“Let's go to my rooms, then I can show you what I mean, it'll be easier to explain,” she said, pushing her chair back and standing up.
Luka followed as she led him down the corridors, carefully picking her way in the light of the torches that bracketed the walls. Soon she had entered her rooms, and he blinked at the dim light in her rooms. It looked like Maya had been working through the day and hadn’t noticed when it had grown dark around her.
“Maya, what do you want to show me?”
She lit a candelabra and brought it over to him so he could see what lay on her table. As soon as his eyes fell on the little gauntlet, his blood ran cold.
“Is this—” He broke off, trying to get his dry throat working again.
Maya went on talking, but he could hear only a few words past the roaring in his ears: mage-armor…powered by steam…full body armor plating…an additional component to the army’s normal armor…
“Do you mean to say that you want to get every soldier in the army in this thing?”
“It’s still a prototype, of course, and it needs more work, but I’m hopeful that I can get it working in time…” She trailed off when he didn’t reply, finally noticing his distress.
“What’s wrong, Luka?”
He swallowed hard, once, twice, before he could speak again. He couldn’t stop his gaze from moving down the polished metal, the smooth rivets, and the joints. If he touched it, would it be warm, even now?
It didn’t look exactly like the armor he’d worn to battle, but the similarities were enough to make his throat tight.
“What about wards?” he asked after a moment. “Against magic, against attack?”
“Wards?” Maya blinked at him. “I’m working with Mister Utsev on those, he’s the mage I work with, he handles all the spellwork that goes into my inventions.” She looked at him shrewdly. “Why do you ask? Did you have some improvements you wanted to suggest, based on your own experience with your body armor?”
Luka took the way out that she had offered him, nodding. “Yes, so youcannotdeploy this thing right now. There’s a lot of improvement to be made, I’ll write to Mister Utkiv—”
“Mister Ustsev.”
“Yes, yes,” Luka said, waving away Maya’s correction. He turned, leaning more heavily on his walking stick as he contemplated the walk to his bedchambers. He was in no mood to go back to his study to work, his concentration was shot.
“Come on, I’ll help you.” Maya took up position on his other side, and he fought against leaning on her, but in the end, the shakiness in his legs decided for him, and he had to take her support.
“You’re not as enthused about this as I thought you would be,” Maya said softly a few moments later, as they walked to his rooms.
Luka grunted in reply, hoping she would let it go. It had been a long day, and he was not in the mood for this conversation.
“Let it go, Maya,” he muttered, but of course he should’ve known she wouldn’t listen.
“But why? I thought you’d be happy that I was working on something that would help the soldiers come home unharmed.”
He wasn’t able to stop himself from reacting to that, and Maya stopped to stare at him. “Do you—do you not like the armor?” she asked hesitantly.
Luka shook his head. Maya’s armor had been useful, in the beginning. Had got him walking away from battles where he would’ve been dealt a nearly fatal blow.
But it had not been warded against magic attacks. He should’ve known better. Maya was not a mage, she wouldn’t have thought to have warded her armor.Hewas the one with the magic, he was the one riding into battle. He’d known Telluria had battle mages on the frontline, just like the Imperial army did, but he’d underestimated them, based on all the reports the War Council had about them.
How could he have left his safety to chance? In the beginning, he’d never faced a mage attack from the Tellurians, he’d been able to deflect nearly every mage who’d sent a spell his way, and he’d grown cocky for it.
A single spell had turned his armor against him, tightening on his muscles until he’d had to fight to get it all off him. The greave had come off his ankle easily enough, and so had the chausses, slipping off his legs—but thesabatonhad tightened cruelly around his foot, and while he and Stoffel had been distracted by his malfunctioning armor, the Tellurians had struck at his regiment—
“Luka!”
He came back to himself, realizing that he was leaning heavily against the wall, and only Maya’s weight was keeping him upright. Her voice was worried, and she brushed one of her hands through his sweaty hair.
“Luka,” she said, softly now that she’d seen he was listening to her again, “what happened?”
He shook his head. “Just get some warding on your armor. Mage warding. The Tellurians have stronger mages on the frontlines than you can imagine. Just one shot of magic and—” He choked off, and Maya stared at him in alarm.
