Our father was a politician and general nowadays because no one else had enough credibility to organize the grand alliance that was urgently needed. The mages of the Academy had slowly scattered across the continent, as he had predicted. To attack a thousand at once would have been suicidally risky, but when they headed to their home cities one or two or three at a time, as the front crept north? Oscanion hadn't missed many opportunities.
Azenum had finally managed to get representatives of most of the surviving cities to agree to discuss a unified war effort. The city-states did not necessarily bear any animosity toward each other, in fact they were generally on good terms and wished their neighbors well. But it's one thing to be cordial, and quite another to be willing to send your own citizens and resources to a distant battlefield, making yourself more vulnerable in the process. But finally, they were no longer pretending that the threat would somehow just go away on its own. Finally, they had confronted reality. The fact that the battle lines now flirted with the equator no doubt had a disproportionate psychological role in helping the northern cities to appreciate the gravity of the situation.
Near sunset, we arrived at our father's headquarters. As we walked in, Azenum was still speaking.
"This is a demographic catastrophe." One of the last surviving red mages, his black and white escorts on either side, was telepathically transmitting our father's words to his counterparts across the world. "The mage population may never recover. We are long past the point where piecemeal resistance has any hope of long-term success. But unified, we still maintain a numerical advantage. To those peoples for whom the war still feels remote"--he paused, which everyone knew was intended as a special rebuke to his fellow Ezentans of the temperate north--"please recognize that Oscanion is never stopping his campaign. He leaves depopulated and abandoned territories in his wake. He will never offer terms. I do not claim to know his motives, but it is clear that his goal is wholesale extermination. Your choice is to fight now, at this moment when our strength is larger than it will ever be in the future, or to wait, and eventually fight anyway, from a worse position. All cities currently assailed were once far from the fighting."
We stood behind our father, mostly as propaganda assets; our arrival would be relayed alongside Azenum's words.
Most of the surviving city-states agreed to joint resistance that day, which meant we would finally be able to transition from a fighting retreat, at times more an evacuation, to a real counter-offensive.
Izena and I simply needed help. Even if we were invincible, we could only be in one place at a time, and we were not invincible.
We always tried to match Oscanion wherever he was personally active, but he could always escape us whenever he was vulnerable--we two alone could not pin him down. With Izena the only attacking threat, Oscanion only needed to move in the direction she wasn't, parrying her attacks with his own as he retreated until we couldn't risk stumbling into a trap. And aside from our father, all other surviving mages weren't worth the strain they placed on my resources, and trying to bring a sizable group of allies equipped with powerful enchanted items on a mission deep into enemy territory was tempting fate. The ancient treasures lost in the conquered territories were enough of a problem already.
But the coalition's unprecedented manpower and resources eventually created an opportunity, and Azenum proposed a daring plan.
Oscanion's entire western army had badly overextended into a salient directed at the western, equatorial port city of Rokesha, presumably due to overconfidence and complacency born from repeated success. Our enemy had become accustomed to strength of numbers, picking off one city at a time.
Our father planned for a grand unified army to come to Rokesha's aid, threatening to encircle and obliterate the unsuspecting attackers. Oscanion was known not to be in the west, but he would need to intervene in the battle personally if he wanted to salvage that portion his forces. If all went well, that same overconfidence and general complacency, combined with his army's urgent situation, would cause Oscanion to risk moving alone, with no significant entourage of subordinates, to avoid delays. Then, Izena, our father, and I would strike. Fleeing from Izena while parrying her spells might be possible, but if both she and Azenum could together focus on all-out attack?
My sister and I had long been incomparably more powerful than our father, but he was still the most powerful among mere mortals. He could not be ignored, and would tip the balance. At least, that was his plan.
It would no doubt be a battle for the ages. Oscanion was strong and had unique abilities. He may have unrevealed trump cards.
We just needed to win.
"Your plan worked almost perfectly, father," I whispered. "Your only mistake was having too much faith in me."
I was fifteen years into my penance.
Izena would disapprove of me torturing myself like this. I knew that. It wasn't like I thought this whole thing was healthy; it was outright psychotic. The mana strain was agony, constantly. I was doing exactly what my sister always told me--warned me--not to do: obsessing, blaming myself, setting an unreasonable standard, disregarding success and magnifying failure.
She would be so upset with me. So, so, upset. I would get scolded like I never had before. 'Disapprove.' Ha! She would be furious. With me. At me. Even 'furious' was too weak a word.
Regardless, every year that slipped by made it harder to return. Every year I sat doing nothing made me more ashamed. What would I say?
"Fifteen years?! Seriously?! You only knew them for fifteen years! Get over it!" I imagined hearing. Well, easier said than done, hypothetical inquisitor. They were everything to me. They trusted me. Then I withdrew my protection and let them die, watched my shields disappear and consciously allowed them to burn to black smudges on the ground. And my memories don't fade.
Izena's shield was failing, trembling under the strain, as was mine. I--
Aghhhh. Fifteen years of sudden, vivid hallucinations accompanied by radiating chest acid. Mmmmfffff.
Alright. Focus.
"Fffft...Bluhhhhh...Never--never the same mistake again. You had to let them die, but some day...some day, if you keep at it, you can protect everyone. Never useless again. Just--just keep at it."
I grimaced. Today it was time for another test of my progress, which meant another disappointment. I knew I was getting close to a major milestone, which only made every failure more frustrating. I set up and performed the familiar ritual.
After finishing, I curled up into a seated fetal position, right hand clutching the top of my head and left arm wrapped around my knees.
"Two," I croaked, tears leaking out. Thirty-five years old, a hermit for the last fifteen, yet to all appearances not a day over twenty-five, sobbing like a child.
Fittingly, Skip and Fuzzy had not lived to see this moment. New volunteers Leafy and Gleam did not know its significance.
"I could have saved Izena," I blubbered to them. "It's what Azenum would have wanted. He would have understood."
Leafy and Gleam stared back at me, Gleam through her very impressive shield, both uncomprehending. Still very cute.
"He would have been proud," I added, voice cracking on the last word.
Gleam had no idea how very, very safe she was inside that shield.
"It's okay Leafy," I cooed, petting his favorite spots beneath his wings. "I'll be able to make one for you too, eventually."
For the first time since arriving on the island, I allowed myself to drop my mana below the point of strain while still awake, and laid back to look at the sky. Even after the stars came out, I staying right where I was.
'This island really is very peaceful,' I thought.
I didn't want to leave. It was nice. I had been born in the south the same year that Oscanion started his war. I'd never known actual peace.
Even if I wanted to go back, I couldn't. I wasn't done. And every year I was gone only made it more awkward.
Absentmindedly, I climbed up to my cliffside home, materializing and hardening steps of white light beneath my feet as I went, one after another.
Maybe tomorrow I would just play with the birds. Or maybe go for a swim.
Izena would approve.