Page 247 of Of Empires and Dust

“Speak one more word, and then never again. I promise you, that is not a threat, it is a certainty.”

The two men glared at each other for a long moment until Brother Tuk snapped at his reins and drove his horse forwards, the other Healers moving with him.

Horse hooves squelched and rain drummed, but otherwise silence held sway as the army marched on. Garramon didn’t turn to Rist or speak another word. He seemed to vanish into his own thoughts.

Magnus pulled his horse alongside Rist’s. “Solman and Garramon have history, lad – a bitter one. And the Healers tend to look at us as monsters anyway. I get it. They pledge theirexistence to saving lives, and we pledge ours to ending them. Don’t take it personally. He’s a bitter twat with a small prick, trying to use you to get to Garramon. He knows the places to prod.”

“He’s not wrong though, is he? How could he be when I still don’t understand. We’re at war. I saw more corpses at the Three Sisters than I’ve known people in my life. Hundreds died in the attack on Berona. And when we reach the Firnin Mountains, what do we plan to do other than create more corpses? Why then do we march around instead of through? It’s nothing we haven’t seen and won’t see again. I don’t want to kill the rebels, but I understand the necessity of it. I saw what they did in Berona.”

Magnus gave Rist a soft smile. One similar to those his mother would give him when he didn’t understand what was apparently obvious to everyone else – which happened often. “If we all thought like you, Rist, the world would be a much simpler place. But we don’t. And when it comes to leading an army, you aren’t just managing their bodies, and their armour, and their training. You’re managing their fear, their desire, their fervour – you’re managing their hearts and minds. Logic is all well and good, but it evaporates when it comes into contact with the human heart.” Magnus tapped his stump against his chest. “The men and women in this army have seen endless death this past year. They’ve lost loved ones, brothers and sisters. Some have lost their homes. And I can tell you one thing with a certainty born from centuries of fighting wars. If we march an exhausted army through a waterlogged field full of bloated corpses, we will have deserters by sunrise. And when we finally reach the Firnin Mountains, we will have an army ready to break and route. Steel cuts and kills, but when a battle teeters on the edge of the precipice, when two armies are tooth and nail, it is fear and desire that decide the day – morale. It is a fickle thing and must be tended with care.” Magnus angled his head down to catchRist’s eye. “You’re a little strange, Rist, but I’m batshit crazy too. There’s not a person here who isn’t.”

Some hours later,Rist stood by the front of the command tent, staring up at the Blood Moon, the rain tapping against his skin, cold and rhythmic. He’d been there for a while, the others keeping dry inside. Something about the drumming of the rain calmed him, allowed his mind to wander. It rained a lot in The Glade.

“Rist?” Neera stepped from the tent and out into the rain, wrapping her arms around him from behind. She rested her hooded head against his back. “You’ll catch your death. Get back inside.”

“It’s only rain.” He placed his hands on top of hers, his fingers slipping into the gaps. “I like rain.”

“Do you not have the Drowned Fever in the South?” She hugged him tighter, pressing her face into his saturated cloak.

“We do. Mara Styr’s first daughter died of it when she was barely old enough to walk.”

“Well then come inside and change out of these clothes and stop being an idiot. I’ll not sit by your bedside, tending you like your mother.”

“I miss my mother…” Rist glanced over his shoulder. “Neera?”

“What? And don’t ask me something that’ll make me think. I just want to sleep.”

“Am I a monster?”

Neera loosened her grip a little and shifted so she could see into Rist’s eyes. She shook her head, smiling softly. “What about ‘don’t ask something that’ll make me think’ do you not understand, Rist Havel?”

“Probably everything, if I’m being honest. What’s the point of questions that don’t make you think?”

She laughed at that. “You’re not a monster, Rist. It’s that High Ardent who’s got you thinking like this, isn’t it? Don’t let him into your head. You are a Battlemage. You vowed to fight for our people, to protect them. And these rebels,” she scoffed, pure hatred tinging her voice, “they violated that. They burned their own people alive. The Healers never understand who we are because they live safe behind walls thatweprotect. That Solman Tuk is nothing but a?—”

“I didn’t mean it literally,” Rist said, cutting Neera short.

Neera pulled her head back and narrowed her gaze. “You always meaneverythingliterally. Always.”

Rist looked away, back up at the star-dusted sky.

“Rist, what’s wrong?” Neera grasped his elbows, moving around him and trying to meet his gaze, but he refused to look down. “Talk to me.”

“I’m not like everyone else,” he said, his heart skipping every second beat, then quickening. “I know that. I’ve never been like everyone else, no matter how hard I’ve tried. Never been like Calen or Dann, never knew what to say, always had trouble seeing things they thought were obvious. I can’t count the number of times I’ve said something wrong or done something wrong and everyone’s looked at me like I was… Everyone but Calen and Dann, and you, and Garramon and Magnus… and Anila. I don’t… With the bodies earlier, I… Is Brother Tuk right?”

Neera lifted a hand and pressed it against Rist’s cheek, forcing him to look at her. To look at the rain dripping from the hood of her cloak, rolling over her soft skin, strands of hair saturated. Her eyes stared into his with a gaze that refused to let him look away. “Rist, you don’t see things the same way, and I’d never want you to. You are kind, and thoughtful, and selfless, and brave, and strong… You spend hours – or even days– thinking on things that others forget in an instant. You put so much thought and care into everything you do. You are entirely yourself and nothing else, and I love that about you.”

“But I just…” He didn’t know how to take the words in his mind and place them onto his lips. His tongue kept tying itself in knots even trying to do so.

“Look at me.” She placed her other hand on his opposite cheek, pulling him a little closer. “Do you understand why we walked around the corpses?”

He nodded. “Not at first, but I do now. It took a lot of thinking. The rain helped. Rain always helps me to think. I’m still not sure I agree, but I understand.”

“So you didn’t know, but you learned and now you do?”

“Yes.”

“Would you chastise me for not knowing something that was plain as day to you? Think of me as less?”

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