she said. “I ordered him to wait. He’s sealed the channels to keep you from casting by instinct, but it’s only a temporary protection.”
Dread pooled inside him, climbing in slow drips.
You’ve lost your powers. You’re finished. Your honor, your place in the company, your pay . . . Mother. Diana.
“The others,” he said at length, “did they survive?”
“They were knocked unconscious by the strike, but mostly unharmed. But, ah . . .” She pursed her lips and came to her feet. “They don’t know what happened. They only saw a figure on the clifftop throwing back the bolt. We’ve yet to tell them the truth.”
Premonition tipped a line of dominoes in his mind. It was strange to watch them fall. The battle was won, but there was still a war to fight. To win it, the troops needed courage. Morale. Heroes.
But no one charges to battle in the name of a worthless wreck. They need a living legend. And you . . . you’ll just need a living.
“It’d do no good for the company to see you like this,” said Gloriana. “What would you have me tell them?”
Tell them I’m broken? That I’ll never fight again? Fly again? Cast again? The bare thought twisted a blade into his stomach—but it was true. They’d snipped out his soul, and he couldn’t ever have it back. He might as well sell what little was left.
The hammer fell. In struggling movements, Felix came to his feet.
“The truth, ma’am. Tell them what you did,” he said. The centurion paused, watching him with wary eyes. He smiled mechanically and went on.
“I saw it. You caught the bolts bare-handed and threw them back. They’ll run like vermin now. Who’d stand against a power like that?”
It was some small consolation to see the grief in Prima Gloriana’s eyes, the moment before they turned hard. She nodded.
“And you fought bravely, Aurelias, shielding me while I did it. You’ll be honored. Your family will find favor in Carintheum. You have a widowed mother, yes? And a sister?”
“I have, ma’am.”
“They’ll be taken care of. You’ll have everything you need.”
“Thank you, Centurion. It was an honor to serve you.”
That hard expression wavered. Then, the cracks sealed, smoothed away by a lifetime’s discipline. Gloriana stood back, and he saluted. In moments, she was gone.
Felix sank back down onto his bedroll. It was done. He’d sold his honor for his rations. The one great feat of his life, and he could never claim it.
The light of his spirit flickered low. The wine of the world had turned so suddenly to water. He felt small. Cold. Once, he could have fixed it in a heartbeat. Now . . .
Gone.
For the first time in his life, he was afraid.