"Ow." I said weakly. "Remind me never to do that again." My head felt like jelly. I thought it had been a few more minutes since the shield fell, but I couldn't really keep track of time. Benny still had a hand on my shoulder, and now that I wasn't holding up the shield the Spiritual Calming was helping a lot more, actually repairing the strain instead of offsetting it.

"Oh trust me." Said a furious voice. "I will." I froze, eyes snapping open as I looked up at the viciously glaring form of my girlfriend.

"Hey, honey." I said nervously. "I just got done helping with the defenses safely from behind a pair of guards. You know, all safe-like."

"Really?" She hissed. "Because it FELT like you just got finished nearly collapsing your soul in an attempt to bear the brunt of a massive soul weight. One I had to help you with just to keep you alive, and one so crushing you very nearly destroyed your entire being."

I could have ignored the anger. But the quaver of fear in her voice broke my heart. "I..." I searched for words. "I screwed up, both here and on the plan. I figured helping defend the place could make it right. I didn't realize how much it would take to do it until I'd already started, and my options were take the pain or drop the shield and let you all get hurt. I'm sorry. I should have thought about how you would feel."

"You should-" She hissed angrily. "Have worried about your own damned LIFE, Shane. Being stupid and reckless with your body is one thing, Jessie can heal that most of the time. Being stupid and reckless with your SOUL is something else." Her eyes started to swim, tears rolling down her cheeks, and I flinched. Callie crying was the most heartbreaking thing I'd ever seen. She NEVER cried, especially not out in the open. I felt like someone was tearing my heart out.

She felt it too, because her face crumpled as she slumped down on where I was laying and started straight up bawling. "I could FEEL it." She sobbed. "FEEL your pain and fear. The whole time. Most of the other times you were in trouble the bond fried. This was...it was awful Shane. It felt like you were dying. Like I was dying. Please don't ever do that to me again. Don't EVER scare me like that."

I put my arms around her and just held her, feeling like I couldn't have fucked this up any worse if I'd been trying. Tonight had been a rollercoaster. Infiltration had gone well, then I fucked up and didn't account for one of the locals slipping away, then the shield had been helpful, but I terrorized my girlfriend by accident. I wasn't even sure what to feel anymore. Was I supposed to be happy about my victories? Guilty? I was mostly the latter honestly.

Looking around, I heard nothing, seeing the explosions and manifestations had stopped. "Did they get the defenses running again?" I asked the night at large, not willing to pull away from my crying girlfriend to check personally when she was this upset.

Callie, as a rule, was not a weepy or easily shaken person. I HAD seen her cry, usually about personal emotional topics we discussed in private. This was a whole different thing. I was worried I'd subjected her to something horrible. The pain had been brain melting for me, but arguably worse for her, because she was feeling how I reacted to it, on top of being in agony herself from her portion of the weight.

"Yeah, they got it done." Said the surprisingly gentle voice of Abel. "The princess is consulting with her guards about possible reinforcements, and your cousin is keeping the new hires at bay while you two get your heads in order. Figured you might need a minute. That sounded like a bad one, kid. I've been through some shit, but hearing you scream like that was...unsettling."

I winced. If ABEL had been worried, I must have sounded horrible. "Yeah...it's been universally agreed I kind of fucked up there. I think I miscalculated the strain because of the weakening from Afterburner." Because I HAD. I hadn't expected it to be quite that awful. I'd reverted to reacting instead of acting. Which was fine, you couldn't always have the initiative, but I hadn't thought it through. I'd reacted on instinct, and mine weren't great yet.

"How are the defenses holding up?" I ask after a few minutes, when Callie and I both calmed down enough to sit up. Benny had stepped back, and my head was...not great, but working at least.

"Not bad." Said Abel casually. "There's an exclusion field apparently, first thing that happened was every member of the enemy force was covered with hives. Helped most of them were poisoned already. That damned shield did a number on everyone who tried to get through. Even after it came down they were all in serious pain. Not bad kid."

Callie's leg lashed out, slamming into his shin hard enough to make him wince. "DO NOT." She snarled. "Encourage him. There were other options. We could have all curled up in the bubble shield or something. We bought defenses for a reason."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I held up my hands in surrender. "Whoa. You're right, just breathe, love. I was hoping to save those for when we were out in the wilderness finding ruins. I realize that lagging on my decisions for some undetermined future moment isn't exactly a brilliant call. I'll do better next time."

She grabbed my coat, wiping her eyes with it and glaring as if daring me to complain, then stood up and hauled me to my feet. The she took a long, soothing breath, and nodded. "Alright. I'm good. We can go meet up with the others. And..." She looked at our teacher. "Thanks Abel. I appreciate you covering for us."

He just shrugged, obviously not interested in talking about it. As we climbed to our feet (me unshakily) I looked at Callie. "How did recon go. How many were there? Were you able to pick them up in time?"

She nodded, surreptitiously slipping close enough to tuck herself under my arm. She made it look affectionate, but I could tell she was trying to help keep me from wobbling. I hoped she could feel the gratitude and affection through the bond. "It was easy enough." She said simply. "There were about thirty of them. Thankfully most of them were either peak G-rank or early F-rank, so holding them back wasn't too much trouble."

That sounded like a sanitized version of events, but since they hadn't mentioned any casualties I wasn't complaining. Abel cut in. "Once the exclusion field got them out a shield went up. Some huge barrier that can somehow tell who is and isn't a Ladrigan loyalist. The enchantments here are peak F-rank, maybe even half step E-rank, as they call it. We were damned lucky to get them back up."

"This is true." Said the pleased voice of Anna-Marie as she approached with Amaya. "That shield was brilliantly done, Solomon. We couldn't have held this place without you. It's so old I'd never heard that it used to be one of ours. Lucky we discovered it."

"How did they lose it if the enchantments are so strong?" I asked cautiously. I didn't want to find out the hard way there was some kind of secret back door that was going to screw us.

Amaya grimaced. "Probably the same way any of us lose them. They drowned it in bodies. The core isn't a great place for long term occupation. The awakening is ironically the best time, because the saturation of forces means all the old garrisons are being retaken. Committing too many men to a single assault is pointless when you're just taking one of a thousand fortresses. We got in early and your plan let us take advantage of a gap in their awareness, I doubt it will be so easy going forward."

Anna-Marie nodded. "And despite the personalized enchantment style of the various kingdoms, my enchanters say if they get enough time to dig in the enemy CAN activate the defenses on outside fortresses. Takes serious reworking, and it's usually fixable easily enough if you can get back in. That was what the damage to this one was. Alterations by the enemy who took it in last, whenever that was."

I guessed that completely reenchanting a whole fortress would be pointless if you could just make a new one, so I could see why they just kept jailbreaking the things. Looking at Amaya, I cocked my head. "Does that mean we have actual reinforcements coming to help us hold this? Being so close to the Ladrigan access passes makes this a strategic win, right?"

She grinned, the first real smile I'd seen from the taciturn warrior. "That it is. We've already contacted Lady Salara to send more forces our way. She's speaking with the king now, we'll most likely see the army arriving soon. I take it you'll be heading out once they arrive?"

"Yes." I said firmly. "We definitely will. The longer we wait the more behind we fall. We got a bit of a head start finding the flowers so early, but we don't want to rest on our laurels."

Callie cleared her throat menacingly and I chuckled a bit. "Though of course we'll be staying here tonight no matter what. It's dark and going out on our own at night without scouting would be a stupid choice. Plus we have to talk to our new employees." And wait until tomorrow so I could finish binding the rest of them. I wasn't trusting the last four to abide by the contract just because of their buddies.

Anna-Marie beamed at me. "Well you're certainly safe here. You can have your pick of the rooms. We'll keep them clear for you when you're gone as well, so you can come back for a rest at any point. I take it you'll be searching for ruins?"

"Yeah. Wizards towers, temples, that kind of thing." I said excitedly. "We can search them for interesting artifacts or books when we find them, between finding new patches of flowers." Even Callie, bad a mood as she was in, looked thrilled at the idea of exploring ancient ruins for treasure. I should start carrying treasure chests in my spatial ring to pass her when she got mad at me.

Still supporting me, she grabbed hold of my arm and smiled at the princess. "Those rooms sound lovely if you could lead us to them. We're all tired and we could do with a nap."

Anna-Marie nodded to Amaya. "Captain. If you could take them to their rooms? I know it's a bit below your pay grade but the others are clearing out the rest of the fortress to make sure there are no traps or anything. The cleared hallways have been marked so finding a room should be simple enough."

Amaya nodded solemnly. "It would be my honor, highness." She turned to us. "Please. Follow me." She turned and strode off, and I shrugged my free arm and followed her, the rest of our party trailing after. The wolves encircled us as Randall tromped behind us, and I saw Abel slip up next to the bear, ready to help him through any doorways that would have been too small.

It didn't end up being necessary, the halls and doorways were HUGE, made for armies and not people, so he got through fine. When we reached a cleared hallway Amaya gestured us in, and all of us picked out rooms to rest in. I limped over to the bed and lay down, Callie climbing after me to curl up against me. I expected more yelling, but she just held me as I let myself finally drift off to sleep. It had been a long day.