Given the ugly state of affairs with his hands, he didn’t hold out much hope for the rest of his body, but he still o know. Unfortunately, he couldn’t move around well enough to un the bahat covered his chest, and he was in too much pain to sit up. So, instead, he grabbed his drinking gss, broke it on the nightstand, and thehe biggest part to start cutting away at the bandages.

  Simon didn’t try to be careful. He couldn’t hide any of this work from whoever came on to che him in a minute or an hour. He just o get well enough that he wasn’t going to die or find out if that was the best solution, and then he could decide what to do. There was no sense in beheading himself unless he ermaly crippled, or maybe, not even then. He wasn’t sure what he’d do exactly, but he didn’t really feel like throwing iowel.

  Why not just start with a ste? He told himself as he cut away at his bandages before shooting back, Have you seen my ste? It’s not that . Weight loss. W out - I’d o make new fireproof armor… it’s a whole thing.

  The armht be a valid reason to keep going. It would take him weeks or months to repce, depending on the circumstances, but what would he for? Duh, Dragon… The words came back immediately. He hadn’t been pnning to fight the dragon, of course. He’d been pnning to… Well, he hadn’t really thought about it past the whole volo thing, and…

  Thinking about any of that immediately made him think about his doppelg?nger, and for a moment, that was enough to still Simon’s hand. pared to that, none of the rest of these mysteries mattered. If he… If some version of him was out there causing some of these problems, then that o be his top priority.

  “No,” he whispered to himself as he returned his focus to the matter at hand while he looked at the ugly bruise that colored the left half of his rib cage. “My top priority is making sure I don’t die. My evil twin be handled after that.”

  Simon used a word of healing on his chest after he’d probed all his bruises a for broken bohere were enough broken ribs on his left side that he felt sure a lung or something worse must have been punctured, so he took his time, trying to hold all of that in his mind before he finally said the words.

  The relief he felt alpable, but so was the fatigue that washed over him as his body tried to fix everything on his wishlist. He’d left the bruises and the burns in po matter how ugly they looked, but he could breathe deeply again, so that was worth it.

  Simon sat up, or at least he tried to… the pain in his back was so bad that he instantly knew where the problem was with his feet. He rolled onto his side and gingerly reached back to prod his spi ainful mistake, but that didn’t stop him. He didn’t know if it was broken, fractured, or just pin crushed, but everything in his upper lumbar hurt, and everything below that didn’t feel like anything at all.

  It would be easy just to start over, he reminded himself. The experience penalty for a reset ’t be too bad, it? The st part gave him pause, but only enough to wonder what the penalty for killing himself actually was i. He would o measure that. Nht now, though.

  Right now, he kept going. Then, when he had what felt like the plete picture of what his damaged spine might look like, he spent the better part of a minute breathing deeply as he pictured it. Half of that ent trying to decide whether or not he should try to use a greater word, but all of it ent desperately trying to remember ss of biology css and back pain ercials to remember exactly how the spin fit together.

  The most important part, of course, was making sure that the spinal cord was ected, but there were so many moving parts he was certain to screw it up. There were pads that fit between them and fluid somewhere, but he wasn’t sure.

  There were times when Simon wondered how much of a given spell was the magid how much of it was the instrus he gave it, but this time, he left nothing to ce, and when he finally worked up the o whisper “Gervuul Hyakk,” it was as detailed a spell as he had ever put together.

  That was fortunate because trying to force those words of power from his throat in his weakeate was harder thahought they would be. Despite the familiar spell, he almost choked on them, and he felt his soul strain uhe opposites of physical weakness and magical power. In the end, he didn’t get to see the results because unsciousook him before he did more thahe warmth and tingle of magic as it started to stir through him.

  When Simon awoke , the sun was bright in the sky, and someone was talking. No, someone was reading to him. For a sed, he struggled to make out the words. Is someone reading me my st rites? Is this a religious ceremony? He wondered. No, it’s a children’s story.

  As Simon slowly swam through mosses to return to sciousness and to the real world, he listeo a story about three children trying to navigate through a dark forest. The first one decided not to leave the path and was set upon by bandits. The sed one decided that it would be safer to cut through the dark woods and leave little bread crumbs so he wouldn’t get lost. That worked fiil an owlbear found the crumbs, which led it straight to the boy to gobble him up.

  Simon didn’t get the ce to find out how the third boy surmouhe challenge, because that was when his narrator noticed that he was stirring and stopped the story. “Wele once more to the nd of the living, Sir Simon," she said with a smile on her fabsp;

  Until that moment, Simon had thought it was the maidservant who was reading to him, but when she smiled, he noticed how pretty she was, and that misapprehension fell quickly away. For a moment, he wondered who she was, and then he saw the . After that, it didn’t take a genius to work out that the Queen of Ionar was sitting by his deathbed reading him a bedtime story.

  “How long… this time?” he mao ask.

  “Since you almost ruined all of Doctor Nonth’s hard work,” she asked lightly. “Two days. He said you might not recover from that.”

  A quice down revealed that he was once again swaddled in bandages from head to toe. “Sorry…” he whispered. “The fevers…”

  “Indeed,” she agreed. “The doctor said it was certainly a temporary madness caused about by brain swelling. He advised that we drill into your skull to relieve the pressure, but I decided against it. You were too weak for another operation.”

  Simon nodded weakly at that as she scooted her chair closer, unsure of what to say. “How are you feeling?” she asked finally as she took his bandaged hand in two of her own.

  “Better,” he answered, surprised to find that it was so. His body was exhausted, and utterly spent by the magic he’d used on it, but he didn’t hurt half so bad as he had before, so he’d clearly done some good.

  “Why am I—” he asked

  “Alive? In the pace?” she responded with a smile.

  “I do not cim to know who you are, Simon, or why you did what you did,” she answered, squeezing his hand, “but I do know what you did, and I will be grateful to you for it even if the city as a whole will never know that you struck that monster down.”

  “But… what was it?” he asked. “The giant.”

  “You don’t know?” she said before uttering a ugh so musical that it was almost enough to make him smile on its owe the pain. “You struck down a monster from the stories just because… what… you felt like it?”

  “Well, Ionar has been a nice pce so far,” Simon said before he started coughing badly enough that the Queen had to get him some water.

  “I’m gd it meets your approval,” she said wryly when he was done, but I’m afraid I ’t let this rest. “If you didn’t know whan was, then why did you sy him in such heroic style?”

  “All I knew is that… if the volo was allowed to erupt, they would be forever ruined,” he lied. “It's an old prophecy from the north.”

  “Prophecy, huh?” she asked with obvious suspi, “So a man from far away es to town to what… stop a volo from exploding? You’ll five me for saying so, Mister Simon, but that seems… unlikely.”

  “Maybe I expin things better when my mind is clearer,” he answered, groping at straws. “Things are… I’m not sure.”

  It had been a dumb story on his face. If he’d been ier shape, he would have seen that, but then, he’d never pnned for ao actually talk to home about any of this. He’d po solve the level, beat the elemental, and move on to the ask.

  “Why are you here… with that book?” Simon asked finally, trying desperately to ge the topibsp;

  “Our beloved doctor said that you could slip away at any moment st night but that the sound of speaking might yet lure your spirit back to its body,” she answered smoothly, “And I could not let our protector slip away without thanking him, so I did everything possible to make sure he stuck around at least that long.”

  “Well, I appreciate that,” Simon said, not sure what else to say.

  “And I appreciate you sying a monster from the legends,” the Queen smiled. “If only that had happened for the other lost cities, Ionia would be better for it, Simon.”

  The two of them kept talking for some time, and it was only when the doctor returhat the Queen took her leave. The doctor scolded Simon for what he did, expining that it had nearly cost him his life, but Simohe truth. The Bandages were only hiding the ugliness of his wounds. The true war for his survival was happening deep inside his body, and when he’d used magic to heal so many grievous injuries at o had strained him to the limit.

  He was better now, though, at least a little. He still wasn’t sure if he’d ever walk again, but that was a ter problem. For now, he was tent to heal in his sick bed, and as his fever wanned, his appetite soared, and he was sooing full meals again. The pace food retty good, even. It just wasn’t as good as the meals he’d make for himself in his little home off the market in the lower city.

  It took three weeks for the good news, though. That’s how long it took him to feel anything in his feet. But once he realized he could move his legs again, even if clumsily, he kept trying tle and stretch his toes until, one day, they started to move. That’s when he khis life wasn’t wiving up on just yet.