Completed Just Prior

[Zael Castomir]

The days in the Academy infirmary went on. Most of it involved cycles of intense magical purging and rest, sessions of the former awful but blessedly much shorter than the latter. Kimble's cold magic wasn't just elemental ice. It could be deeply infectious like a disease, constantly inflicting hypothermia, and it was resistant to purgings and dispellings. But, time was making progress in the matter.

He never did see Ingrid Barlow again, the cunt of a Head Nurse that he had flattened the nose of (and toss in some shattered teeth to that mix too). Suited him just fine.

Zael did get to know the next nurse attending to him. Jenna Siris. Fourth Level Dreadlord. Healer. He got to talking with her one day when she came around for a session of purging.

"Enjoyin the comforts of the Revolution?"

He saw it then, but he'd know for sure after more talks. Jenna was reserved, quiet, polite (tried to be, at least), so not like Ingrid, which was a relief. She was, however...desensitized was a good word for it. Detached. For all her stateliness and politeness, she had a preternatural calm about her, like...how to put it?...like she could've been a nice, cheery girl if things had been different, but she had taken to the Academy far better than anybody might have expected. She was, after all, in the last class to graduate before the Republic came to power as he would come to find out.

"Yes," she said. She glanced off to the left as if looking to a stage director for a cue, and then back. "Are you?"

Zael swept his hand over his body. "Never felt better."

Jenna cocked her head to one side. "The treatments have had unforeseen success?"

Oh yeah. And she was the most literal person Zael had ever met.

He laughed a singular laugh. "No. I was kiddin. This fuckin sucks."

"Oh." In the worst form of consolation ever, Jenna said, "It will not get much better in a moment."

"Yeah, I'm aware. Let's get it over with."

Another thirty minutes of slow, strength-sapping agony. The purgings drained Zael about as much as they drained Jenna, and all he had to do was lie there and receive them.

Since Jenna was better company than that goddamn infirmary ceiling, Zael prompted as she prepared to stand up from her stool, "Nah. Have a seat."

"Something to report?" she asked curiously.

He shook his head. "Still feel like shit, but that ain't the point. I wanted to ask you somethin."

"Hmm?"

Zael took a moment, not just letting his thoughts roll out of his mind like usual but trialing them, formulating the most distilled version of what he truly wanted to ask. Even spoke it deliberately, his accent receding somewhat in his slow and considered speech.

"What was it like for you? During your graduation?"

 

[Zael Castomir]

Jenna, slightly perplexed, asked for clarification: "Do you mean how the graduation was conducted?"

"I can figure how that went on my own," Zael said. "No, I mean for you."

Zael couldn't fault her for the silence which followed. She wore a pretty good stolid mask, but he could tell that she just wasn't used to people asking her these sorts of questions. Like everyone strangled and stifled by the brutalities of the old way, perhaps the worst damage, the part which was more ruinous than any physical agony, was the warping of the psyche. That twisting of a good person into a rod of iron that the state of Vel Anir could use and dispose of at its leisure.

She began slowly—honestly, it was a little surprising she even began at all. "We were all brought to the Blackwood. Bound in the nullification cuffs. They lined us up. Several fights were to happen at once, and this...did not make being at the back of the line desirable at all. I saw all the fights happen. I saw each body being dragged away. Wounds I could have mended. Souls I could have saved."

Zael nodded slowly. Letting her speak.

"The Proctors never respected my magic. My peers never respected it either. I didn't...think I was going to survive. But I had my strategy—the only strategy possible for me. At last my turn to fight came, and my opponent was a young man named Styrgius. He was...handsome, but my affections, subtle as they were, were never returned. He did not consider me a true Dreadlord."

"Affections," Zael said.

"Yes," Jenna said matter-of-factly. "You remember those times. Things of that nature needed to be well hidden."

"Right you are." It was more that Zael was pleasantly surprised that Jenna had such feelings for a guy, and even more so that she would admit to them even now. At least the old way hadn't broken her completely.

She continued: "My healing magic may not be so remarkable on others, but on myself...it is extraordinary. Near limitless. The Proctors, Styrgius, they mocked how useless this trait was, and all who had survived thought this final match between myself and him would be over in seconds."

Jenna blinked slowly, her eyes somber and serious and looking squarely into Zael's own.

"Our fight lasted twenty-three hours."

"Kress."

Jenna nodded slowly. "I kept healing spells constantly on myself. Styrgius exhausted himself first magically, and then physically. The Proctors, as per the rules, would not allow him to rest. They prodded him to keep fighting until he could no longer stand, no longer defend himself. I then climbed atop him and beat him to death with a rock."

Her lips twitched into a frown.

"I did not like doing that."

 

[Zael Castomir]

"They underestimated you," Zael said.

Jenna considered it, the crack in her stolid mask there and visible. She put on the veneer of the Dreadlord ideal, and she put it on well: stoic, capable, devoid of personality and receptive only to orders and carrying them out. But through that crack in the mask there was a person beneath.

"Yes. Styrgius did. It cost him his life."

Zael shook his head. "No, not that." He sat up in the bed. "They thought they could break you. Mold you into a cold, callous tool. But they underestimated you."

He reached over meekly, the exhaustion of the purging still heavy upon his body, and pressed a pointing finger to Jenna's chest. Just above her heart. "Because you didn't let em have this. You held out longer than they could handle. Did they make you kill Styrgius? Yeah, they did. But they couldn't make you feel nothin over it. You're a person, Jenna. That pain hurts. Trust me, I know it too."

Those words hung in air. Poignant. Solemn. He hoped that somewhere, somewhere, Little Lilly heard them.

"I know it too," he said again. "But that pain means you care. Means you give a damn. Means you got somethin to offer the world other than spilled blood. And that's what matters. Keep that heart strong, Jenna, and never let anyone ruin it."

Where once there was a crack, now there was a chasm. She was affected, touched, caught in the reverie of a low grade awe. Maybe her whole life she to repress her emotions, her humanity, and that repression was joined by suppression by her peers and by the Proctors above her. Even Styrgius probably contributed. But now here was Zael, telling her it was alright, and not only that it was alright, but that it was the best thing about her to have, feel, and show what was in her heart.

Still, she had trouble expressing herself in terms that weren't...stilted. "I appreciate what you have said to me."

Talking, from other infirmary staff, on the other edge of the partitioning curtain. Jenna glanced that way, and then back.

"I must go."

"Yeah."

She stood. Before she disappeared beyond the curtain, she stopped. Considered. And then looked back for a moment and managed a little smile and then went on her way.

* * * * *​

A couple days passed, and another of his talks with Jenna turned to his condition.

"Think you'll be able to do somethin about my eye?"

Jenna took a little longer to consider the question than he thought, but when she answered it was clear why, "Which problem do you mean?"

Oof. Right.

"The eye I still got."

"You are not worried about your missing eye?"

"Ingrid was a bitch, but she gave a pretty fair and accurate assessment on that." Zael shrugged. "I got two arms, two legs, two balls. Lose one, got a spare. That's the way it is with my eye; I'm on the spare now."

He wasn't exactly rich, and with his eye completely obliterated it'd take a miracle of modern healing magic to get another one created from nothing. He couldn't just grow one back like Edric. Or like Jenna, as it so happened.

"So yeah, the eye I still got. Is it just stuck blue now?"

"What color was it before?"

"Green."

Jenna frowned. Reluctant, was she, to give him the bad news. "During our purging sessions, I have not seen the color change, even briefly, back to its original hue. I...suspect it may be much like a physical scar on the flesh."

A scar. Not impossible to have healed, but since Kimble's magic wasn't standard cold magic, since it was unique and special to him, it might leave many healers baffled. And Kimble sure wouldn't be telling how to easily remove the discoloration.

"Funny. Well, I'm not the only one who's had their eye changed"—or hair changed—"by magic. Guess I'm part of the club now."

"I am sorry."

"Don't be." And he grinned. "I'll make the blue sexy."

* * * * *​

Another day passed, and something...unexpected happened.

Jenna came in, looking a little covert, like she was up to something, and she said quietly, "You have a visitor."

Zael, intrigued, sat up in his bed slowly. "That so?" The Academy infirmary wasn't a regular hospital, you didn't just get visitors coming and going; the lockdown day was a bit of an exception. Seemed Jenna had to pull some strings, or use her insider knowledge to smuggle in whoever wanted to see him.

Jenna stepped out. And then in stepped a face he thought he wasn't going to see again for a while.

Kristen Pirian.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

The first thing her eyes fell upon were the bandages wrapped over Zael's right eye. And though she had not intended it, her right hand—the artificial—came up to cover her mouth. They had both lost pieces of themselves.

Not just physically.

"I cannot believe..." Kristen said quietly, "...that this has been allowed to happen."

Zael regarded her with a solemnity that, given his usual upbeat attitude, was dismaying and heartbreaking. "They betrayed us, Kristen. The Republic betrayed our trust."

Kristen came forward. Sat down in the stool beside his bed that Jenna would use while she administered her treatments.

"I wish it were not so. Yet the best I can do to speak on defense of the Republic's overall good is to ascribe to this tragic incident a gross negligence."

"Betrayal. Negligence. It all comes out the same on our end, don't it?"

Kristen hesitated severely on this next subject. Especially after witnessing their interaction on the day prior to graduation. "I...heard what happened with Sieglilly."

Zael said nothing.

"My heart swells with grief, and it aches at the mere thought of...of...what you had to do."

 

[Zael Castomir]

"'Had to do,'" Zael repeated the words ruefully. It was basically what Ralene had said to him. And those words tasted something awful in his mouth. "I don't think I much like hearin those words these days."

Kristen, at least, nodded in an understanding manner. Thank Kress she got it. Then again, yeah, of course she got it. She wasn't raised in this hellhole, given false promises, and then stabbed in the back. "It should never have been."

"Yeah. You got that right."

And then after a moment, after the impetus for the inevitable question grew and grew in the silence, Zael felt an actual tinge of worry, and concern flashed in his single eye.

"It could happen again."

Kristen didn't pale with fright or anxiety like he thought she might; perhaps she had spent some time thinking about that possibility herself. "A new headmaster has been appointed. General Garrett—"

"I don't give a fuck who got appointed where, Kristen, it could happen again."

She looked off to one side. "I have...considered, despite the efforts of the General, of the Heads of the Great Houses, my Uncle Tobias among them, that this may be so."

Zael sat up in the bed (it wasn't so bad doing that now, a lot of his strength had returned) and he reached over and he grabbed her arm.

"Listen, Kristen. If you so much as get a whiff that it might, you send me a letter. Got that? We'll figure out some code word, but you send me a letter. Me and some of our old friends'll come. This isn't happenin to the Gilded Class. Not while I'm still kickin."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"Then I shall," Kristen said.

"Good." Zael let go. Rested his hands in his lap. "I don't really give a shit who's in charge: the Republic, the Houses, even the goddamn king himself. No matter who's watch it is, the old way needs to be dead and gone."

"Agreed. Where once I saw only the ends of the Academy and not the deplorable means, now my blindness has been lifted. Dreadlords can still be forged to a deadly edge, but it can be done without the oppressive reign of ceaseless cruelty."

Zael smiled ruefully. Looked far off. "Guess this is real easy for us to say, isn't it?"

"Indeed. But, upon my graduation, I plan to do something about it. 'Twas a miracle the Revolution happened as it did, but the work is far from finished. 'Tis my aspiration to one day be elected to Parliament."

"Alright, fuck it, you got my vote. Unless you do somethin dumb between now and then."

Kristen sidestepped the joke, her expression quite sober. "From all whom I have shared this aspiration, I have received naught but encouragement. Yet I know that before me stands a challenge far more daunting than any I might face here in the Academy or upon an open battlefield. What happened with your graduation is dismaying proof that culture is a mighty foe indeed."

"I mean, the Revolution worked, didn't it?"

"It is not my intention to simply hang or behead all those who oppose me."

 

[Zael Castomir]

Zael grinned, and with immense self-awareness said, "Yeah, this is why I shouldn't be elected to anythin. Everythin would be solved with fistfights and trial by combat."

"Which is why the path of peace is so difficult. Yet what is right is never easy."

"Look, Kris, you're eloquent. And you were a nervous wreck when you first showed up here, but now look at you. Sure, that confidence still has some rough edges, but you'll get there."

Kristen looked down. Uh oh. What was it? "My skills in persuasion have much to be desired."

"Everybody can't be Liliana. Just weavin people to do this or that like a puppetmaster."

Kristen blinked. Cocked her head. She was definitely caught off guard by that. "Is...is that what she does?"

"She got you, didn't she?"

"Anyway," Kristen said, quickly getting back on track. "I just so happened to engage in a...vigorous discussion, shall we say, with Caeso Diemut."

"The Virak cousin, yeah." Zael didn't know too much about him, other than he was about as noble as they come.

"He was arguing quite well for the old way, and I, attempting to argue against him, did not do so—"

"He what?" Zael said. Deadly serious. "When was this? When the fuck was this!?"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen was taken aback by the sudden aggressiveness on display. Zael went from grinning and carefree and full of mirth to a razor's edge of seriousness in a heartbeat. "W-Why, it was on the day of the lockdown. I had come from the dorm—"

"That son of a bitch," Zael said, slamming a fist down onto the bed. "That son of a fuckin bitch. He couldn't even wait one day. One day."

For a second Kristen didn't get it. And then with startling clarity it dawned on her. Of course. That look on Zael's face when she had expressed her sympathies for Sieglilly. Yet now she feared that she may have ignited something dangerous in Zael by her carelessness in even mentioning Caeso at all.

"You must disregard his remarks. Caeso speaks on behalf of a dying order, one which shall in time find no purchase here within these walls."

"Where is he?"

"What?"

"It's free period, isn't it? Where is he? Where does he like to go?"

"Zael, I would not suggest—"

 

[Zael Castomir]

"Kristen," Zael said firmly, his expression that of braced anger. He kept his tone in check then, clearing some of its harshness. It wasn't Kristen he was livid with after all. "I'm gonna have a man-to-man chat with Caeso. Doesn't matter if you help me, doesn't matter if try and stop me. It's happenin."

Kristen regarded him levelly for a moment, and Zael thought she might try to persuade him out of it. Might continue to argue for inaction, for just letting it stand. No. Fuck that. Sometimes the only way to set people straight was to beat them into proper shape, one way or another. There were some meek-mouthed, weak-kneed people who could just never get that.

Fortunately, Kristen didn't go that route. "I will not help you, but nor will I stop you. If this is something you must do, then of your own accord will you see it done."

"Get Jenna."

"Why?"

"My tummy hurts, I don't know, whatever reason you like. Tell her I wanna talk with her."

Kristen considered it. And then stood. "Very well. And Zael?"

"Yeah?"

"Regardless of how I feel of it, I hope that this brings you some measure of solace for Sieglilly."

 

[Caeso Diemut]

The classes of the senior year were eminently perfunctory. Optional and skippable were also serviceable words to describe them, and surely this was by design. At this point in an Initiate's progress, the core curriculum of education was done and many classes on pertinent aspects of magic were also finished. Caeso reckoned that the classes of the later Academy years, while useful in some regards, paled before the opportunities which field experience could bring. Missions, therefore, trumped classes in their importance.

So it was that he didn't particularly mind the new "free period" which had been instituted in the age of the Republic. No great loss where classes were concerned, and, as was fitting he supposed, he was free to engage in his own pursuits.

Presently, Caeso sat in the main quad of the Academy. His father had secured for him a worthy text, a collection of some of the greatest speeches by Arethil's most eloquent speakers, whether they be Anirian or not. The spoken word was a powerful thing indeed, if, deployed skillfully, it secured one's victory in a matter without a single sword being drawn. No more elegant was the use of force than when it won a war without one battle being fought.

Yet, as it happened, such would not be Caeso's fortune today.

"Take a rest here," said a familiar voice. Female. Where had he heard it? Yes, the infirmary. One of the Fourth-levels there. Gemma? No, Jenna? One of those two. It was not uncommon for Gemma and Jenna to be confused by Initiates and staff alike.

"Don't mind if I do," said another familiar voice. Male. An upperclassman, if memory served. And it did.

The owner of the voice sat down right next to Caeso on the stone bench in the quad, and Caeso could feel the palpable hostility from the older Initiate. No, not Initiate. Not any longer.

The Dreadlord Zael Castomir.

 

[Zael Castomir]

Rehabilitation. Fancy word for getting up and walking around after being bed ridden for days, easing back into his strength after all those hellish magical purgings. And, yeah, great cover too for getting out of the infirmary and walking around the Academy grounds with a ready-made excuse. With Jenna attending him, nobody asked them any questions.

Zael sat next to Caeso on that stone bench. He didn't look at Caeso, and Caeso didn't look at him. Zael sat hunched forward, elbows on his knees; Caeso sat with his back straight, open book in his lap, staring down at it. And like this they talked.

"I heard you gave a nice speech on the day of the lockdown," Zael said.

"That I did."

"Same day a lot of us died."

"Do not forget that a lot of you departed with that fool of an Archon as well."

"I'm not here to talk about Gilram. I'm here to talk about you."

"Is that right?"

"That's damn right."

A pause. Somewhere on the Academy grounds, the distant sound of duels from the younger Initiates.

"You stick by what you said?" Zael asked, knowing the answer.

"I do not disgrace the spoken word by speaking idly."

"I was hopin you'd say that."

"Pray tell...Dreadlord."

"See, I've been lyin down for too long. A good stretch is what I need. Somethin to work the arms. The fists. One last little spar here at my home away from home."

Zael glanced over with a face of carefully restrained anger. Caeso, as well, glanced over, his expression one of dignified defiance.

"And you're just the fuckin asshole I'd like to invite."

 

[Caeso Diemut]

THE BLACKWOOD
DAYS LATER​

Caeso stood across from Zael. All around them the same trees which bore witness to countless graduations, so Caeso surmised. Zael had insisted that their duel take place here. Perhaps he thought the environment would grant him some strength. Maybe so. Was it not the very ground upon which he had become a Dreadlord?

Still, Zael was but that title and some weeks removed from being an Initiate. In terms of raw strength rather than prestige, they were, to Caeso's reckoning, very much on a comparable footing.

Neither of them wore armor (merely Academy fatigues each) and neither of them carried weapons. Both had agreed to settle this in the simplest manner of all: hand-to-hand combat.

"I am surprised you made it."

Zael snorted. "Wouldn't miss this for the world."

Caeso shrugged, lifting up his open palms. "What else should I have expected? Upon unassailable ground do my arguments stand, so, presented with such dismaying hopelessness, those who disagree inevitably turn to hysterics and brutishness. Nevertheless, it will be refreshing to best a Dreadlord in single combat."

 

[Zael Castomir]

Zael was mostly better now. He still needed another two days of magical purgings, yeah, but he could get up, walk around, run, use his magic, sneak out of the Academy, you know, everything he needed to do. He wasn't in tip-top shape, sure, but this was his shot. Today. Now or never. And Zael was figuring he didn't need to be at full physical strength to whip this smug Diemut back to his vineyards.

Whatever injuries he got in the process, well, Jenna had his back. People treated her like dirt because she was a Fourth-Level and wasn't the best at expressing herself, but she was alright when you got to know her. He even had a proper eyepatch now after she went and wrangled one up for him.

Nevertheless, it will be refreshing to best a Dreadlord in single combat.

"This is just you and me, hotshot. Settin things straight."

Caeso smirked. "I'll help you back up after I lay you flat."

"I'll do you one better and drag your ass back to the Academy when it's over."

And they approached one another.

 

[Caeso Diemut]

Caeso knew he was a force to be reckoned with even sans his magic. On the unnatural scale of strength, augmented by his Force Enhancements, did he dominate, but even without his arcane gifts, on the natural scale of strength, he was built powerfully. What else was there to be expected of a son of Diemut, whose heritage traced back to the mighty House of Virak? There were no finer warriors in the days of old than the men who carried the name of Virak, and Caeso was the inheritor of this pristine lineage.

Yet after their first exchange, Caeso's haughtiness was checked. Zael kept up with him, matching his strikes, grappling confidently, even taking his legs out from underneath him with a sweeping kick. Caeso rolled back up onto his feet, cracked his neck to the left and right, regarding his opponent in a new light, and endeavored once more to win.

He maintained the height and weight advantage and leveraged it where possible, muscling Zael around when he got the upper hand in a grapple, tossing and slamming the one-eyed Dreadlord whenever he got a firm hold on him, exploiting the advantage of his reach to keep Zael at bay when needed.

Caeso would have liked to say that all this meant he was dominating the fight. He was not. The contest was lively, the result in doubt. Anyone watching might have said they were evenly matched. Caeso had strength, though Zael wasn't far behind. Zael had toughness, though Caeso did not lack for constitution in comparison. Maybe Caeso could endure for longer, but he'd have to weather the storm of Zael's quickness and not crumble before then.

Punches landed. Knees and elbows slammed into both of them. The trees around them made for the cage in which both were in their turns thrown up against.

They fought. And fought.

Panting and slowing after exhaustion, bruises, and gashes began to build and gather.

But neither was keen on quitting.

 

[Zael Castomir]

If there was one thing Zael loved, it was a good fight. And this. This was a good fight.

All things went to the wayside once the fists started flying. Gone was the anger over Caeso's speech, the grief over Sieglilly's death, the warmth he had felt while Everleigh was at his bedside. All of it tumbled away as uncomplicated elation went on the rise. Here, everything made sense. Here, Zael was encapsulated in a simple world where everything was understood. Nothing else mattered. It was just him, his opponent, and the thrill of battle. Like a master sculptor finding joy in the crafting of his statues, so too did Zael find joy in the ebb and flow of a fight. Much like that hypothetical sculptor, it was pure love for his craft.

Even now, as the acidic burn of fatigue weighed down his muscles and clutched at his chest, as soreness and pains of dull, aching, throbbing, pulsing, and stinging varieties all assailed him, Zael was still in the moment. Both him and Caeso were beyond sloppy in their fighting now. They were men on the brink of collapse. Everyone had their limit, even if that was heresy to admit aloud in the Academy.

They staggered toward one another after squaring up one final time. Zael tossed a jab to bait Caeso's guard high, and then got two wonderful shots into his stomach (which was nice and tender since he had been working that area the whole bout). Caeso checked him with a fling of his elbow into the side of his head.

Those last two moves for Zael and Caeso both were hardly possessed of any vigor, but next, in this last exchange, did they each independently decide to put every last drop of effort and strength. And, also independently, did they each decide on how to do it and both come to the same result.

Zael and Caeso each threw a vicious left hook, and both punches connected with their opponent's jaw. The two men, Dreadlord and Initiate, fell right past one another. It almost looked like a dance move as each spun in tandem motion and collapsed.

Caeso lay on the ground on his back, his arms splayed out, panting, staring up at the sky.

Zael lay on the ground on his back, his arms splayed out, panting, staring up at the sky.

And the latter said, "...Is that all you got?"

A second passed. Then two.

And both burst out into laughter.

 

[Caeso Diemut]

Time passed, and tensions settled. There was, perhaps, something to be said about the sublime catharsis which could only come through physical release.

"Why, man?" Zael asked. Both he and Caeso were still laying flat on the forest floor, and like this had they been talking to one another. "Why even support the old way? Noble or not, it'll chew you up and spit you out too."

"For over four centuries has the old way secured our place in the world," Caeso said, his tone level and sober. "Great and formidable are the enemies that seek to pillage us, subjugate us, destroy us. Arethil is a world which shall never know lasting peace. Thus, the weak suffer what they must, Zael. I fear the day when Vel Anir is found wanting before a superior foe, for that day will be dark for us all. Yet so long as we maintain our strength, we may with that very strength stave off the world's cruel designs."

"There's got to be a better way. We don't need to inflict cruelty on ourselves to stave it off from the outside."

Caeso, resigned, said, "I will err on the side of surety over hope."

"It starts with us," Zael said, coming to sit up then and looking at the Initiate laid out beside him. "You. Me. All of us, man. Hope ain't nothin without action. And that's what we can do. Us. The new generations. Look, we just beat the livin shit out of each other and it's no hard feelin's."

Caeso sat up as well. "Good. I prefer to keep my indulgences to brutishness at a minimum."

"Point bein...we've all suffered enough. We've all lost too much. Let's at least give a new way its fair shot."

Zael extended his hand.

Caeso regarded it. Considered for a long moment. Said, "I make no promises."

And then clasped it.

Zael grinned. "You're still a pompous asshole, though."

Caeso smirked. "And you are still an impetuous imbecile."

 

[Zael Castomir]

Caeso was the first to rise to his feet, the effort slow and labored, and the grimace he wore, well, spoke volumes to the hell of a fight they had, huh? "A long walk back is before us," he said, offering a helping hand down. "Perhaps time enough for you to sway me with sweet words to your line of thinking."

Zael snickered, "I got my work cut out for me." He took Caeso's hand and, as well, ascended to his feet.

Caeso smirked again. "I told you I would help you back up."

"Well, guess it's my turn then to make good on a promise," Zael said lightheartedly. "How do you want me to drag you? By your feet or by that pretty topknot?"

As soon as he felt the chill working its way up suddenly from his feet, his legs, Zael knew what was happening. Or, at least, who it was. He was behind Zael, so much Zael knew because he could see Caeso's alarmed gaze peering over his shoulder. As the frost continued to climb up past his pelvis, up his torso, Zael with clenched teeth turned his head to look back.

There was Proctor Kimble. He revealed himself at last, standing beside a particularly thick tree, casting his Cold magic with almost leisurely precision upon Zael. How long he had been there, waiting, or if he had just now showed up, these were things Zael couldn't know. What stole the near totality of his awareness was the breathtaking pain of the creeping frost. It mixed with his exhaustion horridly, and a silent scream made his mouth go wide. His legs gave out and Zael fell down to his knees.

"Kress!" Caeso exclaimed. And then Proctor Kimble strode forward quickly and engaged him. Even if he were not likewise exhausted like Zael, before the might of a seasoned Proctor he stood little chance by himself.

As Caeso tried desperately to fend off Kimble, Zael, with what awareness was still available for such considerations, wondered in aghast alarm just how in the hell Kimble could have known they were out here.

Zael's answer appeared from around that same thick tree. Jenna.

Zael's heart sank when he laid eyes on her. What agony came from the creeping frost scouring his flesh was nothing compared to the plunging dagger of betrayal. And betrayal it was, of that there could be no doubt, for Jenna wore a smile that conveyed clearly that this was all of her explicit intention. She was not forced into this like Sieglilly had been. Premeditation had gone into this, and she, so far as Zael reckoned, had taken full advantage of the opportunity Zael himself had unwittingly provided for her in coming out to the Blackwood for this duel.

She sauntered up to him. Placed her hand on his cheek softly...and then dug her nails into the flesh to draw blood.

"Was it all a lie?" Zael said.

"Only the parts that needed to be."

Kimble had Caeso gripped with a summoned hand of ice about his neck, restraining him. Caeso clutched at the frozen fingers but it was no use, the conjuration had him sapped of his magic and powerless to act in all the moments which would matter next.

Kimble turned to face Zael, and Jenna stepped back obligingly. He held out his arm to one side and slowly the Icicle materialized in his hand, a long shaft of ice which filled his entire hand. Up to Zael he went. Kimble grabbed a fistful of Zael's hair and forced his head back, face skyward.

"I will show you the error of your ways."

When the pain of the creeping frost again became too much Zael helplessly opened his mouth to scream. But he could not. The tip of the Icicle was forced into his mouth, its stark cold stinging his teeth and his tongue. Kimble slid it in slowly, the girth of the Icicle stretching Zael's jaw open further, muscle strained and fearfully tense. Zael's eye was bulging. The Icicle brushed past his uvula and began its slow descent down Zael's throat, plunging deeper, penetrating further inside. Its cold radiated cruelly, like a thousand grasping fingers tearing down all semblance of warmth from within. Zael couldn't breathe, his quivering gags muffled by the Icicle which clogged his throat. He couldn't take it anymore.

Then, with the Icicle fully inserted (all but enough to grasp with a hand still sticking out of Zael's mouth), Kimble stepped back and snapped his fingers and Zael's body became caged in a perfect stasis prison of ice. Only would he be freed after the Icicle was removed, yet that would not be for some time. Now, caged in ice as he was, he would be easy for Kimble to transport with his magic.

And Kimble took Zael from the Blackwood.

 

[Zael Castomir]

"Before you go...can’t I see you before you go?"

...
..
.

"Count on it."​