Fallen Eagle-Chapter 13: Desperate Incantations

The scent of iron-rich blood, sweat, and the sour tang of sickness had become a cloying incense Orestis wore like a shroud. For days, he had been cloistered on the tower’s upper floor, a self-imposed prison where the ghosts of his failures whispered from every corner. What had once been the opulent sleeping of the source of his greatest terror was now the claustrophobic crucible for his redemption. It felt right.
He hadn’t slept, not truly. Sleep brought no peace, only a parade of fevered ghosts - the faces of the men he had watched wither, their accusations silent in his dreams. He no longer wanted rest; he wanted to atone. He had willfully closed his eyes before. He had failed these men. That much, he could finally admit.
A soft groan, thin as a thread, pulled him from his reverie. Stefanos.
Orestis was at his side in an instant, his movement practiced and silent. He gripped the boy’s hand, the skin shockingly hot and dry, the bones beneath as fragile as a bird’s. Sixteen summers. He was just a boy.
“Easy now, lad. I’m here.” He whispered the words of comfort, a familiar liturgy.
The boy began to mutter, his eyes rolling back, lost in the delirium. A moment later, the sickness took him. A low, wet sound, and the air thickened, the smell of copper and foulness blooming in the small space as the straw bedding grew damp. Orestis didn’t flinch. He had bathed in this stench for days; it was the smell of his own sin. The episodes were unpredictable - sometimes a brief, violent purge, other times an hour-long marathon of agony. The result was always the same: another piece of the boy’s life draining away into the straw.
“F-father…”
The words were a phantom’s plea. Orestis had learned that in the grip of the fever, the dying sought the comfort of ghosts.
“Yes, son. I’m here.” He played the part without hesitation. If it anchored the boy to this world for one moment longer, he would pretend to be his mother, his brother, God himself.
“I-I’m sorry… I w-was a poor son.” Stefanos grimaced, his face contorting in a spasm of pain that Orestis felt in his own gut. “You were right… to beat me.”
The words were a splinter of ice in Orestis’s heart. He saw not the boy’s father, but his own - a large, heavy-handed man whose lessons were taught with the back of his hand.
“You haven’t been,” Orestis heard himself say, his voice thick. “And I wasn’t.” He squeezed the boy’s hand, pouring all the strength he could into the simple gesture. Willing it to travel to him.
“R-really?” The boy struggled to turn his head, his gaze a milky, unfocused haze.
“Yes. So you must be strong for me. The pain will pass. Drink this.”
Orestis reached for the bowl of strange, nourishing broth the new captain had prescribed. He had learned the best strategies for convincing his prisoners to eat it. Some, like Stefanos, needed a gentle touch. Others required the firm hand of a sergeant, forcing a bitter medicine down their throats. It was not so different, he thought, from command. You assessed your man, you found his weakness, and you applied the right pressure. Only now, the objective wasn’t discipline. It was life.
The thought brought a sharp, phantom pain. He was not a sergeant. Not anymore. His redeemer had seen to that.
“The boy won’t make it.”
The voice, a rasp of dry gravel, came from the opposite corner. If Stefanos was a fragile, green sapling, then Filippos was a gnarled, bitter root. He was one of the fort’s few professional men-at-arms, a favorite of the late Captain Arion, and a stone in everyone else’s shoe. A pair of Tatar arrows had left wounds in his thigh that festered and refused to heal, yet he seemed sprightly enough, his energy funneled into a stream of constant, corrosive commentary. Orestis was half-convinced the man was milking the injury, clinging to his invalid status just to spite him. The wounds were real - Orestis cleaned them daily - but the malice behind the man’s eyes felt far more infected.
“He will.” Orestis spoke without turning, beginning the gentle process of lifting Stefanos from the soiled bedding. He would have to burn this pallet, then build a new one from their precious supply of clean straw. The work never ended.
“He grows weaker every hour,” Filippos spat a thick blob of phlegm. “You feed him that sweet ambrosia of the captain’s, and he just churns it out minutes later as plague-filled shit.”
“I told you not to spit on the floor.” A flicker of Orestis’s old authority returned in these moments, brought forth by this intolerable man. But it felt like swinging a rusted sword, the edge dull and the balance gone. “The Captain wants the floor immaculate.”
“And I told you I couldn’t care less,” Filippos shifted on his cot, a grimace of either pain or petulance on his face. “Share some more of that sweet ambrosia, and I’ll reconsider my apathy.” The man had a bizarre craving for the Captain’s strange broth. While the others choked it down, Filippos ate slowly, savouring each bite with unnerving delight, constantly pestering him to add more honey. Orestis made sure that his meal was the one that had the least.
“There’s a quick way to get more.” Orestis held up a handful of the sodden, stinking straw, his voice low and menacing. “I can assist you, if you wish.”
Filippos gave him a dark look, then deliberately spat on the clean floorboards again.
Defeated in the small skirmish, Orestis turned away. He crossed the room and unlatched the heavy trapdoor in the ceiling, pushing it open to the grey sky above. Captain Theodorus had insisted that fresh air was essential for the men’s recovery. As the chill wind swept into the stuffy room, clearing the stench, Orestis thought it might be just as essential for scouring away the poison of men like Filippos.
He moved to a small, designated corner by the door, where his “clean” clothes lay folded on a stool. It was another of the Captain’s baffling commands, a ritual he was to perform without fail. He stripped off the coarse, stained tunic he wore only within these walls, the garment of his penance. Then, he plunged his hands and forearms into a basin of boiled water, scrubbing them raw with a block of harsh lye soap.
Never touch your face or mouth,
the Captain had ordered, his gaze intense, as if speaking of some arcane law.
The foul humors travel on your hands.
Orestis followed the rule religiously, a bizarre catechism in this new world of strange but unwavering doctrines.
Orestis closed the door behind him, the soft click sealing the sickroom away. To descend the stairs was to ascend from a tomb into a world remade. The first floor, once a cluttered mess, was now a spartan testament to the Captain’s will. Bedrolls were tight cylinders, personal effects were stowed in neat piles, and the air smelled of soap and scrubbed stone, not stale sweat. He’d seen the Captain’s veterans scouring the floor while the garrison drilled, hunting for a single imperfection. The punishments for sloppiness were devilish and immediate, he’d heard, but they were never the lash.
Not once since his arrival had the boy-captain raised a hand to a man. A stark departure from Captain Arion’s love for the whip. The name sent a jolt of phantom pain through his shoulders. He clenched his fist, knuckles turning white.
Breathe.
Outside, the courtyard was a hive of frantic, organized labor. He saw them, his men - no,
the fort’s
men, he corrected himself - hauling stone from the mountain of rubble that had been their wall. They worked with a desperate energy, sorting the debris into three distinct piles: large, squared-off blocks for the new exterior face; irregular chunks for the inner fill; and a growing mound of useless dust and pebbles being carted away. It was necessary work, but Orestis knew that without a skilled mason and lime mortar to bind it, it was futile. He’d have to requisition the capital for some, and a two-week timeline was being optimistic.
The commander, however, was treating the hauling process like it was a training regimen. The men would alternate; half would haul and clear rubble at a pace so frantic their hands bled from half a dozen blisters and their knees buckled; the other half, disoriented and exhausted, would scramble to form a line for rapid-fire drills - turns, pivots, advances- the slightest imperfection by any member would see them start over again.
The captain was trying to induce discipline into a mob at record pace by sheer, unrelenting pressure and shock. It was genius. But it was only possible because of the foundation the Captain had laid: the shared meal, the abdicated quarters, the work in the mud. He was earning the right to break them down because he had already shown he was willing to build them up.
He could see the fragile cohesion taking root, the men moving with a dawning sense of unity. But he knew it was a crop planted in shallow soil. They were a flock of sheep being taught to march, and when the wolves came, they would be slaughtered all the same. Then the survivors would go back to their farms, the lessons would fade like mist, and a new levy of clueless boys would arrive to take their place.
It was hopeless. The thought was a cold, familiar stone in his gut. He knew because he had tried. Back when he still believed he was defending the Principality for the greater good… a foolish thought.
He looked back at the courtyard, at the boy-captain shouting orders, at the sweating, straining men. He was watching a ghost. A tragedy he had already seen unfold, playing out its first, hopeful act.
Orestis forced the memory from his mind as he descended into the tower’s ground floor. In a quiet corner of the storeroom, the Captain’s servant, Demetrios, was stooped over a large, leather-bound ledger, his brow furrowed in concentration. He didn’t notice Orestis approach until a shadow fell across the parchment.
“One of the beddings was soiled again. I require a new one.”
Demetrios sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of their dwindling supplies. He dipped his quill in an inkpot and made a neat, precise entry. “Again? We’ll run out of fresh straw at this rate, Orestis.” The Captain’s new rule outlined that every requisition, no matter how small, was to be logged and tracked by Demetrios, the fort’s new, unofficial quartermaster.
“Three bushels, as usual,” Orestis said, ignoring the complaint. He couldn’t very well ask the sick to die more slowly. “And the ingredients for the broth. Turnips, a handful of onions, a pinch of salt, and a measure of honey.”
Demetrios seemed to deflate further. He gestured with his quill to a sack of Turnips that was now less than half full. “The Captain’s purchases were a godsend, but they will not last forever.” Despite his reticence, he nodded his approval. The Lord’s orders were clear: the sick took priority over all else.
Orestis gathered the ingredients and carried them, along with a large cooking pot, to the courtyard. Near the breach in the wall, three massive cauldrons steamed over slow-burning fires, a constant, inefficient drain on their firewood. Theodorus had deemed it a necessary expense. So much so that one of his veterans, Lazaros, and the young hunter Pavlos were singlehandedly tasked with the collection of firewood for the fort. They were also responsible for checking and maintaining small hunting traps in the nearby woods and the fishing trotlines they had set up along a few key sections of the nearby creek, where fish more easily gathered in deep pools of slow-moving water. Another of the Captain’s veterans, the quiet Pothos, presided over the station like a silent priest.
“I need a full basin for the sick,” Orestis said.
Pothos gave a curt nod. As Orestis ladled the boiled water into his pot, he saw Pothos signal to the Captain, who was drilling the men nearby. Theodorus’s head snapped around, his eyes scanning the ranks for a flicker of inattention. He pointed at two recruits whose shoulders were slumped with fatigue. “You two. You have five minutes to refill that cauldron from the well.”
The two men scrambled, a frantic, desperate sprint. Five minutes was an impossibly short timeline, given that the well had to be drawn one bucket at a time. Orestis watched them go. The Captain always used these necessary tasks as punishments. In his command, punishment was productivity, never needless cruelty.
Orestis found a quiet spot near one of the fires and began his work. He peeled the turnips with a small knife, his movements steady and practiced. He diced the onion into fine, almost translucent pieces, then crushed them with the flat of his blade until they released their sharp fragrance. He added them to the pot with the turnips and a generous amount of boiled water, setting it to simmer over the low flames. He waited, stirring occasionally, until the turnips were soft enough to yield to the press of a wooden spoon. He then mashed them against the side of the pot, creating a thick, starchy paste. Finally, he added the most precious ingredients: a careful pinch of salt and a single, small dollop of honey, stirring until the broth was a smooth, fragrant, and life-sustaining gruel.
The act felt penitent, and Orestis had come to take a small amount of pleasure in the simple act of cooking for the sick. He was coming to realize that in many ways, these simple acts were just as important as leading men.
“F-Father,”
Stefanos was delirious again, his body seized by another violent, bloody episode. His fever hadn’t subsided, unlike the others. Over the past few days, the infirmary had slowly emptied as the patients overcame the flux and returned to light duties. Each new absence in Orestis’s penitentiary chamber was a balm on his soul. He had found a quiet joy in nursing these men back to health. With each soul he nursed back from the brink, it felt as if a single link in the heavy chain around his heart was being unshackled.
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But the chain remained.
“I’m here, son.” Orestis gripped the boy’s hand. It was clammy and pale, the life draining out of it. Stefanos hadn’t improved. He had been the furthest along when the treatment started, and he was the one it failed. The captain’s broth, the clean linens, the endless care - none of it was enough. Orestis didn’t know how the boy was still alive. Perhaps it was sheer force of will - whether the boy’s or Orestis’s, it wasn’t clear.
“H-hold me… please. I’m so c-cold.” The boy’s words were fading embers, his breath a shallow whisper. He wasted away, unable to sleep, barely able to keep down the thinnest gruel.
And it’s all my fault,
the thought screamed in Orestis’s mind.
“It will pass, son. You must be strong for me. Can you do that?” Orestis infused his grip with a false strength he did not feel, trying to will it into the boy. It was a desperate lie against the chilling truth.
Stefanos gave a shaky nod, his eyes as hazed and unfocused as ever. “I-if I do…will…will you be proud of me?” Each heartfelt request Stefanos made for his uncaring, cruel father was a dagger in Orestis’s heart. Through the boy’s fevered ramblings, Orestis had learned much of the man…too much. No child should have to suffer so.
“I will, son,” The lie felt like acid in Orestis’s throat. His own features contorted in a pained wince. “So you must endure. Do not give up.” He was pleading now, his voice cracking. He was no better than the father. He was using this child’s desperate need for love as a tool, forcing him to stay alive so he wouldn’t have to face the haunting of another ghost.
The boy’s bowels finished evacuating, and a brief, exhausted peace settled on his face.
“You’re one cruel son of a bitch, you know that?”
Filippos spoke from his corner, his voice a venomous rasp. He was the last holdout besides Stefanos, occupying his side of the room like a king enthroned upon his sickbed. Orestis didn’t reply, his patience worn to a thread by the man’s constant harassment.
Filippos took the silence as an invitation. “The boy is dead. It’s as clear as day. And you’re just forcing him to keep drawing breath, pretending to be the asshole father who suddenly found a heart. All so you don’t have to feel guilty when he finally goes.”
Orestis gently carried Stefanos’s frail body to a new pallet. The last of their clean straw was nearly gone. Enough for three more changes, maybe. After that, the boy would have to lie in his own filth, if he even lived that long.
“I’m a rat bastard,” Filippos mused from the shadows, “And even I wouldn’t do that. You should put him out of his misery.”
Orestis rose. He gathered the soiled, bloody hay in his arms - a fragile, reeking burden that felt heavier than stone - and walked out, leaving Filippos’s words to fester in the quiet dark of the infirmary.
The courtyard was a world Orestis no longer belonged to. The bizarre, grueling rhythm of the captain’s new order was unabated. He trudged past men whose bodies were being remade by the brutal daily regimen and nourishing food. The hazed looks and sullen slouches of a week ago were gone, burned away by endless drills and replaced by lean muscle and a sharp, hungry alertness. They were shadows of their former selves, but harder, colder shadows. The mountain of rubble that had once been a wall was noticeably smaller, sorted into three growing, neat hills of stone: large blocks for the foundation, smaller chunks for the fill, and gravel for mortar - the ground between them being scraped clean in preparation for the reconstruction. Their drills also evolved; the group now moved as one, their turns sharper, their responses immediate. The captain was ironing the slack out of them, forging a cohesive unit from a demoralized mob.
Orestis ignored them all, trudging to the designated burning pit. He tossed the foul bedding onto the embers and stared as the flames caught, hissing as they consumed the damp straw. The shadows under his eyes were dark pools of weariness. His infirmary was emptier, but his nights were no less restless. He would never admit it, not even to himself, but he knew Filippos was right. The boy would die. And that certainty kept him awake at night; a cold, smooth stone in his gut, a weight that kept him from sleeping, from eating, from feeling anything but this hollow, aching dread.
He only snapped out of his trance when the last flame petered out, then trudged back toward the tower. He found Demetrios in the storeroom.
“Demetrios, I have need of supplies for the sick.” The words tumbled from his mouth on sheer momentum.
“Orestis? Are you well?” Demetrios asked, his brow furrowed with familiar, gentle concern.
Orestis offered a weak, ghostly smile. “New bedding. Turnips, onions, salt. Honey.”
Demetrios had anticipated the request, the small pot of precious honey set aside on the table. The requisition already written by the time Orestis finished speaking, his quill scratching across the parchment.
“The young one, Stefanos. How is he?” Demetrios asked, his voice soft. He was always kind enough to ask, to share some of the burden the former Sergeant carried on his shoulders like a heavy boulder. Their quiet conversations were the only bright spot in Orestis’s dreary days.
Orestis looked down at the floorboards, at a crack in the stone that seemed to stretch into an infinite abyss. He shook his head, unable to force the words past the lump in his throat. To speak of it would be to make it real.
“I see…” Demetrios said, his own face clouded with sorrow.
Mechanically, Orestis gathered the supplies, prepared the broth, and began the slow climb back up the stairs. Each step was a leaden weight, the journey no longer an ascent to his penitentiary, but a descent into his own private hell.
“He has them running around like headless chickens,” Filippos grumbled, gesturing toward the courtyard below, his voice a gravelly counterpoint to the wind whipping across the ramparts.
Once a day, Orestis brought him to the roof. Up on the windswept battlements, Filippos became a different man. The endless, mountainous landscape seemed to absorb his venom, leaving a quiet stillness in its place. Orestis remembered the first time he’d guided him up here, surprised by the unguarded peace on the veteran’s face. As he’d turned to lead him back down, Filippos had spoken, his voice quiet, stripped of its usual barbs. It had been a request, not a command.
“Let me stay until the sunset. Please.”
It was the only time Orestis had seen the man so utterly vulnerable, a prisoner begging for a moment’s reprieve.
Today, the old bitterness had returned, but it was a half-hearted effort. “The amount of firewood they’re burning for that thrice-damned water is insane,” Filippos grumbled, more out of habit than conviction. “The woods will be picked clean before winter.” He drew in his cheeks, preparing to spit over the edge, but stopped when he caught Orestis’s dark, unwavering stare. With a frustrated harrumph, he turned and allowed himself to be ushered back toward the trapdoor.
The moment they descended into the stuffy dimness of the infirmary, his mood soured completely. He launched into a long-winded monologue about the proper way to train recruits, a droning litany of how things were done ‘back in his day’.
Orestis ignored him, dipping a strip of linen into a basin of cool, boiled water. He gently laid the compress - as the captain called it - on Stefanos’s forehead and armpits. The boy’s skin was still scorching. The cloths had to be changed every half hour to fight the fever. It was a futile effort, Orestis knew, but it was a ritual he performed with the grim devotion of a priest. To stop didn’t even cross his mind.
Suddenly, the heavy door creaked open. The Captain stalked in, a silent shadow that immediately sucked the air from the room. Filippos went quiet at once, his criticism of the Captain’s training suddenly dying on his lips. Orestis moved to rise, but a raised hand from Theodorus stopped him.
“Please, continue, Orestis. Demetrios tells me Stratiotes Stefanos is not improving.”
“That is true, Captain.”
Theodorus crossed the distance, his gaze falling on the boy, whose shallow, ragged breaths were the only sign of life. “You have done an admirable job, Orestis,” he said, his voice quiet but clear in the heavy silence. “I do not say this lightly. You have cared for these men without fail. You have returned fighting men to my ranks.”
The praise landed like a blow. Orestis waited, his body tensed. He knew this language. It was the honeyed word before the lash, the soft tone a commander used before delivering a killing sentence. He braced himself for the other shoe to drop.
“But you are exhausted,” Theodorus continued, his eyes still on the boy. “Demetrios tells me you have barely slept. An exhausted man makes mistakes. I am relieving you of this duty.”
Orestis froze, the damp cloth still in his hand. He turned his head slowly. “Captain, please, I can-”
“This is not a punishment, Orestis. It is a mercy. The boy needs constant attention, and you are nearing your limit.”
The silence stretched, thick and heavy.
“You said it yourself, Captain,” Orestis’s voice was a raw echo. “This is my atonement. If I do not see it to the end… I will have failed him. I will have killed him.”
The words he had locked away in the darkest corner of his mind, the forbidden, unspeakable truth of his guilt, were finally given voice. They hung in the air, and the quiet that followed was heavier still, weighted with the terrible gravity of a confession.
“I will be honest with you, Orestis. The boy will almost certainly die.” The captain’s words were not cruel, merely a statement of fact, delivered with the cold detachment of a physician. It was one thing to hear it from a bastard like Filippos, another entirely to hear it from him. “You have done more than enough. Allow yourself this grace.”
“I will not.” Orestis turned his gaze back to Stefanos, his focus absolute. “This boy is at death’s door because of my failure. I must see him through it. If I die from exhaustion or disease…” His voice turned dead cold. “So be it. I am ready to face my sins.”
He felt the captain’s gaze on his back, a heavy, assessing weight.
“Very well,” Theodorus said at last. He lingered for a moment, his eyes on the dying boy, then retreated without another word.
The door shut with a soft click. Filippos, emboldened, started again. “You are a fool. The boy was giving you a way out. You could have-”
“If I hear another word out of your mouth,” Orestis didn’t turn or move a muscle from his vigil over Stefanos. His voice a ghost of a whisper, impossibly cold. “I will kill you.”
Filippos felt the promise in the words. The veteran let out a frustrated harrumph, moved as if to expel a thick ball of spit, then thought better of it and reluctantly swallowed.
Orestis prayed that night as he had never prayed before. He knelt on the cold stone floor, reciting every verse he knew until the words became a meaningless mumble. When the formal prayers ran out, he resorted to a raw, desperate conversation. He pleaded with God, his voice a choked whisper, begging for mercy for the boy. He raged, his fists clenched, demanding to know why a loving God could be so capricious, so cruel. Through the entire manic, one-sided sermon, Filippos, for once, remained blessedly silent.
Finally, hollowed out and utterly spent, he slumped against the side of the feverish, sleeping boy. Without realizing it, his head drooped, and he fell into a black, dreamless sleep.
He awoke with a violent start, his eyes snapping open to the grey morning light slanting through the arrow slit. His bloodshot gaze locked on Stefanos. He had fallen asleep! A sickening dread coiled in his gut. What if the boy had died in the night, alone, while he slept? He scrambled to the boy’s side, his hands trembling.
The boy was breathing. Not the shallow, ragged gasps of yesterday, but a slow, steady rhythm. Orestis pressed a hand to his forehead. The scorching heat was gone, replaced by a cool, damp sheen of sweat. The fever had broken. He hadn’t been woken once.
“He was quiet through the night,” Filippos said quietly from his corner, his own eyes bloodshot and sleepless. Had he not slept? “I don’t know what desperate incantations those were last night, but… maybe they weren’t for nothing.” He let out a final, frustrated harrumph, as if annoyed by his own words, and turned his face to the wall, pulling his thin blanket over his shoulder.
The signs were small, but to a man who had charted every agonizing breath for a week, they were a tectonic shift. Stefanos was better. He would live. It was a miracle.
The realization shattered Orestis’s composure. A sound, half-sob, half-laugh, tore from his throat, and he collapsed to his knees, burying his face in his hands. The tears came then, a hot, cleansing flood, washing away the grime of a week’s worth of guilt and despair. Each sob was a link of a heavy chain breaking, the pent-up anguish of his long atonement finally released. He wept for a long time, unaware that from the corner of the room, Filippos watched the display not with his usual venom, but with a profound and unfamiliar silence.
“Alright, that’s the last of it.” Orestis finished tying the knot on Stefanos’s bedroll, his movements light and efficient. The boy, now dressed in a clean tunic, watched him, his cheeks full of color, his eyes clear. The infirmary, bathed in morning light, felt less like a tomb and more like a quiet sanctuary.
“Sergeant… I mean, Orestis,” Stefanos began, his voice still a little hoarse but full of warmth. “I… I don’t remember much. But I know you were here. Thank you. For everything.”
Orestis offered a genuine smile, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Just get back to your duties, Stratiotes. And try not to get yourself killed.” He would carry the secrets of Stefanos’s fever dreams - the whispered confessions and pleas to a phantom father - for the rest of his life. They were a sacred, painful burden he was grateful to bear.
As Stefanos descended the stairs, Orestis took a deep breath. The past few days had been a balm. The deep, weary lines around his eyes had faded, and the gaunt, haunted look was gone, replaced by a quiet strength. He felt clean, inside and out. His atonement was complete. He had been given a second chance, and he would not waste it.
He walked down the stairs for the last time and stepped into the sun-drenched courtyard. The rhythmic shouts of the drilling garrison, once a sound of torment, now felt like a welcome song.
Captain Theodorus stood watching the men, his posture as rigid and unyielding as the fortress walls. He turned as Orestis approached, his dark eyes assessing, missing nothing. He noted the change in the older soldier, the new steel in his spine, the peace where there had once been despair.
“Your duty to the sick is concluded, Stratiotes Orestis,” Theodorus stated, his voice flat and formal. He gestured with his chin toward the sweating, straining men. “Sergeant Leonidas is waiting for you. Welcome back to the garrison.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
Orestis gave a sharp, precise bow, then turned and strode toward the training yard to take his place among his brothers, a soldier reborn.
The upper floor of the tower was a captain’s quarters once more. Where the scent of sickness had clung to the air, there was now only the clean smell of lye soap and fresh straw. At a small wooden table, Demetrios pored over his ledgers, his quill scratching furiously. “The grain will last three weeks, perhaps,” he muttered to himself, his face a mask of worry. “But the straw bedding… God help us.”
The door opened, and Theodorus entered. The moment the heavy latch clicked shut, the iron-hard mask of command he wore in the courtyard dissolved. The rigid posture melted, the shoulders of his slight, academic frame slumping under a week’s worth of sleepless nights and grueling labor. He moved like a puppet with its strings cut, stumbling to his cot and collapsing onto it with a groan that spoke of muscles pushed far beyond their limits. His hands were broken, freshly split things that pained him to even clench. He had said he would upgrade his body's machinery, but the process had been a baptism in fire. Only here, in the privacy of his reclaimed sanctum, could the boy beneath the commander finally surface.
“It has been a hard week, my lord,” Demetrios said softly, his voice full of a paternal concern he showed to no one else.
Theodorus said nothing, his face buried in his arms. For a moment, he was not a commander; he was just a boy, utterly spent.
“My lord?” Demetrios questioned gently.
Theodorus pushed himself up; the exhaustion on his face burned away in an instant by a terrible resolve, his eyes deadly serious. “Our little island has been put in order.”
Through the gloom of the guttering candle, his gaze seemed to cut through the shadows, sharp and absolute.
“Send a letter to my brother. It is time we reach out into the wider world.”