Chapter 68 : The silver-haired woman
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I brought the sword close and pressed the two Evil Pieces into its blade.
The sword began to glow a brilliant silver, flashes of black and red flaring through.
An unseen force knocked the sword from my hand, but it didn't fall to the ground. The sword levitated in the air, its shape slowly changing.
The outline of its blade and hilt shifted, growing taller and wider. The silver glow shifted into the shape of a human.
There was one final, blinding flash, and the sword was gone. In its place stood a woman. She was just under six feet tall with long, flowing silver hair that tumbled past her shoulders.
Her skin was the color of polished ivory. Silver eyes glowed faintly out from a sculpted face. Two large, dark wings extended from the woman's shoulders, their membrane outlined in glittering silver.
A simple gray gown clothed the woman as she experimentally opened and closed her hands, touching her fingers to her face with an expression of awe.
"It…It worked." a voice I had only ever heard in my head said through new vocal chords. "It worked."
Arondight repeated, a radiant smile growing across her face. She looked at me, and the next moment she was hugging me, her grip as fierce as if I was the only thing keeping her from falling from the edge of a cliff. "Thank you!"
Gingerly, for I wasn't sure if she was quite used to having a sense of touch yet, I wrapped my arms around her. "You're welcome, Arondight."
The silver-haired woman pulled away and began to dance from foot to foot, an expression of pure glee on her face. Her eyes fell upon Lancelot and she stilled.
The knight was almost completely enveloped in white light now, though the brightness did nothing to hide the fond smile on his face.
"I am glad to see you happy, old friend." he said, his voice sounding further away than it was even a moment ago.
"Cherish your new comrades. I learned far too late that those who fight beside you are more valuable than any keep."
A tear streamed down Arondight's face as Lancelot's glow grew even brighter. She rushed forward and wrapped her arms around the fading knight.
"Thank you for everything, my friend." she whispered against his form. "May you finally find the rest you've longed for."
Lancelot's arms wrapped around her as he was completely enveloped in whiteness. "Farewell, Arondight. Live well, my old friend."
There was a burst of blinding white light, then Lancelot's form faded into hundreds of glowing orbs, all drifting away to dissipate against the air.
We all looked on in silence as Arondight watched the orbs fade to nothing. "Goodbye, Lancelot, my dearest friend." she said when the last light had gone out, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Arondight? Are you…?"
"I will be, my king." she said, straightening her back as she took a deep breath. "I would request a moment to collect myself."
"Retire yourself." I said. "Yubelluna should have been given a Phenex Tear by now. She'll be there waiting for you."
Arondight bowed. "Thank you, my king. I retire." A blue light covered her and whisked her away.
Where there would normally be an announcement, there was nothing but a thick silence.
A silence so complete it was as if a powerful fae had stolen the voices of all who had witnessed the scene.
"That was…" Kalawarner said, breaking the silence.
"Yes." Seekvaira said, gently lifting her glasses to wipe a tear from her eye. "Yes it was."
Another silence fell over us as we absorbed what had just happened.
"What now?" Kalawarner said, her eyes drifting suspiciously towards Seekvaira.
"We still have a Rating Game to complete." the heiress said, composing herself. "Though I would very much like to meet with you in private once this match is concluded." she said, looking at me.
"I would like the same. We should bring our peerages and debrief everyone at once. A lot of earth-shaking revelations have been made in less than an hour."
Seekvaira nodded. "Quite. Now how would you like to proceed? We could return to our headquarters and attack from there."
I shook my head. "No. I have something else in mind." I turned to Kalawarner and said, "Go back to the waiting room. I'll handle this."
Kalawarner turned to me in wide-eyed shock. "Riser, she's alone! We have the numbers advantage and with my light spears–"
"We have a new peerage member who is rather fragile right now. Valerie is likely still unconscious, and Yubelluna and Clarissa can only do so much.
You are the most likely to understand what she is going through right now.
Besides, you are the one who retired the Red Dragon Emperor. No one is going to doubt your strength now. Go. I'll fight Seekvaira alone."
Kalawarner looked like she wanted to argue, but she accepted my command. "I retire." She disappeared in a flash of blue.
Once again, there was no announcement. The people in the booth were probably too shocked by the events of this battle to remember to do their jobs.
When I returned my attention to her, Seekvaira was looking at me with a tilted head, a puzzled expression on her face.
"You would surrender your advantage so easily? Are you that confident you can defeat me?"
I chuckled. "I honestly have no idea how this fight will go. All I know about your combat capabilities is that you can somehow mess with the flow of time.
I don't understand the limits or even if there are limits. I want Arondight to have as many familiar faces around her as possible right now." I grinned.
"I also really want to see which one of us will come out on top. We're both fully rested and in as close to a controlled environment as possible.
We can both do our level best to kill each other without actually killing each other. Tell me that doesn't get you excited."
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