63

Michael stood there confused for a few moments, running his hands along the stone. It was difficult to tell the color of it, as his night vision washed out a lot of the color around him, so he raised his hand and focused on it as if he were going to heal someone to make it glow. The stone was large, reaching nearly as high as his chin and overgrown with roots and vines. He walked slowly around it, careful to watch his step. He saw small patches of gray on the ground as well, realizing that where he was standing all used to be part of a large stone platform. He placed his hand on it again, finding it oddly warm to the touch as he circled around it. He could see the remnants of a single large foot broken at the ankle and overgrown. He looked at the direction the foot was pointing to determine where the front of the statue had been and started to move away the plants and vines from it.

His hand was still glowing as he searched for any writing or inscriptions on the front of the statue’s base, and it suddenly locked in place. He looked at his hand and started to try and pull away, but it wouldn’t move. Its glow began to increase, and the heat he felt in it began to grow, building until it burned and started to blind him. Gold lettering began to appear from the statue and fly past him and around him. It was moving too fast for him to read or understand, overwhelming him with a flurry of indecipherable information that assailed his senses as his hand burned and the light from it grew. Very suddenly, it was over.

He pulled his hand away, stumbling back as his vision recovered and the glow faded. He took heavy, panting breaths and looked back at the statue. The vines and foliage had all burned away, and now he saw the faded remains of an inscription.

Se s,

T y of I n

De e r of th eak

She wh elds

Michael tried to make sense of what the words could be, but there just wasn’t enough left for him to figure it out. If he were less exhausted or confused, he may have been able to parse it, but he wasn’t in that kind of shape. He did his best to commit what he did see to memory. He had no clue what had just happened, but it seemed obvious that the statue was of one of the old gods, the ones who had all faded away to be replaced by the Divine. He looked at it one more time, focusing on it as if he was divining it. He thought he saw a few traces of golden words at the edges of his peripheral vision when he did so, but even with all of his focus on it, he couldn’t discern any of it clearly. He shook his head. He wanted to stay and try and figure out what was happening and what he was seeing, but he was in enemy territory and could still be being pursued.

He took one last long look at what remained of the statue, then turned around and started walking again, moving at a quicker pace than he had been when he’d stopped in the hopes of making up for the time he’d lost. The night was deep and dark, with the three moons only occasionally peeking through the thick canopy of trees as he moved.

He walked until dawn, his legs feeling leaden from navigating the thick forest paths for so many hours. He found himself surprisingly grateful that he’d lost his shield and mace during his earlier fight, though it would have definitely made his runaway from the archers a lot easier if he’d had it on his back protecting him from their arrows. Their lack of weight was a boon, though he would likely be reprimanded or punished for the loss of the shield.

He eventually reached a road that he felt was safe enough to travel down. It seemed to lead to one of the camps he’d been in over the last few weeks based on his Navigate spell, though which one he wasn’t certain, as he’d gotten so turned around in the forest that he could no longer tell. He started walking down it, moving at a more relaxed pace than he had been before. While his body felt okay thanks to his recovery abilities, his mind was starting to feel sluggish. He needed sleep, but he didn’t want to stop moving until he reached the camp or at least ran into a patrol of some kind.

He walked for nearly an hour, with dawn creeping through the trees, when he felt a sudden sharp pain in the back of his neck. He crumpled to his knees, clutching at it as his brand burned painfully in both his neck and his soul. The pain was worse than all of the others he’d so recently experienced. Every time he grew used to it enough to string more than two thoughts together, the pain increased. He tried to stand, to force his legs to make them move him forward toward the camp, but every time he got them under himself, he fell. He instead resigned himself to crawling and dragging himself forward. He clutched handfuls of dirt in the path and pulled himself forward agonizingly slowly as the brand screamed at him.

He wasn’t sure how long he was moving or how long the brand was active, but the sun was high in the sky when he finally saw someone. There were three figures, wearing the gray uniforms of Stent soldiers and moving quickly toward him.

“Looks like we’ve got a Penitent deserter,” said the one in the lead, whose features Michael couldn’t make out through vision blurred with pain.

“Should we go ahead and just kick him off the path to die?”

“No. We should take him to camp for a trial. Been a while since I’ve seen an execution.” That one bent down and roughly grabbed his arm. Another grabbed his leg, and then he felt himself being dragged toward the camp. The next thing he knew, he was in a roughly constructed wooden cage with his arms and legs bound, listening to the sounds of the camp as the pain continued to render him thoughtless.

Very suddenly, the pain ended. He made a sharp intake of breath as it did and felt his body trembling with relief, but also fear that it may start again. He looked up to see a rough-looking soldier with a patchy beard and the marks of a sergeant. The man rolled his sleeve down to cover his control brand.

“So. Where’d you desert from?”

Michael pushed himself up onto his knees. His armor was still on, so it was a very difficult thing.

“I didn’t desert. I got separated from my squad during a raid on some mercenaries.”

The sergeant snorted. “You survived that? With no wounds? Nice try.”

Michael shook his head. “I’m a diviner. I can heal. You can see the holes in my armor and the damage my clothes took. I probably spent some time in this camp’s infirmary healing at some point.” He looked around but wasn’t able to tell this camp apart from any of the others. The similar layout made it too difficult, particularly with the limited vision of his now misaligned helmet.

The sergeant squinted a bit. “I did hear about a healer fixing Brin’s cock a week ago.”

“That was me,” and that meant that he was at the closest camp that they’d left from before joining the raiding party. That was good—it meant Tain or some of the others might be able to corroborate his story.

His face scrunched up a bit as he thought. Eventually, he sighed. “Fuck. I’ve got to go make sure of this.” He gestured for two guards to come over and watch him as he disappeared into the sea of tents.

Michael sat there, extremely uncomfortable and in need of a piss, but much better off than he was when his brand was active. It made sense that it had activated. He’d been away from a control brand for a full day, and he’d been warned before that they would activate automatically if they were too distant from one for long. The time and the distance were always vague—he’d guessed that was intentional.

The sergeant returned with Merk. “Was he one of them in the raid that went south?” he asked.

Merk looked at him like he was an idiot. “How am I supposed to tell while he’s wearing the helmet?”

The sergeant gestured for one of the guards to go and remove his helmet. Michael held his chin up so they could easily get to the strap and remove it.

“Yes. He was with the group. He did not meet us at the rally point. He should be considered a deserter.”

The sergeant looked at Merk with an eyebrow raised, and the guard that removed the helmet shook his head.

“This Penitent healed an arrow wound for me just a few days ago, ser,” he said to the sergeant.

He nodded at him subtly so Knight-Dragoon Merk wouldn’t see. “I think we’ll bring this to the knight-commander. That’s the procedure, after all.”