Book 8: Chapter 104: As Far As You Go |
“Let’s go.”
His voice was so different now. Not only because it had grown deeper and more mature over the years, but mostly because of the certainty it now carried. It made her feel as if he had a plan for everything, as if there was a contingency for every eventuality, a backup for each plan.
She matched his stride without even asking where they were going. And all the while, Viola’s gaze remained fixed on the young man walking in front of her.
This was definitely not the Zeke she remembered. The sometimes timid, lonely kid she had met all those years ago had vanished. However, that didn’t mean this new Zeke was a stranger to her either. Instead, the fact that he had shed his insecurities had only brought to light the qualities that had been present beneath the surface. Qualities that Viola had known to be there all along.
Intelligence. Decisiveness. Boldness. Charm.
But even to her, who had likely been closer to him than anybody else during those days, the depths of his true abilities still came as a surprise.
First and foremost, his wit. She had known him to be clever, sometimes even displaying the first signs of academic brilliance, but what she witnessed today went even beyond that.
Viola knew better than anyone what Zeke had showcased here today. This spell, this magic, these creatures… That wasn’t something he had learned from a spellbook. It wasn’t some sort of legacy that old Maximilian had passed down to him either. No. This was something else entirely.
Original Magic.
But how did that compare to what Zeke had done?
His Magic was wholly original. Honestly, even now, and even after getting an explanation from him, she still hadn’t the first clue how any of it worked. How many Concepts did he have to combine to make something like this possible? Three? Five? …More?
The longer she looked at the horrifying swarm of creatures, the less she understood. Zeke had said that they were nothing but potential energy given form. However, that couldn’t be completely true. It was obvious at even a glance that these… things… had some form of intelligence. They could adapt. They could learn. And the rate of their improvement wasn’t slow either.
The evolution from bumbling fools to fearsome warriors had happened in minutes.
Viola stopped. She had walked into something solid.
She looked up quickly and found that she had been so consumed by her thoughts that she had missed the moment Zeke had halted, walking straight into his back.
Curious about why he had stopped, she peeked around him… and froze.
In front of them was another batch of corpses. Those of the squad of Greycloaks who had just been killed. Viola hoped she wouldn’t find any faces she recognized. But how would that be possible? After years and months of living together, there were very few people she didn’t at least know in passing.
The first person she recognized was Sergeant Manuel, the quiet book lover, whose throat had been opened by a savage claw strike. Then, there was Steffan, the boastful patriot, whose heart had been pierced from behind. And, in the center of the pile, Captain Nikel, one of the more compassionate ones among the captains. His entire body was a patchwork of cuts and scrapes.
“…Someone you recognize?” Zeke asked from beside her. He must have noticed her reaction. Still, there was no particular inflection in his voice, no consolation.
Viola nodded. There was a moment of silence between them before she spoke again. “Did they really have to die?”
Zeke lowered his head for a moment, looking at the corpses at his feet. It felt to Viola not as if he was searching for an answer, but more like he was inspecting them for parts.
“Viola.”
“…Yes?”
“Did you forget that you are the invaders in all of this?” he asked. “If you really wanted the killing to stop, all you’d have to do is leave. Go back to the Empire, and you have my word that nobody will come after you.”
That froze the words on Viola’s lips. Right. The past few months of relative peace had almost made her forget who she was, and where they were. Zeke wasn’t the invader. They were.
“…You break into somebody’s house, murder their children, steal their wealth, and then complain when they dare to fight back. Do you know how that sounds? Do you know what that makes you?”
Hypocrites. The worst kind. Zeke didn’t have to say it. Viola knew it herself. She didn’t have any right to complain. Not even the slightest. Logically, she really hadn’t. But did that mean that she wouldn’t feel anything when seeing people she knew, people she had spoken to, people she had slept next to and broken bread with, dead on the ground?
Wouldn’t that make her something even worse than a hypocrite?
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“I just…” she sighed. “wish there was a better way…”
Zeke looked at her, his eyes seemingly searching for something in hers. Though if he found it, she couldn’t say.
“Naive,” he said after a moment. “But I suppose that’s not the worst quality to have.”
Was… was that supposed to be a compliment? Viola wanted to complain, to give him a piece of her mind, but before she could, Zeke had already closed his eyes again. She knew what it meant. He was once again going to use his original Magic to summon more members of his nightmare swarm.
Which meant… more acquaintances would die.
For a fleeting instance, the thought of stopping him popped into her mind. Her hand even twitched upward before she could rein it in, the wind already forming into a blade. But ultimately, she didn’t do anything.
One part of it was fear. This new Zeke wasn’t soft-hearted enough to spare her if she attacked him from behind, and she didn’t have the least bit of confidence that she could defeat him in a single strike.
The bigger part, however, was that she absolutely refused to abuse his trust like that. He had shown her his back not out of negligence, but out of appreciation for their shared past. Even if she decided to fight him in the end, it would be after a proper warning.
That was the way of the nobility. That was the way of the Windtänzer. Even in defeat, they would rather lose their lives than their honor. It was one of the few lessons her grandfather had taught her that truly stuck, one of the few she wholeheartedly agreed with.
A moment later, exactly fifty new creatures joined Zeke’s little army, the exact number of a Greycloak squad.
Viola marveled once again at how nonchalant Zeke looked doing it. However his Magic worked, summoning almost a thousand of these creatures didn’t seem to drain him at all. Was that what it meant to have a perfect affinity? Or maybe he was just excellent at hiding the strain?
“This is as far as you go.”
The words caught her off guard. Zeke, who had been walking ahead of her the entire time, had suddenly turned to face her.
“…What do you mean?” she asked, sensing something ominous from his tone.
“You can’t continue to follow me anymore,” he clarified.
Viola frowned. “You’re sending me away? Why? Afraid I might stab you in the back?”
Zeke smiled at that. It was a warm smile, as if her taunting words had made him inexplicably happy.
“I know you won’t,” he said after a moment. “That’s why you have to go.”
“I don’t follow.”
“My little army,” he said, sweeping his hand to point out the different formations of Blood creatures that were shielding the defensive line in all directions, “is more than meets the eye. Honestly, if anybody knew what they are capable of, they would never have let me create this many.”
“…What they’re… capable of?” Viola echoed, the bad feeling in her chest growing stronger. “Zeke, you’re scaring me. What is going to happen?”
Zeke shrugged. Though the gesture seemed casual, Viola could tell that what he was about to say wasn’t something that had come easily to him.
“My barrier has fallen,” he said, pointing to the region where the dampening field used to be. “My ship is in tatters.” He pointed upward to the flying fortress that was now barely able to contend with the fleet of destroyers. “And my chain of command is broken.”
Zeke tilted his head back, staring into the vastness of the open sky as he asked his next question to seemingly nobody in particular. “As the highest-ranking officer on the field, what do you think I should do in this situation?”
Viola gritted her teeth. She had studied the Legion handbook often enough to know the answer to this question, though she was reluctant to say it.
“Escape,” she forced the word out eventually. “You should leave your troops behind and escape. Use them to buy time if you have to, but the highest-ranking officer is not allowed to fall.”
Zeke didn’t look at her, but a small smile emerged on his face. “How… practical. I wonder who came up with that strategy. From the sound of it, it was somebody who had absolutely no faith in their subordinates…. Or leaders, for that matter.”
Viola felt inexplicably drawn in. She felt as if she could learn something crucial just by listening, as if Zeke was just about to tell her an important secret.
“The right move,” he continued dramatically, finally averting his eyes from the sky and looking right at her. “Is to take on the burden caused by your lacking subordinates.”
Viola’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “…What?”
Zeke seemed to find a great amount of joy in her expression, smiling a little brighter. “When your subordinates mess up, you, as the boss, naturally have to take responsibility. Isn’t that right?”
“Zeke… that… How could you…”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked before she could finish. “Our barrier has fallen. So I will become the new barrier. We have lost the skies, so I will reclaim them. As for my broken chain of command? I will simply have to take command myself, won’t I?”
Viola looked at him, unsure what to make of these grandiose claims. From anyone else, she would have expected it to be mere bluster, but after everything she had seen today, she didn’t dare treat this man the same way.
“When I asked you earlier, you said you were no match for an Archmage,” she said instead. “How do you expect to face an entire army led by so many?”
Zeke grinned. “That’s not what I said, was it? I told you I couldn’t win, but stalling them was possible.”
Viola rolled her eyes. “Do you really think that distinction makes any difference in this situation?”
Zeke nodded seriously, as if he hadn’t heard the obvious sarcasm in her remark. “It makes all the difference in the world. You see, I don’t have any intention of winning. All I have to do is stall.”
“Do you hear yourself?!” Viola asked, a bit of heat creeping into her voice. “That’s an army, Zeke. Not a single Mage.”
He shrugged. “I never said I could only stall one. Besides… I am hardly alone, am I?”
Viola’s head began to hurt. She wasn’t even sure anymore if Zeke was serious or if this was all part of some elaborate prank. Honestly, if not for the seriousness of the situation, she would have bet good money on the latter being true.
“Point is,” Zeke continued when she didn’t say anything for a while, “I am soon going to become the most hunted man on this battlefield. That means you’ll also no longer have the luxury of standing by and doing nothing.”
Viola suddenly perked up again. After all the nonsense, she had almost forgotten why Zeke had brought all of this up in the first place.
“You’re saying I have to leave for my own safety?”
Zeke smiled at her, though it was a sad smile. “Afraid not. Even with your high standing, you’d be hard-pressed to escape treason charges after what I am about to do.”
“So… what? Is this where you convince me to join your side? With that lame argument?” Viola made no attempt to hide the scorn in her voice. Though she didn’t know the circumstances that had led Zeke to turn traitor, she wasn’t about to turn her back on her entire family and everyone she had ever known.
Unexpectedly, he shook his head. “You misunderstand. I have no intention of taking you with me. The chance of you being compromised in some manner is far too high.”
“Then… what?”
Zeke grinned. “You’ll have to try and take me out to prove your loyalty.”
“You… are you kidding!?”
Instead of an answer, a lance of blood struck the ground between her feet. It had been so fast that Viola didn’t even have time to move before it had already landed.
She had been wrong this time. Zeke truly was not trying to recruit her. This strike had been a warning. The next one would not be. Finally, the reality of the situation dawned on her.
There was going to be a fight, whether she wanted it or not.
