Hohenfels

Arne stormed down the stairs and jumped into the arena, his hands quivering with fear and anger. He willed them to stop with a quick burst of magic as he approached his unmoving cousin and knelt down beside him.

Judging from the angle of the sword and Friedrich’s weak, but steady pulse, it had missed his heart. A quick inspection showed countless stab wounds, especially on his arms and legs. Some were already half-closed, others were bleeding profusely. ‘He is completely out of magic.’

He rose and looked around the stunned audience, randomly choosing someone to point at. “You! Notify the Castellan of Hohenfels Hall immediately!”

The young man stormed off with a panicked expression, and Arne went to find medical supplies. He did not have to look for long, since Katharina came running out of a storage room, hauling every bandage and tourniquet she could get her hands on. He shot her a grateful look and began taking care of his cousin’s worst wounds, Katharina’s apparent expertise helping the process along greatly. Once he was reasonably certain that Friedrich was out of immediate danger, he turned his attention towards the Eisenberg princess.

She too had suffered a multitude of injuries ranging from harmless surface scratches to deep cuts into her musculature. They had to tie off both her arms in a hurry, since Klara had also utterly exhausted her reserves and was losing precious blood every second.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t do much about her head injury. She was alive, at least – but she was completely unresponsive, her unfocused eyes dilating and contracting erratically.

To his great relief, Lord Hartmut arrived shortly after, accompanied by the head of Eisengrund Hall and a team of academy physicians. The following hours were a blur. He remembered escorting Katharina to her dorm, and then trying to coherently explain what little he knew about the incident to the Castellan.

Only when the physicians finally allowed him into Friedrich’s suite with the assurance that he would probably be fine in a week or two did he allow himself to relax.

The doctors had given him a prohibitively expensive alchemical stimulant to revivify his magic, and it was already working wonders. His wounds were no longer staining his bandages with blood, and his shallow breathing had turned steady again. ‘Thank Christ for his absurd resilience…’