Chapter 41 - Mass Destruction
Hearing that Selene was in mortal danger, Lilly didn’t care about the rest of Rantas’ words. “Where is she now?” she asked, as controlled and concise as she was able to.
“The infirm–” was all Rantas managed to say before Lilly flew directly out of the window, breaking the glass without care. She flew as fast as she could without her goggles and arrived at the infirmary only a few seconds later.
She searched the place from above, looking for any signs of activity, but of course it was the worst time for it. The army had just returned with their wounded, making the entire building filled with busy doctors.
‘I can find her using the flame, Lilly! Will you let me?’ Myndia asked, slightly nervous about asking. She had not forgotten her promise never to take control of it without Lilly’s permission.
‘Of course! Go!’ Lilly replied, slightly annoyed that she had to ask first.
Her flame spread out wide, as light and cold as it could ever be, traveling through the walls of the infirmary. Myndia seemed to be able to see through her flame, in much the same way Lilly had when she searched for Eolanathel in her phoenix form, but in much more detail.
‘First floor, third window from the right!’ She called out, only seconds after taking control. Lilly felt the flame return under her control, but she didn’t recall it all yet. Instead, she flew toward the window Myndia had called out and looked inside to see if she could get through.
The scene shocked her to her core. Selene, or at least she assumed it was her, was lying on a slate covered in blood, and had six doctors surrounding her, each doing their own task. One was using some spell to provide air to her lungs, and another was holding bottles of blood connected to her arm, while the others seemed busy focusing on an injury each.
Lilly didn’t dare break the window in case the shards would hurt anyone, so instead, she melted it and flew through. She didn’t know how much use she would be, but she had to do what she could.
Selene truly looked terrible. A bone was sticking out of her leg, and most of her uncovered skin was burned. Her face looked surprisingly fine compared to the rest of her, but it still had lacerations on her chin and forehead. Covered by her arms during the explosion, Lilly assumed.
The doctors spotted her as soon as she flew through, and those who recognized her looked relieved. “Lilly! Perfect! We need you to try and stop her bleeding while we keep her alive! You can heal certain parts while leaving the rest, right?”
Lilly was barely present in the room at the moment, but she managed to focus enough to reply. “yes, that is fine! Just tell me the part.” She held her staff out, ready to start the process at any time.
“Gods damn, a punctured lung and blood in the chest cavity! This… No, we can do it! Scalpel!” The female chief surgeon studying Selene’s body with a spell was dealing with the worst injuries, it seemed. Lilly was grateful that she didn’t give up, but the fact that she was hesitating alarmed her greatly.
Her own pulse was dangerously high, but she kept her mind focused and ready for use. If she failed here, she would certainly never forgive herself.
“Lilly, the right leg, now!” A doctor said, holding the leg steady and keeping the bones straight.
Lilly obeyed, sending the healing light from the staff to Selene’s leg. The bleeding had nearly stopped already when she started, but now it stopped flowing completely.
The chief surgeon yelled out to her as she was about to finish with the leg. “Lilly, There is a burst blood vessel to the right of her heart! Can you find it?”
Lilly confirmed and used her enchanting spell to search for the vessel, doing her best to ignore the other injuries she saw. She assumed the doctors had noticed them and chose to focus on the important parts.
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Another spell, another wound fixed. Lilly was never free to rest, but she was extremely happy to be of use. She assumed Selene would be doomed if she hadn’t shown up, so there was nowhere in the world she would rather be.
Seven major broken bones, a burst blood vessel, a punctured lung, burns on her skin, burst eardrums, damaged kidney and liver, a perforated bowel, and a bunch of lacerations.
All eventually healed to near-optimal condition.
The doctors were celebrating a successful surgery, taking a small breather before they had to head to the next patient. No one had been nearly as urgent as Selene, but the battle of the day had caused its share of injuries.
“Lilly, you arrived way sooner than I expected, and through the window even! Thank the gods you came; we would not have managed to save this one without you,” the head doctor said, filled with gratitude.
“She’s a good friend of mine, so of course I came to help. Is she gonna be fine? Like, as healthy as she was before?”
“Oh, you knew her? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize… But yeah, she’ll be fine. Her scars will stay as they are, but she shouldn’t have any health issues because of this. And that’s incredible, honestly. I’ve never saved someone so far gone before. So thank you, Lilly. Truly!”
“I’m the grateful one here, doctor,” Lilly corrected, finding it odd to be thanked for saving her own friend. “Uhm, you probably noticed… About her enchantments.”
The doctor nodded with a dark expression. “Yeah, I did. They should all be fine, I think… Although my knowledge of enchantments is near zero, they seemed unhurt.”
Lilly nodded, having seen them herself during the surgery. “They were fine, don’t worry. I was just wondering if you noticed. She’s not doing anything illegal, just so you know.”
The doctor looked over at Selene with an expression of compassion. “I could see they were old, so I assumed it was one of those crazy experiments. I won’t mention it.”
Lilly sighed, looking at Selene with worry. “Thanks. I might have to go back to the barracks. Are there any patients who need me?”
She shook her head, looking ready for the next surgery. “No, we can handle the rest here. You go deal with whatever caused this, so we don’t have to go through that again.”
Lilly nodded and took a final look at Selene, looking like she was sleeping peacefully now. The large enchantment near her core had once been unknown to Lilly, but now she had seen it before. She didn’t know what it did, but she had seen the exact same one in Beak’s heart.
‘But that’s an issue for another time,’ Lilly concluded, taking hold of her staff. She turned to the entrance she had created and flew back out. ‘I hope windows are easy to replace…’
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The office was filled with a heavy atmosphere as she returned. Everyone was seated, and most held their head in their hands. Only Rantas jumped up as she entered, looking desperate for answers.
“How did it go?! Is she…”
Lilly replied right away, knowing the wait was unbearable. “She’ll be fine! According to the doctors, some scars will remain, but no long-term damage.”
Rantas fell to the floor in relief, with tears dropping from his eyes. Lilly was surprised by how invested he was in Selene’s survival, but she assumed it was tied to the regret and urge to be forgiven he had shown in the past. As well as the fact that he was tasked with protecting her. But if he had carried her here in that condition, he had done an excellent job.
She looked at the others, seeing that Eolande was relieved to hear Selene was doing fine at least. The other two were still silent, which Lilly took to be a bad sign. “What exactly happened?”
Roald sighed and shook his head. “An unprecedented weapon has found its way into Dortfell’s grasp. Some sort of massive bomb, able to destroy armies in a split second…”
Lilly had assumed as much already, but hearing it spelled out was terrifying. Something like that was unbeatable in war, only countered by equal destruction in the other direction. But Eldoria had no such weapons. Even Lilly didn’t have that level of destructive power available to her. She could use it more efficiently, of course, but if Dortfell could create bombs like that repeatedly, few things could be done to win this war.
“... What do we do?” she asked, looking for any way out of this. Losing the war would mean terrible things, as Holtar had explained the day before.
“The only thing we can do is go on the offensive. They cannot use those bombs during a fight unless they want to wipe out their own armies as well. But… we’ve lost a quarter of our forces, including General Soltan. Even if they only had one bomb, we still don’t have the forces to turn this around.”
Roald looked at Lilly with worry. “The only real chance we have is you, Lady Lilly. If your powers can threaten them enough to retreat… Or, if you can go directly to their capital, we might be able to force them to stop.”
Lilly felt the weight on her shoulders turn heavier than ever before. There was only one choice, Goddon or no Goddon. She would have to take this fight to their king.