He was a statue of living, moving diamond ice. He turned to Norvin. His mouth didn't move, but his voice echoed in Norvin's mind. 'Go.'
Remus turned back to the Titan. He raised a hand that was now a jagged claw of permafrost.
He wasn't fighting to win anymore. He was fighting to buy seconds. And for a Broken Vessel, seconds were expensive. They cost everything.
The world moved in slow motion.
Norvin watched Remus. The old man was no longer flesh and blood. He was a statue of translucent, diamond-hard permafrost, yet he was still moving. His joints creaked with the sound of a glacier shifting.
Remus couldn't speak. His throat was frozen solid. But his intent was screaming across the battlefield.
Dion, frustrated by the stalemate, whistled a high, aggressive note.
A massive, constrictor-like vine, thick as a barrel, whipped out of the canopy. It wasn't aiming for Remus; it was aiming for Norvin, intending to crush the boy's ribs.
Remus didn't block it. He anticipated it. As the vine lashed out, Remus stomped his frozen foot. He coated the mud beneath Norvin's feet with zero-friction ice.
The vine caught Norvin by the waist. Instead of crushing him, the slick ice caused Norvin to slide. The force of the vine's attack yanked Norvin into a violent spin. He went round and round, the vine acting like a sling, building up immense centrifugal force.
Norvin screamed, the world blurring into a green and grey smear. "REMUS! NO!"
Remus, his face now a featureless mask of ice, raised both hands. He channeled the very last drop of his existence.
A colossal ramp of solid ice erupted from the earth, angling sharply upward toward the sky, aiming directly at the distant Serpent camp.
Cahir saw the setup. He sneered.
"You think you can save him?" Cahir roared. "I will cut his strings!"
Cahir swung his arm, forming a ten-foot blade of razor-sharp iron. "Iarann... Guillotina."
He slashed at the vine holding Norvin, intending to drop the boy into the mud to be slaughtered.
But that was exactly what Remus wanted.
SNAP.
Cahir severed the vine at the exact moment Norvin hit the base of the ice ramp. Like a stone from a catapult, Norvin shot up the ramp. The speed was blinding. He hit the incline and rocketed upward, soaring hundreds of feet into the grey sky.
Norvin eyes refused to look forward. He twisted his body in the air, looking down. He saw the clearing. He saw the three figures growing smaller.
He saw Dion, looking confused. He saw Cahir, looking furious. And he saw Remus.
Remus stood there, a beautiful, tragic sculpture of ice amidst the mud and blood. He was motionless now. His fuel was spent. The Awen was gone. The life was gone. He was just a statue reaching toward the sky, one hand extended toward where he had thrown Norvin.
"Goodbye, Norvin" the wind seemed to whisper.
Cahir, realizing he had been played by a dying man, let out a roar of frustration. He spun around, his iron arm glowing with kinetic energy.
"Die!" Cahir shouted.
He brought his iron fist down onto the ice statue.
CRASH.
From high in the air, the sound was faint, like a dropped wine glass.
But to Norvin, it was the loudest sound in the world. He watched as Remus shattered.
The ice exploded into a million glittering shards. There was no blood. There was no body. Just dust. The man who had saved him always in the battlefield, the man who had just saved him again, the man who had protected him from a Titan... was gone.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!"
Norvin's scream tore his throat apart. He wailed in the sky, his tears freezing on his cheeks as he flew.
Cahir broke the ice, but he had shattered Norvin's heart.
Norvin plummeted toward the edge of the forest. He crashed through the canopy of the outer woods.
SNAP. CRACK. THUD.
His body, reinforced by Numen, acted like a cannonball. He smashed through thick branches, splintering oak and pine. He hit the ground with an impact that cratered the earth, bouncing once before sliding to a halt in the muck.
Pain flared through every inch of his body, but he didn't feel it. The physical pain was nothing compared to the void in his chest.
Norvin lay face down in the dirt. He didn't try to get up. He cried. He sobbed into the mud, clutching the earth.
"I failed." The words hammered into his skull.
"I failed my mother. I failed my father. I failed Yara. I failed the Red Ghost. And now... I failed Remus."
Everyone who touched him died. Everyone who tried to save him ended up broken. He was a curse. He wasn't a child; he was a graveyard walking on two legs.
"Why did you save me?" he wept, his voice muffled by the dirt. "Why didn't you just let me die?"
Behind him, deep in the forest, the sounds of battle resumed. Cahir and Dion were likely tearing each other apart.
But the forest hadn't forgotten Norvin. Dion's control lingered. The roots near Norvin began to twitch. They slithered toward him, snake-like, seeking to strangle the life out of him. They lashed out, whipping his back.
Norvin didn't fight back. He just lay there, letting the wood tear his skin.
"Just kill me", he thought.
But then, the image of the ice statue flashed in his mind. The hand reaching out. The sacrifice. 'If I die here... Remus died for nothing.'
A spark of anger flickered in the wet ash of his soul. Norvin gritted his teeth. He planted his hands in the mud. He pushed himself up. The roots struck him again, drawing blood. He stood up, swaying like a drunkard. His clothes were rags. His body was purple with bruises. His heart was bleeding.
But he started to run. He ran with a hateful refusal to stop.
He tore through the underbrush, ignoring the thorns that snagged his skin. He burst out of the tree line. The Marsh Forest ended.
Ahead of him, lay the Serpent Camp. He saw the smoke rising from the cookfires. He saw the banners flapping in the wind. Norvin took one step onto the open grass. Then another. Safety.
But he had returned alone. And he hadn't completed his mission. And he hadn't saved anyone.
His vision swam. The world turned sideways. "Remus..." he whispered to the grass.
Norvin's knees buckled. He collapsed forward, hitting the ground with a soft thud. Darkness swallowed him whole.
Thane sat behind his heavy oak desk, studying a map of the region. His finger traced the supply lines running from the Obsidian Tower to the front lines. He was bored. The war was stalling, the local skirmishes were uninspired, and his pet project—the boy—had been missing for days.
The flap of the tent was thrown open violently.
Chief Varic stumbled in, breathless, dust coating his armour. He didn't salute. He didn't wait for permission to speak.
"Captain," Varic gasped, clutching the tent pole. "The patrol... they found something."
Thane didn't look up from the map. He picked up a quill and dipped it into a pot of black ink. "Unless they found an elder dragon surrendering its hoard, Varic, I suggest you lower your voice."
"It's the boy, sir," Varic said, swallowing hard. "They found Norvin."
Thane's hand paused. The quill hovered over the parchment. Slowly, he lifted his eyes. They were predatory, devoid of warmth.
"Where?"
"Miles out," Varic reported, regaining his composure. "Near the edge of the Marsh Forest. He was lying in a crater, half-buried in mud. Unconscious. He… he looks like he went through a meat grinder, sir. We've sent him to the Medics."
Thane set the quill down. A slow, cruel smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"So," Thane murmured, standing up. "The boy survived the spider's web. Interesting."
He walked around the desk, grabbing his helmet. "Let us go, Varic. I want to see what remains of him."
The Medic Tent was a long, rectangular structure that smelled of antiseptic herbs, boiling water, and rotting flesh. Rows of cots lined the walls, occupied by knights groaning from skirmish wounds or training accidents.
But the center of the room was quiet.
Norvin lay on the primary operating table. He was stripped to the waist, his skin a canvas of purple bruises, deep lacerations, and mud-stained scratches. He looked small, impossibly fragile against the white linen sheets.
Hovering over him was a young female medic. She was young, perhaps twenty-two, with short, brown hair and eyes that were too large for her face. She was a medic of third rank, talented but perpetually anxious. Currently, her hands were glowing with a soft, pale green light.
She wasn't touching Norvin. Her hands hovered inches above his chest. From her palms, a strange, mist-like vapor descended, curling around Norvin's torso like living smoke. This was her signature spell "Gal Remiendo". It didn't just stitch flesh; it permeated the pores, knitting muscle and bone from the inside out.
Standing on the other side of the bed was Mat.
Mat's arms were crossed, his face grim. He watched the vapor seep into the boy's skin, his mind racing.
'How?' Mat thought, his eyes narrowing. 'The scouts said the forest was torn apart. Trees uprooted. Earth scorched by iron and frozen by ice. A Titan fought there.'
He looked at Norvin's chest, watching the jagged rise and fall of his breathing.
'Remus took him', Mat reasoned. 'Remus swore he would get the boy out. So why is the boy here alone? And where is Remus?'
Mat felt a cold pit form in his stomach. He had known Remus for years. The man was eccentric, broken, and soft-hearted, but he was a survivor. If Remus wasn't here, it meant only one thing.
"Status," Mat said, his voice gruff.
She jumped slightly, the vapor wavering for a second before stabilizing. She didn't look up, her focus intense.
"It's... it's bad, Lord Mat," she stammered. "Three broken ribs. One of them nicked the left lung—that's why he was wheezing when they brought him in. His right shoulder is dislocated. Multiple contusions. Severe dehydration."
She moved her hands lower, the vapor swirling around Norvin's abdomen.
"And... his muscles," she whispered, sounding confused. "They are torn. Micro-tears everywhere. It's not from impact. It's from exertion. It looks like he pushed his body past its absolute limit."
Mat frowned. "He has no numen, girl. How can he exert himself that much?"
"I don't know," She admitted, sweat beading on her forehead. "But his body is... dense. He's healing faster than he should. It's fighting me, but it's also helping me."
Suddenly, the tent flap swept open. The ambient noise of the camp—the chatter of knights, the clanging of pots—was instantly silenced.
Thane walked in.
It was as if the temperature in the tent dropped ten degrees. The injured knights in the background stopped their groaning. The other medics froze mid-motion.
He walked with the heavy, confident stride of a man who owned the ground beneath his feet. Chief Varic trailed behind him.
The female medic felt her heart hammer against her ribs. She had never been this close to the Captain before. She had heard the stories—that he executed incompetence on the spot, that he valued his beasts more than his healers.
She stiffened, snapping her heels together, but kept her hands active on the spell. "Lord Captain!"
Thane ignored the salute. He ignored the other knights. He walked straight to the bedside and looked down at Norvin.
His gaze was clinical. He wasn't looking at a boy; he was inspecting a damaged tool to see if it could be salvaged.
"Report," Thane commanded.
Mat opened his mouth to speak. "Sir, the boy is—"
Thane held up a hand, silencing his second-in-command without even looking at him. His eyes were locked on Sizzle.
He pointed a gloved finger at the trembling medic. "You. Speak."
She felt the blood drain from her face. The pressure of his gaze was physical, a weight pressing down on her shoulders. She swallowed dryly, her voice trembling.
"Y-Yes, sir," she squeaked. She took a breath, trying to channel the professional demeanor she had learned at the academy. "The patient... the subject has sustained massive blunt force trauma. His windpipe was crushed at some point, though it seems to have partially healed on its own. His ribs are shattered."
She moved her glowing hands, the vapor glowing brighter as it knit a deep gash on Norvin's side.
"I... I am draining the fluid from his lungs now, Captain. But what is strange is the residue."
Thane raised an eyebrow. "Residue?"
"Yes, sir," She said, gaining a tiny bit of confidence. "There are traces of energy in his pathways. It's faint, almost burned out, but it's there. He didn't just survive the forest... he fought in it. I suspect... I suspect he accessed Numen."
Thane's eyes narrowed. A spark of genuine interest lit up his face.
"Numen," Thane repeated, tasting the word. "The brute force of the ancients. So, the rat learned to bite."
He looked at Norvin with a new expression. It wasn't respect—Thane was incapable of respecting a slave—but it was value. The boy wasn't just a survivor; he was a potential asset. A weapon that could run on rage instead of spells.
Thane turned to Mat. "And the situation outside? What happened in that forest?"
Mat cleared his throat, his face tight. "Scouts report total chaos at the Obsidian Tower, sir. The perimeter was breached from the inside. The prisoners... they were released."
"Released?" Thane's voice was dangerously quiet.
"Yes. The dungeon doors were opened. It caused a riot. Hundreds of inmates fled into the marsh." Mat paused, glancing at the unconscious boy. "Most of the enemy knights were diverted to contain the breakout. That's why the forest was left unguarded. During the confusion... Dion and the Titan, Cahir, engaged in combat."
"And Remus?" Thane asked.
The name hung in the air.
Mat looked down. "Missing. Presumed dead. Or..."
"Or he was the one who opened the doors," Thane finished coldly. He let out a short, sharp laugh. "The fool. He always did have a bleeding heart. He likely caused the riot to create a distraction to smuggle the boy out."
Thane looked back at Norvin. "But Remus is gone. And the boy is here. Which means the Titan killed the old man and missed the boy."
The tent was silent. The young medic focused entirely on her magic, terrified that if she stopped, Thane would throw her out. She could feel her own Awen draining rapidly. The Vapor Mending was a high-tier spell, and she had been sustaining it for a long time. Her knees shook.
Thane noticed.
He watched the girl's hands tremble. He saw the sweat dripping down her nose. Most commanders would have told her to switch out, to rest.
Thane leaned in close.
"Do not stop," he whispered.
Her's eyes widened. "Sir, I... my reserves are..."
"I said, do not stop," Thane hissed. "He is critical. If you break the link now, the fluid returns to his lungs. You will heal him until he wakes, or until you drop. Do you understand?"
"Yes... yes, sir," Sizzle whispered, tears pricking her eyes. She bit her lip and pushed harder, drawing from the very bottom of her magical well.
Thane straightened up. He looked around the room, ensuring everyone had seen his dominance. Then, he looked back at her.
"What is your name, medic?"
Sizzle blinked, startled. The Captain never asked names. The other knights in the tent shifted, jealous and surprised.
"Sizzle, sir," she gasped. "My name is Sizzle."
Thane nodded slowly. "Well, Sizzle. You have done adequate work. When he wakes up... inform me immediately."
Sizzle was dancing in her head, Thane asking her name meant he recognizes her. Sizzle did her best not to show it on her face.
He didn't wait for a response. He turned on his heel and marched out of the tent, the air rushing back into the room as he left.
Varic followed.
Mat lingered for a moment. He looked at Norvin, a profound sadness in his eyes. He reached out and touched the boy's shoulder lightly.
"I hope it was worth it, Sir Remus," Mat whispered to no one. "I hope he was worth dying for."
Then Mat turned and left, leaving Sizzle alone with the broken boy and her fading strength.
Hours passed. The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of bruised purple and blood orange.
Inside the tent, the lanterns were lit. Sizzle was slumped in a chair next to Norvin's bed. She was exhausted, her face pale, her hands shaking uncontrollably from awen overexertion. She had done it. She had closed the wounds. The bones were knit. The lungs were clear.
Norvin did not know he was unconscious. He did not know that his physical body lay on a sterile white sheet in a medic tent, his ribs knit together by awen and his lungs drained of fluid. To him, there was no tent. There was no Sizzle. There was no Thane.
There was only the heat.