Bloodline

Failure - part 26

Waking up in a tent, Zircon looks around, seeing him stripped of most clothes and his cloak as well as many soldiers in cots similar to his, most he recognizes as those who went with him in the fight. It's at this moment he sees two soldiers carrying another, him missing part of their arm, their left leg, and having an arrow stuck in their chest. Zircon thinks as he sees this, thinking about how careless his actions have been after injecting the enhancer into himself, and realizing this, he tries to sit up. "No, you'll be staying here for a while." A familiar voice says, and he turns to face it. Maralyne walks to his cot with a towel and bowl of water, splashing the tower in it a bit before applying it to some of his wounds. "Well, this sure is a sight, didnt think you were this caring." Zircon says, Maralyne scoffing at him.

"I was the one that was chosen to help you recover, I didnt have a choice. And plus, your call to arms ended in tragedy you know, we now have less than half of what we had when we arrived!" She continues wiping away some small bits of dried blood on him, pulling a kit from under the cot. "Well we weren't going to get nowhere with that Colonel's disagreement to the good plans Damian had, and with us at their doorstep, we had to push into them soon before they did the same to us!" He yells, his eyes showing his built up anger inside him. "Did you forget all those things Lutol told you about keeping your calm? Seeing you out there, I dont think you realized the damages you caused to both the enemy and to our side!" Zircon raises an eyebrow, Maralyne grabbing a small mirror and showing Zircon his reflection. "Not only were you a one man army against the enemy, in your fury you caught some of our higher ranking soldiers! You weren't seeing clearly and started killing anything that got near you regardless of whether it was an enemy or not." He looks at her, his mouth open in surprise. "That's not possible...I had a clear mind and killed more of those mages that came out of nowhere..." "Zircon, there were no more mages in the battle, you unnecessarily slaughtered soldiers in the most traumatic and cruel way possible, and everyone saw that. Not even Damian or Tesath want to get near you because of how you seemed to enjoy all that!" He tries to remember the battle, the memory being the same the more he keeps recalling it in his mind. "No, I know there were those mages, there must be some dark magic they performed to make it seem like there weren't any there!" "Zircon! There were no other mages! We even looked at the bodies and found no more of those...vials or whatever, you butchered those men!"

He tries to stand, nearly falling until he regains balance, getting into her face. "No! I remember clearly what I saw, those mages were there, and I know the soldiers that followed me could say the same thing!" "Well its unfortunate that almost all of them are dead thanks to that attack of yours!" She shouts back, turning to leave. "There were dark mages there, and I will find a way to prove it, if I had a bit of time..." She cuts him off, "No, you need to stay here until we can actually form a proper siege of the fort, due to the loss in numbers, we have to wait even longer for more reinforcements, nonetheless supplies to rebuild the fort...What's with you Zircon, you're never like this..." He winces when she says this, looking away. "I dont know...ever since the first attack, I felt real power once I used that enhancer and gained this smokey ability, and I felt like I could do anything." She turns back to him, pulling something out from behind, it being the mask with the gem missing. "So then was everything with everyone else some kind of lie? Are you going to betray us all once we get to the castle?" She holds up the red zircon gem, a fiery glow emanating brightly. "You finally found out, but as much as I would like to say it isn't, there are too many parts that are in fact lies...such as the night I was sent to find the assassin hunting Damian and his family." She sits down on the cot, motioning for him to do the same.

"Really, the trueness of that is questionable, but most of what I had said was in fact true except for one part." She looks at him, giving him the gem and mask back. "What part was it?" "I was sent to find an assassin, but in the process I found my friend, and when we began to fight, he nearly beat me instead, and before he could finish me, Damian came into the room, and we both had to leave as fast as possible, which was then when I left back the Wind, and told them that lie. The rest continued with how I said it, and after the fight with me and him, I broke my blade in the fight, and was carved the symbol of the Crimson Wind once I gave them his gem." He sighs as he looks at the glowing gem, putting it back onto the mask.

"I wore the bracelet with his gem instead of mine to hopefully be recognized not like a Grounded, but as someone more, but it only marked me as a murderer of someone who would've been beneficial to the world, and it was only my master and the elders that didnt see me that way." He puts the mask on, and looks at her, his eyes glowing through the mask. "You know how I told you all that the red zircon gem meant that the destiny would end in a blaze of glory or in a traitorous manner?" Maralyne nods, holding her breathe as he continues. "Only half of that is true, and I fear that once we get to the castle a dream I had may come true. And I honestly dont know if I'm ready to see this happen." He looks down, looking at his hands as they still have the smokey shadow form. Maralyne puts a hand on his shoulder, him looking at her. "I'll tell you this much, that whole thing from before with how you're going down "another path," you dont have to go through this by yourself, and if you think we'll forget about you the more you do it, we'll be here for you, as long as you dont end up in that fury like before because I wont get anywhere near you." He laughs, "Yeah that seems like something you would do, in fact everyone would if I even took a step towards them." He stands, looking at his wounds and sees his cloak and clothes, putting them on before he leaves, keeping the mask on.