Twelve minutes in, and the dark elf was still grinning at her.
The sand had gotten into her gauntlets again. Solena felt the grains grind between her fingers as she tightened her grip on her sword. She put it out of her mind, the way she had made herself stop noticing the radiating pain biting down on her left side where his blade had opened her white and gold plate armor, and the cheering from the five thousand people who had come to watch her win.
She had grazed him exactly once, in a duel that should have been over in a few minutes. No one had ever lasted longer than that against her in a fight. Not even her instructors.
None of that mattered now. She took a deep breath and focused. There was just her sword, her shield, her faith, and the warlock she needed to put down.
Alden’s voice rolled out of the commentary box and across the whole arena through the voice-stone, warm and level and far too calm for a man watching two of his friends duel it out in the finals of the first Guild-sponsored Accession Tournament. “And neither of them has surrendered an inch of ground,” he announced.
He was right. She had not given up a step she did not take straight back. She would not let him of all people show her up, especially with her father, the Elven ambassador of Ondara, watching. She had to live up to her family’s expectations and the responsibility of being one of the Guild’s strongest Paladins.
Kael stood ten paces off with his greatsword held loose in one hand, point trailing in the sand, as if beating her did not call for much effort. His silver-white topknot had survived the fight better than her golden blonde braids, his light blue skin was not even flushed, and as always, there was that incorrigible, overconfident smirk on his face.
The violet aura of chaos magic, Menos, moved around him in a restless field of energy, arcing off his shoulders and coming back, never still and barely contained. It was an unnatural force being made to do something it did not want to do and it fought back every step of the way. There was a trail of blood at his temple from the one mark she had put on him that he had not bothered to wipe.
“You’re breathing hard, Solena.”
“You won’t be breathing at all for much longer.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
Shield up, sword low, and she crossed ten paces of sand in three strides, her divine light rising off her as she went. He did not move. He waited until her shield was almost on him, and then he was simply not there, a flash of violet and a snap of displaced air. Her Shield Bash hit nothing. The reverse slash she had aimed at his midsection cut air.
Behind.
She turned blindly with her shield raised, just in time. His blade slammed into it with a force that jarred her teeth.
“Are you even trying… or are you having second thoughts?”
He smirked.
“Keep this up and I’m going to think you actually like me.”
Insufferable. Shameless.
“I can’t stand you!”
For a second his bravado slipped, as if her words had really hurt him. Then the grin was back, and the aura around him tightened and threw off a crackling bolt of purple energy, then another, then a third, each one hammering her shield. Each hit driving her back a half step as he stalked toward her.
"Void Lightning," Alden’s voice said somewhere far above, for the benefit of the audience.
The crowd’s roar came through the barrier as muffled surf.
The barrier. A magical dome encompassing the entire floor of the arena and a hundred feet up into the air, visible only where the sunlight caught it, sealing the fight away from the stands. Nothing came in and nothing went out, ensuring a fair fight while protecting the audience.
Her shield glowed with the protection she had cast on it in the first seconds of the duel, and it deflected the bolts easily. She used the moment to catch her breath, and looked up at the nearby seats where the rest of her powerful, flawed Misfits sat.
Torin on his feet, green skin and cropped green hair, punching the air with both fists as he roared with every exchange as if he were in the fight himself. Nyx sat beside him with her hood thrown back, cat’s ears flat, tail lashing slowly behind the bench, her betting slip crumpled in her hand. Elara was on Torin’s other side with her journal open across her knees. Her head slightly bent, her quill scratching away on the page, Elara wasn’t just watching the fight. She was taking notes. Her auburn hair falling over the slightly pointed ears that had never let her fit in with humans or elves.
All three of them, and Alden in the announcer box, the only full human of their group with neatly groomed brown hair and boyish good looks, who had brought them together with his charisma and unwavering belief in their potential to make a difference. Despite the odds and many misadventures, every one of them had come to mean something to her, and yet they were all there for her opponent as much as for her. Her Misfits, but his too. At least until the end of this match, when she would follow through on her promise to disband their party.
“Eyes on me, Solena.”
A bolt cracked off the shield’s rim, nearly finding its way past her guard.
“Jealous, Kael?”
“Of your friends? They were mine first.”
Kael spared a quick glance at the seats himself and winked. Elara smiled back, flushing slightly, before burying herself in her journal again. Nyx gave him a pleading look with a quick glance to Solena, and Torin gave them both a wide grin.
Solena scowled and shifted her shield position, lessening the impact of the next bolt that slammed into her shield. She dashed in to close the distance between them. Saying a quick prayer as she brought her sword down, she felt the warm divine power of Ordis rush down her arm into the steel until the blade itself burned white-gold, radiant and blinding. Kael barely brought his greatsword up in time.
Their two blades met, but despite his weapon being three times its size, her prayer-infused sword easily pushed past his guard, landing a hit so hard that Kael was flung backward, feet backpedaling as he slid across the arena, and only stopped his momentum by thrusting his greatsword into the ground. Smoke rose off his chest plate, and his grin was gone.
The crowd jumped up from their seats.
“There she is,” Kael said, more to himself than to her, looking down at the scorch marks on his armor.
“Divine Smite. How long have you been saving that?”
“Maybe you should stop underestimating me.”
“Fair enough.”
For the first time in the match, he came at her without holding himself back. Gripping his greatsword with both hands, he effortlessly combined his physical strength and arcane prowess to launch a blur of attacks at speeds that should not have been possible with such a big weapon. He blinked in and out of range, his strikes seemingly coming from every direction at once – right, right, left, above, behind. It was all Solena could do to block, parry, and dodge, barely having time to counter once for every four of his hits.
Sand sprayed as his blade sliced through the spot where she had been standing a moment before. Solena backed all the way to the edge of the barrier, limiting his attack options. Kael did not slow down for even a second. He launched a series of direct slashes, the last of which slipped past her defenses and rang off her pauldron. The strap snapped and the armor piece fell away from her body. She ignored her exposed, bruised shoulder and caught the next cut high on her shield, angled up so that his blade slid across its top. Sparks flew as it rode the slope of her shield, up and over her shoulder, causing his arms to overextend with the momentum and expose his midsection. Solena bent low and pivoted, freeing her shield from under his blade, and drove it straight into his side with all her strength. Kael grunted in pain as she felt his ribs crack.
For that one moment they were close enough that she could see the sweat on his face and the pain welling up in his eyes from the ribs she had just broken. She knew that it changed nothing for him. He would never give up. He even flashed her a smile as he blinked out of range to regroup.
She did not chase after him and remained near the edge of the arena. At this rate he would eventually wear her down, no matter what the cost to himself. She would end this now, once and for all. She took a deep breath and let her faith fill her. Not the hypocritical faith she had witnessed countless times in the Church, but the true faith and belief in order, duty, and righteousness.
The divine power flooded into her, until a near-blinding light encompassed her like a halo. The air itself seemed to shimmer in reverence around her. She lifted her sword hand straight into the air. A golden ball of flame ignited from her sword into the sky high above them, widening until a wheel of holy fire hung above the arena, with what could only be described as a miniature sun pulsing at its center.
The audience took a single collective breath.
“Sunburst,” Alden whispered through the stone, forgetting everyone in the arena could hear him, “the strongest Ordis attack spell. Not even the archbishop can cast that…”
Kael only had a moment to look up before the fire rained down on him.
The sun slammed into the ground where he was standing. The entire crowd remained motionless in silent awe as the sandy floor exploded and a wall of flame engulfed the arena. Countless flares of molten hot fire burst from the half-buried sun, striking the ground and barrier in rapid succession. So fast that it was impossible to tell where one blast started and the next finished.
The falling sand swallowed her and the lower third of the stadium, and for a long moment there was nothing but the pressure of the blast against her armor, the stink of scorched sand, and a light so bright and hot that all she could see were dark spots and faint purple streaks of its afterimage.
Solena had wiped out whole packs of monsters with lesser spells, but she had never once been able to cast Sunburst before, and she would never have dared to direct it at a person. Death in an arena duel was not final while the barriers were up, but the pain was very real in the moment. Kael would have felt agonizing pain as he burned and would still be very sore for a while even with healing. Knowing him, his pride would take much longer to mend.
Did I go too far? No, this had to happen.
Smoke poured off her shoulders as her spell faded and the flames died. A giant black crater in front of her. Sand ran out of the joints of her armor in little streams, and the gold at her collar was blackened with soot. Her chest heaved, and she let out a deep breath.
It is finally over.
The roar broke over her like a wave, all five thousand voices chanting her name in unison, as the arena barrier was lowered. Solena lowered her mental shield as well. Her head hurt, the fatigue from casting such a powerful spell hit her like a wall of bricks. She felt the ache in her side, and her shoulder was completely numb. The mix of sand and sweat under her plate irritated her skin.
That crazy dark elf always pushed her to her limits, but she had finally beaten him, so for one of the few times in her life, she genuinely smiled, raised her sword in triumph and basked in her victory.
“Absolutely incredible! There you have it,” Alden said through the stone, and she could hear him grinning, “A duel for the ages! The first Accession Tournament champion is...”
He trailed off.
The crowd was going quiet. The sand was settling back to the ground. And then she heard a voice behind her.
Laughing.
“I’m not that easy to beat.”
He sounded delighted.
That is impossible.
“That all you got, princess?” his voice taunted.
She whirled around to face him.
In the clear, not even five paces away, Kael stood with his greatsword resting on his shoulder. Aside from the earlier cut at his temple, there was not another mark on him. Not a scorch on his armor, not a hair out of his topknot, and not so much as sand on his boots.
The spell had not touched him.
“…how?”
She felt embarrassed as she heard her voice carrying to the first rows. She could picture her father frowning at her from his seat. The ambassador’s daughter could never show weakness in public.
He did not answer. He wasn’t even looking at her with those haunting purple eyes of his. Kael’s grin was back, wider than before, but his head was turned aside, toward the empty sand, where he was speaking to nobody at all.
“And don’t call me princess, dark elf.”
He continued to ignore her.
“Did you see that? Told you.”
His voice sounded smug and warm at the same time, as if he were talking to an old friend. Entirely untroubled that there was no one in front of him.
“You said I’d never be able to dodge that move.”
She stared at him in disbelief, lowering her raised sword arm. As he always did. Whether in a secluded corridor, a public courtyard, or in the middle of a delve when facing a horde of enemies, Kael would often turn aside to smile at nothing and talk to himself. Their classmates called it the warlock’s madness and laughed to mask their fear. She had defended Kael more times than she could count while at the Academy because it was the right thing to do, even if he was her greatest rival.
The shock and humiliation she felt started to turn into anger. She always did what was right and what was expected of her. Solena’s elders had instilled those values into her since before she could walk. And she had never failed to be the best. Not once, not at anything, not in her whole life. And now her best had failed in front of her father, the Church and every Guild adventurer in Nexus, and it was because of him. All the silent and hidden resentment towards him that had been building up over the past two years erupted.
“Who are you talking to?” she snapped.
Nothing. He was still smiling at the sand.
“Are you even listening or have you finally lost it?”
She heard herself reach for the worst thing she could say to hurt him.
“Should I walk you to the Sisters myself?”
The Sisters were a sect of nuns at the Church whose sole purpose was to keep those who channeled chaos magic directly from going mad. It had always come at the cost of their humanity. Most could not perform even the most basic functions after treatment, and had to be spoon-fed and cared for the rest of their lives.
He looked at her then. She saw it land harder than any blow she had scored in their match. That annoying, charming grin was wiped from his face, and what replaced it was the other side of him. The monster. She had seen it only a few times, and never turned on her. No one else who had seen it directed at them was still alive.
Oh, Aethelos. Did he really snap?
Solena took a step back and felt her back hit the lower wall of the stands. She half raised her hand, as if to apologize.
The aura around him intensified, violet energy flooding out of him, overflowing, unstable, wrong, bigger than anything she had ever seen him channel, including the couple of times he had lost control. And the barrier was down. The marshals had dropped it the moment the crowd started shouting her name, thinking the fight over, and there was nothing to protect the audience now.
It’s my fault. I said the one thing that could shatter him and innocent people are going to be hurt because of me.
“Kael… I didn’t—”
But he was already moving. Straight at her.
“DIE!” he screamed.
He meant it. She could hear it in his voice. She felt the hate and anger barreling toward her. There was nothing she could do to stop him now. She was spent from casting Sunburst.
Kael blinked to her in a violet blur and was instantly cheek to cheek with her, the smell of his leather and sweat mixed with the sickly-sweet fragrance of moonflower catching her off guard, as she realized she would miss that smell. She would miss all of them. He snarled as he thrust his greatsword forward.
Solena’s eyes went wide and she gasped in pain. Her sword dropped from her hand as she crumpled into the sand. Her vision tunneling, pulsing in and out, and her ears filling with the fading sound of her own heartbeat, she closed her eyes.
“Sorry, Grandmother,” she whispered.
The last distant thing she heard before the blackness took her was Alden.
“Stop him! Solena! No! Solena!”