Chapter 56

There and Back Again (part.2)

Mirina awoke in the midst of the battle. No slumber was hers. In the realm of dreams she was not lost.

Prince Alexander led them. Fierce, beautiful. A man amongst men. First in line, shouting orders and preparing assaults. Felling enemies with a sweep of his sword, letting the dirt soil his images like the poorest of his followers. Was that a prince? Was that a king?

The Union had no kings, or queens. So her father used to teach. The nobles that ruled the cities had called themselves master, mayor, magister for no crown could rest on their heads. Lords of little worlds, the Union was no more their domain, no longer the playtoy of royalty, the soil for their ambitions.

It was the Law that ruled them all.

That was why the imperium of the Equestrian was to resist. That was why no centaur, no monster, no god could proclaim their lands. For better it was to leave them as ruin, than as spoils. The Grand Debate had enshrined that pact of equality.

No more war. No more war, what a dream. Foolish, could have been said. No more war. Something worth dying for.

'When this sword is yours, the Dark Knight will revive in you once again like he did with me. Like he did with your grand-father, and his father before him.' Mirina was a child when she heard these words. A child of six, or seven. The gaze of her father clouded by the mist of forgetfulness that the passed time carried. Now a woman of twenty-nine, almost thirty, could hear those same words. 'The Crocdabal line lives with you. No, it's more correct to say that you are the Crocdabal line itself.'

Still, her father was an indistinct shape. Like the centaurs that now came to her. On the arches the Dark Knight drew, the trail of something was scattered close to her. It was no blood, nor skin. Sorrow, it could have been. As if sorrow could drop, as if sorrow could be lacerated. As if the last laments could impregnate the air, the broken aspirations fertilize the ground.

If a flower was to bloom from that ordeal, for Mirina already looked withered away. Consumed by her greed, wasted by the ages.

"My lady, they are attacking the rear." The squire was unknown to her. Mirina watched that young gasping, drowning in sweat. A face that had to stand to battle yet. Assigned to her by her beloved. A lamb to sacrifice for eventual salvation. For Kista. All for Kista.

"Leave it to me."

An ambush on the road to Orcleans. It was expected, for Prince Alexander's words. It was expected, but still it would have a cost. The Great Plains would not fight in narrow spaces. They wouldn't risk a siege in a fortified city, when rebels could still lurk in their behinds.

'It is not a sword that you will wield. It is not a sword that you will bath in blood. It will be your first, and only, friend. It will be what you will call love, what you will deem hate. On nights without sleep, it will keep watch on you. Your companion when you will see the sun rise, your support when the desire to abandon everything will be intense…'

Mirina still heard that voice, only an echo of a distinct past. What was not a reminiscence, a trick of the mind, was the sword. Crocdabal, the sword of rot.

Opaque, in its colors. The violet of Mirina's iris could be seen in the metal fibrils of the blade. A sign, according to her family. An indisputable proof of the link between them and him.

The Dark Knight. The companion of the Leader. The second of the Thirteen. The hero who slayed demons and fiends, accepting and dominating a cursed heritage. He who experienced a doomed love, of which no future was left from the start. Burying those he cherished, abandoning the bonds he had made, that hero had never turned back with regret.

"Protect the healers! People adept with shields cover from the arrows! Everyone who can fight has to stand between supplies and enemies!"

In fighting, the woman could see the world for what it was meant to be. The Great Law commanded them all. The Law that glued all of the Union in something that was more than a simple sum of the parts. As such, no larceny on her part. Killing was on the part of the rightful, an imperative command of enlightenment dispositions.

Mirina looked back to the one she loved, to the one who made fighting so simple. Kista of the lips that melted like honey, Kista of the laughs that resonated with the soul, Kista that had robbed a Dark Knight of her heart. Reclaiming another life was light. Kista's smile made it so.

Someone she did not recognize fell next to her. An arrow had pierced the abdomen. Mirina did not notice how quick the passing was; she did not bother to make sure there was still breath in them. Vengeance was called upon by the act. Covering the distance between her and the archer, the champion of the Union was still with the mind back to her love. The bow was already taut when she delivered punishment.

The other soldiers of the Great Plains started to circle around her, each kicking step invigorated by the offense received.

"Come. Your companion was sent ahead of the beaten path. Soon, you will follow," she taunted. "Who is first?"

"Mizael, sergeant of the Great Heaven."

Already down after one blow. Already the Great Heaven wept for the loss.

"Who is next?"

No more duels for them. It was one against many. Shaking like many capelins in small rivers, theirs was not a sorted line, a disciplined formation. Mirina's head was the prize for their glory, the steps for the ladder of their immortality.

Mirina thought of the Dark Knight. The Dark Knight that was not Mirina Crocdabal. The Dark Knight that was not Mirina's forefathers.

A hero who wielded four swords, to which only one to them remained. Crocdabal, the sword of Rot. Crocdabal, the name her father had bestowed upon her. A family that called itself like a sword. A sword that was more precious than many lives, with more history than any chronicle. The people would fade, the sword would rest.

'Now, this sword is yours. Now this sword is you.'

Now, Mirina and Crocdabal were one. But the Dark Knight, the real Dark Knight, was not one. He was four.

Not only the rot of Crocdabal, but also the curse of Kilineraim, the absolute end of Sfeiz, the malevolence of Hyumilis.

Crocdabal was decay, the rot that plagued her lineage. Mirina accepted it, as ones accepted the sound of their voice, the hue of their skin.

The putrescence of the passings already permeated with filthy stench the before-limpid air. Every lounge was a finishing move. Every movement was a cadence of perfection. For Mirina did not rest in her duty. The expeditiousness of her work was the fruit of a devotion to recreate a new legend.

A fruit where worms and pustules dwelled, the festering of marcescence thrived in the line of Crocdabal. Crocdabal, like the sword. Crocdabal, like the rot.

A centaur sank the spear in the breastplate. The impact grazed the woman, her breath slipped for a second. An imprecation escaped: "Damn." But of pain there was no trace. The grip on Crocdabal remained firm, the attack that came no more than an after-thought.

When she first had felt the handle between her fingers, a long time ago, an unexpected surprise had welcomed her. A child watched a weapon in awe. A child watched the steamy metal, the aura of despair, and realized, almost by chance: 'This is no toy. This is meant to accomplish what the adults call death.'

A child could not reason like an adult. But a child could accept the hilt that the father served, whispering by themselves: 'This is no toy. What is then?' Was it death? Death was a scary word. A word that a child couldn't not fully understand. Was it fear? A child could grasp what fear meant. A child could observe the shadows on the walls, in the room, and retreat. The same shadows ornating the circular knob, now and then, gushing out dread itself from the metal that was so cold to the touch.

But the sword was more. The sword was gentle. Could darkness be gentle? Could rot and decay express tenderness? Those emotions narrated like a tale, for those whom she shared them with. They depicted a nightmare, for those who met her blade.

That centaur sampled the latter, his body pleading for a different fate when realization of what destiny had in mind for him. Crocdabal did not sever the flesh, did not cut the bones. Crocdabal plagued. A sword that did not ask for acceptance, that did not console with a short end.

The skin yellowed, in a perfect marriage between the seconds that preceded after-life and the infinite last spans of consciousness. In sickness, and in anguish. The promised neverland was a throat that could not articulate language, eyes that were surrounded by fleas and roaches, bare muscles offered to the warming sun.

Illness, malnourishment, decadence.

To be touched by the sword of rot meant to experience a life of disease in the span of moments. The ruthless indifference of the blackest hunger, the delirium that followed the harshest fever. Living many lives, each one in suffering. Wishing for infinity was to receive excruciations. To find a better way to describe torture would have been hard for many.

And yet, for Mirina it was without a doubt gentleness that caressed her. The same gentleness that loomed by her father's stern look. The same love that felt warm at Kista's embrace. Crocdabal could bring decay to everything, but could not rot love. It could not change the affection of her father. It could not mutate what her and her beloved shared.

Once, that sword had been at the side of someone who loved. Once, that sword had shown that everything ruins, except love.

'Now, this sword is mine. Now, this sword is me.'

If that was the heirloom of a doting ancestor, or the shameful legacy of thieves, Mirina could not say. What she could say was that she loved that sword, and that sword loved her in return.

'I'm sorry.' Crocdabal's tip was stained with the remains of the centaurs slayed. In the pause of a blink, the black luminescence had returned. Observing the corpses of those who had attacked her, the Dark Knight could not withhold a brief suspiration of exhaustion.

A voice called her. Soft, but firm.

"No need to cry for them, my lady. Please, reserve your tears for our soldiers."

"My Prince," Mirina knelt at her liege. The strong smell after a battle was of no disturbance for her. "I was not crying. I shed no tears for anyone. I lament the meaninglessness of conflict."

Alexander remained afar. The retainers close to him, but distant in some way.

"Stand up. There is no need for obeisance between us," Mirina did as she was told. "You think all of this is unnecessary? That we should have bent the head to the invader?"

The Dark Knight could perceive the lack of judgment in the Prince. Alexander was curious of her reaction, of her viewpoint. A strange man, in Mirina's opinion. Sometimes, he was unfathomable in his designs. Others, he approached the world like a child eager to learn as much as possible.

"Not at all. I can recognize that something is senseless, like war. At the same time, I am aware when there are no alternatives," she said, after pondering with great care. "War is wrong. But not fighting back is also wrong. If I can't offer a proper solution to the dilemma, let me curse the centaurs, the world, the gods or whatever brought me in this position. I will expel my griefs and then return to my usual self. Rest assured, if the Equestrian King was in the reach of my sword, I will not falter."

If war was right or not, was the inquiry of philosophers. If war brought benefits or detriments, it was the domain of statesmen. Mirina was a swordswoman, and as such she could just do what she had been trained for. A sword was fabricated to kill, and to protect. A warrior was trained to do the same. But a knight… A knight was meant to serve.

Still, a sword had to be sharpened. A sword had to be taken care of. So that the steel would remain sharp, so that it would remain useful.

Queen Kirke used to laugh at her remarks. 'All the people who excel in combat, also despise it. It's strange, isn't it? A painter usually doesn't hate his paintings, a bard doesn't loathe his songs. But a warrior… A true warrior can't recognize war as something beneficial for the world. Mirina, you are just like someone that was dear to me.'

'And Rea Kirke was someone dear to me,' the Dark Knight had no replies for those considerations. Maybe hating war was stupid. Maybe it was noble. Maybe it was both at the same time. 'And now that Rea Kirke is dead, there is no more 'someone' that laughs at me.'

Mirina watched as the Prince knelt near her, closing the still-open eyes of one of the centaurs that now laid at her feet. "Not even for a moment I doubted where your heart is," standing up again, his body appeared thin and meek. Not fragile, though. "This was just a stupid skirmish. Probably not the last. Our scouts already confirmed that the army is waiting for us on a day of march from here. They will probably continue to ambush our supplies and rears, to catch us worn out."

"And we will permit them to?"

"Of course not," the retainers aided their Prince. Alexander had to force them away, to grant some intimacy. "When I die, will you shed some tears for me?" Almost a laugh, almost a breath. Such absurdities uttered like common speech. Resignation and acceptance for something that was already spelled out.

"My lord, you jest."

A knight was not privy to what a prince thought. Their minds elaborated on different wavelengths. The former knew how to fight, the latter how to command. The horizon Alexander watched was not privy to her.

"Why do you think so?"

"My lord will not die. My lord will prevail. Tomorrow is still clouded for my lord."

"I am not your lord."

All because her liege was no more. Rea Kirke, the only queen in the Union. A title bestowed before the Mother Law, surviving the years of darkness, but not a dagger to the throat.

But as Rea Kirke recognized Alexander, so did Mirina Crocdabal. However, the Prince was right. Indeed, Karnasus was no capital. The Union was no empire. And Alexander was no emperor.

"I will shed some tears, if you were to be no more. But I am sure, my eyes will remain dry."

The Prince looked at her, vulnerable like he never had seemed. Was that how a man that was to die looked? The ominous future was not yet written, so why was he reading from some tablets already set in stone?

"I had a dear friend. He died."

"The Brave." Once upon a time, Mirina was renowned for her swordsmanship amongst men. Once upon a time, she was not alone in fame. "I fought against him a couple of times. Karnasus's champion, winner of more than a Contellier. He was a great warrior. A pity, for what happened to him."

She still remembered the valor and the ardor. Difficult not to. The Brave. Man with eyes blue as the ocean, just like the Prince. The sixteen-ray star always soaring his armor was the same now engraved in Alexander's chest. The body blunted by battle, still vigorous. The rippled lips, little used to being open.

The champion overlapped the prince, and the Dark Knight saw once again the old rival before her, to new life. With the years unmerciful to him, as they had been to her. Old age was not meant for warriors, that was why it reclaimed its toil while still there was youth.

"The Immortals took him, while I fled. Still I can hear his voice. Go, he had said. Go, and save yourself. And that I did, without a second doubt. No shame in that kind of end. He was a hero, until the very end. I just…" Vulnerable? Alexander Arrideo Hephaistion Argades was not vulnerable. Tenting? As if. Mirina knew the Prince of Karnasus. His pride, his courage. "Celebrated yesterday, forgotten today. For me, he was more than a friend. Our destinies were linked, since the start. I am not afraid of what will happen to me. My only wish is for me to keep his legacy on. To give meaning to his sacrifice."

A good death. No more than a good death. Almost a contradiction. A death, that could also be good.

Alexander was honest in his showing. And if he was no more prince for her, could Mirina be no Dark Knight for him? She already had her resolve.

"My lord, it's getting late. We should prepare."

She could not.

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'I am rotten.'

'You are not.'

'The Crocdabals are rotten.'

'You are not.'

'Our lineage spells decay.'

'It does not.'

Kista was wrong, yet Mirina wanted to pretend she was right.

'Why did you choose me, then? The Crocdabals are rotten, aren't they? Why did you proclaim your love for me?'

Because love could not be fouled. Because even a wilted flower would yearn to be called beautiful. For those who knew only winter, the scent of spring was bliss.

'Because I love you. Isn't that enough?'

Her father would never have approved, had he still been on that land. The Crocdabals' line was rotten, but it had to be preserved. To be rotten was not to be dead.

To hell with her father. To hell with heritage. The Crocdabal's line was rotten. Why continue, then? Why save something that had no hope of returning to greatness? If greatness had even been there, first of all. The Crocdabal was no dynasty, no history. A deceit, that it was.

'It's enough…'

Kista, of the lips that tasted like honey. Kista that always knew what to do. Kista that was smart, that was gorgeous, that was her addiction, that was her whole world.

'Love can't rot. Love is eternal.'

Mirina was rotten. Kista was not. So everyone and everything could have let her pretend there was no difference between the two of them.

Even if it would have been for a little while.

'My dear. You are wrong. Love can fade away. Love can perverse, so as it can persevere. It can be ugly, it can be cursed, and still be love. Love can be jealousy, love can be contempt, love can be damnation.'

'Just let me dream, therefore. Of a love that is not like me. Of a love that is how I yearn for. Of the love of yesterday that will be like the love of tomorrow.'

Even for just a little longer…

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'Why did I remember that day?'

On the battlefield, the morning was set. It was her, the Prince, the army of the Union. General Chazos led Beppo Allo's hobgoblin and trolls on the right flank, the Iron Club of their coats of arms adorned the equipment. Ris' spellcasters behind the main unit, a blue flower on their staff and robes. And then the mercenaries of Franklin, the bowmen of Veneria, the pikes of Bebard. A regulated mass in expectation of orders.

No wind, no clouds. The rising sunshine was their greeting.

On the other hand, only one was against them. From afar, a centaur alone walked the earth, radiating off a golden light that made even the sun up in the sky envious.

"Is that a joke?" Sir Niles asked her. The minotaur was fuming with rage while imparting instructions, disposing teams and formations with snarls that did not admit reply. "There is only one centaur there. Where is the rest of the army? Our scouts were wrong? No chance." He regained control of himself just as quickly, suspicious of such an anomaly.

Miles and miles of desert. Where the legions of the plains? Where the druids, and the spearmen, and the archers? Only one, against all of them. Of course, a number did not show power. A number could be a trick, or a warning.

"I don't know." Mirina directed her attention to the Prince. He held the reins of the mount, listening to counselors doing what a counselor was supposed to do. He did not retort to their suggestions, did not press their arguments, did not cheer up at the battle they thought was already won. He was silent, Prince Alexander, and watched who was in front of him. "No, wait. There is someone else."

A couple of emissaries. Centaurs without spears or swords. Nor bows or staffs. Mantled with gorgeous fabrics of fine silk. The garments of dignitaries, not warriors. After flying a peace flag to make their intentions for dialogue apparent, they announced themselves with just a phrase.

"The Great Heaven offers you peace. Bow now, and you will return to your home. Bow now, and there will not be massacre. No misery. Only prosperity, for today and the days that will come."

The Great Heaven. That was how the Plains called their king, Mirina recalled. The mystery of the lone centaur had been unveiled with ease.

It was Sir Niles that addressed them, putting his ax between them and the Prince with little consideration, in a display of intimidation. "Where are your soldiers? You want to negotiate without showing your cards?"

"Our soldiers rest in Orcleans," the emissary replied, getting closer to them, heedless of the unsubtle threat. "The Great Heaven discerned that you are of no danger to him. The result of the battle has already been proven. The Great Heaven recognizes your valor and offers for some of you to join his cause. You are Sir Niles, correct?"

The minotaur nodded, unable to hide a small part of his muddiness. "Why do you want to know? Diplomacy has long been relinquished by both parties."

"Sir Niles, the King of the arena," the emissary enunciated that epithet with respect, though for Mirina a little scorn was not completely suppressed. "Mirina Crocdabal, the Dark Knight. And, of course, Prince Alexander Arrideo Hephaistion Argades, the splendor of the Union. The Great Heaven wants to speak with all of you. Lay down your arms, cease this madness. Now while you still can."

Mirina remained silent, so did Sir Niles. The occasion of negotiations had long passed. A mere formality for the opponent. Even those ambassadors would have had difficulty believing their eventual agreement.

The Prince also ignored that offer, as it was expected. Alexander had only a single inquiry for them.

"Where is your army? Do you want us to siege Orcleans?"

"The Great Heaven alone is enough," the emissary pointed to the centaur that waited alone behind him. "We already know what you are capable of. The skirmishes we prepared were organized to gauge your skills. Our King is impressed, but not afraid. And your heart, Karnassus, is already in our hands."

'Kista!' Her beloved reappeared like a recollection of flashes and memories in Mirina's mind. Was she safe? Was what that one saying true? To wait for the Prince's response would be impossible. But to be a knight was to remember your place.

Mirina could just stay in order, proper like a statue, showing Crocdabal -the sword that was her- to who was to be afraid of it.

And while the mouth of Alexander started to disclose, while his expression remained indecipherable, all she could do was to repeat that name to herself.

'Kista.' Of which the lips were sweets, small tastes of paradise; the hands gemstones putting to shame rubies, emeralds and quartz; the mind a treasure of everything that was bestowed to mankind. Kista, of the ten kisses long neck. 'Kista.' To be away from her was an ache to the soul. To know her in danger was an agony for the spirit. 'Ask of Kista!' She wanted to shout. 'Ask of Kista, my liege! Ask of Kista, my lord. I will call you king, emperor and more if you ask of her now!'

Forcing herself to cease was akin to demand her heart to stop beating. Like asking the river to stop flowing, and the water of the sea to be salty.

As commanding to the sun not to rise. To the moon not to shine.

"If what you say is true," Alexander was not concerned for her beloved. If the worry for his spouse, for his friends, for his people, was there, it had to be concealed. A Prince had no link or affections, if not for his country and his homeland. "We have no choice but to fight. Tell your king that until he and your people will stay on these lands, there will be someone like me ready to resist the yoke of tyranny."

"That will mean death."

"Everyone here already accepted it."

"So is that your response?"

"So that is my response."

The emissary did not insist, no displeasure in his parting speech. He returned from whenever he came from with his people. Their trotting was expeditious, and they soon became just another undefined mark in the distance.

'Kista, how is she? The queen! The queen of elves is there. Are they safe?'

Queen Kirke had told Mirina more than once how the half-elf could not be pigeonholed by logic, could not be defined by reason. She was a concept that did not admit of common sense, a potency that could not be calibrated with the shackles of mortality.

The Theocracy of Slaine was jealous of its secrets, possessive of its mystics. Buried in the deepest of their plots and their schemes, the new elf queen had been nurtured by the archaic and forbidden knowledge of their gods, nourished by the savvy of erstwhile diviners and prophets, enthroned by elysian rituals and spells.

'I know that she is strong. The masterpiece of a history of resistance. The sterling paragon of those who had fought monsters since humanity was taking its first steps. But at the same time she is so… harmless. I never felt an uncomfortable feeling in her presence, nor did I reevaluate any convictions from scratch. Antilene Heran Fouche, will you really be so extraordinary?'

Antilene had talked with her, exchanged more than one confidence in the intimacy of a hearth. And for Mirina, first of all that was a girl who yearned to be normal. Gloomy, perhaps. Eccentric, for sure. The half-elf carried a placid suffering, as everyone did, but she did not let that define her as her only characteristic.

It was not fitting what Rea Kirke had called her: monster.

Soon, the sun was to set. Mirina unfurled Croacdabal, setting her mind to combat, casting her worries away. 'Kista is safe,' she repeated to herself. 'Kista is safe,' was her charm. 'Kista would never leave before me.' It would have been absurd for a budding flower to die before the wilting one. 'We will reunite, or she will remain alone.'

A shadow loomed in the sky…

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Mirina could not make out what had happened. The Prince was in the midst of his discourse. The troops were rallying to his words. Bells and drums chimed to his incitement. The excitement and the bloodlust were starting to spread.

And then…

Something chastened that noise, imposing a quieten hush to the growing frenzy. A racket of pure dissonance roared in the distance, the mirage of serenity dispelled by sparks combusting the air.

The dust. A tide of dust had risen from the earth, covering every view. That fleeting instant of tranquility that covered the hour before the battle had lasted longer than it should have. Mirina had found herself catapulted a few meters back, far from her men. Blinded by gray smoke as the stench of burnt air obstructed her smooth respiration. A bitter smell of burned flesh mixed with heated metal, an acrid aroma of coppery imbued with the musky, sweet scent of consumed liquid.

The first thing the Dark Knight ascertained was that she still had Crocdabal in her hands. 'The sword that is me.' To the touch, she could feel that kindness pulsating in her veins.

Only when she could breathe a sigh of relief did she realize she was down. In trying to get up, the Dark Knight was forced to discover that something was hurting her.

The left arm was moved in an unnatural position behind the back. Putting it in the rightful place made every bone lament in sorrow. 'I need a healer.' Cold-minded, Mirina analyzed what was around her. She tried to lift a priest that was laying a few feet before her, only to see his upper body disconnect from the lower half. 'At least he did not suffer,' she thought. A meager consolation. For him, or for her?

To ease the pain it proved impossible not to use one of the potions she had brought with her. 'As a palliative it will be sufficient, but it is not comparable to the intervention of a divine caster.'

Like her, few others were trying to connect what had befall upon them. An ordure smell all too familiar was making way in her nostrils. The urge of puking gripped her throat. The rack throes of the unlucky dug out with ferocity the eardrums.

"My lady, are you alright?" The squire of the other day had miraculously survived. Mirina had left him to the back rear of the formation, and yet he was covered in blood and dust, his face a mask of scars.

Gasping, one could sense the terror of the boy slipping away from the drops of sweat that moved about him in the manner of bolted slugs. The shield on his back, made of a blunt iron, had been rendered unusable before it could even be gripped.

"Yeah, I am still breathing," Mirina tried to forget the pain. The arm was okay. She needed to convince herself as such. The arm was okay. The horror she was witness to could not unfaze her. "Where is the Prince? Where is Niles?"

The squire shook his head. What was his name? She could have asked him. But she did not. Why she had not? Because it was not important. Was that a fine reason? Her head was spinning. Everything was a mess.

"I don't know. There were a couple of explosions, one after the other. And then the whole army was in disarray. General Chazos is wounded, but is rallying the ones who can still fight to the east wing. There is a survivor for every ten deaths."

Mirina had the impression that the last statement was more optimistic than it should have, but did not press further.

"We have to find the Prince," The Dark Knight moved, just to find another corpse. "If he is still alive, we have to move him to safety."

Trampling over those who she had considered companions, she could not care for their demise. Seeing that suffering, she could not bring herself to share their laments. When a beg for help arose, it was met with indifference.

For she was a knight, before all else.

And a knight had a duty that was rotten, just like her. The duty of a knight was not to serve the weak, to console the miserables. The duty of a knight was not chivalry, for that were just tarradiddles of bards. A lie carefully crafted for the people. The duty of knighthood was to guffaw at danger, to gorge with the falting expectations of the plebs.

The Union fancied no king, no queen. But still there were people that nominated themselves as such. What was the difference then for a knight? A knight did not swore to a crown, nor to a throne. A knight swore to a liege, in seek of guidance.

Crocdabal, the sword of rot. A family that was like a sword. A sword that was like her.

Her existence was one of serving. What was she? A wilted flower, not deserving of love. She couldn't even remember her squire's name.

"My lady, he is here."

Prince Alexander was standing alone. All the retainers escaped or worse. There was just a centaur confronting him, a parquet of red connected the two rulers in a form of ceremony that was as dignified as it was macabre.

Sir Niles was a few meters away from them. Unconscious, but breathing. A wound disfigured the minotaur's shoulder, fragments of armor already mixed with flesh and bone. The still-wielding ax bore witness to his last deed.

"So, Prince Alexander, we finally meet." A voice that was broad with regality decried of the current plight. The Equestrian King gave honor to his name. This was what a king was supposed to be.

"At least." Alexander could barely utter a whisper. No dignified was his stance, nor imposing was his figure. Weak. How weak he was.

"To be so cantankerous to our advice… was it worth it? Was this all you wanted?" The Great Heaven, in return, cast a shadow that was brittle, that was dazzling. The radiance of the adamantium and the luster of the panoply in which he was wreathed crowned him as the pinnacle of the universe. A monster that was hallowed of veneration, that could make the word 'god' poignant with substance, imbued with the sacredness of a being that escaped all control of rationality. "Your army destroyed. Your nation ablaze. The people you trusted in chains for eternity. We just want to know… was it all worthwhile?"

That was Darius the First, Shah of the Great Plains and Emperor under Heaven. That was the monster that could vanquis multitudes, the star in the sky that made heroes and champions look like the great unwashed.

The selfbow at his arms effulgent of a green dazzle, it instilled an alien and fascinating awe. Embedded in the two extremity small pearls reminiscent of the roughshod of the firedrakes of yore.

If Crocdabal told a tale, they replicated history. No legend, no fantasies. Only the brutal reality of the dominant, the harsh truth of the potents.

Truly, after witnessing him disposing of their numbers, of playing with their confidence, displaying the authority of who sat at the peak of high vault, it was only expected to bend to his will, to accept his rule.

And yet, Alexander did not. Alexander remained calm, composed. Bloody. Harried. His heartbeat drummed so fast you could hear it from a distance. The splendor of his cuirass now untidy fragments adorning a bare and exposed pectus. Compared to the Equestrian King, so insignificant he appeared.

And yet, Alexander did not falter. Alexander did not flinch. Instead, he laughed. To express mirth in the face of the reaper was akin to madness, galling to the executioner a last sign of folly. But the Prince did not forsaken reason. His intellect had not been sunk in the inexplicable.

"It was worthy, O Great Heaven. After seeing you, I am reassured." His lucidity was inconceivable. The clarity of his eloquence was not disturbed by the dubiousness of existence. Never a man had spoken with such peace of mind. "Everything I did, I did for a precise aim. To kill you, to free my people of your threat. Today I was witness to your power. Today I experienced the full might of your wrath. Today, I can finally rest. For I am sure you will never set your gaze on another dawn."

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The squire at Mirina's side couldn't believe it. "Has he gone mad?" For he peered at the aura of the Equestrian King, shaking his legs at the pressure of his killing intent, regurgitating the last ounces of bravery and respect that remained. "My lady, we have to help him."

'A child,' Mirina realized. 'He is still a child and he is there. He could run, but run where? There is no escape.'

The Dark Knight understood why the squire had mistaken the Prince's certitude for foolishness. She too was aware of the danger represented by the Equestrian King. Like him, Mirina could perceive his bloodlust on display, the ominousness of an aura that gripped every figment of imagination, that did not let even for a brief instance contemplate salvation.

If the Mother Law was the chain that bound together every culture and costume of the Union, the root of their system and the skeleton of their institutions, Darius the King represented something different. His was the Law of Nature, the ancestral rule that dictated every interaction, since the first holler of creation. Woe betide the defeated.

Everything for the strong to take. The ravishing of the innocents, that caused only misery to the helpless. The indifference of the gods to pules of those who had only their whispers left.

And yet… And yet.

Mirina, like Alexander, could not be impressed. Like the Prince, the Dark Knight finally put together all the last weeks in a mosaic which completion made it perfect. And like him, she was able to calm down blissfully. 'Kista is safe,' was her conclusion. 'Kista is safe, because she is with her. Kista is safe, because the Equestrian King is scary, the Equestrian King is all powerful, and the Equestrian King is a dread incarnate. But the Equestrian King is not her.'

The fierce midday of the Equestrian King was a feeble esthesis. But the halcyon night was a different thing altogether. Not the need to impose, nor the desire to subject. For true kingship did not relieve in violence, did not squander in petty wranglings.

To the hilarity of the Prince the Equestrian King could only reply in askance. If not covered by the helmet, Mirina was sure that she could have glimpsed his mouth in agape. "You say that we will not see another dawn, but it is you who stand defeated before us. Your army is scattered to the cardinal points, isn't it? Why not lament the condition of your fate? Why blabbering such nonsense? Tell me, prince of men, why do you laugh? Tell me, prince of men, why don't you despair?" The more he spoke, the more a crack could be heard in Darius' self-confidence. The abstemiousness of his tone soon replaced by an ire that it was stranger to him as it was to them.

The Prince that had become zany continued to persist in his mockery. He had no chance to defend himself, no energy to lift his sword. Impassioned by his assuagement, Alexander was now waiting for the pre-established outcome.

"If this is your response there is no more to say," Darius prepared his final shot. The steps of its preparation were not hampered by imperfections. With over-the-top elegance, he placed the chosen arrow on the bow, charging resolutely. "Farewell, prince of men."

Mirina intercepted it. Or rather, she tried to. The Dark Knight swang her sword, untoward to her well-being, trying to block the Equestrian King's bow.

Crocdabal grazed his right gauntlet, but could not do more than annoy the centaur. The sword of rot was not enough to damage Darius. No plague was sufficient for him. No disease could notch the vigor of the Equestrian King. Mirina could have hit that body for hours without any avail. But it was sufficient to divert his attention, to buy a mere second. In the end, Crocdabal -the sword that was her- had been ineffective, but not useless.

Her attempt was akin to a fly that tried to sting the reinforced scales of a dragon. A minor nuisance. Darius dismissed her with nonchalance, striking the Dark Knight with an elbow to the side. What had been just a movement of the arm for him, had hurled Mirina meters away, letting her roll through debris and stones, spitting saliva like a waterfall. In sync, the pain that had bent her until just before returned with even more callous craze.

"The famous Dark Knight. Why does everyone here aspire to die?" Now Darius' attention was aimed at her, at least. Mirina was ready to rest in peace, as she now knew that her beloved was safe. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that the squire was leading Sir Niles to shelter. For her and the Prince it was too late, but maybe he could be saved. Reciting a final thanks, she complained for not having asked the youngster his name, and welcomed the end.

"Stop!" Alexander shouted. The Prince made a step to prove he was still there. "Kill me first."

"You will just delay her demise for a few seconds."

"That's enough," uttered Alexander. "She promised to shed some tears for me. O gallant king, you will surely grant a last request."

Darius marveled once again, but decided to honor that last whim. "This is truly the end."

"It is."

Mirina saw the Prince smile, as the arrow pierced through his chest. The Dark Knight felt her eyes get moist as Alexander started to collapse. It had been an unceremonious death, not appropriate for a prince. The last sound the body emitted was a dismissed thud, hardly imposing.

The Great Heaven muttered some last goodbyes: "He had been a respectable adversary, all things considered. It saddened me to get to this point. Now, I will avoid asking you to join me, for I already know your answer. Worry not, I will grant you a painless death."

"When you want." Mirina was satisfied. 'Kista, forgive me. I hope I will see you again.' The rot was no more. The Crocdabal's heritage ended with her.

She waited for something that never came. The arrow was knocked to the bow's string, but never reached her. Opening her eyes, Mirina could almost touch the tip with the nose. Instead of the void, it was a familiar voice that welcomed her.

"Sorry, I was late."

Mirina was pervaded by a soothing energy that healed her. A hand helped the Dark Knight stand up.

"Lady Fouche," the half-elf was right next to her, playing with the arrow she had already reclaimed. "Is… Karnasus… Is Kista…?"

"Don't worry. Everything is fine."

Darius looked incredulously at the newcomer. Indifferent to the strangeness of the situation, the centaur was as if paralyzed by an anathema that now repeated, "That is the daeva? An elf? Or… a human?"

Antilene did not dignify him with consideration. The half-elf turned to her, "Take away the body of that fool."

"But you…"

"I will be fine."

Mirina did as she was ordered. She had not failed to notice that Antilene was as pristine as she was when they last met.

----------------------------------------

Interlude: the King in the Plains (part. 2)

"When you are ready."

Darius prepared to attack.

Forthwith the Equestrian King fired his shot, delaying his hesitation. The alabaster demon immobile in front of him, pending for the inevitable onset, did not manage to avoid the fury of Khvarenah.

The arrow made a brief journey, covering the short distance that separated them from each other. In Darius's imagination that was an abyss that was crossed in an eternity; his perception of time discombobulated by a subconscious that cried alarm, that suggested caution.

All doubt was smothered in the sheer authority of his own power, in the years of experience refined in the Plains. For Darius was a king, but before had been a hunter.

And this was a new prey. A beast with no fangs, claws or wings, and no less dangerous for that. Slender and thin, the zephyr could have dragged along that inauspicious malice with just a burst of the wind. The scythe she wielded was pitch-black, dusk as the night without stars.

Unknown to him, but not impossible to subjugate. If there was power in words, the Equestrian King was ready to become the thief, robbing the daeva of the bane, making the Great Heaven the new scourge. If that was a test, could it be the last.

The elf's head bent back. The neck, a perfect white, almost blanched with abhorrent malady, was a canvas of purity where obscenities and nightmares mingled. Without eyes, it looked back to Darius, and he remembered a tree seen many years ago, when he was still a foal.

Etiolated by an upbringing in the caves, the roots had been dried by the barrenness of the soil, the leaves never adorning its boughs. While all the other plants had long shriveled by the impervious condition, that one alone had grown in the entrance of the cavern, in the same fashion of a ruler imposing its domain. Without the warmth of sunlight, it had been gloom which had cultivated its magnificence, in disregard of every rule and process of nature.

As the head of the girl slowly rose, the Equestrian King shivered with fearfulness. Every hair on his body tangled with a tingle of a cryptical and new emotion. The four knees almost buckled as the fruition of such a gesture arrived at the covet result.

The chilling symmetry of black and white that painted her hair, which infused the irises with an evil glow, framed the mystery of something ancestral, lost in the memory of the world. The Equestrian King caught a glimpse of himself in those wells of maleficence, horrifying at what they reflected.

For the first time he saw himself small and pathetic, at the mercy of something that could not be properly fathomed.

For the first time the hunter was befooled by the prey, for the first time the wolf agnized the despair of the lamb.

Darius saw the arrow released wedged between the teeth of the elf. Carelessly, she gripped the wood and firmly detached it from her mouth, tossing it away as a minor thing. That so ordinary finger movement was carved into his memory with a veneration comparable to that with which the novice commemorated the master's every gesture, in hope of making them his one day.

The bewilderment of such a spectacle suggested to the Equestrian King that he had been trapped in a foul reverie, that the last minute had been an illusion that fobbed his senses.

A steady voice that followed clarified that no thaumaturgy was imposed as his prison, no play to his nous deployed.

"Not bad," an euphony that reverberated in the wake of the singing of nightingales. "I almost didn't notice the blow. Luck was on my side."

Darius could tell apart the lie from the melody. He could distinguish the prevarication of the statement. A fabrication made to muddle the opponent, the first gambit of challenge from the elf. Superbia was the enemy of discipline, and planting that seed was the regular course in a duel between equals.

What the logic could pick out, though, did not always have the same implications for the soul. The Equestrian King acknowledged the praise as if it had been true, and comforted at the recognition of the girl. "I was mistaken," Darius said, cooling every emotion steaming from the lie, preserving his dignity as a sovereign. "What happened to the army I sent to Karnasus?"

The elf turned around, scrutinizing the now desert, the result of Darius's making. "Your answer is already here."

"I see. It would be hypocritical of me to regret such a predicament, having reached this point." The centaur allowed himself still a second of mourning, for all like him that had been put to rest, without a proper burying as only reward. Better to be sanctimonious, than abandon all traces of compassion. "Maybe since the start we should have fought just the two of us."

The girl's cadence was wispy. "No need. If war could be resolved with a duel, it would lose all its meaning, don't you think so? We are meant to be the climax, the last hope. The trump card of each array fated to seal the closing act of the narration." She put distance between them, assuming an improper stance. Her scythe was put on the shoulder, awaiting orders. Her free hand hung limply at her side. "The moment a monarch invades another land, he has to put away every sentimentalism and regret. Decisions have consequences, and we must accept their burden."

Darius could understand. Indeed, as a king his was the project of unification. To reunite the lands that once were one, he had to discard the well-being of his subjects, the affection for his peers.

The elf was warning him: you could not bargain only your own life when demanding subservience. A so little cost would have made the magnitude of that act worthless. Even if he could not completely accept that lesson, he could at least be grateful for it.

"Your name?"

"Antilene."

"Splendid name."

The hoovers pawed, a trail of detritus dispersed in the air. Khvarenah extended to the utmost limit, the sinews of the system called Darius in the same way. When both him and Antilene started to move the wind almost stopped to blow, the world halted its round.

As Darius adjusted his speed to match the elf's, he could already gauge the difference, perceiving the fatigue crippling his breathing, while the counterpart would cross the finish line of that imaginary race.

From the quiver, the Equestrian King pulled out the dragon-arrows, crafted in old glory. When he put one on the string, maybe his fantasy, maybe a real admonishment, spoke with the voice of the draco he had slain, iterating the same words that had once been used to define him, in the same hateful fashion of then: filth of the Emperor.

Heedless of such an exemplary sign, the centaur again shot against the elf. Pervaded by his martial arts, the arrow inflamed with his magic, the heat replicating the fiery breath of the owner from which scales it had been carved, churning with vivid energy.

The splistream of its pass corruscated the atmosphere with cobwebby sparks of fire, evoking a disaster of mastodontic proportion, foretelling the wrecking of its arrival.

Without surprise, Antilene took notice of it, and while the projectile still bristled, igniting with a tremendous vividness, she opened the palm of her free hand and welcomed it slightly to her, like the child eagerly awaited to receive the toy.

Now, Darius envisaged the protection of her glove getting trespassed and the skin penetrated by the glowing metal of the tip. Instead, it was the arrow that shattered its run, while the flames evaporated at her touch.

Last scrapes of blazes erupted in a tower of torpid inflammation, entrapping the girl in a cage of conflagration. She did not anguish at the infliction, nor was consumed by the soaring heat. Instead, the elf came out unblemished by the ordeal, annoyed by what for the majority would have been a sentence of inferno.

The Equestrian King's viscera thrilled in upheaval at the vision.

Antilene's maraud came as a natural reaction. As she had been waiting for his move, before responding in kind. The semblance of her form disappeared to Darius' onlook, the blurred lines traced by the eyesight drew the outlines of the elf's contours with inhuman toil, managing only to skim the entire whole of hundreds of actions executed in the twinkling of an eyelash.

Darius made to lift the vambraces, envisioning the backlash of a potential clash, gearing up for a confrontation of fortitude.

It was futile.

The central blade of the scythe was already dug into his side as the Equestrian King began to become aware of the tremendous pain that started to protrude first to his head, then to spread like a sore to every nerve in his body. The thin line that connected him to life ebbing as the reaper that masked itself as a girl unwrapped the orphic esthesis of his being.

What lurked in the cryptic part of cognizance, hidden by a protective subconscious, were monsters that you could never see, that you could never set your eyes on, for their mere presence would bring to the realm of madness, to the landscape of horror.

Darius' privilege had been to be able to cross that line, to douse himself in the deepest abyss of the bottomless sea, bathing with the sight of what was foreclosed to him.

Antilene had proven herself a preceptor to him a second time, instructing him to the tormentum of the flesh without the recourse to pleonasms. She had dragged the Equestrian King in a new phase, where titles and epithets were pointless, where the ramifications of endless choices split up into equally numerous pathways. And she had done that with only a swing of her weapon.

'To think that someone like her existed. Leaving the pond, I can only be astonished at the boundlessness of the ocean.'

To feel powerlessness in front of the peril, caressing the mortality of which he was only unconsciously cognizant, awakened an instinct that he had thought dormant, which instead had not yet reached the height of its potential.

'Is this how far I can go? The sky is preclosed to me… Nevertheless…'

The luminance of Darius' currais had been engulfed by the swarthiness of that strange weapon, the silver of which adorned its refinements beamed with the shininess of the moonlight, conjoining with the ignominious black in the way the two same colors divided the halves of the elf.

'Is she smiling?'

Surrender before the deal was close was uncharacteristic for him. The restraints that enchained him to the cruel ground were forsaken. The wings that sprouted on the sagittarius's back emitted a gust that soon transmuted in a hurricane as Darius took flight upward, untethered by the bloody earth.

He did not inquire why the elf had let him recede from her grip, nor inveigled his ego with unproofed safety.

The sunlight, touching noon, was pressing, but appeasing at the same time. The balm of a potion regenerated the battered body as the soreness found a safe space from which never again to move in his memory.

Drops of blood from his wound disappeared when they touched the soil.

They turned stains that watered the earth.

From there, Antilene looked even smaller. Yet, her presence was clear. Darius could sense it from the slight breeze that passed, from the baleful sonority of her pace.

"Incredible," she said. "This is a new one! King of Centaurs, Emperor of the Plains, show this warrior what you got! Tell me your name!"

"Darius."

The Equestrian King locked in. Never Khvarenah was put to these extremes, for his reckoning. Never the Great Heaven had to show the full extent of his blessings to a stranger. The dragon of yore he had slain was old, vestigia of a world that was no more. She, instead, was young, like him a child born after the shattering of the old traditions and beliefs.

He wanted to prove, both to himself and to her, that there was only a paradise waiting for them. The ancestors would bear witness to a new dawn, heralding a new age of prosperity under his rule.

"『Shooting the hundred heads』!"

Power surged to his hand, guiding the direction of his aim, as the Great Heaven covered the sky with a multitude of his shots. Sprawling out, they proliferated like the stars in the night before it had even cometh.

They descended with the beauty of comets traveling through the atmosphere, deaf to the wishes of those who beseeched them.

Soon, there was rain blessing the battlefield. From his high position, the Equestrian King carried on with the bombardment, without rest, uncaring of the increasing strain. Fatigue was an alien concept to him.

But Darius did not linger in conceit, for he could sense the elf slithering in the bursts of the onslaught, evading every hit with such elegance, such impecuniousness, that it was no more mayhem theirs, but an exhibition of delightful ballet, a legerdemain to those who were to observe, for while it could have be seen as pestiferous from a staccato range, the watchers in the midst of all of it could have only judged it as masterpiece in the making, the final play of two friends who could communicate only in a predetermined pattern.

The Equestrian King, sweating like he never had before, contemplated his doing, never having, for what he could remember, enjoyed himself so much. It was not the spirit of someone that yearned to protect, nor to demonstrate his worth. It was the relief in finally understanding to not be alone.

Just as the stars aligned in conjunction with extraordinary events, it was a perhaps capricious, perhaps inscrutable fate that had led them to that place.

If, on the other hand, it was the case, a mere sequence of fortuity devoid of a grand design that had resulted in their meeting, it was to be appreciated that infinitesimal possibility came true.

'But I am grateful.'

He wondered if it was the same for her too.

Maven was Antilene in the art of combat. In dodging, in parring, in directing the flow of the dance, she had no equal. No dallier in the harmony of her deeds, she directed the orchestra on that particular stage with impeccable grace. When the counter-attack started, the gloriole of a saint of war wrapped the foreboding balefulness of the fair elf.

Her black scythe gashed the stardust carpet woven by Darius. The frequency of the outpouring dimmed as she fluttered on and off, not a single strike was missed, not a single arrow was left untouched by her carving, while she excised the same sky Darius had conquered from his presence.

Such a magnificent body was the only defilade necessary to make a joke of a pathetic offensive, to transform in crestfallen who had not known defeat until her showing.

"『Yazatas' strike』!"

After seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven arrows had capitulated, the vanes of the remaining shots turned in on themselves, concentrating their accumulated energy into spears of titanic might.

Antilene strutted while they spinned around her, exceeding the restrictions of their kinetic force again and again. Lightning and thunderbolts were pouring out, shaping strands of alloyed gold, fussing in strife.

Spates of a sudden forceful flow sharpened the penetration of their lunges, hurtling the intensity of their sparks, and, after releasing the hoard of amassed force, impinged on their target, in an attempt to hamper her escape.

The elf did not surrender even a single step. Firm, the slash that collided with the first spear almost resonated like a jeer to the Equestrian King, as to imprint her statement in the ages: 'Here I am, standing, while you run away!'

The glittering shards of diaphanous glare that followed furled in a pyre of brightness. The scythe's darkness ravening on its counterpart could not capture every fragment of the gauze-life light, which fed the blue of the sky.

Soo mesmerizing the spectacle, as dandelion buds unfurling their petals after blooming in a summer camp, that the entanglement of the remaining lances could almost be forgotten. A bucolic painting that had no place in the battleground, misplaced in that carnage.

Antilene did not falter. Antilene did not embolden vain hopes. She merely replicated what she had already done. Cutting every edge that tried to impale such a dignified warrior, the elf clovened the onrush that befell upon her.

A barrage was thwarted by accurate forays that did not waste not an ounce of opportunity, while another focused their punishment on the sides blades of the scythe, whose metal was illuminated, without consumption, by their effulgence.

It was like admiring a divine chastisement that did not come true, but rather submitted to a will that was revealed to be above.

The ravel of that formation had been accomplished with the simple gesture of her cut.

Slashing the pure, concentrated thunderclaps, Antilene arrested the saturation of that furnace of power. Slitting the fundamental merger of the magic, severing the connection between Darius's martial arts and its propellations, she alone surmounted the trials of tribulations. The particles transmitted by that impact dissolved in a storm of different colors, reminiscent of a dazzling rainbow.

The shrill at the end the sibylline chorus of her divine sacrament, offering to the shrine of her divinity the proper offering.

In a certain sense, her weapon was her lyre. Each cue the gentle, moderate tapping on the chords. Composing a coronach for the living, Antilene coalesced an omen for the joyful and a hope for the desperates.

An euphony well befitting of a king!

'Show me more!'

No more arrows. When he touched Khvarenah, the Equestrian King enkindled with a passion never experienced before. The string of the longbow became the forge where the fire gushed forth. 'When was the last time I had to resort to this?' Unaware that ever was the answer, Darius abandoned the armaments of mortals. 'What I considered the skies were just plains!'

Antilene was no daeva. Those were the demons that dispelled an unfinished project. Arrogantly, he had thought to be able to define what couldn't be comprehended.

Not from an abyss. Not to disturb their harmony she had reached their plain. Or maybe, since the start, it had been hers.

She was something more.

The sagittarius took one last look at the city that had remained behind him, turning one last thought to a loved one. 'Will we see each other again, Bessus?'

Now the time to fight as Gods had come.

"『Asura』!"

All remaining constraints were undone. Two additional arms sprouted by his sides as Darius unleashed one of his two aces, ripping the flesh apart in painful rebirth. Sucking on his vitality, that trump card took his physical capabilities beyond every boundary left, while an extreme sourness encroached his maw, slowing his breathing. Akin to tasting thousands of lemons simultaneously, that bitterness divulged in the throat, making the saliva tart and the perspiration wheezy.

A cyclone of pent up energy was rumped, gathering near him. Dust and debris broke loose in a whirlwind.

Irradiation of unpolluted electricity and flames amalgamated in a beam of incandescent fierceness. A wrawl of unknown origin roared in the heavens, as Darius' woebegone cries echoed in the same tune.

'It will not be enough.'

Darius had two trump cards.

The first was the asura's mode, a momentary transformation that augmented his prowess, in exchange for his life.

The second…

"What a wonderful display of martial arts," spreading her arms, the elf was ready to take the blow that Darius' was preparing. "But that's not all you can do, am I right? I am waiting, centaur of the sky. Will you be able to keep up with me?"

Antilene's saunter did not disturb the Equestrian King. She, like him, was waiting for the confrontation. A gentle invitation to put every resource at his disposal in that duel.

He had to shew a great worth, if he wanted to stand next to her, as her equal.

'Take fly, 『Sīmurgh』!'

The necklace he wore on his neck adjusted to unheeded vibrations. Only a feather lit up with immensity. The cyan bird materialized behind him, summoned by the sacred relic, to take rest on his shoulder.

His family called it 'the treasure that outpriced the world,' and had first been guarded by the fire dragon, to then be claimed by Darius as the final act of his myth.

The quills glowed with a greenness that irradiated everything their shine touched, the pennons of crystalline beauty consecrated the land at the rhythm of its singing while the piebald tail was flailing in the grip of an eager esthesis, expressing a paragon of immortality.

From the gilded, pointed beak came a sweet -but unripe- fruit, that Darius ate quickly, getting fed by the bird itself. The amber juice slobbered through all muscles and fur, bathing his figure in spangled liquid. Weariness disappeared as every flavor flooded his mouth, and a new found vigor took hold.

Then came a second fruit, identical to the first. The Equestrian King could sense the world getting clear, as if a veil had been lifted from his gaze and every deep secret unearthed. The intricate mechanisms that linked the soul with the body became coherent in a pattern that extrapolated every frailty, every weakness.

Every hit would now be fatal.

Last fruit was consumed in the same manner. Darius felt nothingness. A solace in the void. No wisdom, no learnedness. No fear, no pride. His mind was a blank slate, in anticipation of being able to write in it whatever he wished.

Then Sīmurgh was no more.

'Here I come.'

Darius shot.

Antilene engrafted her scythe on the ground.

The impingement rumbled the earth. Goodly earthquakes tattered the field of battle, disrupting the last semblance of peace, sanking teutonic scabs in the abyss.

And yet, the elf was there. Her weapon unmoved.

While the crutch leveled the soil, sprouting white-hot magma at her feet, she could not be forced to move. The grip remained firm on the handle, as the increase of pressure did not falter her position. Blades of dark rejected the dominance of the Equestrian King.

Antilene plod forward, gaining a little inch after another. Around her, everything erupted in a miasma of unadulterated chaos, waves of orange-like scintillation glistened as the cockcrow pleased twice on the same day.

She was fighting for that inch, while all crumbled near her. She was gaining that inch, while all was going down to hell. She was walking miles, as Darius could only observe.

Then the elf decided it was enough. Enforcing her posture, she repulsed Darius' bullet, reprieving the maelstrom that ravaged the land.

Wielding the scythe, veering on herself with a pirouette, with only a clean cut of the central blade, she separated the ligaments of esthesia. Locating the crux at the base of magic, the confine between incantations, martial arts and miracle blurred in syncretism, as the elf and the elf alone dissevered the shot.

Without anything to collide, that concentrated heat first collapsed on itself, to proceed to billow in a tsunami of havoc, seeking where to release the last bits of impetus.

As the remaining energy scattered in multiple directions, Darius contemplated his inferiority. 'This is another dimension altogether.' If that had been a contest, unquestionably would be the triumphalist.

But victory was another thing.

Antilene had been brushed by one of the flame flakes on the cheek.

A stream of a familiar liquid stained her skin. A liquid that turned the white carmine.

----------------------------------------

'When has it been last time?'

Antilene almost didn't remember.

The last time she bled. The last time she could almost visualize defeat.

'If death is to be forgotten, he still lives.'

Decem Hougan had not faded yet.

'But I am Fouche, not Hougan.'

Not had Faine.

In some way, they both preen their daughter's soul. Always with her. As parents should have. Her revenge, perhaps, would never be fully realized.

'Why am I continuing with this farce?' With her thumb, she wiped the dripping blood off. 'I also want to be forgotten and still…'

No asking for eternity, no pleading for mercy, the girl continued to fight. She was not content with ephemeral triumph, for she was in search of something that not even she understood. Faced with an easy glory, the maiden's resplendence illustrated its valiance as the results of the blows she had been inferred.

'The goal of all life is death…'

Surshana's ultimate skill. But what did it really mean? Antilene had interrogated herself with those worlds for all her existence.

The Goal of all life is death…

The last words of a God that was Death, and that was no more. The last words that were now hers. The transient nature of life that revealed its true meaning only in its last moments?

'As if…'

The Goal Of all life is death. Her moniker. Zesshi Zetsumei. Certain Death. For Death was a constant, an inescapable truth. But that was all there was? Death was mercy, Death was gentleness. Death could be assuasive in its certainty. But was all there was?

Was Death alone?

The God of Death was not alone. With him, walked the God of Life.

The next shafts divided in an array of garish net of brilliance, anon trammeling her in a breath-taking fireworks performance, fanned in colors as the peacock's tail and weld by waning volcanic cinders, in the sullen afternoon that was approaching.

Darting in the narrow spaces necessary to elude the Equestrian King's battery, Antilene expanded the ken of what was ahead of her. Asunder each shot, each cut. She scud in the violent commotion, relieving in the inviolable sanctity of her mission. One-hundred thousands she counted and one-hundred thousand she pushed back, subjugating the dire expectations to her will.

She could find, undergoing that probation, abeyance to her turmoil. The inner enigma of asperity was augur to what was next to come. After all, fervid prosperity was the next stage in the cycle of timeless existence, after indiscriminate extermination.

Repeating every action, like she was now doing, solace could be finally obtained. The sufferings of mankind had been plotted to reach that moment. And Antilene, as their guardian, as their embodied hope, would continue to watch over their dreams.

That was her task. Ungrateful. Ruthless. No one would say a simple 'thank you' to her. No one would have commended the half-elf for such a sacrifice. They would have hated her instead. Despised her because she kept reminding them how small they were.

It didn't matter.

Surshana and Alaf were different sides of the same coins.

Beyond them, there was her. Unknown to Death, not known to Life.

'Life with Death is precious. Death without life is nothingness.'

Antilene hated Darius, for he was not a human. For he was an enemy of humankind. To repudiate his existence was the only path she could take.

The Goal Of All life is death.

It was not the intermingling of two concepts that gave meaning in function of the other. Nor was it something more. Nor was it something less.

The sagittarius now soaring in the sky, swaying in the Heaven of which he had appropriated, was giving his all to be recognized by her.

Even though they despised each other. Even though they were enemies.

He had called her Daeva, for that was his definition of a demon, of a fiend. And had nominated himself Asura, for that must have been the idea of an angel, of a savior.

Likewise, she had titled him monster, and affixed him as a beast to slay. Not so different after all.

Woe to the vanquished. Victory would have separated them.

The Goal Of All Life is death.

She had been correct. Someone like him could not keep walking that earth.

As Antilene confronted another discharge, an all-round assail, blocking with Charon's Guidance every unload that attempted to pass her defense in search of an opening, the strident clatter had almost the comfort of a silent peace. Steeping in a focus devoid of external stimulus, she would not let through even the smallest glimmer, catching with the scythe every attack before it could detonate.

Another rattling targeting her released from above, propelling Antilene to blitz in the flood of miasmal, avoiding with care the now forming mire at her feet. If not for a small scratch that creased her left side, scrapping the cold metal of the armor and almost touching her innards, she would have left unscathed.

'Another crit,' she thought, arousing at the situation, casting a healing spell. 'Every hit has been like this since he ate those strange fruits. Something like our sacred relic? I smell danger, and yet I am not distressed.' All of a sudden, she felt a little more human. 'I could die, and I am at peace.'

Everything was moving along to her calculations, in accordance to her estimations. Each piece of the chessboard advanced as she had anticipated.

Darius flew up to her, still continuing with his firing. The centaur glided in concord with the heaven he had reclaimed, repeating every iteration of his offensive with newfound volume, thrall of an unsung ecstasy.

Loathsome rain scended to the cursed ground, coupled by a ringing symphony that was so reminiscent of a concert of loud trumpets. The lull azure devolved in fiery red.

Like her, he was trying to touch a never ending sky. Torn between heaven and earth… incomplete on both. Raptured only in battle.

Antilene blocked the drops of tuff, while the environment started to change in a vision of flames, mutating the lush grass in lava and magma. Will-o'-the-wisps waylay to change the land in a grave, expecting the half-elf to be the undertaker of that outrage.

The Goal Of All Life Is death.

Why not use it? Everything would have ended in a heartbeat. Someone would have called it folly.

Yet, for the girl it was not such.

'I want to prove that I am something more. I want to prove that Heran is not Hougan. Fouche doesn't rhyme with Faine. Antilene is herself. Antilene will forget.'

Six-hundred years ago, the Six Great Gods brought salvation to a desperate humanity.

Five-hundred years ago, the Eight Greed Kings wrought devastation on the world.

The Goal Of All Life Is Death.

She could concede Darius a death that would shine. To Live well was to eat well. To Live well was to sleep well. To Live well was to learn well. To Live well was to Die well. To Die good was to Live good. That could not change.

No matter how monstrous the adversary. No matter how dangerous their powers were.

'They will all fall, eventually.'

The half-elf jerked as her view set on him. The four arms of the sagittarius converged to the magnificent bow, tracing a circle on the string, eliciting the last strands of blazes. A spate of polluted incandescence inflamed to the decree of its master.

The sightway enkindled with disruptive merciless, the infernal clamor blaring the horizon, betoken the of the befoulment that was to come. The temperature was rising over and over, churning the heat to the maximum.

'Now.'

Antilene unfurled Charon's Guidance. But this time, the scythe did not meet with the Equestrian King's hit. Instead, the half-elf tapped the leg under her with as much power as she could muster. Rupture's disturbances muted all noises, hushed the jittery chimes, subduing the chthonic masters. The world below began to crumble into innumerable small pieces, as pillars of ground bemired, arising as a barrier.

Just as the Earth God was said to have moved the continents to shape the world in the primordial broth, Antilene was able to experience, to a small degree, that sensation of undoing and bending things to her dominion, which skyrocketed her elation to the uttermost frenzy.

The half-elf created a destiny for herself, not waiting for the sky to be attainable for her.

Rivers of rocks poured in after the collision, and tremors and quakes spread to the four winds. But a heave of stones, after reaching the climax, relentlessly had begun its fall, shedding light, however, on the course to be pursued. Antilene began to rush up the increasingly rapidly capitulating declivity, pursued by the Equestrian King's projectiles.

Reaching the very top, she could even catch the voice of the sagittarius, who flew a short distance away from her.

"Impressive, but your race ends here."

"Not yet," she said, jumping in the void.

Swerving while still suspended, Antilene prepared Charon's Guidance. With one terrifying movement of her body, she penetrated the center of the flaming arrows that had caught up with her, triggering a chain reaction that hit the half-elf in full force.

From the chroma burst, she emerged unhurt.

"What?" Darius stood in disbelief and amazement.

The gained propulsion made her jerk. Regaining control, Antilene could see how little space separated her from her target. How insignificant that gap now was.

"You'll never make it." Darius made to move, attempting to run away from her. His wings were already flapping, uplifting a gust of wind.

Antilene activated the weapon she had kept in reserve for that occasion. One of the rings she wore shone with a dim light, activating the spell concealed within it.

"『Fly』."

A dull and trivial spell, which if activated at first would never have allowed her to bridge the distance between them. Yet at that moment she couldn't have asked for more.

Antilene quivered in the air going through the starway aligned to her victory, feeling herself in control of her destiny, towering over the Equestrian King himself.

She did not need a reason for what she accomplished. She did not need an explanation for who she was. Antilene Heran Fouche still had lots of places she wanted to go, lots of people she wanted to meet, lots of food she wanted to taste.

To live full was to not preclude experiences, and to die peaceful was to accept regrets. One's existence had to go beyond life and death to embrace serenity.

The scythe gradually began to descend, as did the half-elf.

"Incredible," shouted Darius, while she could already feel his breath. "Truly incredible! I Darius declare you the strongest!"

The only remark she had while stabbing one of his wings was: "I shared the same view as you, contemplating the peak of your world, and realized how small it really is." Her arms inundated with pent up force as she chopped the organs, minced the muscles and tore apart the connections.

Darius could only totter in search of equilibrium, putting his arms as a barrier against the half-elf.

Slicing that additional appendix, Antilene proceeded to replicate with the next one. Darius could not defend himself against her assault, forced to helplessly gawk as each limb was ripped from him.

While gravity attracted the Equestrian King, she finally aimed for his hearth.

"It's over. I will give you a proper death."

"Let me borrow what you said: not yet."

From the nearby bow, Darius concentrated on his last resort. Antilene swore she could sense wrath aroused against her from the pearls that adorned the ends of that weapon.

As everything around them grew hazy, she realized what those teal orbs really were: vile eyes. Vile eyes that life had relinquished, long left. A neverending grudge feeding a vexing hate was the last trace that still lingered.

Enchanting the world in darkness in a sickening curse, the half-elf could almost hear them laughing.

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They both precipitated.

The curtain of smoke cleared as Antilene was able to stand up. She still had Charon's Guidance gripped in her hands, while her opponent...

Darius had taken much more damage than she had, although it had been his own attack. The proud Equestrian King had his armor almost melted away and his mantle so fair was covered with burns and scorch marks, blotches of tattered metal covering the burned skin.

Of the four arms only two survived, of these no one held the bow, flung only the Gods knew where.

"I am waiting." He was reduced to a pitiful state, but that did not mean he gave up his dignity. Upholding his convictions, he would not die with the head bowed. "You're not going to let me go anyway, are you? Let's get it over with, then."

"Aren't you going to try to retrieve your bow?"

"For what purpose?"

They both laughed.

"It was fun," he said, at least. "Even though my aspiration doomed everything I seized, I am glad I dreamt. I only regret that it ended so soon."

"What was your dream?" Antilene asked.

"To reunite what was the Empire of my ancestors to its original state. If I was blessed with this body, I thought, there had to be a reason, a purpose. This is the only one I could find. Call me stupid."

"I won't. Who were your ancestors?"

"I don't know. They conquered the world, and then they lost it. This legacy was everything I was born with."

"Like everyone," she drew the scythe close to his chest. "If they will be able to stay in their place, your people will be fine."

"It doesn't matter anymore. Still, I am glad. Tell me, what do you do when the dream ends?"

"There's waking up," Antilene pierced his heart with a single, delicate gesture, etching her title as the strongest in those ravaged plains. "And then living for the next day, waiting for the night to come, to dream again."

So the Equestrian King died, standing with his head turned toward the sky he had only been able to brush past, never getting close to it.

The half-elf stripped him of his equipment, finding Sīmurgh's pendant on his corpse and the divine bow Khvarenah not far away. Upon contact with them, she acquired a new truth.

'The Eight…'

Then she chopped off the centaur's head, arranged what remained in as decorous a pose as possible, and burned it. As the ashes scattered away she recited a short prayer, no more than a handful of words.

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Antilene returned to Mirina when she was finished. The Dark Knight greeted her with loaded relief in her face.

"Lady Fouche... It means that..." Looking at the trophies the half-elf carried, hesitations were promptly dispelled.

"Did you have doubts?" She had a cup of water handed to her and quenched the thirst with a single sip.

Outside, in the makeshift camp already reduced to ruins, where last anointings were being given with haste, and comrades were being buried with more rush, the air was mournful and despondent, despite the victory. Confused whispers and religious litanies uttered more to prevent stillness from advancing, rather than out of a necessary need.

Then, Antilene looked around. In the tent there were two bodies resting on makeshift cots. One was of Prince Alexander, the other of the minotaur Niles.

A young boy was tending the minotaur's wounds as much as he could, unconcerned to sweat and exhaustion.

The Dark Knight, noticing the half-elf staring, uttered with brief melancholy.

"All the most capable divine casters perished almost immediately, and we don't have adequate potions. If we don't take him to at least someone capable of casting heal magic I don't know if he..."

Antilene didn't say anything, continuing to scan the unconscious demihuman.

Mirina continued to speak. "General Chazos had arranged for a handful of all the most capable survivors to come to your aid. He was personally leading the charge."

"They must have been wiped out." Antilene did not remember seeing any other protagonists in the clash, but it was still true that her attention was elsewhere. Maybe they had simply fled. "Not that it matters."

The Dark Knight ducked down. "No, it doesn't."

"You," the half-elf turned to the small boy, who trembled like a twig at the mere acknowledgement of his presence. "Go find me a suitable box to put this in," and she lifted what was left of the Equestrian King.

He shivered, gulped, but carried out the order, rushing out promptly.

"A good boy. His name is…"

Antilene stopped Mirina before she could continue further. "I will forget anyway. The important thing is that he is loyal to you." The half-elf felt a pang to her chest in being so harsh, but she knew she could not take chances. "The Minotaur, Sir Niles. Kill him."

The Dark Knight's eyelids closed and opened in a rapid spasm, disbelief brightening the amethyst light that faintly shined in her eyes. "Can you... Can you repeat that?"

"The minotaur. If left in this condition, he will survive, albeit a bit battered," Mirina's reprieve was destined to not last long, Antilene considered, as she uttered what ought to be done. "You must not allow that. Kill him now."

That was the difficult part. Not so much about ending Niles' existence, but rather how Mirina's gratitude had turned into something Antilene had been all too familiar with.

A second could last a century, and a century could pass in a second. In that particular occurrence, it was the former.

"I am sorry. I can't do this."

"Then I will kill you. I will kill him. And everyone that survived."

"But… why?"

"Now that the Equestrian King is dead, someone will have to take credit for it. And it will not be me," she explained calmly. "That someone will be you. The Dark Knight, the hero worshiped in this region, will be celebrated once again from the masses. But that is not all. Where the demihumans failed, it was a human woman that prevailed against the invader. Not a minotaur, nor an elf. You. This will be mankind's victory, and will inspire generations of warriors to come to follow you. At the same time, the influence of the nonhumans will start to fade, little by little. Niles and his band could do nothing, and nothing they achieved. So much for humans' inferiority."

"It won't go like that," Mirina retorted, desperately looking for flaws in that argument. "It will not be so easy to decrease the influence of other species. And even then, it will take decades before we see any concrete results…" Her gaze transfixed when it crossed Antilene's.

"I can wait," replied Antilene, in an attempt to sound diplomatic. Sighing, she spoke as smoothly as she could. "Should Niles survive a confrontation with the Equestrian King, the people will not only continue to believe that he played a decisive part in his defeat, but will also begin to diminish your contribution. If he were to disappear, some might think it was not entirely due to you the final result, but that will be easy rumors to put to rest with your word and the help of someone else you already know. At most, you could claim that he lent you a hand in the victory if you wish. Humility is always seen as a sign of a greater truth. I don't really care. But if you refuse, I will be forced to kill him myself..."

Mirina's grip on the sword became firmer. Antilene hoped that it was not stupidity that had inspired that reaction. "And I can never know that you will stick to my story. To avoid any open-end I will be forced to silence you. And with you, everyone who has seen you healthy until just now."

"And if I were to do as you say, what makes you think I will not tell the truth anyway?"

So simple. Like reciting a script. No less detestable, though.

"Because there is someone you want to protect, and you will not risk her sake for idealism. Someone close to you, that would not benefit from a possible civil war caused by your actions. Tell the truth, I dare you. Tell that you killed someone under the orders of a foreigner's influence, and see what you will gain. Love can rot even the gentlest soul, didn't you know?"

Mirina averted her sight, defeated. "I am no match for you, Lady Fouche."

"I hope you will not hate me for this."

Some argued that friends were the Gods' way of caring for their children. Perhaps, for the first time, Antilene doubted their existence.

"You saved Kista. I could never hate you," the minotaur's breathing was irregular, but still firm. "But I can not love you either." And then it was no more.