Chapter 68: 68. Someone I Loved a Long Time Ago
They did a fantastic job of covering the first fifteen.
The forest part got there around 10:00 a.m., and the corrupted soldiers were already there, waiting in the same way that the ambushes had been following them since Riverhold.
Thirty or so fighters in the remains of capital city armor, purple seals shining through the gaps, weapons drawn and lined up across the road in a line that said "chokepoint" in every language Lucian had learned to read.
When Serenia stepped forward past the others, Marshal was already assessing the situation.
"Oh my," Serenia said, as if she were seeing something that wasn’t too awful. "That’s too bad for them."
Her staff came up, and the golden dome that came from it was not the same healing wave that she’d sent to the army. The barrier was solid.
The Golden Sanctuary barrier was a dome of light that covered the party and the front of the marching column. When the corrupted soldiers hit it at full charge, it felt like hitting a wall of compressed sunlight.
They jumped. They did not jump in a dramatic or violent way; rather, they reacted as thirty or so fighters would when confronted with a surface they did not understand, allowing themselves to be redirected by it.
Serenia wasn’t really paying attention.
She stood in the middle of the dome with one hand on her staff and the other at her side, watching the corrupted soldiers try different ways to get past a barrier they weren’t going to break.
She had the patience of someone who had seen such events happen a lot before.
"How boring," she said, not meanly.
"That barrier is stronger than my water dome," Octavia said from beside her, like a professional defensive specialist judging another.
"Significantly," Marshal agreed. Her voice sounded like someone who was changing an already high rating.
"Now then," Serenia said as she raised her staff and pointed it at the soldiers who were uselessly hammering against the golden light. "Radiant Purge."
The holy magic beam that came out of the staff was not a weapon like Marshal’s Solar Execution was. It was a huge wave of golden light that washed over all thirty corrupted soldiers at once, finding the purple seals and putting them out like a flood puts out a fire without any effort at all.
The seals were on fire. The soldiers screamed, and the sound of corruption leaving a body was apparently painful in the same way that cleaning an infected wound was painful: a short, sharp pain that made things clear.
They fell one by one, and then all at once.
After that, they stayed down. They were all alive, and the purple light was gone from their armor.
Instead of working together to attack, they were all confused and still, trying to figure out what had happened to them and where they were.
Before anyone said anything, Brother Aldric was moving through the dead soldiers with his healing staff out, looking for wounds.
"She purified thirty corrupted soldiers in ten seconds," he said, sounding like a paladin of the Light Order who was pushing the limits of their specialization. "I’ve never seen purification magic work that quickly."
"Or range," said Seraphina.
"Impossible" is a pretty strong word, Serenia said as she lowered her staff. She hadn’t worked up a sweat. "I just do what I do."
"The impossible label is usually put on by people who haven’t practiced enough." She turned to Lucian with the warm look she only gave him. "Sweetheart, I’m a healer."
"I don’t end life; I keep it alive. Remember that. The best victories have no deaths."
Lucian said, "They’re all alive," as he watched Aldric’s team help the purified soldiers get back on their feet.
"Of course they are," she said, as if it were a simple fact.
The soldiers who had been cleaned up were scared and confused, and a few of them were crying like people who had been in a dark place and were still trying to figure out how far apart the two places were.
Aldric’s healers moved through them with water and blankets and the kind, professional care of people who knew that the body and the person inside it were healing on different timelines.
Lucian saw this and thought about how Corvus used people as fuel. He thought about the towns.
He thought about the thousand people in chains at the ritual circle. They were still alive because dead people couldn’t hold a summoning.
They kept marching.
About twenty-five miles in, Marshal called a break. Lucian sat by the side of the road under a tree with a wide canopy while the army gathered around them to eat, drink, and do the maintenance work that armies need to do every so often.
Serenia came out of the army column holding a golden plate that she hadn’t had before. The food on it was arranged with the care and attention to detail of someone who had spent centuries serving people who expected the best. She sat down next to him and put the plate down between them.
She said, "You need to eat," as if he wouldn’t have thought of that on his own.
"I can usually handle that without—"
She put one finger on his lips in a soft way, like you would to stop a child from saying something that would lead the conversation in a bad direction. "Let me take care of you."
"That’s why I’m here."
He ate the food because it was good and he was really hungry. Also, arguing with Serenia about whether he needed to be taken care of was starting to feel like a project that wasn’t worth the time and effort.
He asked, "Can I ask you something?"
"Anything, my sweet boy."
"The sugar mommy thing." He looked straight at her and said, "Is it real, or do you act that way with everyone?"
The question hit differently than the teasing ones. She was quiet for a moment, like someone who had been asked something they knew the answer to and was trying to figure out how honest to be about it.
"Both," she said, and her voice went from a sweet and golden tone to a quieter, more direct one. "I thoroughly enjoy nurturing."
"Especially young people with potential, people who are becoming something real." She stopped. "You remind me of someone I loved a long time ago."
"What happened to them?"
"He died." She said it without the softening that most people do. "He died in my arms during a battle where I healed everything I could reach, but it still wasn’t enough."
"Sometimes even the best healing can’t buy time that’s run out."
The sun was slowly moving through the branches above them in arcs that looked like spots. "I’m sorry," Lucian said.
"Don’t be. That was two hundred years ago." She straightened up, her composure coming back, but not her smugness.
There was something underneath the smugness that was older and more real.
"I promised that. Not one Master will die while I’m there to stop it." She looked at him with the steady directness that her playful tone usually hid. "You won’t die tomorrow, Lucian."
"I won’t let it happen."
"That’s a big promise."
"I’ve kept bigger ones." The smile came back a little. "Besides, it’s really fun to watch you deal with the situation."
"Four women, all at different stages of their feelings for you, all trying to work together." She shook her head in a way that looked like she was fondly annoyed. "Most men would have given up because it was too hard."
"You’re handling it with more grace than you think you are."
"That’s very nice of you."
"It’s true," she said, and then she reached over and patted his hand with the deliberate warmth of someone who had decided he needed to hear it. "Each of them needs something from you."
"Glacielle needs your devotion. Marshal needs your respect. Octavia needs your acceptance. And I..." She stopped, and it was clear that the vulnerability that came through in the pause was not something she was used to. "I need to feel useful again, to protect someone who is worth protecting."
"Thanks for coming," he said.
He really meant it.
She blinked twice quickly at something in her eyes. "Oh, you’ll make this old woman cry."
She hugged him tightly, like someone who had made up their mind that this was going to happen. It was a firm, warm, completely maternal hug, and she held on for exactly as long as she wanted to before letting him go, her composure entirely restored.
"Now eat your food," she said. "We have twenty-five miles to go, and I won’t let my master march on an empty stomach."
...
The dragons found them in the mountain pass, which was either a bad move by Corvus’s advance guard or a planned chokepoint strategy. Lucian chose the latter because ten elite dragons setting up at a narrow pass was not an accident.
Each one was Level 40, and from four hundred feet below, the purple control seals on their necks were easy to see. They moved with the kind of tight coordination that set Corvus’s controlled units apart from natural predators.
The canyon walls made the sky above the marching column into a narrow strip. The dragons were using this geography on purpose, flying in circles in the small amount of airspace they had and diving down in patterns that kept the angle of attack changing all the time.
The first run of fire breath broke up the back of the column, and the second run was already on its way before the first damage had been looked at.
The staff at Serenia was up before the second run hit.
"Golden Aegis," she said in a friendly way, and the effect spread through the party like a warm current. Each person felt the golden shield, and Lucian later said it made him feel like he was standing on solid ground and nothing could touch him.
