Princess Trianna gazed out over her city that morning and despaired. They had survived another night, but it was hard to believe they would survive another as she looked outbuildings and surveyed the damage.
Like everyone else, she’d heard the terrible battle last most of the night, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to watch. She just lay in bed praying for Siddrim to return to them and save them from this evil. But other than a brief flash of light after midnight, he had not returned to them.
This is still better than the alternative, she told herself, but she had trouble believing it anymore.
For a time, after the Templar had come to them, she had seen it as a sign. How could she not? Brother Faerbar was literally filled with light. For the first few weeks, the people of Rahkin had been quite sure that he would save them, and she’d agreed, but that was harder now that there were so many dead that she could see them from her window, along with the huge pyres that had been heaped up just outside the city walls.
Things only got worse after her two remaining servants helped her dress, and she listened to the battle reports with her mother over a meager breakfast of tea and toast. The bread was stale, but even so, the princess tried to be grateful; they might well be the last people in the whole city who still ate toast.
He started with the number of dead and wounded. By his count, almost five hundred men had been killed in the defense last night, and a similar amount had been wounded or maimed. He believed that the number of dead among the residents closest to the harbor was almost as high, but it was too soon to say because they were still digging bodies out of the rubble.
He didn’t say exactly what had wreaked such havoc. He just kept going on about the Templar’s holy light and alchemical constructs and the casualties they caused while avoiding the larger issue.
Truthfully, she didn’t follow all of what the man said. She was not well versed in alchemy beyond its purported abilities to turn lead into gold. She understood what disastrous meant well enough, and when he started to discuss the thing that had attacked the harbor, that was the word that he used.
She could see why the Field Marshall had tried so hard to skirt the topic. A rotting sea beast sounded positively hideous. She lost her appetite after that.
“Is he alive then?” her mother asked about the Templar.
The Field Marshall had very clearly said that he was, but the way he’d talked about the man afterward, she admitted that she wasn’t completely sure either.
“The Templar is still breathing, Your Highness,” he nodded, “He is recuperating in the high temple and may yet make a full recovery, but… well, he was swallowed alive by that thing. You have to understand that the man is not himself.”
Princess Trianna wondered what that meant but put it out of her mind for now as she continued to listen quietly while body counts and the extent of the damage were discussed. Apparently, both the main gate and the majority of the piers lay in ruins now, though the man assured his queen that “we have more than enough resources left to evacuate you and your daughter along with other vital members of court should you wish it. You have but to give the order.”
He mentioned that several times. Really, whenever the opportunity arose. It was clear to everyone that he wanted nothing more than a valorous excuse to leave the city. Her mother refused him that, though.
“I will die where my husband did if it comes to it,” the queen finally snapped. “So why not do what you can and see if we can’t push that off at least a few more weeks, won’t you?”
“Yes, your Majesty!” the man said, taking the hint and snapping a salute before retreating.
They would all live or die together. That was the message. That was always the message, even if someone didn’t want to hear it. Her mother had explained that thought process to Princess Trianna on more than one occasion, though she was the last person in the world who needed to hear that.
“Evil, like all things, is finite,” she’d say, “And we must exhaust that evil against our strong walls rather than let it continue to rampage across the defenseless countryside. With the help of the Collegium, we might even succeed.”
The princess was becoming less sure of that every day. She didn’t say that, though. Instead, she smiled and kissed her mother on the cheek.
The only one who might be able to reassure her was the Templar, but she would wait until later to see him. First, she wanted to climb to the top of the tallest tower to see the truth of the Field Marshall’s words.
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She was disappointed to find out that it was just as bad as he’d described. From her window that morning, she’d been able to see the terrible battle and the damage that had been done to the main gate. They were plugging the gap with rubble and lumber as best they could, but it was clear to her that it would not hold if they were attacked again soon, which she had every reason to believe they would be.
Even the watchmen that were up here in the cold dawn light seemed to think that they’d all be dead by the end of the week, and they ignored her while she shivered in her cloak. She tried to steel herself against such pessimism, but once she turned to view the harbor, her heart sank.
She was far enough away that she couldn’t smell whatever the rotting monstrosity was over the onshore breeze, but she gagged anyway. The whole area around it was completely destroyed. Not just the building either. Half of the ships in the harbor were sunk.
She shook her head. That would just make the whole thing worse. The bounty of the sea had been the one thing holding body and soul together, and now she wasn’t even sure if the few fishing vessels that remained could move between all the half-sunk wrecks to reach the harbor mouth. It was an unmitigated disaster.
Those terrible images didn’t leave her head for the rest of the day. They stayed there, along with the secret guilt that she was the one that had caused this. She tried to tell herself that despite all the death and destruction, she’d still done what was right.
Seeing the heavily scarred face of the Templar that afternoon didn’t help that, though. Princess Trianna braved the streets with only a handful of guards as she walked to the Grand Temple. All the horses had long since been slaughtered, and though she’d thought that more than a single guard would be overkill, even in times like this, the hungry looks of starving people quickly dismayed her.
When she reached the building, she left them outside, but the soft glow that the place usually had in his presence was absent. Instead, with the door left open, she could see rats skirting the periphery, looking for scraps to eat. They scurried away as she strode through the door, but to her, they looked so thin they were half starved to death.
It was a bad sign when even the rats couldn’t find enough to eat, she thought to herself.
“You’ll need it when they come back tonight,” the older mage said, pushing something into the Templar’s hands even as he tried to refuse it. “You alone have the power to use this frozen—”
The conversation abruptly stopped when they heard the sound of her footsteps. All three of them pivoted to look at her as she walked out of the shadows and into the light, but they relaxed just as quickly once they saw that it was just the slender princess and not some hideous abomination bent on assassinating them.
“I need none of your mage tricks,” the Templar stated, pushing the strange-looking crystal away. “I’ll not imperil my mortal soul, even on my last day.”
“It will be the last day for all of us soon if we do nothing. Without Karsagan I cannot use this relic as we’d planned, but you wouldn’t even need to craft a binding ring,” the old man said. “Just channel the same power you did last night and…”
The three of them kept talking, but Princess Trianna couldn’t hear them. Not over the terrible need to look at the mutilated holy warrior. Eventually, she just stood there looking quietly at her feet to avoid staring.
She’d seen him only a few days ago, and the man had borne a few fresh scars, as he always seemed to, but today, he barely looked human. His graying hair had disappeared overnight, and he’d gone bald. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t so bad. What was, was that his hands and face, and really all of his exposed skin, was covered with blotchy scarring.
It was like he was molting. Even in the time she stood there, sneaking peeks, she could see a few more pink patches of fresh skin peek through the crusty scarring to replace the older, damaged skin. To her, it bordered on the demonic. The princess didn’t know what to say, though, so she said nothing at all.
The three of them never found common ground, at least that she could hear, but it wasn’t until the mages left, saying they would return after dinner, that the Templar finally turned to her. “What can I do for you, my child,” he asked as politely as ever.
“Oh, me? Nothing,” she murmured. “I was worried about you. After the fighting last night, they said you’d been terribly hurt and might not recover, and I just wanted to come and see.”
“It’s not as bad as it looks, princess,” he said with a shrug as he walked over to the stairs that led to the altar and sat down, patting the stairs next to him.
She appreciated the kindness. In that spot, she wouldn’t have to look at the grotesque he’d become, and she was sure he knew that, too.
“It’s not?” she asked. “Were you burned badly?”
“Only on my hands,” he said, showing her one of his burned palms which had already healed, leaving behind a scar burned into the shape of a sword’s hilt.
“Well, then what happened to the rest of… you know.” she inquired, suddenly flustered.
“Oh, this?" he chuckled to himself as if he'd forgotten how badly burned the rest of his body was. "I had to dive into the belly of a proverbial whale. One pumped full of foul magics and alchemy. I’m not at all surprised that it burned me as badly as it did, but even if I didn’t think it likely I could heal these… disfigurements, I would have done it just the same.”
“Why?” she asked, surprised to find tears running down her cheeks as she turned and looked at him abruptly. “Why do you do so much? Can’t you see it’s killing you?”
“You’ve already proven you’d do anything for the light,” he smiled softly, making his face that much more hideous. “Just know that I’d do the same.”
“You think we can beat them, then?” she asked, willing herself to stare into his eyes and only his eyes. None of the damage could damage the holy light that lingered there.
“We have to,” he said solemnly, “No matter what sacrifices it takes.” She knelt there and prayed with him after that to a god that both of them knew no longer existed, but somehow, she took comfort from that.