I bolted upwards in a delirious panic as reality came rushing into my mind. The world around me was blurry, but slowly coming into focus.

The first thing I realized was that I was in bed for the first time in years. The white covers looked like they’d been recently washed. Something was rummaging around in my skull that shouldn’t have been there, a foreign object trying to free itself.

I took a brief moment to calm myself and focus internally. What was in my system was mana, specifically the mana of Corith. That sickening feeling of the forest’s ire permeated it, which made it easy to locate. With delicate care, I allowed it to flow out of my system and back into the ambient mana around me.

The door opened, and I was met with Sera’s seemingly confused gaze. I smiled and softly waved.

“You’re awake.” Sera said exasperated, looking me up and down.

“Is there something weird about that?” I asked back, wondering why she was reacting the way she had.

“North… Let me get Elm.” Sera said and quickly ran off, leaving me alone again. I shifted my legs underneath the blanket and tested every other muscle in my body. They felt weak and tired, but everything was there.

Mana, thank you.

I sent out a silent prayer, perfectly content with no response. The door opened and Elm stepped through with some bread, whitethorns and a wooden cup on a tray.

“Took you long enough.” Elm grumbled and placed the tray on my lap.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been two weeks. Ever since you stopped the forest from consuming all of Freiweld, you’ve been in and out of consciousness.”

What the fuck?

“Two whole weeks? Wait, what do you mean in and out of consciousness?”

Elm sighed and took a sip from my cup, glancing out a nearby window. I didn’t remember anything in between stopping the sinner and waking up, and it certainly hadn’t felt like two weeks had passed.

“You were waking up at random intervals, shouting incoherently and some other things. You would eat and drink, but we basically had to feed you. Some of us were worried you’d just stay that way.” Elm responded far too casually for what he was saying.

“Why…” I trailed off. It made sense for me to need to rest after the absolutely grueling experience of rapidly healing my body, but the other part didn’t fit with prior experiences.

“North, when you lost consciousness, did you separate your flow from the forest?” my mentor asked sternly..

“Uh… no?”

“Then that might explain why you kept saying the word sinner. It was one of the few words we could make out of the jumble.”

And the last bit of ire just left my mind.

“Wait, what were the other things?” I asked. Elm’s face turned more bitter as he got up from my bed and made his way over to the side of the room and began dragging something across the floor. I could recognize it immediately, the metallic scraping sound bringing back memories of the mines.

Elm pulled it right next to the bed side and opened up the basket, revealing a sickly blue glow. I peered over the edge and saw around ten pieces of raw magore, mangled in twisted chaotic shapes. They ranged from the size of my finger to the size of my entire hand, and all of them thrummed with dense mana.

“You started creating these whenever you were awake, alongside releasing a lot of focused mana into the room. You could have killed an unattuned if they were in here whenever you started making these things.” Elm closed the lid on the basket and slid it away from the bed.

“You said you would talk about that.” I remembered. He’d reacted unexpectedly to the knife I’d used to kill Keagan.

“I did two weeks ago. What I was going to say has changed now that we have an entire basket full of you doing that.”

“And that is?”

“That you are now the most valuable person in all of Sol to Arlin.” Elm stated grimly. His tone sounded sympathetic.

“More than you?”

“Yeah. I never told you about the other research they wanted me for, did I?”

I shook my head. I knew about Elm’s past with creating the cuff, but nothing beyond that. I had just assumed that the reason they wanted him was to resume the creation of the cuffs.

“I was well acquainted with Researcher General Solomon. One of the oldest and smartest in magore research. He helped to create the original burner, although that type of thing was never his interest. He was a theorist, above all else. The usage in warfare was secondary to him, but he was often the one coming up with new ideas on how to control magore, rather than the mechanics of how such a thing might be done. His greatest focus, above all else, was the AM project.”

“The AM project?”

I’d thought I’d heard him say something like that before, but I wasn’t sure. Elm had never enjoyed elaborating on such things.

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“Artificial Magore. He theorized that by forcefully condensing mana in a short period of time, it would form into magore. If Arlin could figure out how to do that, they’d never have to care about mining shit whatsoever. He asked me to help him with it on a few occasions, but it wasn’t my area of interest. However, the Fourth thought it was a win condition in colonizing all of Sol, and I don’t disagree with him.” He explained, the topic making him look dejected.

“And I just proved that theory correct.”

“You did a lot more than that. If Arlin gets their hands on you, they’ll be able to study you and figure out how they can replicate that process.”

“Can it be replicated?” I pondered aloud. Attunements shared traits across those who had them. In theory, any stone attuned could do exactly what Elm could with enough training. Light attunements were already rare, and Elm had never heard of an attuned having a similar connection to mana like I did.

“I’d prefer not giving Arlin the chance to find out. If they figure out Artificial Magore, there’s nothing stopping them from running every single other nation to the ground.”

Great. One more problem to add to the large list I’ve been piling up.

“Is Freiweld… intact?” I asked tepidly as I tore into the bread in front of me.

Elm sighed and glanced out the window nearby. “It’s alive. Keagan’s last hurrah tore down the majority of the outer city. Every group leader survived. Elina and Cedric ran into the mines the second they felt the ire. Silva and Alex are both recovering from some injuries they got during the destruction of the roads, but it's nothing serious that you couldn’t heal.”

“What are the losses?”

Elm turned back, his gaze distant and tired. “Everyone in the outer city. Got a lot of people in the mining facilities as well, but most of the fighters are alive. Even Matthias lived, although it might be due to the distance he was from the capital in that hole we dug for them.”

My heart sank into my stomach. On the table nearby I could see my clothing that I’d worn in the invasion. It was cleaned, with patches over the holes torn in it. But I’d been given it under the promise that I’d save the person who used to wear it. I’d probably failed that promise.

“You won, kid. Don’t squander that, because if you do, you’re disrespecting every single man and woman who died for your cause.”

I exhaled and nodded. He was right, in that I needed to treat this as a victory. It felt hollow, and undeserved.

“Can we beat Arlin if this is what victory looks like?”

Elm shrugged and grabbed the water off my tray, taking another sip.

I wanted to fight for the people who had no one else. But none of this felt right.

“We can’t beat them in a direct war, can we?”

Elm somberly shook his head and pulled the tray off of my lap. I’d finished the food throughout the conversation despite how disgusting every bite felt to my guilt-ridden mind.

“You made Arlin bleed, something the rest of Sol didn’t know was possible. I doubted it myself, even. But now that people have seen someone draw blood, it won’t be long until the necessary forces gather to take them on and push back on their colonization.”

“Unless they complete the AM project first.”

He didn’t respond, merely giving me one more somber glance and making his way out of the room. Alone, I collapsed back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. I should have seen this coming, but naivete led me to believe I could do this with a singular force of mostly freed slaves.

I can’t even wonder what the Fourth must be thinking. The biggest threat to his empire is an underdeveloped slave stuck in bed rest.

“King North… what a fucking joke.”

----------------------------------------

I’d never claim that title. Both because I didn’t deserve it, and because a message came in through the repaired soundlines a month after the battle. We’d fixed them up hoping to see whether Arlin would send anything our way, although none of us had prepared for their response.

We were no longer a nation. Not just a territory, but a nation itself. The idea of us being a kingdom was turned to rubble like the buildings of Freiweld. We were a patch of land that was now quarantined on all roads leading into Arlinian territory. Neraser, which had an extremely terse relationship with Arlin, was also given warning of our presence and to watch the roads coming out of Corith.

We were trapped, caged like animals. Arlinians probably saw us like that as well. The idea of leaving to continue our campaign was now a pipe dream.

They’d dealt with the problem in the most simplistic way possible, by cutting it off like a diseased limb.

We were left to oversee Corith and Frieweld to make sure it survived. The winter had already started, and although winters in Corith were extremely mild, it still hurt our prospects. I stayed in Freiweld, to act as a leader and healer. I was more useful as the healer, as Sera and Elm took most of the leading into their hands.

There was a lack of purpose felt throughout the month following the declaration of us as a non-nation. Nobody had wanted Corith in the past, and no one wanted Corith now.

Cedric was determined to continue training me in my attunement, which I agreed to. I wanted to get better in close combat after the painful fight with Keagan. Part of that was also to learn how I can use my new magore creation. Outside of a burner, it was probably my only way to fight against other attuned.

It took a month for me to create my first magore, and I had to do it in a locked room. I’d been able to focus mana into such densities that even the failed process of creating a magore was enough to incapacitate a non-attuned who was standing too close.

I couldn’t form it into weapons. At most I was creating small pebbles of magore. Nothing like the knife I had formed to kill Keagan. I made the guess that it was due to extreme desperation and the assistance of mana that I was able to form a weapon. Since I was doing it without the same immediate presence of a threat, I wasn’t able to repeat it.

Cedric decided the best solution to this problem was to beat the shit out of me to make me feel threatened. It didn’t work, but I did get fairly competent with a normal knife.

At the same time, Elm had me read some of the war tactics books that were held in the castle. They nearly bored me to death, and I didn’t recognize half of the words inside of it due to my lackluster education. I also continued to practice my skills as a technician, although that one was by my own choice.

Magore technician work was something I had loathed in the beginning, but it had become a relaxing pastime. Elm joined in sometimes, and we would converse while we worked. It was a moment of normalcy in the chaos.

Arlin had left us inside of Corith to prepare, but it all felt empty. Our progression as a rebel movement had halted in place, and we weren’t able to do anything while Arlin continued to bolster its strength, possibly to one day reclaim Corith. While we rebuilt, Arlin had finished one of its campaigns and was likely preparing to do a new one.

I thought nothing could make this situation worse than it already was outside of Arlin invading again.

It changed soon after two months had passed since the liberation of Freiweld, that changed. A new message came over the soundline from the land of Neraser. It wasn’t directed to Arlin, as Neraser often used Corith as a transfer point to other territories.

The message was directly addressed to me.

Nicole had decided it was time to use her favor.