Zanasha's hands flew to her mouth in a timeless maidenly gesture; instantly, her stern eyes melted and filled with tears. Topher couldn't keep a grin from spreading across his face; his heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt as big as a giant. He heard a gasp from behind him, followed by a chuckle from Quint's direction -- I knew that asshole was faking -- and he watched with breathless anticipation as Zanasha inhaled and opened her mouth to answer.

Then, unexpectedly, he saw something strange wash through her eyes -- a river of complex, shifting emotion he couldn't identify -- and, as he stared in adoration, he watched her compose herself. She swallowed, let out a long, slow breath, and looked down at him with an expression he couldn't read -- part happiness, part anticipation, and part fear. Well, it makes sense she'd be nervous too, he acknowledged to himself, trying to hold on to his confidence and elation; and so, when she held out her left hand with her fingers extended a moment later, he shook off his apprehension and gently slid the ring onto her hand with as much solemn ceremony as he could muster.

As he finished, she gently took hold of his wrist and helped him up; he could see that her eyes were shining, full of tears, but still clouded by something unfathomable and complex. "You honor me," she murmured, her voice thick with feeling; a smile played around her lips, like a fluttering bird, but the muscles of her neck were strangely taut.

"You honor me," he demurred in return -- he didn't know why he said it, but it just felt right. His heart was full of love and tenderness and hope for the future, swelling so powerfully it threatened to daze him.

And so it was a cruel and unwelcome surprise when, without any warning whatsoever, she punched him directly in the face with overpowering force.

The blow punched through his Arch Shielding as though it wasn't even there; the impact was like catching a freight train directly on his right cheek, and he found himself flying through the air with no understanding or comprehension of what was happening until he slammed with breathtaking violence into the wall behind him. The counterforce knocked the air from his lungs; he was vaguely conscious of stone crumpling around him as he cracked into the masonry with enough momentum to break halfway through the wall, and he slumped bonelessly to the floor and landed on his knees, gasping for breath. His face and back ached powerfully; he didn't understand, couldn't understand.

He looked up, trying to squint through the pain and incipient swelling to see her -- to try to figure out what he'd done wrong -- but she was already gone, her flaming red hair disappearing into the same door Zashe and Rudo had passed through earlier. He tried to call after her, but there was no air in his lungs -- a cough escaped him, but that was all. Collapsing onto all fours, he panted for breath as agony bloomed throughout his body; he heard a sharp, pained exclamation, followed by two stuttering steps. Then, with a sigh, someone came and crouched next to him. "Bailey-sama. Bailey-sama, can you hear me?"

"Unfortunately," Topher managed in return, spitting a stream of blood onto the floor; it felt like half his teeth were about to fall out. "She coulda just said 'no', though."

Gently, he felt Hana helping to ease him back against the wall, but he was too heavy; he fell, numbly, onto his left side and stared at the swirl of blurriness around him. She broke my glasses, he realized; without thinking, he reached out a hand and used Attract Object to summon them from wherever they were, then stared at them in addled confusion. Keeps getting easier. Why can't everything get easier like this?

Something hard knocked against his teeth, shocking him out of his reverie; with a start, he realized Hana was trying to give him a healing potion. He shook his head, pushing her hands away carefully. "Save it. I'm all right. I'll heal." With tremendous difficulty, he managed to lever himself up to a better sitting position; his head swam, and his vision was so worthless he thought he might be blinded; it was only after a moment that he realized it was because his eyes were full of tears.

"Bailey-sama," said Hana a moment later, her voice raw and intense, "please forgive me for asking, but I do not understand your reasoning. What," -- and here her tone degenerated into incredulous anger -- "made you think that would be a good idea?!"

Topher gestured helplessly, his body feeling boneless under the crushing weight of this most painful of rejections. "I thought..." he mumbled, "I thought we had an understanding. That you were giving me your, uh, your permission."

"My permission to date her!" Hana fumed, her hands clenched into fists. "Not to propose marriage! I was just telling you my feelings!" She raised her gaze to the ceiling in exasperation. "Men!"

"Oh." Topher stared at the floor; he knew he needed to fix his glasses, but at this moment, there was nothing he particularly cared to look at. "D'you think that's why she did that?"

Hana sucked in a breath, squeaked slightly, and let it out with great deliberation. "Bailey-sama, I don't know why she struck you." After a moment, a hint of fire entered her voice again. "But I can't say I'm sorry she did it." There was a short pause, then he heard her stand up. "I'm going after her," Hana announced, pausing as if she expected him to countermand her; but he just sat there, his face and body aching. After a moment, he heard her swift and well-cadenced footsteps retreating; then he was alone.

Well, almost alone.

"You can stop pretending to be asleep now," he muttered to Quint; the Archmage shifted slightly and let out a sigh.

"Not something I would have preferred to eavesdrop upon," the Archmage returned dryly, "But I don't seem to be in any shape to leave."

"Cut the crap." Topher squeezed his eyes shut. "You could have teleported yourself back to your tower at any time. You're just fucking nosy."

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

There was a moment of silence, then he heard the rasp of fabric upon stone; glancing up, he saw the blurry shape of Quint's body drag itself up on one elbow and peer in his direction. "You cracked my wall," the Archmage commented after a moment. "I just rebuilt this castle, you know."

"Yeah, well, we're just lucky she didn't knock me clean through it." Topher sighed, raising his broken and twisted glasses; he started to calculate the runes for Mending, stumbled, lost the will to continue, and let them drop again. "I don't understand. I was so sure..."

"You will forgive my presumption," Quint replied, grunting slightly with effort as he levered himself up to a sitting position, "but in my opinion, if you could not anticipate such a turn of events, then perhaps you do not know the young lady well enough to contemplate matrimony just yet."

Topher looked away, feeling like his heart had been replaced with a brick of lead. "I know. I wanted to take my time too, but... I thought, with the True Demon Lord..." he lost the thread of what he was saying and fell silent. "Look at us. Some heroes we are."

"Heroes?" Even though Topher could barely make out Quint's form, he could tell the bearded man was cocking his head to one side. "Dear boy, what ever made you think we were heroes?"

"Right." He closed his eyes again. "Sorry. I just thought maybe after almost getting killed trying to do the right thing this many times..." he trailed off again. "But I guess Kalphegor might feel differently." And Vashyarl. And Brox. And Noboru. He felt transfixed, enervated to the floor by despair.

"We," managed Quint, breathing heavily and making loud scuffling sounds -- Topher realized he must be dragging himself across the floor -- "are... the privileged... Topher Bailey; the aristocrats... and decision-makers... for whose objectives.... the common folk... suffer and die." He panted for air as he struggled nearer. "We do not... deserve... happy endings." Then a hand closed around Topher's ankle, and he was elsewhere.

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

"What I can't figure out," said Topher later, as he carefully eased his Metaphrastic self-image back onto his existing biology and re-anchored his nine loosened teeth, "is why she let me put the ring on before she clobbered me. I mean, talk about mixed messages."

Quint, now propped up in a chair in his tower's study, raised his glass of chocolate milk to Topher in an ironic salute. "You see now why most mages dedicate themselves to the study of the complexities of the arcane, my friend," he commented, taking a long and luxurious sip. "Compared to the mysteries of womankind, it is clearly the easier choice."

Topher shook his head despairingly; Quint had repaired his glasses for him, but his face still hurt like he'd plunged it into a hive of angry bees, and the motion sent a swelling of pain and slight nausea through him. "That's not really an option for me, pal. This mage stuff is great and all, but I'd give it all up in a minute if it meant she'd have said 'yes' back there."

"Would you?" Quint raised an eyebrow; he wiggled the stump of his missing leg at Topher meaningfully.

Topher opened his mouth to reply, paused, and shut it again; he thought very hard for a second or two. "If you'd asked me twenty minutes ago, I would have cheerfully volunteered to give up all my limbs. But now I don't know where I stand." He rubbed his face wearily. "And to be honest, I don't really like what that says about me."

"It says," Quint opined, "that you have at least some quantities of both self-awareness and self-respect, which is a good sign for the future of our world." He took another sip of chocolate milk, swallowed with a dreamy expression, then sighed. "But if the action was out of character for her, what is more likely -- that she abruptly reconsidered her feelings for you, or that there is information you lack which would put her actions into a different light once recontextualized?"

"You're forgetting to act stupid again," Topher pointed out with ill grace. He pinched the bridge of his nose, sucked in a shuddering breath, then nestled his repaired glasses on his face once more. Wonder why I can fix my teeth, but not my eyes?

The Archmage shrugged. "If I had wisdom to impart, be assured that I would." He shifted, trying to get comfortable; it was clear that the stump of his severed limb pained him, but he made no complaint. "In any case, you have no shortage of other matters to occupy your attention; what will you do now?"

"Me?" Topher snorted. "Who the fuck cares about me? Just because I managed not to instantly explode back there doesn't mean I suddenly got all good at strategy or whatever." He ran his fingernails through his beard in agitation. "I mostly just want to crawl into a hole and pull it in after me, but even I know that won't help anything."

"Understandable," murmured the older man, his eyes haunted; Topher winced. Right.

He sighed; took a long moment to gather what little resolve he still possessed. Then, with difficulty, he sat up and faced the Archmage squarely. "I'm sorry, Quint. You're dealing with a lot more than me, and you're not bitching about it. So let's focus on something useful." He folded his hands in his lap and looked up at the other man. "Tell me how I can help."

"I am loath to ask more of you," the other man returned glumly. "You have already been treated most cruelly at every turn, and have suffered terribly and selflessly on behalf of our kingdom and our world. By rights, I should be showering you with honors and rewards -- if not bestowing upon you a significant portion of the kingdom -- and leaving you in peace for the rest of your days." He contemplated his half-empty glass of chocolate milk with an expression of deep sorrow. "I should be equal to this task. We should be equal to this task."

Topher sighed. "Skipping over the part where you were probably barely clinging to sanity after what happened at the battle, you're also allowed a little time to process getting ripped apart and nearly dying." Awkwardly, he patted the other man's shoulder. "You're still a human being, Quint. I might be a stupid asshole, but even I know you have feelings just like anybody else. So just get on with it and tell me what you need me to do."

There was a long pause; then the Archmage bestirred himself as though his bones were made of something heavy and brittle. "In short, our situation is worse than ever. The four nations -- excuse me, five nations -- are at the brink of collapse, and there is no being or organization capable of preventing the anarchy which will soon engulf us all once the outcome of the battle becomes more widely known. If, by some miracle, our civilization survives, it will face the prospect of a Dungeon Break of unimaginable proportions soon afterwards; and all of this is the best-case scenario wherein the True Demon Lord does not finish the job he started before any of that becomes relevant."

"Right, whole world triple fucked, got it," Topher agreed, "but that doesn't answer my question." He crouched down next to Quint, looking the older man in the eyes with as much calm as he could muster. "Tell me what you need me to do. There's a lot we can't affect right now, so let's focus on what we can."

Quint looked away, swallowing nervously. "It is insane. It is suicidal and foolhardy."

Topher snorted, remembering his solo assault on the dungeon beneath Wanbourne. "That's a Tuesday for me, buddy. Stop stalling and get it over with."

Quint, looking tormented, closed his eyes and nodded. "Sora Sugimoto is missing; the Demon Queen can hardly be relied upon, even while our interests align. All the remaining Otherworlders have been killed or fled. But, while you remain, our hopes rest with you; the purpose for which you were Summoned has not changed."

Topher blinked. "Excuse me?"

Quint nodded, his expression bleak. "I need you to stop the True Demon Lord."