"Neither did I, not until today. Imperial avengers, the bladesingers called them. Like bladesingers, but rather than chanting runes and wearing armour and weapons, with avengers, it’s a part of them. The power is sculpted into their bodies."
"How can such a thing exist? Lore on living flesh… It should kill them. As soon as the essence touches the skin…"
"That’s the thing. I don’t understand it really, but they say the runes never touch their flesh, just the bits of metal and cloth melded to their bodies."
Miro shuddered. "I can’t believe anyone would make such a thing, do such a thing to a person."
"Believe it," said Bartolo. "There’s worse to come."
~
RONELL lingered on the cusp of death for days. Miro constantly hovered outside the makeshift infirmary, where the battle surgeon practised his grisly art, hacking at torn flesh and hoping for the best.
The cold and wet continued with water getting into everything. The essence cost to use heatplates was considered too high, so they supped on cold rations, anything to fill stomachs and keep their strength up.
Prince Leopold made a speech, saying they’d won a great victory, evidently expecting an improvement to morale, but the horrors of the battle were too fresh. The Alturans screamed in their sleep and spoke of grotesque monsters running through the streets of Sarostar, plunging their blades into woman and children. The Halrana were the worst of all, many had already lost their families to the Black Army. And so the army stayed in their forest camp, constantly on edge, waiting for news from outside.
Miro and Bartolo noticed a definite change in the bladesingers’ attitude towards them. Perhaps the bladesingers felt the recruits had been tested in fire. Both of the young warriors made firm resolutions to improve on their skills, and spent much of their time using each other for practise, sharing their strengths and learning from weaknesses. It brought Miro and Bartolo closer together, but Miro couldn’t shake a feeling of guilt when he thought about Ronell.
Then, one cold morning, Miro woke to find Bartolo looking down at him, a strange expression on his face.
"I thought you should know," Bartolo said. "Ronell… He’s awake."
Miro leapt up.
"Miro," said Bartolo. "I don’t think you should..."
Miro ran through the camp and over to the infirmary. Recognising Miro, the surgeon tried to restrain him. "You shouldn’t…"
Miro pushed past the surgeon and opened the canvas with a sweep of his arm. He pulled back in shock.
It was Ronell, but like no Ronell that Miro could remember. The height was the same, and the clothing. But where Ronell’s left arm had been there was nothing but a stump, covered in bandages and weeping red. Only his eyes were recognisable; the rest of his face was a mass of lines, the torn bloody skin wrinkled and monstrous.
"You," the apparition said.
Miro stopped, unable to speak.
"You. You did this to me! You!"
"Ronell, I..."
"I needed to get my breath, to say the runes. But you made me run! You could have left me but you made me run."
"Ronell, it didn’t happen like that at all. I was trying to save you."
"Save me? Save me?" a strange whine came from the man’s throat, a hoarse wheezing. "You didn’t save me. You’ve killed me! Everything that I was! Get out! Get out!"
Another surgeon arrived, trying to remove Miro from the room. Miro was shocked, unable to speak.
He turned and fled.
25
We had been out of port for eleven weeks, we were running out of food and water, and in the end the captain would go no farther. Against my arguments, we turned back for Castlemere. I still maintain that the Great Western Ocean is not endless, merely very large. Perhaps the barren islands we discovered could be used as a staging point for another mission. Perhaps the Buchalanti will answer my questions, if I ask them in the right way. I would give anything to see what is on the other side of the world.
— Toro Marossa, ‘Explorations’, Page 122, 423 Y.E.
KILLIAN opened his eyes and shivered. It was cold down here, beneath the Crystal Palace, and it didn’t help that most of his clothes had been removed.
Was this how the High Enchantress thought to help someone who had fallen into a frozen river? No roaring fires, no blankets, nothing of the sort. Instead he’d been laid out on a marble slab like some strange experiment, his lips blue and skin white.
Well, he couldn’t blame her really. She probably thought it was the cold that had stopped the essence from turning him into a disgusting mess, like that boy Ella described. It showed that these people knew nothing about essence. They didn’t know a talent such as his existed.