CAMILLE VIII: THE DEFENDER OF MALIN
“Are you ready?” Lucien squeezed her hand.
Camille breathed deep, feeling the armor shift over her body with the rise and fall of her chest. Even with it thin enough to minimize the load, moving under the weight of the metal and the padding beneath it was frustrating, making the already-grueling practice far worse. But it was a significant improvement over being stabbed in the chest.
“I think I was ready weeks ago, really. If this were simply a duel to first touch, I could manage it in my sleep.” She forced a smile. “It’s not like Aurelian is such an intimidating opponent. But ‘to the death’ demands the utmost caution. And I cannot merely win. This needs to be an indisputable victory, proving once and for all that the Sun Temple cannot drive us out, or question our power.”
Lucien nodded, pulling an orange kerchief from a pocket sewn into his red silk tunic, rubies lining the trim. He’d wanted to wear armor as well, but that would send exactly the wrong message. It was Lumière instigating this, and his fall would mean an end to the hostilities, not a beginning.
“Are you sick?” Camille raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a favor.” He wrapped it around her upper arm, tying it into place. “To guide you to victory.”
The color is all wrong. It will look terrible with the blue-trimmed armor. “Thank you,” she said instead, since it was sweet of him. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s perfect.”
Across the beach, Lumière was preparing as well. He had refrained from donning armor himself, probably realizing that it was more likely to make him drown than to be worth the protection it added, but the golden-dyed leather over his body still seemed sturdy enough to help protect against slashes from the cutting end of a blade. Even if the robe he wore over the padding seemed entirely pointless.
Camille’s rapier, though, would pierce right through his protections. And was light enough for her to wield without collapsing in under a minute, which was fairly important too. Two weeks of training crowded into the edges of a schedule filled with spiritual duties, festival preparations, and planning could only do so much.
Aurelian had his secret plan, but she had hers. And as the challenged party, it was Camille who set the terms of the duel. This location over the water, the permission of weapons instead of only spiritual magic — they gave her a winning position no matter how the sun sage chose to attire himself. Either he would drown in heavy armor, or she could run him through in something lighter.
She felt a slight pulse of revulsion at the thought that she would need to do the latter, though. Swallowing him under the sea would have been so much cleaner, and a manner of execution she was far more accustomed to.
And then there was the aftermath to consider. Even after the duel today, her work would be far from done. Having Fernan would be most helpful, there. His friendship with the Lumière heir had already placed his aptitude far beyond what she could have hoped for, however much the boy might have demurred about it. It would be foolish to count on similar success in the aftermath, but at least it was enough to hope for it.
By unspoken agreement, both Camille and her opponent opted to forgo spiritual power to ascend the platform, instead floating small rafts out to the wooden structure and climbing the ladder manually.
She could have upstaged him by riding a wave to the top, but at the cost of power, and he would surely have replicated the show of force with a similar feat of his own. It was something of a surprise he hadn’t anyway, though, when he likely had more power to spare than she did. Especially since Aurelian Lumière had never been a cautious man.
But there was no use in dwelling on it, not when she had an audience before her, ready for a show.
After planting her feet at the north edge of the platform, Camille turned and gave a bow to the group of Malins assembled on the beach to watch her. They were outnumbered by the Guerrons here to cheer for Lumière, but they made up for it with their graciousness, none louder than Lucien.
From near the top of the stands, a woman next to Lucien hoisted a pole and unfurled the banner Camille had commissioned for the event, the Leclaire serpent entwined with the Renart fox on a wide blue ocean. Christine, most likely. The master of arms certainly had the strength for it, but Lucien might have chosen someone else. In any case, it mattered little.
Fernan and his irritating friend were over there too, by the looks of it, along with Magnifico.
What business has he here?
Perhaps it was simply for the spectacle of it, but that explanation seemed insufficient.
“Are you prepared to die?” Lumière called out above the roar of the wind. “If you recant your slight to Soleil and offer him his due, I shall allow you to walk away with your life.”
Cries and jeers erupted from the Guerrons gathered, far louder than anything that had been mustered for Camille. But there are more of them. Alarmingly more, really. Those sympathizing with his hate for Malin and the Crown had to be a minority of Guerron, Duke Fouchand had assured her as much, but it appeared they were still enough to outnumber Lucien’s people.
But that is what the front lines are for, she thought for a dark moment, before turning to more productive planning. It wasn’t as if they had some inherent evil to them. Theirs was simply an ignorance, capable of being rectified with their chief instigator dead.
As long as there isn’t a riot when I win.
Lucien would have to step in, there, quickly and assertively. But the voice of a King was a powerful thing, and he was all of their king, whatever lies Lord Lumière spewed from his white horse.
“Well?”
Camille wrenched her eyes back away from the crowd, facing the sun sage. Her blue ponytail blew in the wind behind her, flapping in concert with her cape as she drew her rapier. By way of response, she leveled it at Lumière’s head.
His eyes narrowed. “Very well.” He drew his own sword from his belt, a one-handed sabre usually used by cavalry, a slight curve to the blade. Strange to see in a duel like this, but perhaps he was simply more comfortable with the weapon.
“Let us begin.” Camille tilted her body, presenting a narrow profile made narrower by the armor holding everything in place. WIth a dramatic swing of her sword, she flicked her foot slightly, sending a small spray from the waves behind her out onto the platform. As she stepped forward slowly towards her opponent, subtle gestures splashed more and more ocean spray over the wood.
Lumière did not seem to notice, striding confidently through the spray without so much as blinking.
By the time they met in the middle, her trap was ready.
She deflected a swing of his sabre, feeling the judder in her arm as she put enough force into it to block the blow, then lunged, outstretching the tip of her own.
Effortlessly, he parried, stepping back to reset to a neutral position. Or at least, he tried to, before slipping on the patch of ice beneath his feet. He landed on his rear, sliding back six feet before he stopped moving.
Camille dissipated the ice back into water as she charged forward to capitalize on his position, looking Lumière straight in his indignant eyes, practically blazing with anger. They hadn’t always been colored gold, had they?
Perhaps he had worked some spirit magic to enhance his image. Even though at this distance no one in the crowd would be able to see it…
“It figures that you’d jump straight to underhanded tricks,” he spat, flicking his sword just enough to send her rapier to the side of his head.
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“Magic and weapons were permitted,” she said, trying to bait him into wasting energy. “If you lack the power to retaliate in kind, that is hardly my concern.”
He snarled, grabbing her rapier above the knuckle-guard, far from the piercing tip, and wrenched it out of her hand. “Always so impudent.” He threw the rapier off of the platform, into the water below. “I mastered the sabre when you were still hiding in your mother’s skirts. I killed fourteen men in the Foxtrap even as the cannons thundered above me, reducing the walls to crumbling ruin. You say you fight for Malin, but I’ve bled for it. I watched my father die for it. What have you done, Camille?”
She scrambled back, scowling as she iced the ground between them. The rapier itself she could live without, but losing it would make this duel that much harder. She’d need another way to kill him. “I lost both my parents that day. The same day I became a sage. I thought you were one too.” Why was he being so reserved with his power? Of all the things she had prepared for, this had not even been a factor. He could not possibly expect to win like this.
Lumière shrugged. “I had hoped to kill you with the blade. Why waste the energy?” He stared down at the ice patch in front of him. “That’s a sorry little trick, isn’t it?” He quickly stepped to the side, then lunged forward past it.
But Camille was ready, freezing the area of his landing and sending him careening far to the other side of the platform, though he did manage to keep his footing.
She chanced a look at the crowd, whose energy and enthusiasm seemed to have largely given way to restless boredom.
With a smile, Lumière threw his sword lazily over his shoulder; it followed Camille’s rapier into the water. “How quickly they desert you when you fail to entertain them. The spirits are much the same, I find, only valuing the utility you provide them, never appreciating what you sacrifice.” He clenched his fists. “But then, there is the power. We mustn’t forget that.”
He glared fiercely at her feet for a bewildering moment, not saying a word. In an instant, she felt a searing pain as a column of steam rose up from the floor. She dispersed it right away, but the pain still lingered.
“You didn’t think I missed your little dousing? It’s a double-edged sword.”
Fine. Perhaps the time for subtlety was over.
With a quick glance over her shoulder, Camille began to focus harder on one of the waves, pushing and pulling them higher and higher until it swept over the entire platform.
Lumière’s smile faded as he jumped high into the air, an aura of shining gold encircling him as he landed lightly on his feet. “Soleil will deliver me victory.” The aura around him was so bright it was nearly impossible to see, tinting even his dark hair to the point that it, too, appeared gold.
Camille tensed, ready to dart to the side of the next attack. The light was starting to burn her eyes, but she couldn’t look away without risking missing something crucial.
Lumière’s golden aura began to pulse in and out, faster and faster. To what end, she couldn’t say, but whatever he was doing, there was no reason to leave him the time for it.
This time, she rode the wave as it rose, standing atop it as it barreled towards the golden man. He would try to jump again, but she could—
He ascended without his legs even moving, jets of light flaring out from his hands to push him into the air. Even once the light from his hands faded, he remained hanging in the air, floating.
Flight?
Lucien had never mentioned that.
Another wave reached even higher, but he simply hovered above it. His arms folded, he stared down smugly.
“Fine.” Camille crossed hers to match his pose once she landed back on the platform. “One of us is going to run out of energy staying up there. Can you guess who it is?”
“You idiotic girl.” He pressed his fists together. “This is only the beginning.”
Shockingly fast, a massive beam of light shot out of his fists straight towards her, blindingly bright.
But this, of everything, she had prepared for the most. It only took a slight lunge to the left to get her out of the way, sliding on ice to preserve her momentum then melting it once she knew she was out of the way.
With a frown, Lumière tried again, and then again, but she managed to dodge each one. And this had to be costing him more energy than it was for her. It was just like she had talked about with Lucien: get him to burn his power, wear him out, and then go in for the kill.
He flew over her head, raining the light of the heavens down as he did, but even the barrage did little more than send her stumbling for a moment before regaining her footing.
Better, the maneuver had distracted him enough for Camille to finally bring a wave down over his head, catching him unawares from behind.
It knocked him downward, but most of it dissipated into steam the moment it made contact. “Your patron is not without his ability, but it pales in comparison to the power of Soleil.” He reached behind him towards the rising sun behind the mountains, getting slightly brighter as he did. “You cannot harm me, Camille. Please surrender. I’d far rather avoid killing you.”
She blinked. “You challenged me to a duel to the death!”
His nose wrinkled in disgust as he slammed his fist down against his thigh. “You stole a soul that belonged to my patron! Honor demanded this.”
“Honor,” she scoffed, shaking her head.
“Soleil,” he responded curtly. “Last chance.”
“I think not.” Camille stepped back off the edge of the platform, dropping out of sight as she caught herself on a rising wave.
She called forth a massive wall of water behind her, growing higher and higher even as Lumière tried to disperse it with rapidly striking beams of light.
Under the arena, support beams at cross angles were everywhere. It was difficult to even chart a path through, but with a dive through a triangle of seaworn wood, she managed to emerge on the other side, rising up behind the sun sage, who was still blasting furiously at the water in front of him.
She flicked a dagger of ice towards his throat, but it sublimated to steam the instant it made contact with his head. This close, it seemed like whatever he’d done really had turned his hair yellow.
I need something stronger.
She willed her platform as cold as possible, turning a hovering tower of water into a pillar of ice. But stopping there was not enough.
Her concentration on the other wall of water slipped for an instant as she put more and more energy into the tower of cold, causing Lumière to stop blasting for a moment, even turning his head back around.
He blinked with surprise as he saw her there, shooting another blast at the base of the tower and sending Camille and her perch careening back towards the water.
But another wave pushed back, burning far too much power to send her directly towards Lumière. She just had to hope it was enough.
Before it reached him, he tried to put his hands together for another blast of light, but it was too late. The massive chunk of frigid ice knocked him out of the sky, pinning him against the wooden floor.
She was almost out of energy now, after everything she had put into keeping it cold enough, but Lumière was trapped, the ice sizzling against his still-glowing body.
“You have to be nearly out of energy by this point.” Camille hopped off of the crashed ice and onto the platform next to him. “I am nothing if not magnanimous in victory. If you—”
An explosion of light tore the ice apart, sending shards flying as water splattered and steam erupted. As grand a gesture as it was, it seemed likely to be his last.
When the steam cleared, Lumière had his fist against the ground near the edge of the arena, trying to force himself to a standing position. His hair had dulled, his eyes only flecked with yellow. He had to be nearly out of energy by now.
But I’m not. Even if it were far closer than was comfortable. A tendril of water wrapped around each of his ankles, freezing him place before he could stand.
She stepped closer, keeping her back to the water.
The glow had faded entirely, all traces of yellow and gold gone from his face. A look of pure spite filled his face as Camille bent down to look at him.
This was the moment to kill him, if ever there were one. Duke Fouchand had given his blessing, and the man was practically begging for it with his brazen antagonism.
The roar of the crowd finally returned to her ears, once the pounding of her heart faded enough for her to listen. A cacophonous mix of cheers and jeers, entirely unintelligible.
If he asked to surrender, could she give it to him? Could she even afford to offer it, with the risk that he would simply return to the temple and retaliate?
“You got what you wanted, Camille.” He glared up at her. “My energy is drained, while some clearly remains to you. This isn’t how I wanted to do things.”
Kill him! Get on with it! Her whole body grew hotter, drenched with sweat, as the anticipation built up.
And yet she hesitated. At Soleil’s request, he had said. The discomfort grew stronger, until she felt like she was burning under the weight of the decision.
What would it look like, to all of those Guerrons watching on? How would it look to the others, uncommitted to either side?
“But what’s two years of my life, against flawless victory today?” He smiled.
Camille looked down at her armor, and instantly the pain became real in a way it never had before.
Bastard.
With a quick razor of ice, she slashed the straps holding to her body, the red armor falling into the puddle on the platform with a hiss.
He’d just burned two years of his life, to power a momentary spiteful gesture that accomplished nothing.
“Alright, you hateful creature.” She swept her arm up, nearly exhausting her reserves to gather a final cloud of water above both of their heads. She collapsed it into a sheet, gradually hardening it into ice. She focused up at it, ensuring that it would be sharp enough to kill in one smooth blow when it reached his neck. “Time to die.”
She heard it before she felt it, a deafening crack through the air like thunder, only louder.
Camille blinked, her ears still ringing from the sound. Her shoulder felt like someone had whacked it with a practice sword, numbness spreading out across it as she tore her gaze away from the falling water above.
Huh. That looks almost like blood.
That finally made the pain of it real, the red dripping down her tunic as she collapsed to the ground.
Lumière grinned as he stood, spinning a metal tube with a wooden handle on his finger before tucking it back into his robe. He leaned down closer to her head, speaking barely above a whisper. “Nifty thing, this handheld cannon. Magnifico called it a pistol.” He shrugged. “It would have been better to win without it, of course. I’ll have a bit of explaining to do for the Duke. But what can you do?” He kicked her closer to the edge, causing her to groan with pain again.
“F-f-f-f—” She choked before she could get the words out, blood dribbling down her chin. Fuck you.
The sun sage smiled. “Well, no one will ever say you didn’t put up a good fight. Goodbye, Camille.” He kicked her one last time, sending her tumbling into the water below as the life drained from her body.