The road was less of a road and more of a suggestion carved into the mud by centuries of wagon wheels.
Sergeant Kael didn't care about the mud. He cared about the ledger in his lap.
"Fifty," he muttered, scratching his beard with a quill. "I need fifty bodies by the time we reach the base camp. I have forty two. Eight short."
He looked at the miserable collection of souls trudging behind his wagon. Farm boys, drunks, debtors. The dregs of Belgica, "volunteered" for the glory of the Kingdom.
"Driver, slow down," Kael barked.
He had seen something.
Near the tree line, half-hidden by tall grass, a figure crumpled on the dirt.
Kael hopped down, his boots squelching. He approached cautiously, hand on his sword hilt. It was a boy. Big for his age-looked twelve or thirteen-but built like a blacksmith's apprentice.
The boy was a mess. His clothes were shredded. His skin was flushed a violent, feverish red, and steam-actual steam-was rising from his pores.
"Alive?" Kael muttered, nudging the boy with his boot.
The boy groaned.
"Alive," Kael grinned. "Excellent."
He didn't look deeper into the woods. He didn't see the blood spatter on the trees ten yards away. He didn't care why a boy was steaming in the middle of nowhere. He just saw number 43.
"You there!" Kael shouted to two of the recruits. "Grab him! Throw him in the medical cart. If he dies, dump him. If he wakes up, put a spear in his hand."
The recruits scrambled to obey, hoisting the heavy, unconscious body into the back of a wagon.
"Move out!" Kael ordered, climbing back onto his perch. "We have a quota to fill!"
The caravan creaked into motion, leaving the clearing silent once more.
Two hours later, the silence was broken by a sound like tearing canvas.
Henry dropped from the sky. He didn't land; he impacted, his water-cushioned boots absorbing the force instantly. In his left hand, he dragged the Blue Core Court Mage by the collar of his expensive robes.
The Mage was wheezing, his face purple. Being dragged through the upper atmosphere at high speeds hadn't agreed with him.
"This is the spot," Henry rumbled. His blue core was pulsing with a terrifying, restrained violence.
He scanned the clearing.
It didn't take long to find them.
Ten yards into the tree line, the body of an Orange Mage lay twisted in the dirt. His chest had been clipped by something heavy, shattering his ribs.
Further back, against a pine tree, was Edgar.
Henry walked over to the traitor. Edgar looked like he had been hit by a siege weapon. His armor was ripped open. His chest cavity was collapsed.
Henry knelt. He placed a hand over the wound. He closed his eyes, extending his senses.
He felt the residue.
It wasn't the clean, sharp cut of a sword. It was raw, chaotic mana.
"Red Core," Henry whispered. "Unfiltered, Volatile."
He traced the scorch marks on the ground. He saw the footprints-deep depressions in the soil where someone had stood their ground under immense pressure.
Overdrive, Henry realized. He forced the intake. He melted his own pathways to fire a cannon.
Henry stood up. He looked around for a third body. There was none.
"He vaporized himself," Henry murmured. "Or he dragged himself off to die."
There was no way a Rank 1-even a prodigy- could survive channeling that much raw power. His heart would have burst. His meridians would be slag.
Henry felt a heavy weight settle in his chest. It wasn't grief, exactly. It was the solemn respect of a soldier.
"He didn't fold," Henry said to the empty forest. "Stubborn little bastard."
A whimper came from behind.
The Court Mage was trying to crawl away.
"Please," the Mage whispered. "I... I didn't know. The Governor said it was just bandits. Traitors."
Henry turned.
"This was a rendezvous point," the Mage babbled, desperate. "If you kill me... the King... the Court Mages will track you. They have my soul signature. They'll know!"
Henry walked over to him. He looked down with eyes that had seen kingdoms rise and fall.
"I am an exile of Conjuvius," Henry said softly. "I have no King. I have no home. And thanks to you, I have no student."
The Mage opened his mouth to scream.
Henry flicked his wrist.
A blade of water, thin as a wire and pressurized to the hardness of diamond, snapped into existence. It slashed through the air.
The Mage's plea died in his throat. His head rolled onto the grass.
Henry stood in the silence for a long moment. He looked at the spot where Aaron had made his stand. He looked at the dead traitor.
Then, he turned south, in the direction of the burning camp.
He had to tell Elara that her husband was a cripple and her son was a ghost.
"Damn it all," Henry whispered.
He launched himself into the sky, leaving the dead to rot in the shade of the pines.
Miles away, in the back of a rocking wagon:
The boy with melted veins didn't die.
His heart beat slowly-thump... thump... thump...- pushing blood that was thick with mana through a body that was rapidly cooling down.
His 'sight' flickered in the darkness of his unconscious mind. He couldn't see the wagon. He couldn't see the other recruits.
But he could feel the Vitality in his own muscles. It wasn't flowing anymore. It was settling. It was knitting the damaged fibers together, trapping the raw energy inside the cells.
He wasn't dead.
He was hardening.