"Hey. You. Wake up."
A boot nudged my ribs. It wasn't a gentle nudge; it was the kind of kick you give a corpse to check if it's going to bite.
I groaned, peeling my consciousness off the floor of the wagon. The smell of the wet wood and unwashed bodies was thick enough to chew.
"He's alive?" a voice whispered, sounding dissapointed.
"Unfortunately," another grunted. "Get him out. The wheel is shattered. Everyone walks until carpenter fixes the axle."
I sat up. My head felt surprisingly clear. The hangover from the magical backlash was gone, replaced by a strange, low-frequency hum in my ears.
I rolled of the back of the wagon, hitting the mud with a heavy thud.
Immediately, I noticed the difference.
Before, as a Magic Swordsman, my body felt light. Agile. Like a tightly wound spring. Now? I felt like an anchor.
I stood up, my boots sank an inch deeper into the soft earth than they should have. I clenched my fist. The sensation wasn't the "tightening" of muscle fibers I was used to. It was the grinding of heavy machinery.
I closed my eyes and looked inward.
The map of my body had changed. The glowing, complex road of meridians was gone, melted into nothingness. In its place was darkness.
But the muscles...
To my 'understanding', a normal Rank 1 Swordsman's muscles looked like wet webbing-loose and organic. My muscles felt like dark, heavy cables. The lightning had sintered the Mana and Vitality into a biological alloy that felt more like lead than flesh.
Mid-Rank 1? I thought, testing my grip strength. No. This is something else.
I wasn't just stronger. I was denser.
I looked around. The convoy had stopped on a muddy track winding through a dense forest. The conscription officer, Kael, was shouting at a group of men trying to lift the rear of the broken wagon.
I walked toward a group of recruits huddled by a makeshift fire.
"Hey," I rasped. "How long since the lightning?"
The recruits flinched. Their auras-flickering, white hazes of fear- recoiled from me.
"Don't look at him," one muttered, turning his back.
"He took a bolt from the sky," another whispered, making a warding sign against evil. "He's cursed. If you stand too close, the heavens might miss next time and hit you."
I stopped. Cursed.
I tried another group. They scattered like pigeons before I could even open my mouth. It seemed that surviving a lightning strike didn't make you a hero; it made you an outcast. Nobody wanted to be near the lightning rod.
"Fine," I muttered. "More space for me."
I walked to the edge of the road, away from the superstitious glares, and sat on a mossy stone. My stomach gave a violent, hollow growl. The new engine in my chest was idling, but it was demanding fuel.
I was busy calculating how many rations I would need to steal to keep from starving when a shadow fell over me.
"Behold," a voice intoned. It was soft, melodic, and utterly out of place in a muddy ditch. "The vessel that withstood the hammer of the storm."
I looked up.
Standing before me was a boy. He looked about fourteen, skinny and frail. His aura was a pale and rhythmic- calm, organized, and looping with a strange sense of piety.
He was bald. Not balding, but shaved clean. To my sight, his head was a perfect, smooth curve of static.
"Are you talking to me?" I asked.
"To whom else would I speak?" the boy said, clasping his hands together inside the sleeves of a ragged grey robe. "The others see a curse. I see a tribulation. The Grand Architect does not strike the stone to destroy it, but to shape it."
He bowed low. "I am Clement. A humble pilgrim on the road of Fate."
I stared at him. "Right. I'm Aaron. A humble drunk on the road to nowhere."
Clement smiled, a ripple in his aura. "Humility. A virtuous trait. Though rare in one so... singed."
"Look, Clement." I said, rubbing my face. "Do you know what's going on? Where are we?"
"We are in the liminal space between the life we knew and the service we owe," Clement recited.
"Geographically," I snapped.
Clement blinked. "Ah. We are on the Northern Trade Road. The Sergeant intends to deliver us to the Forward Base in the center of the Belgica Region."
"Center of the region?" I did the math. That was hundreds of miles. "How long?"
"Two weeks," Clement said serenely. "A pilgrimage of patience."
"Two weeks?" I groaned. Two weeks of walking. Two weeks of starvation rations. "Why are they dragging us that far? Why not just the local garrison?"
Clement sighed, the rhythm of his aura dipping into sadness. "The appetites of men are endless, Brother Aaron. The Governor of Belgica and the Governor of Hibernia have... disagreed."
"Disagreed?"
"Over land. Over resources. Over pride." Clement gestured to the north. "The skirmishes on the eastern border have escalated. The King allows his Governors to quarrel, provided the Kingdom bleeds only a little. But lately, the bleeding has become a hemorrhage."
He looked at the line of miserable recruits.
"The quotas have risen. The officers scour the roads. They take the farmhand, the beggar, and the... cursed. We are fuel for the fire, Brother Aaron."
I looked at the caravan. At the fifty or so men and boys trudging through the mud.
I thought about Valen. I thought about Edgar betraying us for coin.
It wasn't just bandits. It was the whole damn Kingdom. The Governors played chess, and people like us were the pawns they sacrificed to take a single square of territory.
"Soldiers," I muttered. The word tasted like ash. "He didn't save me. He conscripted me."
"Salvation comes in many forms," Clement said, sitting down next to me on the wet grass. "Perhaps the Architect intends for you to end the war."
"Or perhaps he intends for me to catch an arrow with my face," I countered.
Clement chuckled softly. "Faith, Brother. You caught lightning and lived. An arrow seems trivial by comparison."
I looked at my hands. They were covered in soot and dried blood. Beneath the skin, I could feel the heavy, dense weight of the Alloy Flesh.
I wasn't a mage anymore. I was a grunt. A pawn.
But pawns could become Queens if they reached the other side of the board.
"Two weeks," I said, standing up. My stomach growled again, loud enough to startle Clement. "Do they feed us on this pilgrimage?"
Clement reached into his robe and pulled out a piece of jerky that looked like a rock. "The body must suffer so the spirit may soar."
I snatched the jerky and bit into it. It tasted like dust.
"My spirit can soar later," I said, chewing aggressively. "Right now, my body needs to eat."
I looked north, toward the destination I couldn't see.
Forward Base, I thought.
"Come on, Priest," I said to Clement. "Let's go be soldiers."