Page 121 of Alchemised
Helena peered into her mug. “She’s ready. There’s no reason not to, and she’s the best at what she does, which is keeping you alive.”
There came a series of gasps from the children in the next room as Lila described the paladins battling horde after horde of necrothralls while Orion fought the Necromancer alone.
“What if the reason is that I don’t want her cleared?” Luc said, his voice barely audible.
Helena looked over. Now he was the one avoiding her eyes, his jaw jutting stubbornly forward.
“You know,” he said, “when she took the vows, I thought, at least if she was always there to protect me, it meant I’d be there to protect her, too.” He rubbed the ignition ring on his thumb against the rim of the mug. “But I’m not—not always. She acts like that’s the job, getting chopped into bits in front of me. She’s already saved my life more times than I can count, and that’s supposed to be fine”—his eyebrows furrowed together—“because I’ll win the war, so it’ll all even out in the end. Just like Orion. Except I don’t know how to do that. And she just keeps getting hit and I’m supposed to keep letting her.”
He swallowed hard.
There were too many people, too many lives, balancing on his shoulders. Everyone was always watching, waiting for him to intuitively manifest a miracle like the one Lila was presently describing in vivid detail to gasps and cheers.
Luc’s sense of failure ran through him like a fault line, waiting to rupture. Every death and every scar that Lila and Soren bore adding to it.
He spoke again. “Everyone keeps saying, We’re almost there, and It has to get worse before it gets better, and It’s a crucible, and I just have to prove true … but what if I can’t? What if that’s why things are like this?”
He looked at her, his face stricken, guilt written across it, all the doubt he was not supposed to feel. The Principate was supposed to be unwavering, faith manifest, Sol’s divinity come to earth.
Everyone went out ready to die for him at any moment, so how could he betray their faith by doubting himself.
“Holy white flames rose everywhere, consuming every necrothrall,” Lila’s voice boomed grandly.
Sitting there beside Helena, Luc was an orphan with centuries of legacy resting on his shoulders, and no more idea of how to single-handedly win a war than anyone else.
Helena shook her head. “Luc, I don’t believe in you because anyone ever said I should. I’m here because there’s no one braver or kinder than you. You’re all the good things that anyone ever hopes to be. We’re not here because you tricked us.” She touched his wrist with her gloved fingers for just a moment. “The reason we believe in you is because if you’re not good enough, then no one is.”
He shook his head. “Orion was. All my forefathers were. Nothing like this ever happened to any of them. A necromancer showed up, and they stopped them, simple as that, but I’ve tried everything, and I can’t—”
“Their wars were easier than this one,” Helena said forcefully. “None of them were anything like this, except maybe Orion’s, but even then, it was simpler, because, like Lila just said, he could fill the valley with fire that reached the mountaintops and burn down everything. Even if you could do that, there’s a city with thousands and thousands of people around you. Orion only fought one necromancer in his whole life. There’s no reason to think any of them could fight this war better. You’re doing your best, and if the gods don’t see that, they’re blind—”
“Don’t say things like that,” he said, cutting her off. “That’s not helping.”
Her mouth snapped shut, and she didn’t know what else to say; nothing ever seemed to be right.
“Where the Necromancer had stood, there was nothing but ashes,” Lila said in a climactic voice.
“What was the Necromancer’s name?” came a small piping voice.
“No one knows,” Lila said with an air of mystery. “Anyone who knew, he’d killed. Where was I? Oh yes, even now, Orion’s whole body was arrayed in holy sunfire, and using his pyromancy, he took that fire and lit a brazier.”
“I thought you said everything was burned up in the great waves of fire except the paladins and Orion,” the little voice interrupted again.
There was a mixture of laughter and shushing.
“Well, as it happened, this iron brazier was not burned away in the great waves of fire,” Lila said in a mock-solemn voice. “And so Orion placed the holy fire into it, and before his paladins and the dawning sun, he swore a solemn oath that so long as he and his descendants drew breath, the fire would not go out, and the flames would be carried to destroy the rot of necromancy wherever it festered, and—”
“I thought there was a stone,” came the piping voice once more, apparently revolting against the shushing. “When my dad tells the story, his version has a stone in it.”
“Well, this version doesn’t have a stone,” Lila said quickly, trying to finish the story. “Anyway—”
“I like it better when it has the stone,” contributed another small voice.
Helena set the mug down, glancing at Luc, who was clearly distracted by Lila’s squabbling over his family history with a pack of children.
“Luc, I have to go now,” she said. “Don’t lose hope, though. We’re always here for you. The days will get brighter.”
He gave a wan smile and a listless nod. “I know.”
