WIEDERGEBURT Act VII: Chapter 13

The Northern Plains looked completely different from how I remembered it. As our caravan crossed the border between the Endless Desert and the Northern Plains, I could not help but gawk at the changes between now and when I was last there.

Much of the earth had been blackened and scorched. All the fields had been reduced to char. There wasn’t a tree to be seen for miles, though I did see the occasional stump. It looked like someone had mined this place for resources, then moved on after completely ruining the ecosystem.

“This is awful,” Kari muttered as she stood next to me.

“It reminds me a little of what happened on Niðavellir,” I said. “You remember how desolate that realm was when we arrived?”

Kari nodded. “I do. The Sekbeists farmed the world dry. They used up all of its resources and turned it into a place where only monsters could survive.”

Our caravan had stopped several kilometers after crossing the border between the Northern Plains and Endless Desert. Kari and I were not sitting on a wagon. We’d had enough of wagons. The two of us instead stood side by side as we gazed upon the land that had once been our home of so many years in our past lives.

Siv and Fay were standing with us. They said nothing. A little ways out, Lin was traveling alongside her mother. She and Queen Medusa struck quite the sight. They looked so similar, but Lin had a much younger appearance and smaller breasts, giving her a more youthful and innocent mien, whereas the Lamia Queen appeared regal and cold.

Footsteps echoed from behind us, but neither Kari nor I turned our heads as a petite woman who didn’t look a day over fifteen walked up.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve seen something like this?” asked Alexis.

I shook my head. “Kari and I once traveled to Niðavellir, the realm of the Dweorgs. It looked a lot like this—only worse. Much worse.”

For as much damage had been done to the environment here, I could tell there was still life. Given a few years and some care, this place could become a flourishing land once more, but Niðavellir could never go back to the way it had been. Of course, if we didn’t get rid of the Sekbeist, then this land would eventually become withered and dead just like Niðavellir had.

“So this is the Northern Plains,” Queen Medusa mumbled as she crossed her arms and stared at the landscape with perpetually narrowed eyes. “This queen is not impressed.”

Alexis rolled her eyes. “Were you not listening to our conversation just now. The Northern Plains used to be a lot prettier than this. What you see before you now is the result of those blasted Sekbeists.”

“Hmph,” Queen Medusa huffed.

“Don’t mind Momma,” said Lin. “She is merely acting unimpressed because to do less is unbefitting as a queen.”

“As expected of this queen’s daughter.” Queen Medusa nodded approvingly. “You understand this queen’s methods perfectly.”

Lin’s chest swelled in pride, and I shook my head in amusement before turning my gaze toward the rest of our caravan. A lot of these people came from the Northern Plains. Many of this land’s former residents were staring at the world around us in horror. They had only been gone for about two years, but in those two years, the place they called home had become a wasteland. It was easy to imagine how they felt.

“We need to keep moving,” I said at last. “However, our caravan is too big to move efficiently, and there is no telling what kind of danger we will run into.”

“Should we send out a scouting party to assess the situation?” asked Fay.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Nodding, I pointed to myself, Siv, and Fay. “The three of us scout the surrounding area. Our goal is to locate a village that we can stop in for a while, destroy any Sekbeists in the area, and then escort the caravan there.”

“There were a few small villages north-west of here,” Alexis told us. “I don’t know if they are still there.”

“If they are, we will find them,” I said. Then I gestured toward Siv and Fay. “Come on, you two. Let’s get going.”

“We’re right behind you,” Fay said.

The three of us took to the skies and flew off. The caravan got smaller and smaller as we ascended, until they were nothing but a bunch of dots in the distance, and then they disappeared altogether.

Much of the land below us looked the same. Scorched. Black. Abused. I didn’t know what the Sekbeist did with the world’s they destroyed, but this went beyond simply farming the place of all its resources. I had the distinct feeling the Sekbeists were destroying this realm for pleasure.

“This really does look horrible,” Fay said. “I had no idea the Sekbeist were doing this while we were gone.”

“It’s not like you could have known,” I assured her. “There’s no point in destroying the environment like this. Dead land can’t yield crops, help raise livestock, or provide anything beneficial.”

“Why do you suppose they do this?” asked Siv.

“Who knows?” I shrugged. “It could be any number of reasons. Perhaps they have no concept of self-control. Perhaps they are just monsters whose sole purpose in life is the destruction of ecosystems. I really couldn’t say.”

The conversation grew quiet after that—and not because we didn’t have something to say. A large caravan of Sekbeists were traveling in the direction of our caravan. There were at least a dozen wagons, though they looked malicious. Each wagon was black and covered in spikes. The back of every wagon was made of a cage, and within each cage were about a dozen people, a mixture of humans, beastfolk, and Lamia.

All of them had seen better days.

The people sitting within those cages looked defeated. Their bodies were twig thin and emaciated, their ribs visible beneath the rags they wore. Many of the humans and beastfolks were sitting with their legs tucked into their chests as they rocked back and forth. The Lamia were all hugging each other for comfort and support. I spotted a young girl softly sobbing into her mother’s chest—her dead mother’s chest. The woman didn’t have any wounds on her body, which meant she must have died from starvation.

That was a horrible way to go.

“Eryk…” Fay said with an imploring look on her face.

“Come on. We’re taking those Sekbeists out,” I said.

I counted about one hundred Sekbeists within this caravan. About fifty of them were Grunts, but there were twenty-five elites, a number of Beasts, and one Warlord. The Warlord looked like all the others of his kind. He was a big, hulking brute with more muscles than he knew what to do with. The black armor adorning his body was covered in crimson runes that were definitely made by Dweorg hands. His dark red eyes surrounded by darkness contained a cruelty I had come to expect from this race.

He was going first.

Shooting forward like a bolt of lightning, I created a Dragon’s Tail Ruler from the lightning element and swung. The Warlord didn’t even have time to cry out as I severed his head from his shoulders. His body was still standing as I landed on the ground, the earth cracking beneath me, and immediately pushed myself into a sprint that took me past several Grunts. Each Grunt squealed as blood spurted from gaping wounds that opened on them.

The Sekbeist began screaming.

“We’re under attack!”

“Who are these people?!”

“Who cares?! Kill them! Don’t let them take our sacrifices!”

Several Elites rushed toward me as I raised my Dragon’s Tail Ruler, increased its size by pumping more Spiritual Power into it, and swung the weapon down. The ruler was at least ten meters long now. It struck the Sekbeists over the head, sending arcs of pale lightning in all directions. Any Sekbeist standing underneath my weapon was fried before they could even figure out what was happening. The ones that weren’t in direct contact were blasted off their feet.

I picked those ones off by firing several water bullets from my hands.

Siv and Fay appeared barely a second later.

Fay landed on the ground next to a Beast, slid her feet along the ground, and punched it. There was no Spiritual Power in her attack. It was just pure brute strength, but the power her punch packed was enough to crush the creature’s side. A fist-shaped crater appeared in the Beast as it staggered away from her in surprise. Fay didn’t give it time to recover either as she took several steps forward, leapt into the air, and slammed her fist into the underside of its chin.

The Beast’s neck snapped with a sickening crack as it fell backward.

While Fay used a combination of raw power and precision to systematically destroy her opponents, Siv was all power. She had already transformed her hands into draconian claws when she landed in the middle of the Elites formation. Wind blades flew from them as she spun around and swiped her hands, tearing apart the enemies who were too close and cutting into those further out.

A pair of Sekbeist tried to flank the small woman, but she backpedaled so they couldn’t flank her, then swung her left hand from the ground up. One of the Elites was close to her, and he received her claws right in the face. Flesh tore and blood ran freely as the creature stumbled away, screaming. His screams were abruptly cut off when Siv pierced his chest with a wind blade. The other Sekbeist died when she spun around and slammed her tail into his chest. He flew through the air, struck the ground, and remained there.

His chest had become concave.

I withdrew my Spiritual Power until the Dragon’s Tail Ruler was just a meter and a half long. Wielding it with my real hand, I created another ruler in my fake hand, then began swinging both at the Sekbeists who were nearby. I removed a leg swinging one ruler and severed an arm while swinging the other. None of the Sekbeists stood a chance against us.

The battlefield was strewn with corpses before now.

“Is that all of them?” I asked, looking around as Siv and Fay walked over to me.

Siv’s hands were covered in blood, which was because her method of fighting was surprisingly violent. She was grimacing as she tried to get the blood. I took her hands in mine, channeled the water element, and slowly washed her hands. She smiled at me in thanks.

“I think it is,” Fay said.

Some of the people in cages had heard what was happening and were staring at us like they couldn’t understand what was going on. I imagine they were surprised. Sadly, I didn’t see what looked like hope in their eyes right now. They had probably had all the hope beaten out of them.

“AAAAHHHH!!”

A scream went up just as I was about to go and free everyone. I spun around to find a Sekbeist we had missed. It was an Elite. He had splotchy green skin, crimson eyes surrounded by black, and a fairly muscular body clad in obsidian mail. There was a little girl in his arms. I recognized her as the girl who had been crying into her dead mother’s chest. The Elite was holding a blade to the girl’s neck.

“Don’t move a muscle, or I’ll kill this girl!” he threatened.

It was a bit odd, but this was the first time I had ever been in a hostage situation, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I obviously wanted to save the girl. The question was how. Should I go along with his demands until he drops his guard, then attack? Should I attack now and hope I’m faster than him? No. Maybe I could save the girl that way, but I didn’t want to risk it.

While I was trying to figure out what I should do, Fay was already acting. Her Spiritual Power welled up and was expelled outward. I didn’t know what she was doing at first, but then the Sekbeist Elite’s sword became a molten orange. The Elite hissed in pain as he threw the sword away on instinct.

That was my moment.

I used the Flash Step to quickly close the distance, removed the Sekbeist’s head, and grabbed the girl before the monster’s body could hit the ground. The little girl who had been shivering in fear didn’t seem to know what was happening yet. Her eyes were wide and frightened. I also noticed how light she was, and I knew it wasn’t because she was young. I’d put her at about eight or nine, which meant she should have weighed around 25 kilograms, but she didn’t feel like she weighed more than 16 kilograms.

“You’re okay,” I said to the little girl.

She looked up at me, her eyes wide. She said nothing. I wondered if maybe she couldn’t speak, or if the situation was just too much for her.

“Poor girl,” Fay said as she walked over to us. “She’s so young, and yet she’s already been through so much.”

“Yeah…”

I kept my face calm even as my emotions ran wild. What I needed right now was to give the impression of calm and reassuring. These people didn’t need someone who would go off the rails, but someone who could lead them all to safety.

“Siv, please free all the people from these cages,” I requested.

“Mmm. You can leave that to me,” Siv said.

She turned toward the wagons and raised her hands. Several wind blades shot from her hands and slammed into the cages, though it did not severe the bars. Runes lit up around each cage. There was a rune array etched into the bars that formed a barrier to protect the “merchandise,” though perhaps “sacrifices” was a better word since it sounded like these people were going to be killed for something.

This did not deter Siv, who narrowed her hands, pumped more Spiritual Power through her hands, and created spatial blades that did severe the metal bars. She created several doorways in the metal bars by severing the space around the bars. Well, that was one way to bypass the runes. It didn’t look like the Sekbeist had accommodated for the possibility that they would run into someone who could manipulate a concept.

“Everyone!” I shouted to get the people’s attention. “Please exit the cages. You are free now. We’ll lead you to a caravan that’s not too far out. You can find food, rest, and shelter there.”

No one moved at first, but then one of the beastfolks crawled out of a cage and stepped onto the blackened earth. She was a young catgirl. Her brown hair was ratty and coarse from going unwashed for so long. Her ears and tail also looked frayed. Like everyone else, she was so skinny I could see her ribcage poking through her skin. However, she had the most lively eyes I had seen from this entire group.

“Are we really free?” she asked.

“You are,” I assured.

The catgirl pursed her lips before nodding. “Thank you. Can I know… you’re name?”

“It’s Eryk Veiger,” I said.

I spoke loudly enough that everyone could hear me, and the moment I mentioned my name, a number of people began muttering to each other. This caused me to look around in confusion. What was going on?

“Are you THE Eryk Veiger?” asked the catgirl.

“Um… I think so?” I asked, shrugging. The child was still in my arms, but I barely felt her weight. “I don’t know any other Eryk Veigers.”

“I… I can’t believe it,” the catgirl whispered. “We’ve been saved by Eryk Veiger.” She glanced at Fay, her eyes suddenly gaining new light. “Then you must be Fay Valstine.”

“That’s right,” Fay said.

“I can’t believe it. I just… can’t believe it.” The catgirl began to cry, which shocked me to the point where I became speechless. Fortunately, I didn’t need to say anything as she continued talking. “Everyone here is from Vahn. We were captured during the attack and were forced to become slaves. Every day was so hard. I constantly prayed that someone would save us, and now you two are here. The Heroic Fiery-Haired Maiden and the man who had been hailed as the strongest Spiritualist in the world. I’m so glad… I didn’t give up hope.”

I shared a look with Fay and Siv as the catgirl sank to her knees and began crying. Fay just shook her head and walked over to the catgirl, kneeling so she could place a hand on the girl’s shoulder and comfort her. Siv stuck by my side.

The other captives had all left the cages by now and were standing around like they didn’t know what to do; they probably didn’t. Vahn had been attacked about three years ago now. That meant these people had been slaves for three years. I was certain many of them had given up hope, and now they were suddenly free. They probably didn’t know what to do with themselves.

“Siv,” I began softly. “Do you think you can transport these people to the caravan? I don’t think they have the strength to walk that far.”

Siv looked at the ragtag group of people. There were about fifty in total.

The way Siv transported people and objects through space was by folding the space between two points. It required a lot of Spiritual Power to fold space like that, and the more people she was transporting in this manner, the more Spiritual Power she needed to fold space.

She nodded after another moment. “I can do transport them.”

“Then please do so. Also, go with them and inform Kari and the others about what happened here,” I said, then looked at the crowd. “Everyone. Please stand as close together as possible. My wife here is going to transport all of you to our caravan using a method similar to a Warp Gate.”

While only people who belonged to sects used Warp Gates, everyone at least knew what a Warp Gate was. They moved closer together. Siv walked over to them and stood in the middle of this group, her nose wrinkling only slightly at what I guessed was the scent of unwashed bodies.

It wasn’t long after she moved into the group that the space around them bent and warped. Fay and I stood back and watched as Siv and the large group of people disappeared.

“Even though I saw her do that during the battle against Morden and his forces, I still can’t help but find it amazing,” Fay said. “Siv has truly come into her own.”

“She has,” I agreed.

“Um…”

A soft voice that sounded horse from crying made me remember that I actually had a child in my arms. I looked down at the little girl who was staring at me. Her eyes were a little clearer, though she still looked distraught. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about her.

“What is it?” I asked in what I hoped was a soft voice. I didn’t want to frighten her.

“My… my mother. Can you… save her?” the girl asked.

Fay flinched, but I bit my lip. Her mother was the one who had died from starvation, if I was not mistaken.

“Let’s go see your mother,” I said at last.

“Eryk?” Fay questioned.

I shook my head and said nothing as I wandered toward the wagons. There I found several corpses aside from the others. Some of them looked like they had died recently, but the stench of rot told me that a few of them had been dead for a long time. The Sekbeist hadn’t cared enough to remove the corpses from the cages.

Shoving aside my disgust, I gave the girl to Fay and knelt before the mother. She had the same blonde hair and blue eyes as her daughter. I imagined she would be quite pretty if she wasn’t thinner than a tree branch. Her legs and arms were nothing but skin and bones. Her cheeks were completely hollowed out. She was in a very sorry state.

“Well… here goes nothing,” I muttered.

“What are you doing?” asked Fay.

“I’m going to try and manipulate the Concepts of Life and Death to bring this woman back,” I said.

“Can you… do that?” asked Fay uncertainly. I didn’t blame her. It sounded very far-fetched.

“Won’t know if I don’t try,” I said with a grunt.

I could not talk anymore as I focused all my attention on this woman. I placed a hand on her chest and channeled the Concept of Life through her. I was trying to see if filling her body with life would bring her back. It didn’t. She remained inert, which caused me to furrow my brow.

Since that didn’t work, I channeled death instead. I wanted to see if I could manipulate her soul and bring it back. However, while I could sense her soul, I could not seem to manipulate it. Perhaps my understanding over the Concept of Death was just too weak to work?

“Eryk… maybe you should stop,” Fay said.

I shook my head. “One more time. Just one more time.”

I channeled both the Concepts of Life and Death into the woman’s body. Something finally happened. Strange wisps of white energy began wafting off her body. I didn’t know what they were at first, but then I realized this was her Spiritual Power leaving her. It was similar to the Spiritual Residue that was leftover from soneone’s body after they died, but this woman had died recently, so it was still inside of her.

Could that mean there was a chance?

Gnashing my teeth together until I tasted blood in my mouth, I began channeling even more life energy into the woman, while simultaneously manipulating the concept of death to keep the woman from dying.

Then it happened. The woman gasped and her eyes gained clarity. She looked around in shock, then began coughing.

“Mommy!”

The girl scrambled out of Fay’s grasp and crawled over to her mother, tears in her eyes. I stepped back to allow them some space.

“Mommy! You’re alive! You’re alive! That man really saved you.”

“My dear Emilia,” the woman said with a sad smile. “I’m so glad to see you are okay. So glad. You must… promise me you will be a good girl from now on… no more crying… okay?”

“Mommy? Why are you talking like that?” asked the girl.

“Promise me…” the mother repeated.

“O-okay. I promise,” Emilia said.

“That is… good. I can… rest easy… knowing that.” The woman looked at me, her eyes clear but growing dark, and I realized what was happening before she opened her mouth. “T-take care of my daughter… please…” I drew my lips into a thin line, but I nodded just once. The woman smiled. “Thank you… Emilia… I love you so much… never… forget…”

“Mommy? Mommy? Nooo! Mommy, don’t go! Please don’t leave me again!!”

I bit the inside of my mouth as the woman I thought I saved died for a second time, ignoring the blood on my tongue, the pain in my mouth. Fay came up to my side and grabbed my hand. She didn’t say anything, but her silent support was appreciated.

The sounds of a little girl’s wailing filled my ears and would haunt me for years to come.

***

The child, Emilia, cried herself to sleep. I asked Fay to take the girl back to the caravan and return with Siv.

While Fay flew off, I began the process of burying the dead. I threw all the Sekbeist corpses into a pile and used the fire element to burn them ashes. I probably went overboard with my flames, but I didn’t care.

Once the Sekbeist corpses were naught but ash and cinders, I began digging graves for the people who had died in captivity. I didn’t use the earth element to dig them. I knelt on the ground and dug each grave out with my hands. It took hours, and my hands would have been a bloody mess if I was a normal person, but my body was too sturdy and my skin too durable to be damaged by such menial labor.

I thought this was a little sad.

A part of me wished I could feel the pain, if only to feel something.

Fay and Siv returned not long after I finished burying the last person. The three of us then dismantled the wagons and flew off. While we had been forced to take a detour, our goal had not changed.

We eventually located one of the small villages Alexis was talking about, but like I suspected, it was currently occupied by Sekbeists. There were a lot of them. Floating high above the village and looking down, I was able to count at least two thousand Sekbeists in this tiny hamlet, which consisted of several burnt out buildings and a few intact buildings. There were no Sekbeist Lords present. I didn’t expect there to be. It looked like another Warlord had been left in charge of this place.

“What should we do, Eryk?” asked Fay.

I closed my eyes for a moment before opening them again. I was certain my gaze had become quite cold. My blood felt like it had been frozen.

“What else? We kill them all.”

Fay must have expected this because she nodded. Siv bit her lip but also nodded.

I did not see the Sekbeist leader anywhere, but I was certain he was in one of those intact buildings. Whatever. All we needed to do was smoke him out and kill every enemy there. I couldn’t see any slaves either, so they would have no one to hide behind.

All three of us swooped down like birds of prey. A shockwave spread out as I slammed feet first into the ground, knocking several dozen Sekbeist Elites off their feet. They went down with a squawk of surprise. I created another ruler, this one made of death energy, and raced over to the nearest enemy. I swung my weapon. Blood and bones splattered across the ground as the Elites skull shattered. I didn’t stop at just one enemy either, but slammed my weapon into the heads of each Elite.

I was using the flat of my blade.

I recognized that it would be more efficient if I used the sharp end, and it would be even more efficient still if I just used Spiritual Techniques to kill everyone. It would be easy to wipe out this entire village if I created a storm and used the lightning to kill them. But I didn’t want to. A red haze had been cast over my eyes, and what I wanted right now was to kill them directly, to feel their lives slipping away from them.

“Intruders!”

“Kill them all!”

The Sekbeists who hadn’t been knocked over by my attacks spotted me and charged. Several of them disappeared into the shadow of a nearby building, and I felt them enter mine. I stomped on the ground and spikes erupted from my shadow along with the Sekbeists in question.

I ignored the monsters who were skewered upon my shadows and swung the Dragon’s Tail Ruler with reckless abandon. An erupt of death energy flew from my weapon in an unrelenting wave that swept over the incoming enemies, stealing their lives with ease. There no sign to denote what they died from. They just spilled to the ground, tumbling head over heels before sliding to a stop a few meters from me.

The scent of blood filled my nose as the number of corpses continued to climb. I saw Fay and Siv each fighting a little ways off. Neither of them was having any trouble, but that was because all the enemies here were weak. The Sekbeist Slaves were a group that had given Kari and I a lot of trouble in our past lives, but in this life, they were little more than insects.

I felt someone trying to once again hijack my shadow, looked around, and spotted the Sekbeist Shaman hiding behind a building. With a snarl, I sent my Spiritual Power into my shadow, wrested control of his shadow, and created a pair of shadow hands that grabbed his head and snapped his neck with a sickening crack.

With no idea how many I had already killed, I continued to fight. It was just mindless killing. Sekbeist charged forward and were slaughtered with ease.

“What is going on out here?!”

And then the leader finally emerged from a building not far away. It was a Warlord, like I suspected. They seemed to be the ones that the Sekbeist Lords left in charge of small bases and frontiers like this. Of course, there were only five Sekbeist Lords on Miðgarðr right now. They were probably off trying to accomplish their goal of resurrecting the Sekbeist Overlord and couldn’t waste time on small hamlets like this.

The Warlord spotted me, Fay, and Siv immediately, but while he gave Siv and Fay a glance, most of his attention was focused on me. He seemed to know what I was. I felt a moment’s vindication when I saw the horrified look in his eyes.

“What is one of the God Race doing here?!”

“Doesn’t matter why I’m here,” I said, grinning from ear to ear. “I hope you are ready to pay for all the crimes you committed against the people who lived here.”

I dismissed my ruler and created a whip. The Warlord created a massive sword of darkness and swung it at me, but I slammed my fist into the flat side and the sword shattered into black energy fragments. Then I swung my whip and wrapped it around the Warlord’s legs. He screamed as I yanked him into the air with a slight grunt, then gasped when I slammed him so hard into the ground that a crater formed around his body.

And then I repeated the process.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

The red haze that had been cast over my eyes was blinding now. All I felt was this indescribable rage as I remembered those people who had been held captive, the little girl and her mother, whom I couldn’t save. I hated these monsters for what they had done. I hated myself for not being able to save that woman. It felt like, in that moment, my entire body was being consumed by hatred.

“Eryk! Eryk!”

A hand came to rest on my shoulder, stopping me just as I was about to lift the Warlord again. I blinked several times. Coming to, I looked at Fay as she stared at me with worry.

“Eryk, your enemy is already dead,” she stated.

“Huh?”

I was confused, but then I looked at the end of my lip. Indeed, just like Fay had said, the bloody corpse of the Sekbeist Warlord lay on the other end, his face and body an unrecognizable mess.

***

Fay, Eryk, and Siv returned to the caravan around evening to inform everyone that there was a village they could stay the night in. Kari immediately noticed that something was wrong with her husband. She didn’t say anything, however, because they couldn’t really afford to have a heart to heart just then.

Their caravan began moving. It took several hours to reach the village. Night had fallen by the time they arrived, but all of them still had to work. Kari summoned their stores of water and food from her storage rings and began ordering several of their members to set up fire pits to cook meals for everyone.

Because the captives had all be starved, she ordered several people to help them and make sure they didn’t eat too much. Stomach muscles shrink when someone goes without food for a long time. Since the body cannot draw nutrients from food, it does so from within the body, consuming fatty tissue to sustain itself. That was why all the captives were so thin. And because the body’s digestive functions had essentially taken a holiday, the body was unable to properly digest food.

It was quite possible for a starving person to die if they ate too much.

Fortunately, Fay was able to create a new pill that would help fix this problem, but it would take at least a day for the pill’s effects to really kick in. All the captives were given water and a very light soup that wouldn’t upset their stomachs.

“This princess has helped everyone find a place to sleep,” Lin said as she came up to Kari.

“Thank you. What is everyone else doing?” asked Kari.

“Momma is patrolling the perimeter with a squad of Spiritualists. Alexis is also on patrol. King Menes and Ashten are resting. It’s been decided that we will have two groups on watch. Their shift will come in four hours.” Kari nodded but didn’t say anything, causing Lin to squirm. “Um… is Darling okay?”

Kari sighed. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Are you… going to see him?” Lin asked. “This princess thinks you might be the only one who can help him right now.”

“I plan to see him now,” Kari admitted. “I just wanted to make sure everything was in order before doing so. Eryk would feel guilty if something happened while he was sulking.”

“He would at that,” Lin agreed.

“How is the girl Fay brought back?”

“Quiet.” Lin ran a hand through her hair. “She hasn’t said a word since she woke up… but she did eat. That’s probably the best we can expect from her right now.”

“Please keep an eye on her.”

“This princess intends to.”

Lin soon left after saying something about going to help Fay and Siv cook, and Kari turned around and wandered toward a small building on the outskirts of the city. She found Eryk sitting on the roof, his knees curled into his chest as he stared vacantly at the surroundings.

Alighting onto the roof, Kari walked over to him and sat down, not saying anything. He knew she was there, and he would talk when he was ready.

“It always amazes me to realize how little I can actually do,” Eryk said at last. “In the past, I thought I had become strong until you and Kayli died. I think that was the first time I realized how weak I truly was. In this life, I worked hard to become stronger still. I know I’m not perfect. I know some people have died under my leadership… but I really thought I had become stronger after returning from Gudeverdenen. I’ve mastered life and death. When I saw that girl’s mother, I thought ‘surely, it should be possible for someone who has mastered life and death like me to save someone.’ Life… has a very funny way of smacking you down when your hubris gets too big.”

“Eryk…”

“I know… that I did everything I could… but I still… really wish I could have saved that girl’s mother.”

Kari knew words would be useless right now, so instead she pulled her distraught husband into a loving embrace and held him against her chest. Eryk trembled only a little as he shed silent tears into her clothes. Not a single noise came from him, but his body was wracked with silent sobs.

“You always do this,” she said softly. “You take on so many burdens, hold yourself to an impossible standard, and then beat yourself up when you fail to meet those standards. No one is going to blame you for what happened except for you. I bet you anything that little girl you rescued won’t blame you. I wish you would stop blaming yourself… though I know that might be asking for too much. You wouldn’t be the same man who traversed time itself just to save me if you didn’t blame yourself whenever you failed to live up to your own impossible expectations.”

Eryk mumbled something under his breath, so soft she almost didn’t hear it, and she smiled into his hair.

“Yes, as much as this aspect of you pains me, I do love that about you. I love everything about you. And that is why I’m not going to tell you not to feel this way. I’m only letting you know that I hope the day will come when you can stop blaming yourself for every bad thing that happens. Until that time comes, I will continue to comfort you just like this, my darling husband.”

Kari stoked Eryk’s hair as he continued to quietly cry into her chest, until his breathing evened out. As her husband fell asleep, Kari looked up at the stars, and prayed that the day when they could all live in peace would come soon. She didn’t want Eryk to push himself like this anymore. She didn’t want him to suffer ever again.