My chewed-on boots squelched through the muddy path between the fields. I swayed from side to side to avoid puddles, lost in thought. The layer of snow had melted under the afternoon sun while I’d slept the day away in a cot, under guard inside the commander’s tent. To either side of me were blackened barley fields. The knights had decided the dead crops were too much of a hindrance to their sight and movement now that they controlled the tree line, so they were flattened.

When I’d awoken at dusk, Yistopher had set a bowl of stew before me and stood in the opening with his arms folded until I picked up the spoon. It had been a while since I’d eaten anything substantial, yet I was still annoyed over the earlier conversation. Not wanting to punish my growling stomach for my grumpiness, I drained the bowl and asked for a second serving.

I could still feel his eyes on the back of my neck as I walked away from the camp towards the new frontline near the woods. A single word had given me the freedom to roam, a single word I placed little significance on and said without pause, a promise not to run off to the capital.

Knights were perched throughout the treetops, drawing ghouls below them and attacking from above without fear of retaliation. Rope lines ran down from each into the field below to slide along to escape if necessary. The change of tactics was intriguing, an adaptation after finding the worst the ghouls could hit them with, and Faraya letting them loose to use whatever methods the captains thought effective in their sectors.

I climbed a set of stairs carved into the muddy slope. The water had been drained, and the dirt hardened for an easy accent. Leonarda sat on a branch halfway up a fur tree. His feet dangled off either side as he leaned back into the trunk, sending out pulses to his squad in the trees around him, directing who was to draw the attention of the ghouls.

I formed handholds in the bark and climbed up to the captain. My helmet, gauntlet, chainmail, and quiver were all taken for safekeeping since I ‘wouldn’t need them anytime soon.’ The lack of weight made climbing easier, but I felt naked without being covered in armour. The steel bangles along my arms were looked over as poor taste in bland accessories, so I at least still had something besides my magic.

Leonarda flitched, clutching at the branch he sat on as I pulled myself up on the opposite side of the trunk. “Strewth, girl! A warning first? You can’t do that to mages unused to being snuck up on.”

I balanced atop my thinner branch and leaned around the trunk to peer down at him. “Maybe next time.”

Leonarda went back to looking for the approaching ghouls in the fading light. “It’s not polite to flaunt your talents in other’s faces.”

“It would mean you couldn’t cast spells,” I said, knowing that would ruin his view of my ‘talent.’

“Hmm, a pity. Not much use in being hidden if you can’t do anything after.”

I frowned at my undue success, feeling like I needed to switch to defending myself.

“How are you feeling?” he asked before I could, with a look of genuine concern I disdained.

I ducked behind the tree to hide from it and picked leaves from my hair and clothes. “Multiple healers emptied their mana reserves on me all afternoon, which is a bit much since I’ve seen a knight missing a limb. I don’t deserve the attention over them.”

“That kind of damage is for dedicated teams of healers with mana crystals,” he said. “And I meant your mental state. Knights have experience ignoring injuries, escaping death and waiting to have their bodies restored, but you’re just a kid.”

“I’m well,” I said, pushing away my experience with injuries and near death. I leaned back around the tree and pointed out a ghoul to distract him. It was further away than the ones he was identifying, behind thick layers of leaves. He scrunched his face, peering into the distance before letting out a hum when he noticed its presence.

He half-cast a spell with no meaning, simply letting the mana string together over his palm to attract its attention.

The ghoul collided with the base of the tree, staring up at the captain with outstretched arms and clawing away the bark. Leonarda placed a palm on the branch and cast a genuine spell this time. Unlike my interactions with the flora, the string of mana forced the tree into obedience. A wooden spike erupted from the trunk, piercing through the ghoul's chin until it jutted out the back of its skull. The spike slowly receded, allowing the body to collapse into the other corpses.

The ghoul still struggled on the ground as its healing vied with the gaping wound through its neck and spine. I glanced at the trunk I was practically hugging and slowly pushed away. “You’re not worried about accidentally hitting yourself?”

Leonarda looked up to me in offence. “If I messed up the targeting that bad, I wouldn’t have gotten through my childhood, let alone first year.”

I sighed, not knowing what he meant since aiming my magic was done mainly by pointing and thinking. “Can’t cast spells, remember?”

“Right…yet you seemed to hold your own against these vermin. Free casting is still a fine skill; it won’t help in all-out fights, but you’ll win a lot of sanctioned close-quarter duels, even versus mages. I’m sure you wouldn’t have even needed our help if it wasn’t for that wolf… which I’m not allowed to ask about.”

“You don’t get told very much, do you?”

“This is the wrong job if you’re looking to discover the secrets of the realm. I can’t even tell stories about the little bits I do find out,” he said, drawing another ghoul to his tree.

“Sounds like you have to know how to follow orders,” I commented, prompting my real reason for climbing up the tree to talk with him.

“True enough…true enough,” he sighed, sending a pulse to get another knight to draw the next ghoul far on our right.

“So, what if you had two conflicting orders? What would you do then? Do you get to choose which one to disobey?”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye while he searched with sight and senses. “It entirely depends on the orders and their intended outcome, and there's also asking for clarification from command. Why?”

“Say if I run off, and your orders are to stay here and make sure I’m safe. Would it be your choice whether to go after me or not?” I wasn’t willing to drag the knights into danger simply because the duke had asked them to, but I was more keen if they had a choice in the matter.

Leonadra sighed. “I’d sooner tie you to this tree upside down and call the commander.”

“I think I could lose you in the forest.”

“You very well could, but what are you trying to accomplish here?”

“I want Faraya to re-prioritise her orders and help the remnants,” I said.

“And have you explained to her why?”

“Yes, but she wouldn’t budge.”

“Then you have your answer. Forcing her into making a tactically reckless decision from a disadvantaged position to rescue you is selfish and wouldn’t help anyone, especially not the remnants,” he said, flicking a spell from his wrist. It distorted and vibrated the air around the targeted ghoul, causing it to bleed from its eyes and ears. Snow was tossed around in a sphere, settling into neat circles around the dead ghoul. “I like your company and think you’re a budding warrior. However, I won’t jeopardise the lives of my squad based on your tactical prowess. I’m sorry.”

“But she’s wrong,” I said, my eyes stuck on the attack. The knights were experimenting with more esoteric spells they wouldn’t otherwise be able to use on people, with frightening results. “We could be doing exactly what you’re doing now in the outskirts of the city, clearing our way to them.”

“It's not about being right, especially anywhere with a hierarchy. It’s about being in a position of authority, and if you want to make the decisions, you need to have the most authority. Which you get by making good decisions consistently or knowing the chief. Instead of asking me to help you find a way to convince the commander, you tried to make me choose to put myself in harm's way, which is manipulative.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Is forcing the commander by my actions to make a decision not authority?”

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“It’s forceful. You can use it effectively only once, and from then, it yields poorer results along with losing every measure of goodwill with those involved. My advice? Make the decision you feel you can live with best, but consider the consequences carefully.”

Despite the harsh content, Leonarda hadn’t raised his voice or changed from his usual carefree tone. His words still frustrated me, and they wormed their way into my thoughts, cracking my confidence. I balled my fist, yet I had nothing but an innocent tree to take my frustration out on.

I groaned and slumped down onto my branch, letting my legs dangle and leaning against the trunk. “Fine... I give up.”

“Argh, don’t be like that, Valeria. It’s good that you care. It’s just not feasible to act right now.”

“Mhm,” I hummed, not wanting to clash. I’d probably spend a sleepless night in the future going over every snarky remark and counterpoint I could have made, but I didn’t have the energy. I worried I was slipping back into my old, muted personality, where my only responses to conflict were: yes, mother; no, mother; I’m sorry, mother.

Leonarda turned back to his job after I didn’t talk. I closed my eyes, letting my mind wander between the different woodland creatures, careful to avoid the ghouls. Their lives were so uncomplicated, finding anything edible, shelter, and avoiding the dangerous humans.

“If,” I said after the sun had fully set, forcing the words to form and pausing to change my approach to something less manipulative. “...Could you please talk the commander into letting me accompany you to the capital when you do assault it?”

“Best I can do is ask.”

…

Captain Tometh

The sun rose on another wretched day. The ghouls were pressed in on all sides along the outer perimeter, packed together so tightly they could hardly move. The gathering at the end of the southern street slowly filtered into the rest of my city, doing untold damage to what we were supposed to protect. Homes lay in ruins from the gargoyle’s entrance or smouldered in the distance. Neither was common, and I worried more about the number of inhabitants silently slaughtered in otherwise untouched buildings.

I couldn’t figure out how it had gotten this bad, how we’d been living with the enemy for so long, how ghouls capable of levelling the city had escaped our knowledge, and how all our knowledge on the matter came from one girl from the duchies.

Valeria had gathered enough information to assuage my worst fears about the total collapse of everything outside the bastion. Still, I would have felt more at ease if my team had managed to rendezvous with us since she’d left yesterday afternoon with their follow-up orders. It was enough time for guilt to seep in about using someone so young, though that was the price of being unique.

If her work weren’t so important, I’d advise her not to go around volunteering for tasks likely to get her killed. There were more pressing concerns to focus on, so I blamed her disappearance and my squad’s lack of appearance on their inability to get here through the ghouls. Because if I considered everyone outside the bastion a lost cause, I would never be able to stop counting the names, and besides, those of us inside were not in the best position either.

Commander Arardish and the rest of his Magnate faction were at their wits end over the crowding of refugees, despite them being their neighbours, butchers, tailors and soldiers’ families. It was a moral failing which signified how far our order had fallen. We did not have the war horses, enchantments and numbers of the duchies, but I thought we would always have our mission.

The unofficial opposition faction, of which I consistently declined the leadership position of, was stationed in the garden, dismantling tents to replace them with additional defences. Alternating walls, trenches, and spikes similar to those along the capital line were constructed atop the formerly manicured greenery. I leaned over the battlements of the turret nearest my office to look down upon Captain Hauser’s squad, somehow managing to keep their hands clean in the chaos.

However, like me, they’d lost their barracks and offices to rows of cots, so they had to openly be useless instead of hiding it behind closed doors.

I took a calming breath as I watched our protective capsule repulse another climber. It was being drained far quicker than those with the gift stuck inside the oversized coffin could resupply it. I’d already drained my reserves twice, and I took another breath to drag mana from the air into my lungs, hoping to rid myself of the headache from excessive siphoning.

It was clear why the Riker Duchy had snapped up the girl despite her connections with executed witches back in Ulasa. She seemed to be capable of effortlessly sapping the mana from her surroundings, and I wondered who would be the first to lose their lives when they tried to turn her into a faucet for some enchantment. The question was, why had they let her roam so far from home?

While her naivety was plain to see, the girl had a ‘growl at me, and I’ll bite’’ kind of approach to life—like a wild animal determining friend from predator on a first encounter. Watching the commander and auctioneers not knowing how to deal with someone who didn’t care for their influence and was willing to snap back was especially amusing.

I turned to stare down a child peering over the access hatch; they knew they weren’t supposed to be up here. They ducked, pretending we hadn’t made eye contact and scurried off with their friends. The children weren’t allowed near the windows, and there wasn’t an abundance of activities for them to do inside the headquarters, so I didn’t blame their curiosity.

“Where are your parents?” the commander’s voice boomed from below, not sharing my sentiments. “I’ll throw you all out if you’re caught in a forbidden zone again.”

The scurrying intensified as the children scrambled around the corner and down the nearest flight of stairs, their mana signatures muddling into the mess of people.

“Tometh, did my runner not find you?” the commander asked, squeezing out of the hatch and adjusting his uniform.

He knew the runner had found me, but he was here because the message I sent her back with wasn’t pleasing.

“I’m overseeing our defences, sir.”

“Which is precisely what I wanted to talk to you about. I ordered every mage to focus solely on the capsule, yet now you have them wasting their time toiling in the dirt?”

I kept my contempt for his phrasing and disgust with the ornamentation he still wore off my face. “And if another gargoyle attacks? Our enchantments will fail, and we will all be sick from draining our reserves or have no reserves to speak of. What then?”

“That beast has enough mana to gorge itself on elsewhere, why would it bother to return? Now, get them all downstairs instead of mucking around. Those insubordinate swines seem to think they need your permission to follow my orders.”

There had never been any reason to give credence to a faction opposing their trade-focused pursuits. It strengthened the city, funding our order and bringing in talent to purge the capital of its occupiers. However, only so far as it was profitable for a select few.

Sure, we all benefited, but there was no comparing their piles of roe and influence to others' pittance. It had always been a calculated trade-off…but look where that had gotten us. I looked over the enemy at our walls and down to the captains I hoped would be okay with my late acceptance of their trust. “There are no more committees here, no payments from the auctioneers that are worth accepting, and here we outnumber your fighters three to one. So, no, my orders stand.”

Arardish smiled thinly. “You want to play politics now? Come, boy, step into my theatre and see who the crowds cheer for. Better yet, see who’s willing to fund your little one-man play. Who do you think they’ll choose? The young upstart they have no trust in getting their roe’s worth, or old reliable, always providing a return on investment since before you were born. I control the bastion. We control the city.”

Usually, I’d drown in the number of attacks and threats, veiled and overt, which their faction could unleash: taxes and tariffs, building tokens, supply of arms and rations, horse quality, expedition financing. The list was endless. Yet here, surrounded, none of that could be brought to bear. It may be tomorrow, but I’d at least get us there.

I turned back to the captains, shifting mounds of dirt out of the ground to form another barricade. “Really? Should have told ‘em that when you gave your orders. And stop your obsession with theatre metaphors; they’ve never made any sense to us.”

My reserves felt replenished enough to manage a few spells, and I wanted to escape the prattling of the red-faced commander. I stepped up to the turret and dropped, casting the weightless charm before hitting the ground.

…

The defences mattered sooner than I’d hoped, though their effectiveness left a lot to be desired. Not because the construction was inadequate but because of the lack of personnel. We only had the captains, their support staff, leftover guards and newly conscripted militia. It didn’t help that I wouldn’t trust some of the captains to know the pommel from the point.

The protective capsule held firm throughout the day. It was the foundations of the iron fencing that gave way first. The ghouls despised touching the iron, but they had no choice when pressed against it. The first pole toppled after a surge of bodies entered the square, dragging those beside it along with it.

The opening was saturated with spells and arrows from the turrets, but ghouls still made it through, widening the gap with each subsequent pole they toppled. They reached the first trench and clawed through to the hardened wall made of the excavated dirt.

I grabbed a man in mismatched armour and placed him back in front of his assigned embrasure, directing his spear through the opening into a ghoul’s shoulder. “Again! Do it again, and don’t stop until you are relieved. Do you understand?”

The coward leaned away from me but nodded quickly, timidly stabbing out with his spear. I moved past to check on the next, clapping the captain on the back as she pulled back a sword covered in black blood. The next, an adjutant from the magnate faction stuck their hand through the opening, shooting off a spell that sounded like it destroyed part of the fencing.

Before I could get out the first word of my rebuke, he screamed, yanked into the wall by his hand. Me and the knight beside him rushed to pull him back, tugging against the ghoul with its jaws clamped on his wrist. Flesh tore from the adjutant’s hand as we fell back, and I stabbed the creature as it tried to reach in.

“Get him to the healing station,” I said, pointing towards the single bridge across the next sequence of trenches. “And bring him back.”

Only one side was being attacked by ghouls, wounded after making it through a gap beset with spells and arrows. Yet we were already struggling. Sounds of fighting raged in other corners of the city, the orders for the separated squads to converge slowly spreading through the city. They looked to make it in time to at least stabilise us before the promised reinforcements arrived. However, they were already late, and I didn’t know how much longer we had to wait if they’d already passed the timeline Valeria had given.