Chapter 16
The Brightwarden led Theron to a door, black-lacquered and foreboding, and ushered him through. He then moved aside and staked out his position outside, standing like a dead tree, waiting.
Houlis sat behind a wide desk, his hands folded on top, knuckles white with tension. Theron had seen military officers’ offices full of trophies and treasure, of skulls of vanquished Sylphar. This one was almost bare. There were some near-empty shelves, a rack of codices and regulations, and nothing personal. No glory. No comforts. Only the infinite blue and silver of Dominion banners on the walls and the acrid stink of ink and lamp oil.
Houlis did not stand.
“Sit,” he said, not looking up from the sheaf of papers in front of him. His voice was like ripping fabric, raw and shredded from the morning’s events.
Theron crossed the room and took the chair opposite Houlis, the hard wood groaning in protest at his weight. He folded his hands in his lap, mirroring Houlis’s posture, and waited for the other man to speak.
Houlis did not for a long time. He merely stared down at the pile of parchment, thumb flicking over the pages, as if there were an answer to something hidden in the order of the words. Then he said, “Haven’t had a man try to kill me in a long while.” His mouth turned up at the corners, just once, then flattened. “You saved my life, you know. And I hate it. Every inch of my pride says I should put a spike through your foot for interfering, but—” He left the word to dangle, then shrugged. “But fair is fair, and I owe you. So.” He reached under his desk and produced a small, squat bottle and two tin cups. He filled each with a measure, then slid one in Theron’s direction. “Drink.”
Theron stared at the cup, then took it. The liquid inside was clear and odorless, but it burned like winter itself on the way down. He set it back on the desk and nodded his appreciation.
Houlis took a longer swallow and bared his teeth at the taste. “I’m forced to do you a favor. That’s what people will say. ‘The Scarecrow saved Captain Houlis from a knife in the dark. Now Houlis owes him a debt.’ That’s how these things work.” He snorted, shaking his head. “So. Name it.”
Theron took another drink, feeling the burn slide down into his chest, where it joined all the other slow-fusing miseries he’d been collecting since arriving at Duskweld. He looked at the bottle, at the cup, then back up at Houlis.
“I’m not here for favors,” he said.
Houlis gave a thin, animal smile. “Then you are a fool. If you didn’t want one, you’ll be just another fresh recruit lying face down in the mud, too proud to ask for help, just like all the other sorry souls who thought they could rise without a higher hand to pull them out of the muck.”
Houlis leaned across the desk, voice dropping. “Don’t mistake this. You don’t get out clean. No one does. But,” he paused, holding up a finger. “Do you want to be safe? You want to disappear into a staff job, pushing numbers and pens until you rot? I can make that happen. Or do you want me to erase your sorry excuse for a village off our records, so the recruiters never go back there? Say the word, and I’ll do it.” He tapped the desk, slow and deliberate. “So. What’s it going to be?”
Theron thought of Wyrnhollow, of snow blowing over the bakery porch, of the quiet moments before the recruiters arrived. He remembered Talla’s warm, calloused hands and the way she said goodbye.
“If you die, I’ll kill you myself,” she had said.
If Theron accomplished what he had set out to do, Talla and the rest of the village would be fine, regardless. He looked at Houlis and, for the first time, saw not a captain but a man fighting his own private war. A man with no loyalty beyond the rules and no friends except those he kept at a distance through threat and fear.
Theron set his jaw. “I want to fight,” he said.
Houlis blinked, surprised. “You’re fighting now. Every damned day, every damned drill—”
“No,” Theron interrupted, voice flat. “I want the front. Not a garrison, not the safe jobs. I want to go where it matters.” He met Houlis’s eyes, his own gone to cold steel. “Redan Pass. Then the Temple.”
Houlis made a sound between a scoff and a sigh. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s a reason I wanted you in admin. Or maybe even in a recruitment post. I want to keep you alive long enough to watch over the next batch of scarecrows. You’ve got something the others don’t. They could use it.”
Theron shrugged. “The Dominion has plenty of men like me. What it doesn’t have is enough to go at the Pass and win.”
Houlis snorted. “You think you’ll turn the tide?”
“I’m just a man.” Theron said.
A pause. Houlis stared at him, sifting the statement for anything else hidden in the words. Then he leaned back, the chair groaning under his weight.
“You ever been to Redan?” he asked.
“Once,” Theron said. “Long ago.”
“You know it’s suicide.”
“I do.”
Houlis drained his cup, then poured another, hand shaking now with the tiredness that only came after the day had taken everything from you and left nothing but the dregs. He drank, wiped his mouth, and stared at the wall behind Theron’s head.
“The Temple’s worse,” he said, almost conversational. “Last time we took it, half the men went mad just from watching all their friends die.” He grimaced. “That was almost 40 years ago, and then we lost it not too long after. They say we’re pushing for it again. The new Lord General wants his name in the records, and he doesn’t care how many bodies he piles up to get there.”
Theron listened as Houlis spoke of the war. The captain’s voice carried the usual weight of a man who had seen too much violence in his life. He described the latest push toward the temple steps, and how humanity didn’t even get close. He explained the way bodies piled up faster than anyone could count. The way the air tasted of copper and smoke for days afterward.
At one point, Houlis shook his head and muttered almost to himself. “The whole thing is uglier than any battlefield has a right to be.”
Theron let out a small chuckle. It came out low and rough. It almost surprised him as much as it did Houlis.
The captain turned. His brow lifted. “Something funny?”
Theron stopped. He looked at Houlis with quiet curiosity. “If I said the words ‘Fractured Will’… would that mean anything to you?”
Houlis scoffed. A short, sharp sound. He leaned back against his chair and crossed his arms. “Sounds like something a tax collector would mutter when he’s trying to scare coin out of farmers. No, it means nothing. Why?”
Theron shrugged. The motion was small. Almost careless. “Just a thought.”
Houlis studied him for a moment longer. Then he grunted and looked over Theron’s shoulder. “Keep your thoughts. We’ve got enough real problems without adding riddles.”
Theron nodded once. The conversation moved on. But the two words lingered in the air between them. Quiet and heavy.
Finally, Houlis thumped his cup against the desk. “All right. You want the front, you get the front. But you’re not going as an officer. You’ll be under someone else’s boot, the same as all the other freshly trained men. You’re good enough now to keep up with them. You get no special rank, no authority. Just another sword and spear in the line.”
Theron met his gaze, unblinking. “That’s fine.”
“You’ll get no special consideration from me, either. If you die, I’ll say a prayer and that’s it.”
“I expect nothing else.”
Houlis regarded him for a long time, then shook his head, smiling in the way a man smiles at the gallows when he finds the noose is all that’s left for him. “You’re insane,” he said. “But I admire it. Maybe you’ll last longer than I think.” He shuffled the papers on his desk, then stabbed a finger at Theron. “I’ll make the arrangements. You’ll keep training here, then muster with the first movement. It’ll be a few weeks, but more likely a couple of months. You’ll have to leave all your friends behind, they’re not ready.”
Theron stood.
Houlis raised a hand to halt him. “One more thing,” he said.
Theron waited.
Houlis’s voice softened. “They’re not the enemy, you know. The Sylphar. They’re just people, same as us. They want the blessings of the Stillight, same as us. The real enemy are the ones who send you to die and pretend you matter to them.” He ran a hand over his stubbled jaw, the scar on his cheek catching the lamplight. “But you already know that.”
Theron inclined his head, just once, the movement as formal as a bow in a shrine. Houlis dismissed him with a flick of his fingers, already turning back to his paperwork. “Go,” he said.
Theron left the office, the black-lacquered door closing behind him. The Brightwarden in the hall watched him, then looked away. Theron made his way down the spiraling stone stairs leading down from the offices, each step hollow and clean, and out into the winter night. The air bit at his face, raw and honest.