Maude opened the tent for the patients who had been severely injured. Immediately, an unpleasant stench that was a cross between rotting and burning meat hit her nose. She used everything she could to hold back a gag.

The groans of pain were much louder, and clearly of a much greater intensity, then the groans of the tent she had been in. She took a quick scan around the room, and saw one nurse working with a patient who was missing the bottom half of his left leg, and another nurse who was working with a patient who had his right hand missing.

She felt like she was going to choke on her heart. Oh my god, she thought. What if Jaspar lost a limb? His life will be very different…he would need help doing paperwork, or help getting around the Rosenberg territory. She swallowed hard. When I thought of war, I only thought about the possibility of life and death. I never considered the possibility of something in-between.

She took a deep breath to steady herself. It’s more important that both the prince and Jaspar are alive, and less important how their lives may change as a consequence of the war.

Maude walked up to the nurse who was sitting at the makeshift table of supplies in this tent.

“Can I help you?” the nurse asked, raising his eyebrows at her condition. “Should you be here?”

“I’ll only be here for a few minutes,” Maude informed him. “And I got permission to come.” She cleared her throat. “Is his highness in this tent?” she asked.

The nurse nodded and then pointed to a curtained cot only a few steps away.

“Thanks,” Maude said. She walked a few feet, and before pulling back the curtain, she said, “Knock, knock.”

She pulled back the curtain and was surprised to see Prince Erich sitting up, his face and one of his eyes heavily bandaged, looking rather pale. He was holing his left leg tightly, and blood seemed to be leaking out of a wound into a bandage that had been stuffed into it.

“Maude,” he whispered, his voice sounding gravelly and dry.

“Your highness,” she murmured, her voice filled with sympathy. She moved into the space near the cot, shutting the curtain behind her and sitting on the floor. As she got closer, she could see beads of perspiration covering every inch of his skin that she could see.

He’s in a lot of pain, she thought.

“Are you alright?” she asked him.

He nodded, and smiled warmly in spite of it all. “We won,” he croaked. “The empire surrendered. Thanks to the work you and Jaspar did, they surrendered.” He coughed, clearing his throat of some of the croaking. Maude’s heart sped up upon hearing of Aulbert’s victory. “I…I have something to tell you, so I’m glad you visited.”

“What’s that?” Maude asked, her eyebrows raising.

“I’m sorry that I did not tell you both in advance that the emperor could dual wield. I thought that the information we had received about his condition were only rumors, but to find out that it was real…” he shook his head, clearing his throat again. “Shocked me.”

She cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean by the emperor’s condition?” she asked.

Prince Erich coughed again. “He was in an accident when he was young,” Erich said, his voice nearing the sound of his normal voice. “He had to have surgery as the result of that accident. The surgery was experimental in nature, but Emperor Giles’ father would have done anything for his heir.” Erich cleared his throat again. It was clear that he hadn’t spent very much time talking in the time since Maude had found him on the battlefield.

“Did the surgery not work?” Maude asked. “It seemed as though he was far more fearsome of a foe than anyone else was on that battlefield.”

“The surgery did work,” Prince Erich replied, correcting her misconception. “But it only worked for his medical condition. Because of the surgery, he lost his capability to feel emotions and have facial expressions. His two hands are also able to act independently from one another, which was part of why he was such a difficult person to fight.” Erich sighed heavily. “I should have just told you and Jaspar the rumors that I’d heard, but I chalked them up as baseless.” He shook his head at himself. “And he was a sword saint on top of that, too. I hadn’t heard anything about that at all.”

Maude just felt her eyes widen from the information dump that Prince Erich had given her. “That’s shocking,” she said. “Don’t worry about not having told us. I’m sure Jaspar wouldn’t blame you either. It’s completely unnatural that the emperor was able to duel wield in the first place.”

I wonder if the emperor’s lack of emotion was why he started the war in the first place, she thought, thinking back to his last words before Jaspar had killed him. If he thought of other human beings as ants, he couldn’t possibly have been able to feel anything towards other people, right?

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“Just focus on the fact that we are still alive and well and that we won the war,” Maude said. “Stop worrying about something that is over.”

“Jaspar is alive too?” Erich asked, letting out a small wheeze.

“I have yet to confirm it myself, but that is what I have been told,” Maude replied. Erich nodded back at her in acknowledgement.

“Go see him,” Erich rasped at her. “My voice needs a break anyway.”

Maude nodded at him in agreement. “Rest well, your highness,” she said.

“Thank you,” he murmured, nearly inaudibly.

Maude stood up, pulled back the curtain and stepped out, pulling the curtain closed behind her. Though the curtain had provided no insultation from the groans of pain in the tent, it was much worse having to see the damage to the people who were wailing.

Maude turned towards the nurse in the center of the room, a grimace plastered on her face from the gruesome scene around her. “Do you happen to know if Duke Rosenberg is also in this tent?” Maude asked the nurse.

The nurse nodded and pointed further into the tent. “He’s three beds down,” the nurse replied.

“Thanks,” Maude said with a nod. He nodded back at her with pursed lips.

Maude turned and walked three beds down, doing her best to keep her eyes averted from the mangled patients being treated. She found the third bed down, said, “Knock, knock,” again, and was greeted with a small, familiar voice.

“Maude,” she barely heard Jaspar’s voice say. Maude pulled back the curtain and closed it behind her. She then turned to asses what kind of condition Jaspar was in, and gasped aloud when she saw him.

His right leg was mangled, and there were bandages covering where the emperor had sliced his knee and thigh open. His hands and arms were heavily bandaged, similar to her own. He was not wearing a shirt, and he had several bandages on his stomach that were red from blood having seeped out of them.

“Jaspar!” Maude cried out, falling to her knees. Tears sprang in her eyes. “I didn’t realize you were so badly injured!”

She felt his hand on the back of her head, patting her weakly.

“I’m alright,” he told her. “I’m alive. You’re alive. We won.”

She looked up at his face. He was smiling, though his cheeks were pale and he looked weak. “You’re barely alive,” she corrected him.

“My prognosis is good,” he told her. “Everyone said that it is thanks to my being young that I should heal up nicely.” He paused, and gently bit his lip. “Though, they suggested that I may be having to use a cane on my right side for the rest of my life.”

Maude gingerly moved forward to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “I’m so grateful you made it, whether or not you have to use a cane.”

“I’m grateful you made it too,” he said. “I was genuinely worried about you when you collapsed at the end of our fight with the emperor. You’re not seriously injured? You’ve been asleep for two days.”

Maude quickly pulled herself back from Jaspar’s shoulders. Her eyes widened as she did so, and she saw him wince from her sudden movement. “Sorry,” she replied, sheepishly. “I’m not used to you being injured. But…it’s been two days?” she asked.

He nodded. What the hell? She wondered.

“I must have been exhausted from the journey here,” she said. “There’s no other explanation.”

He looked at her quizzically. “That is also something I’ve been wondering about,” he said. “How did you even get here in the first place? Last time we talked you were headed in the completely opposite direction.”

Maude nodded. “And I headed in the completely opposite direction for about a day and a half.” She pursed her lips. “I was laying down to rest on the second night when I realized that I’d made a mistake. I borrowed a horse from Melissa after I walked back to the capitol and she gave me directions on where to go. The king gave me the directions to where the battle was because I was late.”

Jaspar laughed a little. It sounded more like a bark from how dry his voice was. “You weren’t late,” he said with a warm smile. “You were right on time, and this time, you saved me.”

Maude’s heart skipped a beat. “I was almost late then,” she corrected herself. “It was a little too close for comfort.”

“We’ll have to thank Melissa for letting you borrow her horse,” Jaspar said. “Loaning you her horse single-handedly won this battle, and the war. I always knew you would be a game changer.”

She felt herself blush. “It almost wasn’t enough, though,” she reminded him. “The emperor was a fierce opponent.”

“But it’s over now,” Jaspar said. “And we won.” He was smiling triumphantly at her.

“It’s over,” she agreed, leaning on his shoulder gently.

“I also have something to tell you,” he informed her.

“You do?” she asked, closing her eyes. She was able to hear his breathing, and in that moment, it was the single most reassuring sound in the world.

“I do,” he replied. She felt him twisting his arm underneath her to pull it out, so she sat up and opened her eyes.

He held his bandaged palm out in front of him, and Maude heard the buzzing sound of energy as a twilight blue, fiery dagger appeared in his palm.

She couldn’t hold back a gasp. “What?” she exclaimed. “You became a sword saint?”

“I did,” he replied, taking the fire dagger and piercing it into the floor beside them. It disappeared without a trace.

Maude paused, thinking back to an early memory when the sword master who trained her taught her about all of the different sword saint abilities.

“Is that…ignis?” she asked.

He chuckled. “It is,” he said. “It sure would have come in handy when we were fighting the emperor. Though, I was so physically weak when we were fighting him, that it may not have been any help at all.”

Maude pulled back a little further to look at his face. “When did you get it then?” she asked.

He had a serene look on his face. “I’m not entirely sure,” he said. “It certainly wasn’t as dramatic as when you got yours. I think it was probably moments before I passed out from my injuries. A couple of people told me that my body burst into blue flames, and they were afraid of touching me.” He shook his head. “I was too out of it to notice.”

“Still, that’s incredible,” she said, laying her head back down on his shoulder.

He chuckled again. “What’s more incredible is that during this war, Aulbert went from having zero sword saints to two.”

Maude couldn’t help but giggle, thinking of herself as the second sword saint of her new home country.

“Hopefully we won’t have to use the abilities to defend our country any time soon,” Maude said, twirling some of the long strands of her hair around her finger.

Jaspar chuckled lowly. “Hopefully,” he agreed.