Pandemonium reigned on the battlefield, and through it Zephyrin learned the extent to which its viceroy, terror, held sway in men’s hearts. For the first time since his rebirth, he knew fear, apprehended the nature of an entity less insidious than the subtle despair attendant to health’s decline, but more visceral by reason of its immediacy. He felt its presence ice his veins and infiltrate his innards, an intractable, vermiculating mass constricting his limbs and reducing his mind to a winter-barren landscape. Sensory input was received but unacknowledged; he was consumed by and unable to repulse a single, overriding thought.

One bullet. One errant bullet, and the knowledge on which the fate of Gaulyria hinged would be lost in a gory puddle whose fragmented bones the unconscious boots of combatants would splinter, and which, once the sun had set dourly over the day’s pitched battle, would be lapped at by passing mongrels. Empire, glory, and merits in the sight of the Goddess, lost in the fatal commingling of steel, velocity, and happenstance.

Still leaning heavily on the shoulder of the gaping drummer-boy, Zephyrin ducked his head involuntarily as a shell burst not two meters from where they stood, gritting his teeth as he tried to aggregate the remnants of his power and weave a makeshift ward, if only over his vitals. It was like scooping water with splayed fingers; he sensed power but retained naught of what he touched. In the meantime, their predicament degenerated into irreparable chaos.

“Fall back! Fall back to the palace!!”

“No!” shouted the queen from the heart of the tumult. “We must gain the other side of the river! Forward—”

But only a portion of the Guard made out her command over the din, or chose to obey it.

Taken aback by the concentrated firepower of an untrained and hitherto derided foe, the royal forces failed to compose a unified body. They seesawed between advance and retreat, pockets of men trying to heed the queen’s order while others beat a disorganized retreat. The effect was that of a discombobulated swimmer struggling against the tide, discoordinated limbs alternating between strenuous resistance and resigned acceptance, before succumbing and being swept away by a sluggish backwash.

The Guard was on the verge of breaking. Zephyrin reduced his profile as much as possible as he sought to master himself. Did he dare expose himself to enemy fire and make a run to the queen for the asterite? Or should he wait until—

“You!” exclaimed a voice, its owner emerging a second later from a roiling cloud of smoke.

Staring, Zephyrin recognized the impetuous sub-lieutenant whom he had shielded earlier, and who looked none the worse for wear after his headlong plunge into the fray.

“That stupendous barrier! And earlier, those wards on me and my comrades! They were your doing, weren’t they!” Undeterred by Zephyrin’s continued failure to respond, the young soldier spoke of his own accord. “Aloïs Vyrdarioù of House Falléon is in your debt! Your name, young sir!” The blueblood seemed as much at his ease as in a drawing room, heedless of the deadly hail laying waste to the bridge.

It was then that Zephyrin recovered his powers of speech. “Zephyrin Calon—sir, you need to find cover—”

“No need!” The blueblood briefly faced away to weave and raise an azure-hued barrier, less stable but highly resemblant to Zephyrin’s prior handiwork. Once satisfied of its effectiveness, the adolescent turned back with a grin, the tightness of his curved lips offering the only evidence of the demand made upon him by his casting.

“I believe I’m getting a hand of this technique… it’s not really a spell, is it? Just raw mana compressed at a single point.” Though clearly unaccustomed to extensive casting, the officer was doing a fair job of maintaining his defensive barrier. Zephyrin saw clear as day the opportunity stretched out before him.

“Help me reach Her Majesty!” he shouted with as much volume as his childish lungs could muster, hoping to overpower the enemy cannonade. The young officer’s eyes widened. He looked back to follow Zephyrin’s gaze. He narrowed his ears, made out the increasingly isolated queen through the plumes of smoke, then quickly turned back and nodded swiftly.

For this prompt acquiescence alone Zephyrin vowed that if the noble survived the battle and ensuing Purification, he would petition his father to grant him a commission in the imperial army. For now, however, his gratitude would extend no further than an interior invocation to the Goddess that She might spare his life.

“Stay close to me!” the sub-lieutenant called out, deflecting a hail of bullets with his magic shield as the trio exposed itself to enemy fire.

The gunshot was still ringing in Roger’s ears when the Grand Prefect rushed forward, unsheathing his runesword to trace a scintillating arc that narrowly missed slicing off one of the pitcher-handle shaped ears of the director. The cleric backpedaled with a curse, hastily erecting a magical barrier as he clutched his shoulder.

His wrathful cries transformed into alarm as his former compatriot tore it apart with ease, the runes running down his blade glowing with an otherworldly light as the weapon’s edge made contact with his hastily erected barrier.

“Don’t just stand there! Stop him!!”

In Director Priol’s place advanced the fourth-year Loris, arm extended as if to arrest the sword’s downward momentum with his bare hand, a jagged, crystallizing growth sprouting from his fingers.

“No!” cried Corentin, and launching himself forward he managed to push his comrade out of a lacerating parabola before it crashed to the ground with mangled flesh and bone. “It has nullifying properties! Avoid the weapon! Train your spells on him!”

His weakness identified, Father Athand pulled out another pistol and took aim once more at Father Priol.

“Tsk!” Corentin held out his palm. “Abysm.” The muzzle of the Grand Prefect’s firearm flashed, only for a miniature whirlpool of pure darkness to soundlessly absorb the bullet.

His mouth set in a grim line, the Grand Prefect renewed his onslaught as if pressing an advantage, utterly indifferent to his numerical disadvantage. With the flat of his blade and hilt he dealt heavy blows, burying the pommel of his sword in the diaphragm of one instructor, then wheeling round and stunning another with a calculated strike.

I need to help him! No sooner than the disguised princess vanished through a tunnel ahead of him, Roger skidded on his heels and wheeled around, interposing himself between its entrance and the upperclassman racing after them. He assumed what he hoped was a threatening stance, flooding his hands with blinding light. When the older student braced himself for magical impact, Roger dissolved his half-baked spell and dove for the youth’s legs, tackling him to the ground.

“Why you—let me go, you little pest!”

Half-stunned by the flurry of blows raining down upon him, Roger nonetheless tightened his grip around the older boy’s legs as though he expected to preserve his life rather than speed his demise. He withstood the violence visited upon his body, but not the powerful blow delivered to his head.