Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
A pause.
“Call me . . . Silvius.”
Right. “You’re putting me in a tough spot, Silvius. I’m supposed to be running away. Not running back.”
He murmurs an apology that twists into a pained moan.
He loses consciousness.
There’s no time for personal dilemma.
I haul him by his arms, puffing. “Do you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders or something?” I set him down again and cast a focused eye around the clearing. My gaze slides back to the soldiers . . . I grab some fallen branches and strip the dead—a couple of pairs of leggings, shirts, belts, cloaks.
It feels . . . strange. Disrespectful. I move quickly and efficiently, but gently, and let myself consider who these men might have been. Who might’ve been doing this—undressing their bodies—if they’d died another way. I’ve never been this close to a redcloak before. These all have the same hard, spare conditioning—strong and well-nourished but very lean. Scars, some barely healed; crusted grazes. Calloused hands. Their napes bear a wavy symbol. Strange. Strange enough that I check the others: they have it too. But perhaps all redcloaks do. The mark . . . it seems deliberate. Ceremonial. I shake off a prickling shiver. No time to play detective.
The scavenged clothing makes a sturdy stretcher and with two good rolls, the pretty eparch is lying prone atop it. I strap him in place with stolen belts, lift the two branches at one end and begin the long slog towards town.
By the time I emerge from the shadows of the trees, I’m exhausted, my palms burning, arms aching and a fine tremor vibrating through my limbs. I barely see the gangly figure running towards us in time. He’s looking over his shoulder; he doesn’t see us in his path. “Hoi!”
The boy’s head whips round and he skids to an abrupt stop. That’s when I see what he’s clutching: a bit of bread with a bite taken out. He hugs it close to his chest, and I understand.
The swish of leaves in the distance is followed by pounding footsteps.
“I g-gotta hide,” the boy says.
I’m dragging a body through the royal woods.
We share a look of unspoken understanding, and I point to a particularly dense bush. “The leaves stink, so they won’t look there too hard.”
He starts towards it and stops, coming back to help me lift the stretcher behind the putrid-smelling foliage. We tuck ourselves deep into the leaves and keep still.
A scant few seconds later, three luminists plough through the woods, their robes glowing white. When their glow is gone, I stare at the boy.
“Three? Just for a bun?”
He pulls a small box from his belt. Not any old box. It’s made of violet-oak wood, and it’s glowing. A tithiscar—a repository for pure magic. Valuable indeed. “My family’s sick,” he murmurs, clutching the bread roll tighter. “We can’t afford the vitalians’ fees. I thought . . . maybe I could trade this.”
It seems we all have dilemmas and tough choices to make. I pat his hand, take the box, and fish into Silvius’s robes for the little sack of coins I found earlier. “Take this.”
A gasping laugh comes from Silvius. So he’s conscious again.
His laugh shudders into a groan and I check his pulse; it’s growing sluggish.
I look at the boy, pleading silently.
Without a word, he takes the other end of the stretcher and together we move back out onto the path and faster through the narrow streets. But near the canal, close to home, I hear Silvius’s raw breaths—the sound of one’s last.
I halt us. No time. I squeeze my fist, summoning a spell I’m not allowed to use. But if I don’t, we won’t make it home.
The spell thrums in my palm, raw power that can give him the time we need—or ruin me. I can almost hear my father’s voice: One medius spell, and the luminists will hunt you to your grave. But what kind of healer lets a man die?
The spell pours out of me in waves of glowing blue, until a distant voice shouts. The boy yelps, but I grit my teeth and finish the spell. We have to go.
We haul Silvius, running, but soon the luminists are on our tails.
The boy lowers his end of the stretcher with a wobbly grin. “Watch this. I can help him without magic.”
Then he moves out into the light of the moon, waving his pilfered bun. He runs off with a goading laugh, and the luminists give chase.
I stare after the boy a second. Maybe we’ll meet again someday. I’ll repay him properly then.
I clutch the stretcher and labour onwards. Towards the crumbling Amuletos vitaliary, where I can find what I need to save this eparch.
But as I near, my feet drag, Silvius’s weight nothing compared to the weight in my chest.
Returning means facing my family. My father . . .