He supposed that an escaped prisoner with a suspicious resemblance to the King wasn't all that concerning in the face of a war without magic. August and Siles stayed out of Sonia's way, and within half a month she had recruited fifteen thousand commoners to a preexisting magician military that numbered only five thousand. Siles could see the commoners and magicians training side-by-side in the fields every time he wandered to the edge of the royal city, clashing swords together and tumbling in the dirt. Their combat skills were nothing next to Siles', but hopefully it would be enough.

It had to be enough. They had no more time. As the sun rose on the horizon, Siles paced around the war room, trying to remember the military tactics of August's bloodthirsty predecessor. From what he could recall, her only tactic had been to shake the earth with magic until every building had collapsed, leaving her enemies with no more cities to protect. Siles stared in disdain at the half-baked plans August's generals had come up with, scattered about the table at the center of the room. None of the plans accommodated for the fact that their army had only one month of combat training.

August slouched in a chair on the far side of the room, as unconcerned as ever. He sat by the room's only window, through which the sun had begun to shine. He looked out the window as he stood. "The sun's at a quarter. I should get going with the pre-war speech." His army and the Southern Queen's were expected to meet on the fields once the sun reached its midpoint in the sky. Those were the terms they had agreed upon.

"Pre-massacre speech," Siles mumbled. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes – or the lack of sleep. He had spent most of the past few nights staring at the cracks in the ceiling, imagining all of the ways they could and likely would lose the war.

"And this is why you don't give the speeches," August chuckled. Maybe his arrogance came from his magic. He had never faced consequences or difficulty before. He had skated through life on innate talent. Siles liked him, but he wished he had more common sense.

Siles followed August through the twisting corridors and into the sunlight. The springtime rain had at least ceased for a few days, so the soldiers wouldn't have to worry about slipping in mud. They would get to experience the joy of battling and bleeding out on brilliant green grass and dandelions that glimmered like the sun. Siles grimaced at the thought as he and August climbed the ramparts. He could smell the sweet breeze from the bakeries, pushed through the air by a wind magician. The magician likely hoped to sweeten the spirits of their comrades. Soon they would only smell sweat and blood.

The generals waited for them at the top of the ramparts, their polished armor shining in the sun. They smiled confidently and August smiled back. Siles stared glumly down at the thousands of soldiers gathered at the foot of the wall. They looked like ants, waiting for the boot that would crush them. Most of them had armor, but not all. The armories hadn't had the time or materials to make fifteen thousand new sets of armor.

Siles looked back at the castle, hoping in vain to see the royal alchemist come running out with some anti-anti-magic for the soldiers. She didn't come. He wasn't surprised. He had spoken to her only a day before, and she was nowhere close to a solution.

August grabbed Siles' hand. "Listen to some happy thoughts for once," he whispered. He waved with his other hand to the crowd below. They cheered at the sight of him, their armor clanging as they clapped their hands together. They had such high hopes. Siles sighed. August took a deep breath, then began his speech, "Today you will face a foe who wants to seize your land, your freedom, and your magic. For some of you, she considers your mere existence a sin. For others, your free thought is just as shameful. The Southern Queen is a devious creature. She tried to goad us into starting the war so that she could attack our unsuspecting neighbors next. She knows that she cannot face our forces when we are prepared. We are stronger than her. We will not shirk in the face of savagery. We will fight!"

The crowd roared. Siles could hear their thoughts cheering along with their shouts. "We will fight!" "We will win!" "We will crush the Southern Queen!" Siles wanted to tell them that they were wrong, but he was careful with his thoughts. Only a day before, he had accidentally forced an irritating magician to slam her head into the wall. August had found it hysterical. Siles had stayed at least a foot away from August for the rest of the day.

August stepped back from the edge of the ramparts. His smile dropped slightly as he turned to the stairs. Maybe he was nervous, after all. He was just better at hiding it. Siles followed him and the generals down the ramparts to the horses waiting for them at the iron gate. August wouldn't enter the fight, of course. He would begin the war with one last appeal to Queen Thalia's mercy, then return to his castle and wait for news. In the past, as the most powerful magicians in the kingdom, the Queens and Kings had been at the forefront of their battles. But this was no ordinary battle.

Siles watched the lights flicker over August's head as they rode across the fields ahead of the soldiers. He was probably encouraging them. He would make the soldiers exceptionally brave, even in the face of death. When Southern swords inevitably ran through them, they would feel little pain. Siles imagined August was doing everything he could to help them despite the limits of Queen Thalia's anti-magic.

The Southern Queen met them astride a horse as silver as her rippling robes. Her army gathered behind her, dark and imposing in their thundercloud-like armor. They lacked the numbers of August's army, but Siles could recognize their dexterity in their synchronous march. August's soldiers looked like stumbling drunks in comparison.

"Are you certain that you want to start this war?" August asked.

Queen Thalia's thin lips twisted into a smirk. "Of course. I will not rest while your kind still exist."

August nodded. "Very well. Just remember that the blood of your people will be on your own hands."

The soldiers raised their swords as the King and Queen retreated from the battlefield. Siles heard the swords begin to clash as he and August headed back to the castle. Some of the shouts warped into screams. Siles looked down from the hilltop and watched as the front line of August's soldiers began to deteriorate and collapse. It was like watching acid burn metal into liquid. It didn't matter if the metal outnumbered the acid. The acid would win.

Beside him, August took his hand. "If we lose, we'll stick together. We'll take refuge in one of the neighboring kingdoms. They know how bloodthirsty Queen Thalia is, now. They know that we're in the right," August assured him.

Siles didn't listen. As soon as August had touched his hand, he had begun to hear thoughts again. The panicked generals' thoughts had been the loudest at first, but then he began to hear another voice. A familiar voice. The Queen's voice. "I'll wait to attack the other kingdoms," she thought. "I'll regain their trust, first. A banquet should do it. Or multiple. Everyone is happy with a full stomach."

Siles gripped August's hand tighter. "I can hear her. I can hear the Queen."

"What? How?" August stared at him in shock.

"The usual way." Siles raised their linked hands.

They both looked back at the battlefield, where the panicked thoughts had grown exponentially. Siles still struggled to tune out the voices, despite August's attempts to teach him. He had said to find someone who kept their verbal thoughts to a minimum, and to focus on them. August had apparently found it impossible to tune out the voices completely until he had met Siles. With Siles, he had finally found someone to focus on whose thoughts he couldn't hear.

Siles nearly fell off his horse when an idea crossed his mind. He could make the Queen's soldiers stop. Or at least some of them. It could be like slamming a magician's head into the wall. August had said that it was difficult to make multiple people do something they didn't want to do, but there was still a chance that he could do something. They could win the war.

With the annoying magician, he had expressed his command as a wish. The magician had called August a useless king, blaming him for the Southern Queen's masquerade attack. Siles had looked at her and imagined her banging her own skull against the wall. Now, he looked at the thundercloud soldiers. If he wanted to succeed, he would have to imagine something that they would want to do. Their Queen fought with a religious purpose; they probably fought for the same cause. Siles smiled. He imagined the soldiers all stopping, falling to their knees, and pressing their hands together in prayer. Don't fight to win; pray to win.

In seconds, the Southern soldiers stopped. And fell to their knees. And prayed. Siles grinned, and then grimaced as the headache began. His skull felt like it was splitting. His eardrums felt like they would implode. He felt like he was going to die, but he kept August's hand in a death grip. Through the dark spots speckling his vision, he could see August's army continuing its forward momentum. One by one, metal swords dipped into the weak spots in the kneeling soldiers' armor. The metal consumed the acid.

Siles slumped forward on his horse, gripping its mane with his other hand. He could barely see anymore, though something silver moved at the edge of his vision. He heard a muffled voice. It was shouting. What was it shouting?

August pried their hands apart. The headache faded, but a dark fog still blurred Siles' vision. He gasped for air and blinked until the fog parted at the center. It was too late to move out of the way. The arrow found him, piercing his side. He didn't have the energy to stay on the horse. He fell.

"Siles!" August shouted. He dismounted his own horse and knelt by Siles' side.

Siles forced himself to his feet and winced as the pain in his side grew. He could see the remainder of Queen Thalia's army surging forward. The Southern Queen was going to lose, now. She had lost too many soldiers. But a group of those soldiers no longer cared about winning. They were running away from the battlefield. They were running towards him.

Siles unsheathed his daggers, ignoring the pain in his side. "Get behind me," he said to August.

August opened his mouth as if to protest. Siles knew what he would say – they could still remount and flee on horseback. But Siles wasn't one to run away from a fight, not when it was one he had a chance at winning. August followed his command.

There were five soldiers to Siles' one, and five sets of steel armor to Siles' cotton cloth. Armor, however, was heavy and unwieldy. Even with an arrow in his side, Siles moved faster than each of his foes. He ignored the pain and dashed forward, bringing the fight to them and away from August. The war would mean nothing if August didn't survive it.

The soldiers didn't seem to care about August, anyways. They seemed to know that Siles was the reason their comrades had fallen as they surrounded him, not so much as glancing in August's direction. The Southern Queen must have sent them after him herself.

Siles didn't let the soldiers surround him. When he noticed them beginning to close in, he ran down the hill and past them, forcing them to turn back towards the battlefield. They were uphill from him, now, but Siles didn't mind the disadvantage. The upper hand would make them overconfident, just like their queen.

The first soldier to turn around made a wide stroke with her sword which Siles easily ducked beneath. He slipped a dagger into the soldier's side where the plates of armor connected and then used the woman's forward momentum to send her tumbling down the hill. The next soldier made the same hasty mistake and met the same fate. The remaining three, however, stopped. They began to edge towards him, their swords held before them like the vicious tongues of a three-headed hydra. It was impossible to tell which head would strike first.

The center head struck first. Siles barely reacted in time to parry his jab. Each pulsing throb in his injured side slowed his reaction time further. He had to end the fight soon, or else he had no chance of ending it at all. So he made a risky move. He ran his dagger along the side of the soldier's sword until their faces were only inches apart, then stuck his other blade between the plates of his armor. The soldier fell, leaving Siles at the mercy of his two companions. He was too close to them, but they were also too close to him. Swords weren't made for short-range battles.

The soldier to Siles' right moved to stab him. Siles didn't move out of the way quickly enough and felt the blade slice through his skin, but unlike the arrow, the sword only went skin-deep. With a stab of his own blade, he relieved the soldier of her life.

There was only one soldier left, now downhill from him, his sword trembling in his grip. The hydra's weakest head. Siles waited for him to make the first move, deflecting his blade easily. Siles' daggers met the gaps in his armor, and then the soldier met his fate.

Siles collapsed onto the side of the hill. He looked past the fallen soldiers to the battlefield. It all seemed distant and dark, now, like trying to look at details in a dream. Maybe the springtime rain had returned, darkening the battlefield with thunderclouds. The grass felt wet beneath his fingers, but he didn't feel raindrops on his face. He looked down. The grass was red. It couldn't have been the soldiers' blood, since he had shoved them each down the hill at the moment of their demise.

He looked to his side, where he could still see the shaft of the arrow sticking out. He couldn't feel it anymore. All he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears, crashing like ocean waves. The world swayed like a boat beneath him. His stomach rolled. Siles lay back onto the slick red grass and stared up at the clear blue sky. It was beautiful.

A hand touched his shoulder, bringing whispers to his ears.

"Is he going to make it?" August's voice sounded distant.

"Not if we let him lie there. We need to get him back to the castle. Help me pick him up." Siles didn't recognize the second voice. Shadowy figures blocked out his view of the sky. He couldn't see their faces.

Siles felt someone's arms wrap around him and smelled August's lavender cologne. Everything was quiet except for the waves crashing in his ears. August was safe. They must have won. It was over.

~