Against the temporary light that Oliver Patrick had shone, for those handful of minutes in the battle against Tiberius, General Fitzer knew himself to be a corrupt man. But there too, he had found a hope, for in his many conversations with Oliver Patrick, he had not found a man of perfection.
"CHARGE, TROOPS OF MINE!"
With eyes closed, Fitzer took his horse to the hill.
Hope spreading through his chest, a feeling of lightness. That man, so blindingly bright, had not been a creature without flaw. He'd been rigid with flaws, more flawed, perhaps, even than Fitzer himself – and yet he was a man who unmistakeably held Claudia's favour.
Why?
Fitzer, with the clicking of his heart, thought he knew why.
As the gravity took him down the hill, freeing himself from control, and as he found an impossible surge of morale from the men behind him, not even truly understanding why he had managed to birth such a fire in them, he thought he understood why.
