Page 19 of The Kingdom of Flames

He did not reach for his circlet.

Celestine felt their time coming to an end so soon. Too soon.

It was the harsh reality of what every young woman, mother, and father knew when conflict arose. Was there a term for a widow who never got to marry her betrothed? What did you call young women who saw war touch men who would have been their husbands, and had never shared even a kiss?

Encarmine stared at her.

A spear snaked out and struck Encarmine. His armor breached, the metal rending under the hard thrust. Celestine screamed when she saw his blood. How could this be? After Cedarheart and the duel, to fall to these men? These lowly mortals?

No one came near Celestine. Their only quarry was Encarmine. She dared not step forth, though she wished to, but if she distracted him and he was slain…

Riders fell upon him, and he fought savagely. Encarmine screamed and roared. He swung his blade, cleaving men down. Slaying horses. But without his circlet, or by choice, he was losing.

Riders broke and then returned in a sortie and ran him down over and over. A wound crested his shoulder. Then another, his thigh. The trample of hooves and a swift spear painted his blood upon the soil. It trickled from him like ribbons of red.

His flesh was rent. Encarmine was defiant, the very image of valor, and that visage was all the more tragic as he was pierced and slashed again and again. There were no songs here, only the sing of steel. No melody but his growl, his grunt, and the trickle of his blood.

In the end, he fell. Exhausted, wounded. Encarmine fell, and the riders broke away to the hills beyond. Their slaying done. They took his spear with its battered standard from the ground.

Celestine went to him. So heavy was the cleaving upon his body that his once powerful arms shook, the nerves and muscles now splayed apart.

“Strip my armor,” he whispered. The buckles would not come loose because her hands shook. Celestine gritted her teeth and stifled a scream of frustration, willing her fingers to obey her.

The sun dipped, and piece by piece, she removed the armor from his body, revealing rough, spun padding drenched in blood. This, too, she hoisted from his wounded torso. Celestine took his arm around her shoulder and they heaved together as she lifted.

The Lord of the Red Banner was heavy. His blood stained her gown, and it was slick enough that she nearly lost the grip of his arm, but Celestine gritted her teeth and grunted, keeping him upright with her strength. She helped him stand. Celestine had lifted bales of hay and helped raise structures, but nothing was harder than lifting this limp and struggling demigod in his mortal form.

“The fortress…” Encarmine murmured. Ahead of them, a drawbridge lowered as if expecting their master, but no men came forth. No servants ran to his aid. Light glowed from within. Celestine kept stepping, wanting so badly to collapse.

I can carry him to his home if he fought thirty men for me. Carry him to where he wants to die.

Celestine exerted every piece of strength she had. She thought of her mother, a back to a door against winter so long ago.

Help me, mother. Help me withstand this.

The ground turned from dry dirt to gravel and finally to the wood of a drawbridge walkway. They stepped together and joined in the union of effort.

When she stepped two paces into his keep, she collapsed with him.

“Help!” Celestine yelled down the hallways.

“Celestine,” Encarmine groaned in her lap. “I am sorry.”

“Who were those men? Will they return? Are they here in your keep?”

But Encarmine didn’t answer. His eyes shut, and he still breathed.

Servants came. They wore his sigil. They did not look at her but rushed to their Lord. No emotion passed their faces.

“Help him!” Celestine cried out.

“Come, Lady.” A matron bade her to stand. “His wounds need tending if he is to pass in comfort.”

That night was one of the longest of Celestine’s life. They laid Lord Encarmine in his bed at the top of the keep. Celestine barely remembered surmounting the staircases.

Servants brought poultices and stitching for his wounds. But some wounds were so deep they could only pack them to slow the flow of his blood. Not stop it.

Among a blur of attendants someone left food for her, and water. She tended to Encarmine. The Lord of Summer was draped in crimson bandages atop the bed. A bed they might have shared. His circlet was drenched in drying blood at his side.

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