Heretic (The Sanctuary Series Book 7) by Robert J. Crane

lack of willingness to send your armies into the fight.”
    “We have lost so many friends, Vara,” Cyrus said. “I have sent people to their deaths in more fights than I can count, and the cost has been dear. And for the last few years, we’ve been taking increasingly harder hits. Narstron, Niamh, Alaric—though he may still be alive, I concede—your mother, Nyad, Odellan, Cass, Belkan, Thad … Andren …” He said the last one hollowly. “We’ve seen good people die in corners of Arkaria where they didn’t need to.”
    “I hear the list of names you speak, but I can’t shake my feeling that this is all down to your defeat at Leaugarden, isn’t it?” Vara asked quietly.
    “It’s down to death, everywhere,” Cyrus said. “I chose the path of battle, and so did our guildmates … but it doesn’t make it any easier when they die and I live. Until now, at least I had the luxury of knowing I had a sword that helped even the odds in these fights. With Praelior, victory, if not assured, was certainly more likely.”
    “You are more than a sword, Cyrus,” Vara said. “You were always more than a sword. You defeated the Dragonlord without Praelior and led us into Purgatory without the damned sword—and with fewer numbers than any of the Big Three boasted at the time.”
    “Of course, later we found out Alaric and Curatio could beat the Trials all on their own,” Cyrus said bitterly. “And they’re both gone now.” He cut her off before she could interrupt in protest. “I’m not … angry or upset or bitter about them leaving. It’s just … Arkaria is changing. Sanctuary is changing. We’ve lost ground. Everything we worked so hard to build is …”
    “Crumbling,” she said, nodding. “I know. I’ve felt this before, you know, when Archenous stabbed me in the back and left me to die in the Trials, after murdering my guildmaster and stealing my damned sword.” Cyrus pictured the blade that Derregnault had thrust in his face, the patterns of runes on the blades. “I know what it’s like to lose that which you have poured your life into, to feel it slipping like sands between your fingers as you watch in horror, unable to do anything to staunch the flow. If not from that, then seeing Termina invaded and destroyed most certainly awoke me to that sense of loss.” She inched closer to him on the couch, her armor squealing as it caught on a pad, tearing it. “Damn these things.”
    “I know you know,” Cyrus said. “And you are right about Leaugarden. I may have lost friends elsewhere, to assassins, to goblins, to the Scourge, to the dark elves, to the dragons, but Leaugarden … that was the place where Malpravus smashed me as a General. It’s a lingering wound. In the Society they taught me not to flinch from the pain, to guard against the fear that came after the blow, because the fear would paralyze you, keep you from fighting against the next and the one after. I’ve been flinching for over a year. Not in the battle itself, but before it. It was a humbling moment in a way that being pushed back by the Scourge or having to retreat from the bridge in Termina wasn’t.” He shook his head. “They were an unstoppable force of nature, those … things in Luukessia. But at Leaugarden … all I faced was Malpravus and Yartraak, and they …”
    “They showed you the lengths they would go to in order to win,” Vara said, her head down. “The same lengths our enemies would go to now, incidentally. Sending that dark elven trollop to your bed to spy on you and murder you at their command—that is perhaps the level of viciousness we can expect now.” She pulled off her gauntlet and placed a slightly moist hand upon his face. “Are you ready for that?”
    “Is there any way to be ready for that?” Cyrus asked with a wan smile. “Terian counsels war against insane odds, suggesting I simply go back to being a tricky general, and Cattrine brings up the same point as you. She fears my