Page 46 of The Prince's Sacrifice

“Tor,” Pel said urgently. “Can we move everybody out? What if we all move to the far side and you do what you did to join them, just expand in that direction?”

Tor blinked, focusing on Pel with what looked like difficulty, like he was carrying a tremendous load that none of the rest of them could see.

After a long moment, Tor shook his head, a short, painful-looking motion. “No, I can’t restructure the shield that much. I barely managed this one because it meant dropping down to just one shield. That’s easier to maintain. If I try to modify this one again or create another, I’ll lose them.”

All right, that was out. What else? What else?

“Can the Illustrious Mantle your shield?”

Tor’s brow furrowed. “It doesn’t… really work like that.”

“But they can Mantle things they’re touching, can’t they?”

“Well, yes. But not magic.”

“Will ithurt?” Pel demanded.

Tor shook his head. That was good enough for Pel.

“Illustrious!” he yelled, startling most of the people nearby. Whatever. They’d get over it. “You can Mantle what you can touch. Touch that shield and give it more magic.” Everyone stared at him. “Do it!”

And slowly, here and there, guards and exiles reached up their hands to the shield, and Pel saw little bursts of white magic where they joined their magic to Tor’s.

Maybe it was Pel’s imagination, but it looked as though the pink was fading in those areas, at least momentarily. But it also brought into stark relief just how vast the shield was and how much magic Tor was expending.

Pel had never seen a more clear display of how strong an Exceptional was versus an Illustrious or Unremarkable. Torhad a phenomenal amount of magic—but Pel feared it wasn’t enough.

The little boy was back, tugging urgently on Tor’s tunic this time.

“Hey, mister, if somebody is taking too much magic, you gotta get away from them.”

Tor’s eyes focused slowly on the child, looking so perplexed that at any other time, Pel might have laughed. Unfortunately, just at the moment, all he wanted to do was cry.

“This is all me,” Tor told the child. “If I let the shield down, we’ll get hit with the rocks.”

The boy frowned at him. “But if you die, won’t we get hit with the rocks anyway?”

Tor’s smile was strained. “We need to pray that this won’t last much longer. And I’m trying to do something I haven’t done in years. And never from this far away. So how about you pray, and I’ll concentrate on my hard thing, and we’ll try to stop the rocks?”

The boy considered him suspiciously for a moment, and then abruptly nodded his head and started to pray—out loud—to the goddess and ask her to stop the rocks.

Pel really hoped Tor’s “hard thing” didn’t involve too much concentration.

He’d closed his eyes, though, and it honestly looked like he was far away from all of them, so maybe he wouldn’t even notice the child’s loud prayers. Pel had no frame of reference for measuring how much effort this was taking Tor, but the terrible pallor of his skin and the slowly darkening pink of the shield told its own story.

Pel had never felt more useless, a hot clench of despair in his gut, but he was in the same position as the vast majority of the people here, Unremarkable and capable of no more than that small child.

Goddess, please get us out of this alive. Please protect Tor. Please protect all of us.

He had no idea how much time had passed, but he suspected it was probably a lot less than it felt as they waited second by agonizing second.

Please stop the landslide. Please keep Tor’s shield going. Please protect us all.

Pel became aware that the other man was muttering, “Come on, come on, come on,” over and over under his breath. He swayed alarmingly, and Pel, Cavun, Beluna, and the exile who seemed like he might sort of be in charge made sure to support him from all sides.

They could still feel the impact of the rocks and earth and rain on the shield. Would the landslideneverend? What would happen if Tor passed out? Pel supposed it would probably be quick.

Tor stiffened in Pel’s arms, going abruptly and alarmingly rigid. He straightened to his full height, no longer supported by any of them, and his eyes snapped open, the blue practically glittering in his pallid complexion.