As Benjamin went down the line, he kept a sharp eye out for survivors, and where he found them, he woke them. Normally, he would have waited until he had men of his own with him because people freed from Rhulvian mind magics were not always safe or sane at the end of it. In this case, he didn’t have much choice.

Not only could the Fae regroup and return at any moment, but even if they didn’t, he needed support. Letting that dragon fly for several minutes until it reached maximum range and unsummoned itself had taken a terrible toll on his mana pool.

A quick glance also showed that this bloodbath had finally allowed him to reach level 10, but worrying about which stats to increase was the last thing on his mind. They had to reform into a single defensible unit and be away from here before either the Fae or the Rhulvin came back, looking for more trouble.

His own men weren’t much trouble to find, and after a few minutes, he had dozens of scouts gathered around him, along with hundreds of freshly freed slaves. Within an hour, he had a small army in his own right.

By morning, they’d dealt with only two more small ambushes of the beast kin who thought that using hit-and-run tactics against a man that could wield magic like napalm was a good idea. However, eventually, they located Matt, and two of what were probably several branches of their army met on some low, burned-out hills overlooking a complete slaughterhouse of a battlefield.

“You didn’t save as many as you wanted, I see,” Matt said, embracing him, “But at least you made it out in one piece.”

“The plan worked perfectly right until the Fae decided that they’d prefer genocide to victory,” Benjamin said with a sigh.

“That’s probably just that crazy bitch’s fault,” Emma said, trying to be kind in her own way. “You know, the one that was on fire. She hates people. I’m sure—”

“No, Dahlia was here too,” Benjamin interrupted. “She even shot at me. More than once.”

“Ouch,” Emma said, offering nothing else on the subject.

Ouch indeed, Benjamin thought to himself, wondering if it would have been less painful to let one of those arrows hit him so that it could shred his heart literally instead of figuratively. Not that he loved her, of course, but his emotions about the whole thing were complicated enough for them to be pretty uncomfortable.

“What about the thing with Lord Jarris,” Raja asked. “Do you think he caught on?”

“I don’t see why you had to let him live,” Emma complained.

“Do you want to do your best D-Day impression with sailing ships and try to invade that damn island?” Benjamin asked.

“What’s D-Day?” Emma asked.

“You know, I can’t quite remember either,” Benjamin said. Matt looked like he wanted to interject and explain the reference, but Benjamin kept talking. It didn’t matter. “The point is, even if we crush them from here to the coast, they’ll still be out there, and they’ll send more ships to come back as soon as our backs turned, so I sent Lord Jarris back with a little something to make that harder.”

“A bomb?” Raja asked.

“An assassin?” Emma chimed in, hopefully.

“A copy of myself,” Benjamin said, noting that both of them were disappointed by that answer.

“Aren’t you worried they’ll like... Interrogate and torture you for answers?” Emma said finally.

“That’s possible,” Benjamin agreed. “But I think it’s pretty unlikely. The Prince still makes up a pretty good chunk of that soul, and he’s a member of the royal family. He’s above suspicion, so hopefully, that will let some other me figure out how to do some damage and royally ruin their day.”

“Oh, I see what you did there!” Raja said, pretending to laugh before he stopped and said in a deadpan expression, “But it wasn’t even a little funny. Just like Matt!”

Benjamin and Emma both laughed at that while Matt looked at the two of them in annoyance. It wasn’t much of a moment, but it injected some much-needed normalcy into the situation.

“So what now?” Benjamin asked finally.

“Aren’t you usually the man with the plan?” Raja asked.

Benjamin merely shook his head. “I’m tired. Someone else can pick this time. I’m all out of clever ideas.”

“Then, I say we march right to the sea and burn the last of the Rhulvin cities!” Raja said excitedly. “We’ve taken out all their armies and most of their plantations. If we do that, they’ll have nothing left.”

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“As long as we get to kill more mages, I don’t care what we do,” Emma said.

“I don’t think we should,” Matt said, “Especially not after this. I’ve been telling Benjamin for a while now that the Fae would turn on us, and—”

“I get it,” Benjamin sighed. “You win, okay!”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Matt said, shaking his head. “You tried your best. If we’d just gone head-to-head with the Rhulvin, all of these people and most of ours would be dead, and the Fae would have cleaned up the survivors no problem. You didn’t save everyone, but there’s ten or twelve thousand people breathing right now that wouldn’t be if we’d gone in guns blazing. More, maybe.”

“What does that have to do with killing the last of the Summoner Lords?” Raja asked.

“I’m saying we shouldn’t do it. We—” Matt tried to explain, but Emma immediately jumped down his throat.

“You want to let them live?” She demanded. “Why?”

“Because we need something to distract the Fae, or they’ll crush us like we’re no more than ants,” he said with a sigh. “This is classic divide and conquer stuff. We use the Rhulvin to drive a wedge between us and them, you know?”

“So we only spare them… for now?” Raja asked. “I can get behind that. Maybe.”

They broke for lunch to get everyone together and get them fed. Without friendly nature spirits to help them find food whenever they were running low, Benjamin turned to Rhulvian magic to summon food. It was tasteless but healthy enough, and it would keep them moving for now. The question was where to go, but that probably wouldn’t have to be answered until the next day at least. After all, there were still far too many wounded to move.

That afternoon, he and Matt pored over the best images of regional maps that Benjamin had gathered over the last few months from different sources. At first, Benjamin thought that they should backtrack to the river and look at using magic to build a city on one of the larger islands, but Matt vetoed the plan as not defensible enough. Instead, he thought they should go back north to an area where the mountains met the sea.

“Rugged terrain will be easier to fortify,” he insisted, “and we’ll be able to see people coming from further off.”

Benjamin thought about pointing out that unless the grass was especially short over there, they wouldn’t see anything. Still, he did like the idea of setting up camp somewhere where the Centaurs would not enjoy riding. That would make things a little bit easier.

Ironically, they’d probably end up having to set up the exact same sort of defenses that the Rhulvin had used to protect their plantations, he realized. He was still working through those spells and deciding how he wanted to modify them for their current needs when Emma approached him where he was sitting by the fire alone.

“I need to ask you something, Benji,” she said, “If you aren’t busy.”

Emma, actually trying to be polite for the first time in a long time, was enough to pique his interested, and he saved his file and set it aside before he leaned forward and asked, “What do you need?”

“Did Matt tell you? About the proposal, I mean?” She asked hesitantly.

“I mean, that was a long time ago, but I still kinda remember it,” Benjamin said. “I seem to recall acting like a petulant jackass about it, and I’m sorry about—”

“No, not that one,” she answered, shaking her head. “Yesterday, on the eve of battle, in case we didn’t make it.”

“That’s very Matt,” Benjamin laughed. “So when’s the big day?”

“When we find a home,” she shrugged, “Whenever that it.”

“Yeah, well, I agree,” he nodded, “We’ve probably got time for that.”

“So I was wondering if sometime between then and now you could, you know, fix me,” she asked, looking at Benjamin expectantly.

“Fix you?” he asked uncertainly. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that all three of you guys are almost back to normal,” she sighed, “and I still spend half of every conversation contemplating how I’m going to kill whoever I’m talking to if they suddenly produce a weapon or cast a spell or turn into that fucking fox girl.”

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was so bad,” Benjamin said. He’d known for a long time that she’d had violent tendencies. They’d gotten better over the last year. She was no longer a soulless killer. At least he’d thought she wasn’t anymore, he corrected himself quickly.

“It is what it is,” she answered, shaking her head. “You didn’t steal my memories, but I think maybe you can help get them back.”

“I already tried that, Emma. I—” Benjamin started to say, but she talked over him.

“No,” she corrected herself, “I know that me is gone forever, but like, you borrowed a pinch of Raja, a dash of Matt, and a whole lot of a certain Prince Asshole, and you’re still sane, right? Could we maybe try that on me? You know, figure out where the violent parts are that make me this way and borrow pieces of one of the other women who have fewer sharp edges?”

Benjamin’s mind flicked instantly to Kalinomia, but he didn’t say that out loud. Instead, he said, “I mean, theoretically, but it could be really hard. I wasn’t that nuanced with what I did. I just… took all the broken parts out and swapped them out with something that worked. Your soul is in much better shape.”

“Could you try at least?” she asked, a note of desperation in her voice. “For me? If Matt and I are really going to try to do this, I can’t be who I am anymore. We’ll tear each other to pieces.”

“Does he know you’re asking me to do this?” Benjamin questioned, not sure if this was the right thing to do.

“You know he doesn’t,” Emma answered. “And if you mention it to him, I’ll deny it. He claims that he loves me no matter who I am, and I love that about him. But I don't want to wake up one more with his blood on my hands, you know? It scares me.”

“I’ll do it,” Benjamin said. “Well, I’ll try at least. The program will probably be complicated, but I’ll do some work on it, and if I can set it up to scan my own soul, then we can start to index yours and—”

It was a complex thought, and before he could finish it, she was hugging him tightly. “You’re the best Benji,” she smiled.

The two of them chatted a little longer after that, but mostly, it was about where they were going and what they hoped to find when they reached it. It turned out that he wasn’t the only one looking for a little normalcy after all they’d been through, and somehow, that surprised him.