-44-

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The roar of a wild fire and shouting assaulted my ears. People around me were fleeing in panic. The city—when did I enter a city?—had descended into utter chaos.

A human man with graying hair sat on a marble bench. A woman with dark violet hair wept and screamed at him in elvish.

“Please, my love!” she begged, “We cannot leave you here to die? Think of our Meiko!”

The old man fell into a fit of coughs and my head turned away out of my control.

“Father had accepted his weaknesses, mother.” A voice came from my mouth, accented and with little emotion.

“Meiko!” the woman shouted back.

She stumbled over her heels and I—Mei—caught her.

“It’s a wonder father is still alive, mother. He’s well past the age of humans. His friends and family have passed into the Guardian’s embrace long ago.”

“We’re his family! He’s your father.” she cried, slumping into Mei’s arms.

“Bastion Keep has fallen,” Mei’s father choked, “Look around, dear. The demons are already at Aestor’s doorstep. All of Lagiri will be reduced to ashes by the morning. I am too weak. Too old. You and Meiko have so many years of life left. Don’t waste them just to spend one last day with this weary man.”

“I’ll take mother away from here, I promise.”

“You’re a good kid, Meiko. I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

Mei turned away with tears in her eyes and carried her mother through the hellscape that used to be her home.

The scene changed in a literal blink of the eye and I was now overlooking the bluffs of Axio—except for one key thing missing. There was no Axio.

No towering walls looming over the city to shield it from the aggressive northern wildlife.

No central spire rising into the heavens.

The plateau was just filled with tents and shacks as far as the eye could see.

The great city I knew to sit atop these cliffs was nothing but a mess of makeshift fortifications and injured guards standing atop them.

By the Goddesses. These are the survivors from the Empire?

Mei and her mother approached the entry point into the camp and were stopped by the guards.

An armored man with his left arm in a sling and bandages wrapped around his eye stepped forward with his hand extended in a motion to stop. He eyed Mei’s ears, “Imperial citizens?”

“Yes. Survivors from Aestor.” Mei responded back coldly.

“If you’re from a noble house, present your crest and we’ll assist you with finding lodging. If not, just continue on and figure it out yourself.”

“Ah. We’ll continue on then”

Mei adjusted her gear and looked over her mother—who did not look well—tightening the straps of the armor she wore.

“Come, mother. We finally arrived.”

They continued through the gates and were directed by another set of guards as the path grew more worn.

“Imperials head to your left!” One called out, “Subjects of Rena and Maarin citizens to the right.”

Mei and her mother went toward the imperial-marked camp. As they headed further down the path, it became obvious some kind of commotion was happening.

Armored soldiers were running from the encampment towards Mei—to the gate.

She called out to one group that was moving at a brisk walking pace, “What’s going on? Is the camp under attack? I can help, I—”

“We’re not under attack.” a woman in the group responded, “The Crown Prince has arrived with a great amount of injured and refugees. If you want to help, find Praetor Justinus in the camp and enlist as a legionnaire.”

Before Mei could respond, shouting came from the road behind her.

“Move aside, make way!”

She glanced back and jumped to the side of the road, pulling her mother back with her.

Cavalrymen galloped past them and the soldiers that had moved aside. Large black steeds twice the size of Mei tore the dirt path apart, kicking up dust and stones.

In the center of their formation was a white horse in gleaming golden armor, whose rider was equipped in equally decadent gear. A long purple cloak flowed behind him, waving in the air along with his crimson-red hair.

The man turned and looked down at Mei as he rode past. His purple eyes stared through her as if looking directly at me.

Dad? Dad! Father!

I called out to him, desperately wishing I could make Mei do the same from her memories.

Father!

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

“Father!”

A dry voice croaked. My voice.

My whole body was in pain. I ached in places I didn’t know you could ache, it was as if my mana circuits had now decided they were part of my nervous system.

My eyelids felt heavy and I realized there was a wet towel placed over my face.

Somebody’s cold hand touched my forehead.

“Hey, Mei. Welcome back.”

“Good morning, Airis.” she greeted me, a hint of confusion in her voice, “How’d you know it was me?”

“Didn’t you get the memo? I’m omniscient now.”

“You know, it would surprise me if that was actually in the briefing later today.” she laughed.

“Were you thinking about the Apocalypse just now?” I asked.

Mei was silent. I heard water dripping into a bucket as she wetted a new towel. She delicately lifted the one from my face and her cool blue eyes met mine with an intense stare.

“Are you really?” she questioned in a quiet voice.

“Am I really what?”

“Omniscient.”

“No way!” I denied, “I was just kidding. Remember that thing psycho-memory thing I told you guys about?”

“That thing where you experience the memories of people close to you because their emotions seep out of their soul?” she asked.

“Close enough. I had one of those just now. I saw some of your memories.”

I admitted to Mei what memories I’d seen.

She looked a little upset at first but reassured me, “It’s not like you purposefully were trying to invade my private thoughts. You even warned us to not let strong emotions take over near you before you figured out how to stop it from happening. And the reason you called out like that…”

“It was because you saw my father, the day you arrived at the refugee camp that would become Axio.”

“I see.”

Mei caught me up to speed on what I’d missed.

My abrupt passing out caused a minor incident with Hailey but was smoothed over when Akari did some kind of mental linkage magick and confirmed I was fine.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

That didn’t stop Hailey from fussing over me, though. She was eventually banned from entering my tent after the first night when she stopped in eight times in the span of two hours starting at midnight.

Hanna allowed her a one-hour visit every four hours to ensure the war efforts would keep progressing.

My companions had set a schedule to watch over me—I’d woken up during Mei’s shift on the second day of being blacked out.

Out for two days again after abusing Capricorn’s magicka. Not too bad of a recovery time considering the results.

My stomach made a terrible gurgling noise and I looked up at Mei with pleading eyes.

“Please tell me you have snacks.”

Mei didn’t have snacks. But she told me that the mess hall was fully functional now, so we could get something to eat that wasn’t leftover hardtack rations from Tolin.

We crossed paths with Hanna, who had been on her way to check in with Mei, and traveled to get breakfast together.

“So you got here yesterday evening?” I questioned Mei while asking about her journey back from Elyssia.

“Yes. I was surprised to find out the army had already taken the bridge point when we got to Hanna’s camp, even more so when I learned that your sister had taken part and unleashed some sort of divine judgment upon the Renaultians.”

“Divine judgment? Just how bad have the rumors gotten…” I shook my head. “Anyway, how’d it go with Julius? He was pretty worried about you when you failed to check in, even if he won’t admit it.”

Mei prodded at her meal with a fork, “Uhm, fine, I guess. I was expecting to get yelled at but he didn’t do that. He’s been pretty normal actually, he asked how I was feeling this morning like he usually does.”

Hanna leaned in, “He asks how you feel in the mornings?”

"Yeah, why? Doesn’t he ask you as well?”

“No…?” Hanna looked at Mei like she said something outrageous.

“Huh, rude.” Mei quipped. “Maybe he’s worried his bed is uncomfortable or something. It is a lot firmer than the standard issue cots, but I don’t mind it.”

Hanna almost spit her food out at that.

“Wait, wait, wait. Why are you talking about his bed? I Are you…?”

“Julius and I have shared a bed since returning to Tolin, I’m sure we submitted the proper fraternization waiver form.”

Hanna swiveled in her chair and pleaded for help with her eyes.

“I knew about that,” I admitted, “Dell fast tracked the forms to me and I signed them myself. It’s in their personnel files.”

“How come I’m like the last one to find out!” Hanna wailed, “I thought we were friends, Mei.”

“We are friends, though?” she responded with a confused look.

“Celestials above, the Commander and Empress’ relationship is so cutesy and innocent that I’ve been starving for some drama. Please tell me you and Julius have made some progress, you’re sharing a bed for Goddesses’ sake.”

“What do you mean by progress? Julius and I have nightly relations if that is—”

I choked on my drink and quickly stood to leave.

“Alrighty that’s enough for me, gotta go, have fun you two, bye!”

As much as I wanted to hear that my good pal Julius was getting along well with his new girlfriend, I didn’t actually want to hear about it.

Nightly relations…

You dog, Julius.

I headed straight to the command tent to seek out Hailey, as I knew if I didn’t there would be hell to pay later.

Our encampment was bustling. I suspected that the rest of the Aestori Core had arrived and my suspicions were confirmed a few rows down when I spotted the elven siege weaponry being assembled.

Massive composites of silver aspen timber and intricately assembled metalwork. The ballistae were effective enormous crossbows that shot raw magicka instead of metal bolts.

Unless a building was made up of the magick-immune red granite of the old empire a single ballista could burst the sturdiest of walls in a few blasts.

Deployed at scale and a defensive wall wouldn’t last a volley. That’s what we were hoping for at least.

We weren’t sure what level of historical records Renault had access to, so we couldn’t be sure if they were fully aware of the power these had. Our Republic had definitely maintained records of the elven variants—going so far as to try and recreate our own.

Axio likely had a large number of bolt throwers available but their range and power were lacking.

The Renaultians would’ve seized these for sure— recent scouting reports would probably confirm that. But it didn’t matter. Our camp was out of their range and Axio was within ours.

Watching the ballistae being set up gave me a satisfying sense of confidence, but I had some new questions about what else the elves were setting up. Among the many siege machines were three gigantic levitating metal wagons. Each had massive stone obelisks lying on them, strapped down with thick leather bindings.

I reached Command and was greeted with chaos.

Hailey was equal parts relieved I was finally awake and pissed that I’d jumped into the battlefield without so much as a warning.

Julius tossed a few snide remarks about how he had to manage the camp while I got to ‘rest’.

And the many officers inside nearly all abandoned their post to ask me what kind of magicks I’d been using to deal with the void-beasts they had so much trouble with.

Julius shut them down quickly, freeing me and getting everyone back to work.

Hailey guided me out of the tent, practically pushing me, “You just woke up from a two day coma. You’re dehydrated and still getting over a fever. I demand you rest!”

“I feel fine, Hails. I don’t have a fever.”

She tip-toed to place her forehead against mine, “I say you do, we’re going to rest.”

“That’s not how you check for a fever, though?”

“Come on!” she huffed.

“Okay, okay.”

I laughed at how hard she was trying to keep me from working. We had a thousand things to do and were in the middle of a battlefield but I was being treated like a child.

“Oh, by the way,” I pointed to the stone-laden metal wagons, “What are those big stone pillars the Aestori brought with them? Projectiles for the ballistae?”

“Runestones, according to Aisling and her crew of artificers.” she answered, not sounding too sure herself.

“Like the ones we use power magi-tools? Those are some big runestones.”

My gaze lingered on the artificer teams setting up the equipment. It looked like one of the wagons was being moved out of position.

“What are they gonna do with them?” I asked.

“Aisling said once all three are set up in the right spots we’ll be able to effectively remove the Renaultian defenses completely. They can cast some kind of siege magick like the ballistae but at a much grander scale.”

Hmmm. I don’t think we had anything like that written in the old records.

When we were almost to my quarters the camp’s alarm began to sound, differently than the one two days ago. It wasn’t the call for an incoming enemy.

It was the alarm call for enemies that had already breached the perimeter used primarily for flying monsters that took a camp by surprise.

Shadowy figures appeared all around Hailey and me. There were twenty of them in total, or at least that I could see. My PERCEPTION wasn’t high enough to see through high-level STEALTH abilities.

The attackers wore black leather armor with no identifying markers but it seemed unlikely they were affiliated with a party other than the Renaultians.

“Sorry, Hails. I don’t think we’re gonna get any rest after all.”

I quickly inspected the lot of them but gleamed no helpful data. They were all marked as HIDDEN in their statuses.

Drawing my weapon, I goaded the assassins on, “Whatever you fools are going to do, give it your best shot because I won’t give you a second try if you come within my blade’s range.”

Hailey sighed beside me and muttered under her breath, “We’re doing one-liners now?”

She brought her staff to bear out in front of her. It flared an orange light from the empty socket that had once held Ignicorus’ gemstone egg.

And nothing happened.

She hadn’t cast an offensive spell and I had no notification that she’d cast a support-type spell, at least not one that affected me.

“Hails?”

“Just… Wait for it? I guess?”

Wait for what?

The assassins closed in, lunging at us. Their aim was precise, directed at our vitals.

I parried a dagger inches away from my throat, overpowering the strike and parting the attacker from their arm.

“Hails!” I cried out, blocking an attacker from striking her back, “Watch out! If you can find an out, disengage and get help.”

“I already called for help, they’re just running late!”

What is she talking abo—

My focus was disrupted by another close call, a short blade aiming for my neck again. I barely moved my head out of the way.

I countered with a WILD STRIKE, removing another assassin from battle.

“Try something new!” I called out in a challenge.

An assassin jumped back from me, joining with another of them. Then he did something I didn’t expect. He tapped his buddy on the shoulder and pulled his mask down to reveal his mouth, “What in the hells is that thing? Some giant firefly?”

Firefly? What in the Aether did he just call me?

Dáinsleif’s flames roared in response.

“You wanna call me a firefly I’ll show you a firefly!”

I rushed at them but was forced to retreat immediately. A flurry of fireballs began to rain down from the sky all around us and I cursed my tongue.

I didn’t mean it, really! I’d prefer you just keep letting me get free hits in. Call me a firefly all you want!

Only after the firestorm ceased did I realize none of the fiery spheres were aimed at Hailey or me.

All of the remaining assassins were lying on the ground as smoldering piles of charred remains and ashes.

Notifications filled the bottom corner of my vision, indicating the battle was in fact over.

» YOU HAVE GAINED IN POWER, YOUR ATTRIBUTES HAVE INCREASED:

» PERCEPTION HAS INCREASED TO 41

» REFLEX HAS INCREASED TO 47

“Uhhh…” I glanced back at Hailey, “That wasn’t me that time. I know I did a big fire show with the void-beast things, but those weren’t mine.”

“Yeah, I know. My help finally arrived.”