Fragment 3 Ares somehow managed to stay alive. Since the demon had been on his last breath, the neck wound he’d inflicted was not as dire as I’d feared. The bleeding stopped with healing magic. But just because the wound closed didn’t mean it was completely cured. Ares looked awful—everywhere around the left side of his neck was stained bright red. To make matters worse, the healing used up the last of his magic. Between his depleted state and the pain of his injuries, he wasn’t even able to stand by himself. Although the cut on his stomach was shallow, it showed no sign of recovery. I wrapped some cloth around it as a stopgap measure, but the blood stained right through it. A basic healing spell would have fixed it up easily, but Ares couldn’t use it in his current state. If this goes on, Ares’ll be in trouble. Both the neck and stomach wounds were potentially life-threatening. Casting away everything but the bare minimum of our baggage, I started walking with Ares leaning against my shoulder. I found his sword in the bushes and carried it for him. Ares had insisted he take the sword with him, if nothing else. “Sorry,” Ares said to me, his face pallid. “Don’t worry about it. I’m saving the Hero who’s gonna save the world. Aren’t I awesome?” I joked in an attempt to take his mind off things, but every step I took still felt unbearably heavy. I was walking at less than half my normal pace. I had no idea when we would reach civilization. Ares’s condition got worse over time. Maybe the stomach wound got infected, because he broke out into a fever and eventually stopped being able to walk. I threw away nearly all our stuff and carried him on my back. Supporting someone the same height as me was grueling. It sapped my energy almost instantly. I’d carry him for a bit, stop to rest, and then start again, only to need another rest immediately. At this rate, we’d spend a whole month here and never make it out of the forest, let alone reach a town. As I was resting, I turned to Ares and chanted the healing spells that the village priest taught us. It never worked once. No divine miracles for me. Please! I’ll never ask for anything else in my life! Just heal Ares’s wounds! I prayed desperately, yet no amount of wishing seemed to reach God. The thought of Ares dying from such a minor wound made me regret not putting more effort into learning healing magic. My eyes stung with the knowledge of my own powerlessness. Ares wasn’t even able to open his eyes at this point, so he wasn’t able to see me cry. I walked with Ares on my back. But I wasn’t getting anywhere. His state had gotten worse overnight, and I wasn’t in great shape, either. I was tired and hungry, but the worst thing was that we were out of water. We had nothing to drink and nothing to clean Ares’s wound with. I didn’t dare go deeper into the forest. There didn’t seem to be any rivers or watering holes nearby, and the woods were too forbidding. I knew all too well how important water was, but I’d used almost all our supply on cleaning Ares’s wounds the day before, and now we had nothing left. “O water!” I chanted the spell that Ares and I practiced a long time ago, but nothing ever happened. It didn’t work at all. Ares could have made water easily. Why couldn’t it have been me who’d gotten injured instead? Why couldn’t I cast a simple, measly spell? “It’s faster getting it out of a well,” our friends had said when they saw Ares cast his first water spell. They were right. But you weren’t always guaranteed to be near a well or river. You definitely weren’t going to have that luxury when you were in the middle of a journey, fighting off monsters. That knowledge struck home, deep to my core. Night came, and I couldn’t see a thing. Sounds of life bellowed around me; I couldn’t tell whether they belonged to animals or monsters. I was scared. I wanted a fire. “O fire!” I chanted the words of a fire spell I knew, but predictably, nothing happened. A strange smell was starting to emanate from Ares’s body. His wound must’ve begun festering. Fear spiked through me, and I unpeeled the cloth covering him, but I couldn’t muster the courage to see for certain what it looked like underneath. If only I was able to use fire magic, I could have closed his stomach wound by burning it. I hadn’t packed any flint when we set out. I’d assumed we wouldn’t need it because Ares could cast a fire spell. But now that it had come to this, my heart sank with the realization of how important it was to have fire. Not even the starlight penetrated this gloomy forest. Trapped within what felt like an abyss, I sensed a primal fear rippling through me. And it was cold. Ares was burning up with a fever, but that was only around his head and wound. His fingertips were so cold that I couldn’t feel any life in them. Hugging him close to me didn’t do a thing to warm him up. I desperately wanted to use magic. Even just a tiny fire would do. If I could have just one more chance, I swear I’ll do anything to learn magic, I vowed in my heart as I lay there in the darkness, trembling with fear. The sun rose. I hadn’t slept a wink; Ares moaned the entire night. All the blood had drained from his face, and now he looked like a corpse. My own exhaustion hadn’t cleared up one bit, and I no longer had the energy to carry Ares on my back. “What am I supposed to do? What do…? What do I do?” My voice broke the silence. Despair loosened my lips. “Kill me…” That was Ares’s answer, spoken as a groan. “I’m done for. At this rate, I’ll drag you down with me. And I’ve been in pain this whole time. I’m scared of my body rotting while I’m alive. Please…use my sword. Finish me off.” Ares’s voice was barely above a whisper. Every word took its toll on him. “I can’t do that! You’re my brother! My best friend! Weren’t we supposed to be together—always?! I’d never hurt you!” He and I were raised like brothers. I couldn’t imagine killing him. “That’s why I’m asking you. You understand what I’m feeling. Zack, you have to leave me behind and go on. If you don’t finish me off here, the bugs and animals will eat me alive. That’s why I’m asking you… Kill me. And go on by yourself.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Ares’s eyes were shut. He was clenching his face in an effort to withstand the pain. “What am I supposed to do when I get to the capital? You’re the Hero, aren’t you? If you die, the world’s gonna end!” I cried. He didn’t respond for a moment. “In the end,” he said slowly, “I wasn’t the Hero. The Prophet only said the Hero would come from our village. They didn’t say it was me. And you know what? When I heard what they said, something told me it wasn’t about me. They were talking about you, Zack.” “How could it be me?! I can’t even use magic! If only I could, I would have healed you! I’m not even that good with a sword…” I was bawling now, unable to rein myself in. “I…don’t know why I thought that. I just…did.” Ares’s face was contorted in agony. “Argh, it’s like I’m on fire. It hurts so much. Please, Zack, I’m begging you. Put me out of my misery.” I could tell just by looking at him that his suffering was immense. Deep down, I knew what had to be done. My face was damp with tears as I drew the sword. I placed the tip against Ares’s chest as he lay crumpled on the ground. Ares’s eyes were shut tight as he forced a smile on his face. He was trying to smile even though his last moments were full of pain. He was doing it for me. My hand trembled. A moment passed—just a tiny sliver of time—and Ares’s face contorted in pain again. That was when I ran the sword through his chest. At first, his hard flesh resisted me. I could feel the tremor against my hand. And then the sword sank smoothly into Ares’s torso. His mouth moved faintly. His last breath barely amounted to a sound. “Mom,” I thought I heard him say.