Chương 35: The Marches

Halbreach did not try to impress. That was its first difference from Aurelis. Aurelis raised arches, stained glass, white towers, statues of dead heroes with enough beauty that the living could forget for a moment why they had needed to die. Halbreach simply existed as a stone answer to a brutal question: How long can we hold if the east opens? Its walls were low compared to the towers of the capital, but thick. Stout.

Reinforced with bands of black metal and darker layers of stone, added over cycles like scars over a jaw that had already been broken once. The battlements were wide, the firing balconies numerous, the gates doubled by two internal portcullises and a grid of ritual fire. Nothing was beautiful. Everything had a reason. Zayn stepped down from the carriage with the dust of the road on his clothes, dried blood on his sleeve, and a soul strength of 25. Twenty-five. The level of an ordinary knight.

He had reached it by stealing fragments from beasts, from men, from lives he had reduced to gains and risks. He should have felt something clearer. Shame. Horror. Even pride. Instead, he looked at the ramparts and thought: It won't be enough here. No poetry. Just a calculation. The soldiers on the walls did not look like the guards of the sanctuary. The ones in Aurelis had been clean, well-armed, well-aligned. The ones in Halbreach were rougher. Repaired cuirasses. Scars. Cloaks stained with red dust.

Short bows, spears, axes, weapons too personal to belong to a parade army. And above all, their values. 34 41 27 52 38 Just at the gates, several soldiers far surpassed what he had become. Not heroes. Not archmages. Not legendary figures. Just men and women who had lived too close to war to remain weak. A cold irritation rose in Zayn's throat. He had killed to climb to 25. Here, a simple gate guard could look down on him without even knowing he had just crushed his little progress beneath his boots. Very well.

The world still had a talent for ruining honestly criminal investments. Jonah stepped down behind him, looked at the fortress, then said,"Ah. This is a city built by someone who was betrayed by windows." Voss, passing near him, answered without slowing,"Windows kill more people than demons when architects are idiots." Jonah looked at him.

"I take back what I said earlier. I'm not starting to like you. I'm starting to respect you, which is much more concerning." Even Lena let out a small breath through her nose. Almost a laugh. Almost. The laugh died quickly when the first line of wounded passed in front of them. They were coming from inside the fortress, carried on stretchers or supported by other soldiers. Not fresh wounded from their ambush. These already belonged to Halbreach. A woman with one arm blackened to the elbow.

An adolescent barely older than Zayn with a ritual burn across his cheek. A huge man missing one leg, who was nevertheless laughing with another soldier while demanding his beer ration "to compensate for the weight loss." Lena slowed. Elias did too. Not Zayn. He mostly saw the numbers. 18 29 12 44 Wounded bodies. Diminished. Alive. Values that no longer always matched appearance. The one-legged man had 44. Denser than several soldiers still standing. Zayn looked at him one second too long.

The man turned his head toward him.

"What? Never seen someone save money on boots before?" Jonah almost burst out laughing. The man pointed at his bandaged stump.

"One foot less means military expenses cut in half. The Crown hates that kind of efficiency, so they keep trying to keep me alive to study the concept." Zayn did not answer. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Not because he was moved. Because the man at 44 had shown more robust humor with one leg than he did with two. Humiliating, in its own way. Voss led them through the first courtyard. Halbreach was less a single fortress than a stack of military functions.

Wagon court. Wounded court. Weapons court. Low barracks. Protected stables. Signal tower. A chapel of the Glass Sun reduced to a gray building without stained glass, its door left open for those who did not have time to pray for long. And then there were the people of the Marches. Not just the soldiers. Families. Artisans. Children. Old people. Refugees who had been integrated so long they had become another layer of the fortress. Here, the frontier was not a place the army went to.

It was a place where people lived. A little girl ran between two soldiers carrying rolls of bandages bigger than her torso. 9 An old blacksmith at 36 spat into a bucket, insulted a poorly kept blade, then raised his eyes toward the convoy without stopping his hammer. A woman in an ash-gray coat waited for them at the foot of the second gate. She had short black hair, a vertical scar along her right cheek, and light armor beneath her coat. Too little decorated for Aurelis. Far too well made for a simple officer.

Above her: 73 The value Zayn had glimpsed from the carriage. She did not look at Elias first. She looked at the whole group. Then at him. Not with fear. Not with hatred. With measurement. As if she were assessing a weapon found in the mud and wondering whether it would explode in the hand before cutting the enemy.

"Commander Selka Varn," said Voss. The woman barely inclined her head.

"Captain." Her gaze passed over the prisoners, the dead strapped down, the damaged carriage, then the blood on Zayn's sleeve.

"Lively road?" Voss answered:"Ambush. Two captured. Several dead. One mage lost." The commander did not ask which one. Not immediately. She counted the survivors first. A good habit. Then her eyes returned to the five summoned.

"So those are them." The Crown representative stepped forward.

"The summoned heroes are to be housed under royal protection and—" Selka Varn raised a hand. Not brutally. Just enough to stop the sentence.

"Here, everyone is under protection until something stronger comes through the gate. After that, the ones who can fight fight. The ones who can't fight carry, dress wounds, lock doors, or burn bodies." She looked at Elias.

"Hero or not." Elias held her gaze without stiffening.

"Understood." A good answer. Again. Selka moved to Jonah.

"You look like you talk too much." Jonah smiled.

"It's my survival mechanism. Some people raise shields. I become irritating until death picks a quieter target." Selka stared at him for a second. Then:"Does it work?"

"So far, scandalously well." This time, even Voss let out a breath. Not a laugh. But its distant military cousin. Selka moved on to Mira. There, something changed. Two people who know how to read threats recognize each other without liking each other.

"Observer." Mira answered:"Commander." Nothing more. Then Lena. Selka stayed on her half a second longer, but her hardness did not become contempt.

"Support?"

"Yes."

"Then learn quickly who cannot be saved. Otherwise the Marches will teach you in their own way." Lena's face tightened slightly. Not offended. Struck exactly where the ambush had already left a wound. At last, Selka turned to Zayn. The silence shifted. Very slightly. Enough.

"And you," she said. No title. No fifth summoned. No delayed stabilization. You. Zayn felt several gazes slide toward him. Voss. Maelor. Mira. Lena. Elias. He looked at the commander. High enough to crush him in a duel. Intelligent enough not to settle for a file. March-born enough not to waste time on polite categories.

"Me?" he asked. Selka came down the two steps separating them. She stopped close enough to be deliberately uncomfortable.

"I was sent four heroes and a problem." Zayn felt the Crown representative tense almost physically. Selka continued:"The problem survived the sanctuary, the galleries, a public attack, an ambush, and arrives here with blood that isn't entirely his." Her eyes briefly dropped to his sleeve. Then rose again.

"I don't like problems that learn. But I respect them more than problems that cry." Zayn looked at her. He did not immediately find a useful sarcastic answer. Because she was not trying to purify him. Not trying to condemn him. Not trying to offer him a moral chance. She was assessing him. Simply. It was almost restful.

"What do you want?" he asked. Selka gave a slight smile. Not warm.

"To know whether you're a knife, an infection, or both." Jonah muttered behind him,"Family atmosphere." Selka heard him perfectly.

"Here, family atmosphere means burying people in order of priority. You'll adapt." Jonah lifted a finger.

"I take it back. I respect this woman too. This is a terrible day for my principles." The commander turned away.

"They go to the north wing. Not in the noble quarters. Not in the ordinary barracks. Reserve wing. Two exits, three locking lines, direct access to the assessment yard." The Crown representative finally intervened:"The heroes must also be presented to the local council."

"After they've slept and after I verify they don't die by slipping on a stair."

"Commander—" Selka turned a flat look on her.

"If Aurelis wants ceremonies, Aurelis should have kept its heroes in a city that doesn't leak like a split barrel. Here, I start by seeing who can stay standing." Silence. Zayn had to make an effort not to smile. Not out of sympathy. Out of pure pleasure at seeing someone speak to the Crown as if it were badly placed furniture. It was petty. Therefore pleasant. They were led deeper into the fortress. The farther they went, the more the east became concrete.

A training hall where adolescents struck dummies with discipline too hard for their age. A corridor of maps covered in red, black, and white marks. A courtyard where contaminated carcasses were burned in ritual fire that smelled of salt and sour flesh. A chapel without singing, where soldiers entered, touched the stone threshold, then left again immediately. No spectacular faith. A superstition of survivors. Lena looked at everything. Elias did too, but differently: he was already registering the people to protect.

Jonah watched the defenses. Mira the weaknesses. Zayn watched the values. Always. A young soldier at 22 pretending not to limp. A healer at 48 insulting a wounded man while closing his wound. A chained prisoner at 39 locked behind a low grate, probably a scout or a military criminal. An old woman at 57 who passed them with a basket of laundry and a look capable of making a knight step aside. Halbreach did not hide power in white rooms. It let it walk around with rolled-up sleeves.

They finally reached the north wing. As promised, it was neither comfortable nor miserable. Narrow, clean rooms, solid beds, high windows barred with functional grilles, a common table at the end of the corridor. Two guards at the entrance. A second exit դեպի an inner yard. Selka stopped in front of them.

"You have two hours. Eat, sleep, vomit, pray, complain, whatever. After that, first light field assessment." Lena lifted her head.

"Today?"

"Yes." Elias asked,"What does light field mean?" Selka answered without smiling:"Something that shouldn't kill you if you're actually useful." Jonah nodded slowly.

"I like your vocabulary much less when it applies to me." Selka looked at Zayn.

"You especially." Zayn held her gaze. The commander pointed toward the yard beyond the window.

"The walls of Aurelis and the glass of the sanctuary lie well. The Marches lie badly. Here, if you're weak, it shows. If you're dangerous, that shows too." She turned on her heel. Then added, without turning back:"And if you're both, we see it even faster." The door closed behind her. The corridor remained silent. Then Jonah exhaled.

"Well. I have officially changed my mind. I want to go back to the carriage. The carriage was a reasonable person." No one really laughed. But something in the tension gave by a millimeter. Zayn, meanwhile, stayed near the window. Outside, in the yard, soldiers were loading low cages onto a metal sled. Something moved inside. Alive. Several values were already trembling behind the bars. 6 9 12 The next assessment. More beasts. More living things. More opportunities. He felt the mark pulse under his collar.

The east was not a refuge. It was not even a prison. It was a field. And part of him—the lowest, clearest, least salvageable part—had already understood that the Marches would not heal him. They were going to sharpen him.