“A swarm?” Fourier asked, his attention focusing on the word.
“That’s right,” Crusch said. “But not as most people would use the word. Among those who study insects, ‘swarm’ has a different meaning. They’ll have a rapid explosion in numbers, and grow even more aggressive.”
Fourier nodded. “It’s remarkable you were able to tell. How do you know that’s what is happening?”
Crusch frowned.
“I believe… I read it in a book,” she said, but she didn’t sound very sure of herself. “I feel like it was a very long time ago.”
“I can get some specialists to try and verify it,” Fourier said, “but insects are a rare field of study. It might take some time for one to get here. In the meantime, we’ll have to prepare as if an attack is iminent. You don’t remember anything about the timeframe?”
Crusch shook her head. “I remember that it could be very soon, but no, I don’t remember anything specific.”
Fourier nodded.
“In the meantime, I’ve already ordered a city-wide announcement to be made, and I have to update Reinhard’s orders personally,” Fourier said with a grimace. “I ordered him to only accept changes to his orders from me or Julius. Unfortunately my knight is busy guarding our flank, in order to prevent any unwanted surprises, so I’ll have to do without him.”
“Are you speaking of the hidden passages I discovered?” Crusch asked, her expression conflicted.
“I am,” Fourier confirmed. “There is a good chance that they will be used soon, considering that their planned rebellion has already started. If you're telling me that their weapon in the swarm will be used soon, then the chances of them using those passages remains high. Best to have one of my most trusted knights handle it, especially if they send a powerful individual.”
“Your Majesty, please allow me to help command the knights and guardsmen to control the rebellion. It may simply be the first step of our enemy's plan, but the damage it is doing to our civilians is…” Crusch trailed off remembering the many blackened corpses she’d seen on her way to making the fire break, and remembering her soldier's sacrifices. Lucius’s ash-covered face came to mind, as he limped away to his final mission.
“Of course. You're one of the finest military minds I know, you’d be wasted sitting here playing bodyguard,” Fourier said before patting the Sceptre by his side.
“Besides, it may not be the sword I’m used to, but I’ve found it to be surprisingly effective at fighting my foes recently. I’m still the man who even bested you at swordsmanship after all.” Fourier boasted, trying to lift Crusch’s spirits, even as he was all too aware of the gap in skill.
Nodding Crusch, turned to leave but not before hesitating for a second.
“Please stay safe, Your Majesty. Ferris and I would be devastated if anything happened to you,” Crusch said quietly, not looking directly at him before quickly departing.
Fourier watched her retreating form for a few seconds, before shaking his head and heading for the mirror that would connect to Reinhard.
The walk was quiet, as he found himself alone with only his thoughts for company, for the first time in months. It felt unsettling as it always did, but he pushed the feeling aside as he took the time to refine the speech for his capital that he’d need to present soon.
Picking up the mirror he allowed his mana to leak into the metia and was gratified to see a response in seconds, as his own image disappeared to show the red-haired sword saint sitting in his family manor.
“I wish I could say that I’m contacting you with good news, Reinhard. Instead, all I’m going to do is ask more of you,” Fourier said wearily trying his best to smile at their kingdom's greatest defence.
“Your Majesty,” Reinhard said as the red-haired knight’s image performed a sharp bow. “Please do not burden yourself with such concerns. If I can be of service I will of course be happy to help.”
“Well, it falls to me to tell our kingdom that what was long thought impossible has happened. Volcanica is dead,” Fourier stated bluntly.
Reinhard sharply inhaled and reared back as if struck. “You're certain?”
“I am. I’ll be making a public announcement on the matter soon, in part to help calm the riots and because his body was found in a very public location. There’s no real chance of covering this up for long,” Fourier said, not bothering to hide the exhaustion in his tone.
“More importantly though, is that Vollachia may have a response to finding out that the largest reason why they haven’t invaded us in the last four hundred years is gone.”
Reinhard nodded slowly, furrowing his brows.
“I take it you mean to remind them that Vollachia was not Lugunica’s only guardian, merely its greatest?” he inquired.
“Correct. Previously, we’ve kept you located at your family manor which is conveniently close to our borders. But it’s time to discard such pretences and remind them of our other cards.” Fourier said a rare tone of aggression filling his tone.
“You’ll be going directly to Picoutatte and staying there. Prevent any Vollachian force from passing. I trust your judgement, so there does not need to be a complete border lockdown, but if you think it’s required, I give you my authority to do so,” Fourier finished.
He hoped that this act of aggression was the right choice to make. He couldn’t afford to be too passive, as that would simply signify that now was the time for Vollachia to attack. But equally, he couldn’t be too aggressive, or it would simply guarantee the war he hoped to avoid.
He was glad that he’d already limited Reinhard’s communications to him and Julius, as he’d already heard the suggestion that their Sword Saint should be used as an opening strike force and not merely a deterrent.
He doubted Reinhard would truly listen to such a gruesome order unnecessarily, but even the suggestion from people he trusted as much as the council would shake him. Better for at least one of the two of them to have faith in their governing body at least.
“I’ll depart at once,” Reinhard declared. “I should be able to make it there in a few hours, quicker if I discard discretion all together.”
“A few hours will be more than fast enough,” Fourier said, shaking his head. “Your presence will disrupt many of their plans, but while we want your presence to be known to their leadership, we do not want to publicly be flouting the Reinhard laws just yet.”
With one final nod, the mirror went black, before reflecting only Fourier’s own face.
That was one task dealt with, but it only made the apprehension Fourier felt worse, for now all that remained was addressing his city itself.
----------------------------------------
“Form up! Do not engage, and allow them to retreat! We’re not here to make arrests today!”
Crusch’s words echoed over the ranks of her soldiers, all of whom were already standing ramrod straight, gathered into neat and orderly lines as they marched out of the noble district, and into the fray of the discontented common folk.
Many days of rioting and scuffling with the guards had stripped them of much of their energy, but if Crusch were a betting woman, she would wager a small fortune that the announcement of the Dragon’s demise would reinvigorate them.
The news had already been shared with her soldiers, and many guard patrols had been reassigned into the upper districts in order to let them process it before they had to go back into the fray.
Already, something had leaked, an inevitability when sharing a secret with such a large number of people, and rumours had started circulating about an important announcement from the palace.
Crusch had decided that it was better to be out in force before Fourier made his speech. Too many sections of the city were already too dangerous for the guards to freely move through.
“Lady Crusch, are we going to fortify the road here?” one of her aides asked. “To block their access to the upper districts? Or are we moving further?”
“We’ll go further,” Crusch decided. “The main market square is still clear, isn’t it? We’re not here to defend the upper city, we’re here to keep the chaos under control. We’ll be more effective in that mission if we have plenty of space to treat any who do come for aid. How are the healers?”
The aide nodded and lifted a hand to another soldier. Their division began picking up the pace, not quite shoving the civilians in front out of the way, but not being all that gentle in their march through the city.
“They’re still in a stupor,” he said as he turned back to her, “but most have calmed enough that they’ll be able to tend to wounds.”
The aide paused for a moment.
“Are we really going to be offering healing to anyone who wants it?” he asked. “Even though many of them will be rioters?”
Crusch turned to look at the man. She recognised his face, but she couldn’t recall his name. He was only a new aide, not as well trained as the ones she was used to relying on. Everyone more experienced was busy leading other divisions.
She nodded. “The Church’s delegations of healers were effective at calming tensions somewhat. Ours may not work as well, considering the existing tensions between us, but every little bit helps.”
She looked up to watch the buildings fall away around them as they reached the market square.
There were no stalls set up, nor were there any merchants trying to peddle their wares. It was simply an empty clearing in the buildings.
“Get the tents set up,” she ordered. “You can leave my command tent until last. It will be a while before the other divisions are in place.”
Her aide nodded and left her side, going to speak to the commanders of the individual units in the division.
Crusch reached into a pocket, and pulled out her conversing mirror, flicking it open with a snap of her wrist.
For a moment, it showed her own face in the reflection, then the reflective surface blurred and grew dark.
“Division Two,” she spoke softly, holding the mirror close to her face. “This is Division One, requesting a status update.”
The sound of rustling came from the mirror, then it suddenly brightened, revealing the face of one of her top subordinates.
“Division Two, reporting,” he said. “We’ve made good time, and have already begun treating the pensioners. No sign of insects.”
Crusch nodded. “Good. Alert me immediately if anything unexpected happens.”
The soldier nodded. “Will do.”
The mirror darkened, and then brightened to show Crusch’s face again. But she wasn’t finished yet. Not by a long shot.
She sent a brief pulse of mana through the metia, and it darkened again.
“Division Three,” she said. “This is Division One, requesting a status update.”
----------------------------------------
The light of a blue orb illuminated the tent, tainting the colour of everything within. Ferris stood still, focusing intently on his magic, weaving strands of mana through the flesh of his patient.
Once he was finished setting up, he pulled on those strands, and as he watched, the ugly gash started closing together, the flesh and skin melding together as if it had never been injured in the first place.
He took another moment to make sure all the severed strands of muscles had come together correctly, then once satisfied, he allowed his healing orb to fade away.
“Alright,” he said, his voice lacking some of his usual energy. “You’re all better. But try not to do anything too strenuous for a few days, okay? You need to rest.”
His patient—a young man, probably just a teenager—nodded slowly, looking at his leg in amazement.
“Um, right. Thank you, sir knight,” he said, getting to his feet and bowing awkwardly. “I’ll be sure to rest.”
The very instant he turned away, Ferris’s eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips.
That patient had claimed he had been pushed to the ground during one of the riots, which had torn open that wound… but Ferris was the best healer in the country. He knew a sword wound when he saw one.
The man had been one of the rioters. That much was almost certain.
He let out an almost inaudible sigh, and relaxed his face.
But Crusch ordered me to heal them anyway.
He could see the logic behind it, to offer healing in Fourier’s name and detract from the hostility the rioters felt towards him.
But Ferris couldn’t help but feel that the action was pointless. For every patient he saw that seemed willing to see Fourier in a better light, there were five that had eyes clouded by hate.
His most recent patient hadn’t been one of those, but Ferris wasn’t taking any chances. He had been making sure to use up as much of his patients’ internal mana as possible. It would leave them lethargic for a few days, but that was fine by Ferris. If they were resting in bed, they couldn’t be out on the streets causing trouble.
Crusch would probably scold him if she found out. But she wasn’t around right now. She had gone personally to one of the more dangerous areas, and Ferris had been sent to one of the safest.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts as another patient came in, putting on a practised smile, his eyes flicking over the new arrival.
She was a woman likely a little older than himself, her left arm held in a sling, and wrapped up in bandages.
That was her obvious injury, but Ferris also noticed that she walked with an unsteady gait, and seemed to be avoiding moving her left leg too much. At least she was walking under her own power.
Her right arm was tucked in tightly by her side, indicating she had some kind of pain there as well, though she was trying to hide it by cradling the bandaged arm in the sling.
But the thing that drew Ferris’s attention the most was her eyes.
At first he thought he had been imagining something, but as the day had progressed, he had become more and more certain.
He was able to see something in the eyes of several of the rioters. The worst of them always had bloodshot eyes, and they always seemed to be frowning. Whenever they met his gaze, Ferris felt as if he was looking into the eyes of a maddened predator.
But he didn’t let any of his unease show as he met this latest one’s gaze.
“Welcome,” he said, gesturing to the stool in front of him. “Please take a seat. I can see your arm is hurt. Can I ask what happened?”
The woman held her silence until she had finished sitting down, before simply saying, “I fell.”
Ferris waited a moment for her to continue, but it didn’t seem she was going to be any more forthcoming about it.
“I see,” he finally said. “Lots of people have fallen recently. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”
She didn’t respond, but Ferris hadn’t expected her to.
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He conjured his healing orb again, and got to work.
As expected, her arm was broken. It wasn’t a clean break either, one of the bones of her forearm had been shattered, as if it had been struck with a heavy blunt object. Some of the guards had been armed with batons, perhaps she had been a part of a push into a line of them?
Her other injuries were consistent with that theory, with a blow to her side causing bruising and creating a small fracture in her ribcage, and she had somehow strained her hip, though there were any number of things that could have caused that.
His examination finished, he reached out for her internal mana, and started weaving it around the shards in her arm.
Shattered bones were always so time-consuming to heal, but Ferris wasn’t going to take shortcuts. Not even for a rioter.
She didn’t speak a word as he worked, which was handy for his concentration, but it felt a little odd. Usually his patients wanted to know what was going on, how bad their injury was, whether or not Ferris could fix them.
But like several other patients Fourier had gotten that day, this patient remained completely silent.
He sighed, but was careful not to let it show on his face.
The two of them sat still, with only the soft sound of Ferris’s healing sphere, the murmur of the surrounding camp, and the faint sounds of the city beyond to keep them company.
His patient did not wince or cry out once, not even as he finished weaving mana through the fragments and began pulling them together.
From there, the process was relatively simple. He only had to move all the fragments closer together, then start melding the smaller ones together, gradually working his way up to the bigger ones, and then finally meld both halves of the break.
The hardest part was the puzzle of trying to find out which fragments went where, but even that was easy for someone of his skill. If he couldn’t find a shard that fit exactly, he could just reshape a nearby one and use it instead.
Within a few minutes of starting, the bone was whole again, and he healed the flesh around it with a small surge of mana.
His patient still didn’t react.
Well, he supposed that meant he could afford to move a little faster.
He split his mana into two strands, one snaking down to her hip and healing the muscles, and another going to her side to take care of the bruising. The fracture in her ribcage required a little more attention, but not all that much. The bone was still in one piece, all he had to do was remove the crack in it.
Then, after a moment’s thought, he created a third strand, composed entirely of his own mana, and moved it upwards, through her spine and into her head.
Crusch would punish him severely if she ever found out, so Ferris was going to be sure to be incredibly subtle.
Foreign mana that healed the head had a peculiar effect on patients. The will of the healer could begin to influence the thoughts and mindset of the patient, making it a very dangerous technique.
But if Ferris only did it a little bit, no one should notice, and he could influence this rioter into staying out of trouble. It was a win-win situation.
Provided he didn’t get caught, of course.
But there was little chance of that. He was the best healer in the county, even if another one checked up on this patient, they were unlikely to examine her head, and even if they did, his touch was light enough that it would be hard to spot the traces of his influence.
He turned most of his attention back to her side, sending a wave of mana past the ribcage to make sure there was no damage to her internal organs, then once he was satisfied everything was in order, he began the process of withdrawing.
But as he did so, something made him pause. He felt an unease he could not quite explain, a sense that something was wrong.
He was only healing a rioter, but Ferris didn’t really feel comfortable with just leaving it, so he spread out another net of mana, doing another examination. But no, all the wounds he had detected were gone, and there were no other hidden ones that he had missed.
Perhaps he just felt guilty about going against Crusch’s wishes. She hadn’t expressly forbidden him from trying to influence the actions of his patients, but he knew she’d be incredibly disappointed in him.
He held back a sigh, then retracted the mana from his patient’s head, paying particular attention so he didn’t disturb… anything… as he…
He frowned, as the mana in her head moved. He was retracting his mana fairly easily, but something was wrong. Her own internal mana was fighting his influence. That wasn’t too odd in and of itself, it could sometimes happen with those of great mental strength, but it was strange that it was being so effective.
It was as if it were being guided by something.
Ferris drew back a little, suddenly cautious.
Is she a mage? Did I miss it? And did she notice me?
He split out a thread of mana, no thicker than a hair, and flicked it toward her gate.
After a moment, he was certain. He had not missed anything. Her gate was weak, not strong enough to cast any magic, and it didn’t look like it had ever been trained.
Then how was the mana fighting him?
With exceptional care, he spun out a series of delicate threads, beginning to poke them through her skull, not inserting them into her brain, just letting him sense her internal mana flow without bone to obstruct him.
And with that… he still didn’t sense anything.
He frowned, and tilted his head, trying to make sense of it. He had expected to find something, perhaps some shoddy work left behind by another healer who had worked on her head previously, or some kind of mild injury disturbing the flow of mana in her head.
But nothing?
This had gone far beyond merely odd.
“Is something the matter, sir knight?”
Ferris blinked, his healing orb dissipating and his eyes suddenly refocusing as he became aware of his vision again. He had blocked it out while concentrating on her internal mana flow.
“I don’t feel any pain,” she continued. “Is there still a need for me to be here?”
He could hear the distaste in her tone, though fortunately she wasn’t straying into the territory of outright rudeness yet.
Ferris hesitated. On the one hand, he had healed everything he could find, so it would be fine to let her go…
But on the other, he couldn't just let his curiosity go unsatisfied.
“Yes, there is,” Ferris responded. “I’ve mostly fixed you up, but there’s still some work to take care of. In fact…”
His eyes trailed to the cot in the corner. The soldiers had set it up in case he needed it, but Ferris hadn’t been bothering to use it. It was faster to just heal the patients sitting down.
“You’d better lie down, the remaining work could get complex.”
The woman looked doubtful, but she still moved over to the narrow bed at his insistence.
Ferris shifted his stool over to her side.
“Have you seen any other healers recently?” he asked as she shifted into a comfortable position. While it didn’t seem likely that what he sensed was due to another healer having messed up, it currently was his best theory, so he might as well check.
“Other…? Yes, I have,” she responded, somewhat caught off guard by the question. “I visited one of the church’s healing delegations. Why?”
Ferris frowned. “One of the church’s?”
Perhaps they were sending out undertrained apprentices? That could be troublesome if many of them did a bad job.
“Where did they heal you?” he asked. “What injuries did you have?”
“...a sickness. I don’t know what kind. I believe she called it earth ague.”
Ferris nodded, resummoning his healing orb and sweeping his mana through her body to check for any lingering effects of the disease.
Earth ague wasn’t all that common, caused by the body absorbing an unbalanced amount of mana initially aligned to earth. It was fairly straightforward to cure, and indeed, he could sense no lingering traces of it.
Nor could he find any trace of unknown healer’s mana, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t present. Perhaps it had been left dispersed improperly in her mana flows, and some of it had been collecting in her brain?
“Alright, this shouldn’t take more than a moment,” Ferris said, beginning to spin up one of the more complicated healing techniques.
This one actually came from tomes Roswaal had lent him, a general purpose analytical spell, designed to avoid disturbing sensitive internals.
It came together, surrounding his patient's head like a helmet, small threads sinking through the skull, and incredibly fine threads tracing the folds on the surface of her brain without sinking into it.
Then, finally, Ferris saw it.
There was a clump of something, so faint that it appeared like a mist, embedded into her frontal lobe. Exactly what it was, Ferris couldn’t tell, but it was definitely foreign. But there was something else, too. It almost felt… familiar.
It was directing his patient’s internal mana to fight against him, but wasn’t trying all that hard to protect itself.
This should be easy, then.
Seven threads dove into the folds of the brain, striking into the cloud, and each splitting into seven hooks.
The cloud reacted in a desperate frenzy, trying to direct his patient’s mana to protect itself, but Ferris had already cut off its control.
From there, it was a simple matter to pull his hooks away, tearing the cloud apart and allowing it to be dissolved in the internal mana flow.
The entire process had taken no more than a minute.
“Alright, that’s finished,” Ferris said cheerily, putting all his focus into disguising his inner feelings. “You can go now. Stay out of trouble, and avoid putting too much pressure on your arm. I’d recommend against carrying anything with it for a day or two.”
“Eh?”
The woman blinked, staring up at him in confusion. Her eyes had lost their edge of sharpness, and now she seemed more fearful than predatory.
“I was…? Um, right,” she said. “I’ll do that, sir knight.”
She hesitantly got to her feet, and stumbled towards the exit.
“Also,” Ferris called after her, “could you tell the guards to not send anyone else in for five minutes? I need to take a look at something.”
She turned back, hesitating for a moment, then nodded.
Ferris watched until she had left, then his face fell, dark emotions bubbling up inside him.
That wasn’t an accident. That wasn’t natural. What in the Dragon’s name was that?
There had been something in that woman, something that was making her act out as a violent rioter. The sheer difference in her behaviour after he had torn it apart had proved that.
But what? It can’t have been a healing technique, it was fighting me.
He felt a chill go up his spine, and he clenched his teeth.
It almost felt like a curse. But it was different. Weaker, more subtle… and harder to spot.
Ferris had healed dozens of people that day, but he hadn’t detected even the slightest thing wrong in any of them until his… ‘mildly unethical’ foray into his latest patient’s head.
Every curse he had encountered in Roswaal’s training had symptoms that he was able to see easily, even when he couldn’t detect the source itself. But this… this was almost invisible until he was looking right at it. If it hadn’t fought him, it was likely he wouldn’t have spotted it at all.
Which raises the question… who else has been infected by it?
He had been checking his friends regularly for curses, but the head was difficult to work with. He never gave it more than a passing glance running through a checkup. It was very unlikely he’d have spotted whatever this was.
Could Fourier have already been infected with it? Could Crusch? Neither had been acting more aggressive, but perhaps it could do other things as well, like tiring them or otherwise messing with their emotional state.
Could some of the knights have been compromised by it? Images of Sir Oberon and the other traitor knights flashed through his mind.
He shook his head.
No, there’s no way Teacher and I would have missed something so widespread. We both check the knights often enough, and Fourier pays attention to everyone’s mood.
But a trace of his doubt remained. Fourier’s attention was stretched thin, and no one had noticed Sir Oberon’s betrayal. Was it really that unreasonable to believe their ranks may have been compromised?
Regardless, now that I know about it, I won’t let anyone else remain corrupted by it, whatever it is. I’ll check Fourier, Crusch, and everyone else as soon as I see them. But first…
He began weaving mana together, replicating the technique he had just cast, and then carefully placing it on his own head.
Using magic to investigate oneself was much harder than doing so on someone else. Ferris would compare it to trying to twist around to examine the base of his own tail.
But as the premiere healer in the kingdom, he’d be able to manage to make it work.
Naturally, he didn’t expect to actually find anything. He was sensitive to the flows of his own mana, he would have detected any attempt to interfere with it. But it would be arrogant not to make sure anyway. His actions had nothing to do with the sickly feeling of fear in his chest, that he might have missed another terrible threat to Fourier.
He was just being wise.
When his spell settled into place and started extending tendrils into his skull, Ferris began to move them about, and probed the same spot he had detected the magic in his previous patient. He was going to sweep over his entire head, just to be sure, but it was best… best to start… with…
His thoughts trailed off, and his mind went blank. Then all at once, a deep and primal terror shot through his body.
There’s something in my head! There’s something there! There’s something there!
“Is everything alright, Sir Felix?”
Ferris’s eyes shot to the tent flap, and he suddenly became aware of his breathing, which had grown heavy and ragged. Had he screamed? He must have done something to surprise his guards.
“I’m fine,” he called out. “I just need a few minutes more.”
He didn’t wait to hear the guard’s response, diving immediately back into his own thoughts and the sensations he was getting from the spell.
For a moment, he just watched it, trying to calm himself down so he didn’t do anything stupid. Even if there was an unknown and dangerous magic inside his head, he shouldn’t try to rip it out at once, even if he really wanted to.
Healers had to be careful when working on the head, and that went tenfold for working on one’s own head, as a single minor mistake could render him unconscious, and you didn’t want the person with magic in your head to suddenly fall asleep in the middle of delicate operations.
So as much as Ferris wanted to grab the thing and tear it out, he forced himself to wait, and spun together another spell.
This one was overly complex, but that complexity was necessary. It would have to operate on its own if Ferris suddenly stopped controlling it, which meant a hell of a lot more extra flows of mana, bindings, and channels mana could use to escape safely.
He double checked it, then, finally, he was able to attack the thing hiding in his own mind.
At first, it didn’t react. Ferris hadn’t flooded his head with foreign mana first, and his spell was disguised in the flows of his own mana.
When he almost had it enveloped, the magic shifted, trying to take some of Ferris’s mana to fight him with, but Ferris wasn’t going to let that happen.
His mana flows turned on it, and his spell came down around it, squeezing tightly and preventing it from making any further moves.
Alright. Then, now I should…
He paused, two separate desires warring inside him. On the one hand, he wanted to crusch the thing as soon as possible, to free himself of its influence, but on the other…
This was a new threat. One he hadn’t noticed at all. One that had managed to infect him, the best healer in the kingdom.
He had to learn everything he could about it, and do so quickly.
So he grit his teeth, and began to spin up more investigative spells.
The magic struggled against him, but he had a tight grip over it. Given that the battle was taking place in his own delicate brain, he was going to have to terminate it quickly, but before that happened he would learn what he could.
He cast the first spell, and learned the magic was using its position just behind his frontal lobes to interfere with the communication between his conscious and unconscious mind. It was distorting his view of reality, then?
His second spell examined how much stagnation the magic had been through. It started to destabilise his containment, forcing him to try and shore it up, but it did tell him that the magic was relatively new, no more than two weeks old. Around the start of the ceremony to call the Divine Dragon, then?
Before his third spell was ready, the magic tried to break out, and his containment clamped down hard, crushing it to nothingness before it could damage his brain.
And as it came apart, Ferris heard the ghost of an echo, words spoken so gently, but with terrible weight to them.
Don’t try to heal me.
Those words were familiar. Very familiar.
Ferris’s mind raced, drudging up every memory of the ceremony. The events that had happened since he, Fourier, and Julius had broken out of the church had driven most of his recollections of the event to the back of his mind, but now that he was focusing on them, they came back to him easily.
And he remembered the first day he had spent in the church. The boredom he had felt, the trip he had taken to get another book…
And the clumsy priestess, who he had felt absolutely certain he should never, under any circumstance, try to heal.
“It was her,” he whispered with growing certainty.
“It was her! Guards!”
He heard a commotion outside his tent as his guards jolted to alertness, and the tent flap was thrown open, two guards rushing inside.
“Get me in contact with Lady Crusch immediately, and get this division ready to move,” he ordered.
“I know exactly who’s causing these riots.”
----------------------------------------
“That’s everything sorted then?” Fourier asked with a light smile as he walked around the room inspecting the massive metia.
“Yes, your majesty, the emergency broadcast should be ready to start when you give the order.” the butler said, bowing deeply.
“Thank you for your time and efforts then.” Fourier said, pausing to look each member of his staff in the eye. “It couldn’t have been easy to do this so quickly in such conditions, but I promise you that it is of the utmost importance.”
“Of course, Your Majesty, it was an honour.” One by one each of the staff quietly exited the room, leaving Fourier alone.
Holding the smile in case anyone double-backed, Fourier took a deep breath and slowly released it, finally allowing the smile to fade as he did so.
Rubbing his forehead he did his best to push back the pain and exhaustion, as he knew that he’d need to be at his best soon.
Seeing the metia dim, he began with the speech he’d prepared.
“My fellow citizens, I am afraid I am speaking to you tonight to deliver grave news.” Fourier began, his voice solemn and heavy with grief.
“Right now, many of you are dealing with the riots that have formed over the Divine Dragon's failure to appear during my coronation ceremony, and I wish that the matter was as simple as indulging some of our mistaken citizenry and allowing our Divine Dragon to appoint a new ruler, but I’m afraid that’s no longer possible.
“Our city is in chaos as Foreign Forces seek to divide and conquer us. I've already personally encountered Elsa the Bowel Hunter myself, and worst yet that isn’t even the worst of the news I have to present tonight.
“Our beloved Divine Dragon, who we have long since believed to be immortal, has been found slain. His body lies desecrated, and here we are fighting our fellow citizens rather than mourning our fallen protector, and finding out how this happened!”
By the end Fourier was shouting, as he allowed his genuine stress and worry to shine through.
“We cannot allow the perpetrators of this horrendous crime to get away with their plans of turning us against one another,” Fourier pleaded, but before he could continue, he heard a loud creaking noise from above him.
His eyes snapped upwards, and he cut off his speech in shock as he saw the ceiling starting to break apart, and with the cracks came a skyrocketing temperature as he saw partially melted cement fall towards him.
Fourier nimbly dodged each of the falling debris before doubling back as he realised just what they were about to hit.
With a loud crash they buried the metias, cutting the connection instantly. Thankfully they were durable enough that it was unlikely any of them were broken, but as he looked up and saw a sea of flames, he wasn’t so certain that it would matter for much longer.
How could a fire this large be created in the Palace! No more importantly, is that Julius falling from the Flames?!