Our father was a politician and general nowadays because no one else had enough credibility to organize the grand alliance that was needed, urgently. The mages of the Academy had slowly scattered across the continent, as Azenum had predicted. To attack a thousand mages at once was suicidal, but nearly a thousand mages scattered among a hundred cities and the roads between? Very doable. Oscanion hadn't missed many opportunities.

Azenum had finally managed to get representatives of most of the surviving cities to agree to discuss a unified war effort. The city-states did not necessarily bear any animosity toward each other, in fact they were generally on good terms and wished their neighbors well. But it's one thing to be cordial, and quite another to be willing to send your own citizens and resources to a distant battlefield, making yourself more vulnerable in the process. At last, they were no longer pretending that the threat would go away on its own. At last, they had confronted reality. The fact that the battle lines now flirted with the equator no doubt had a disproportionate psychological role in helping the northern cities to appreciate the gravity of the situation.

Near sunset, we arrived at our father's headquarters. As we walked in, Azenum was still speaking.

"This is a demographic catastrophe." One of the last surviving red mages, his black and white escorts on either side, was telepathically transmitting our father's words to his counterparts across the world. "The mage population may never recover. We are long past the point where piecemeal resistance has any hope of long-term success. But unified, we still maintain a numerical advantage. To those peoples for whom the war still feels remote," he paused, which everyone knew was intended as a special rebuke to his fellow Ezentans of the temperate north, "please recognize that Oscanion is never stopping his campaign. He leaves depopulated and abandoned territories in his wake. He will never pause to consolidate or offer terms. I do not claim to know his motives, but it is clear that his goal is wholesale extermination. Your choice is to fight now, at this moment when our strength is larger than it will ever be in the future, or to wait, and eventually fight anyway, from a worse position. All cities currently assailed were once far from the fighting."

We stood behind our father, mostly as propaganda assets; our arrival would be relayed alongside Azenum's words.

Most of the surviving city-states agreed to joint resistance that day. We could finally transition from a fighting retreat, at times more an evacuation, to a real offensive.

We simply needed help. Izena and I were powerful, but even if we were invincible, we could only be in one place at a time, and we were not invincible.

Oscanion himself could always escape whenever he was vulnerable personally, if it was just us two. Since Izena was the only attacking threat while our father was forced into the role of politician and general, Oscanion only needed to move in the direction she wasn't, parrying her attacks with his own as he retreated. All other surviving mages weren't worth the strain they placed on my resources against major threats, and bringing a sizable group of allies equipped with powerful enchanted items on a mission deep into enemy territory was tempting fate. The masterpieces lost in the conquered territories were enough of a problem, bringing any non-mage to the level of reasonably strong mages.

But the coalition's unprecedented manpower eventually created an opportunity, and Azenum proposed a daring plan.

Oscanion's entire western army had badly overextended into a salient directed at the western, equatorial port city of Rokesha, presumably due to overconfidence and complacency born from repeated success. They had become accustomed to strength of numbers, picking off one city at a time. A grand unified army would come to Rokesha's aid, threatening to encircle and obliterate the unsuspecting attackers. Oscanion was known not to be in the west, but he would need to intervene in the battle personally if he wanted to salvage his forces. Hopefully, similar overconfidence and complacency combined with a sense of urgency would make Oscanion risk moving without collecting an entourage of significant subordinates, to avoid delays. We three would strike when he was vulnerable. Fleeing from one elite black mage while parrying spells might be possible, but two who could focus on all-out attack?

Izena and I had long been incomparably more powerful than her father, but he was still the most powerful among mere mortals. He could not be ignored, and would tip the balance.

It would no doubt be a battle for the ages. Oscanion was strong and had unique abilities. He may have unrevealed trump cards.

We just needed to win.

----

"Your plan worked, father," I whispered. "Your only mistake was having too much faith in me."

It had been fifteen years now. Izena would disapprove of me torturing myself like this. I knew that. It's not like I thought this whole thing was healthy. It was outright psychotic. The mana strain hurt, constantly. I was doing exactly what she always told me, warned me not to do. Obsessing, blaming myself, setting an unreasonable standard.

She would be so upset with me. So, so, upset. I would get scolded like I never had before. 'Disapprove.' Ha! She would be furious. With me. At me.

But even so, every year that slipped by made it harder to return, made me more ashamed. What would I say?

"Fifteen years?! Seriously?! You only knew them for fifteen years! Get over it!" some might say. Well, easier said than done, hypothetical inquisitor. They were everything to me, they trusted me, and I had to withdraw my protection from them and watch them die, because I was not up to the job entrusted to me. And my memories don't fade.

Izena's shield was failing, trembling under the strain, as was mine. I--

Aghhhh. The acid. Mmmmfffff. Why couldn't it fade, if only a little?

Alright. Focus.

"Fffft...Bluhhhhh...Never again. Never the same mistake again. You couldn't keep everyone safe, but you will some day. Keep at it."

I grimaced. Today it was time for another test of my progress, which meant another disappointment. I knew I was getting close to a major milestone, which only made every failure more frustrating. I set up and performed the familiar ritual.

After finishing, I curled up into a seated fetal position, right hand clutching the top of my head and left arm wrapped around my knees.

"Two," I croaked, tears leaking out. A 35-year-old hermit of 15 years who looked like a 25-year-old in perfect health, sobbing like a child.

Skip and Fuzzy had died. New volunteers Leafy and Gleam did not know the significance of this moment.

"I could have saved Izena," I blubbered. "It's what Azenum would have wanted. He would have understood." Leafy and Gleam stared back at me, Gleam through her very impressive shield, both uncomprehending. It's ok. They're still very cute.

"He would have been proud," I added, voice cracking on the last word.

Gleam had no idea how very safe she was inside that shield.

"It's ok Leafy," I cooed. "I'll be able to make one for you too, eventually."

For the first time since arriving on the island, I allowed myself to drop my mana below the point of strain, and laid back to look at the sky, until the stars came out. This island really was very peaceful. I didn't want to leave. It was nice. I had been born in the south the year that Oscanion started his war. Peace was nice.

Regardless, I still couldn't go back, even if I wanted to.

I absentmindedly walked up a solidified mana staircase toward my cliffside home, the steps of white light materializing and hardening under my feet as I climbed.

Maybe tomorrow I would just play with the birds, maybe go for a swim.

Izena would approve.