The Stygalta Arena was almost entirely deserted. The sky was darkening, and when classes had been canceled, so had all the other activities. Mirian was still being followed—by the mayor’s new assistant and someone from the militia—which she took some comfort in. From what she could tell, the militia member was a sort of rotating body-guard of sorts, but also to make sure she didn’t suddenly run for the hills. At the very least, it meant someone would be able to help her if another mob showed up. She showed both of them a thumbs up before she stepped through the east arch into the building. The militia member responded in kind, while the mayor’s assistant dramatically rolled her eyes. Mirian had her dueling gear and rapier, so it was obvious what she intended.

“Valen!” she called out as she walked in.

“Right here,” she said. She was sitting by the courtyard fountain, her own rapier in hand. The first thing Mirian noticed was that there were no glowing glyphs on the blade anymore. “You can’t really die, right? Unless what you’ve been telling everyone is a load of shit. And if I die—doesn’t matter either, does it?” She stood.

“Right here?” Mirian asked. The courtyard was empty except for the two of them, and full of shadows where the glyph lamps cast them. It was a lot larger than the usual dueling circle, and it had the fountain and statues obstructing movement. “What are the boundaries?” Mirian asked, looking at the four arches that led to the courtyard. Two led to staircases up to the dueling areas, and the central arch to the eximontar track.

“Why have them at all?” Valen tossed Mirian a burin.

There was only one glyph she needed to chisel out to break the sequence. It felt strange to be destroying a part of her own sword. Part of her couldn’t believe she was doing this. It wasn’t, perhaps, the most rational thing to do. But some part of her felt like she needed to do this. Maybe she felt indebted to Valen for helping her with the Akanan spies. It had, after all, led to this cycle. Maybe the injuries Valen had inflicted on her just didn’t feel that big compared to what she’d been through. Maybe she felt a bit sorry for her because it turned out her parents kinda sucked. Maybe it was pure curiosity. Mirian had always been too inquisitive for her own good.

Maybe it was all of those things, or none of those things, and Mirian was just deceiving herself. As Valen had just said, people were messy, and as much as she didn’t understand them some days, she thought maybe that was because they didn’t understand themselves.

She finished brushing the powdered glyph dust off her rapier and tossed the burin back to Valen, then raised her blade. There was always a surge of adrenaline that came with the anticipation of a dueling bout, but it felt far more intense now. The past two cycles, she’d barely touched the arena, but it wasn’t like she was rusty.

She could tell Valen was feeling the same thing as she raised her own blade. The excitement had made her eyes go wide and she could hardly contain the glee or her nervous energy.

Valen came in fast like she normally did, but Mirian was ready for it, and ready for the followup feint, stepping to the side so that her opponent’s blade went flying by. For a fraction of a second, she had an opportunity to deliver a quick slash to Valen, but she hesitated, remembering the safety enchantments were gone. Instead, she circled around and waited for another attack.

The courtyard rang with steel on steel as their blades clashed. Valen, seeming to realize her aggressive maneuver had exposed her, was now more cautious. Both of them circled, looking for an opening. Mirian came in for a few attacks, but quickly retreated. As they clashed again, Mirian realized that despite what she’d said about being terrible about reading people, it wasn’t entirely true. The language of Valen’s movement told a story that she didn’t even have to think about; it was in fact entirely necessary to not think, because thought was so much slower than reaction. When she was really focused on a fight, her inner voice quieted until it was inaudible, and she simply flowed. Right now, her movements were sluggish and hesitant. She was too worried about what might happen.

Both of them were breathing hard, starting to drip sweat despite the chill in the night air. Mirian stepped back and lowered her blade, then breathed in deeply. Then she settled into an on guard position and stopped thinking.

She saw how Valen’s eyes kept darting to the fountain, and knew she was trying to use it or the walls to position Mirian in a way where she couldn’t use her footwork. She let herself be drawn forward, close to it, then went on the offensive. Their blades rang again and again, the echoes off the walls forming a chorus. When she paid more attention to her instincts, and less to her thoughts, she picked up on things. Valen’s body did tell a story: she liked to put on a brave face and talk tough, but beneath it, Mirian could see the fear in her. Not of her rapier. There was something deeper.

She came in fast, with powerful slashes forcing Valen back, past the fountain and towards the walls. When she tried to maneuver towards the arches, Mirian circled around and came in with a series of feints that sent her rival backpedaling as she failed to parry the attacks. The rapid retreat made her lose her balance. Mirian gave her no time to recover; she came in with a powerful slash that sent Valen hoping back again, only a few feet from the courtyard wall.

Mirian could read the counter-attack coming, as if Valen was an open book. The way she planted her left foot, the way she tensed slightly, the way she tried to guard the space between them with tentative thrusts as she prepared.

She was ready for it. Mirian ignored the first feint, then parried Valen’s incoming lunge, closing the distance as she brought her blade around in a circle until their cross-guards were nearly touching. Taking advantage of the momentum, she then pushed Valen’s blade outward hard. Her rival’s eyes widened in shock as her blade went flying across the courtyard, clattering loudly on the paving stones. She took two quick steps back, looking for an opening to retrieve her blade, but then her back hit the wall. Mirian followed, shoving her up against the wall with her off hand, then raised her blade up so that it was just in front of Valen’s throat.

Mirian couldn’t help but give her rival a feral grin. The exaltation running through her was uncontainable. She was dripping sweat, breathing hard, and her body was practically vibrating with adrenaline.

Valen looked up at her as Mirian loomed over her, her own breathing quick. Her eyes darted down to the edge of the rapier, then to Mirian’s eyes. She could feel the heartbeat of the other girl in her hand, and then she felt Valen straining to bring her head up. At first, Mirian thought she was just scared and trying to escape, but then she saw her pursed lips and the lust in her eyes.

She was trying to kiss her.

Mirian let her rapier fall to her side and let out a harsh laugh. “So that’s what this is about? Gods above, I am blind. Why didn’t you just… say something?”

“I did,” Valen said, flushing.

“Not in any language I spoke. I thought you hated me, and here I was trying to figure out why.” She stood there, rapier still in hand. Valen hadn’t moved from the wall. Mirian stood there, looking at her as if for the first time. She thought of Selesia, and felt guilty, but then shoved that guilt aside. In this loop, Selesia had never met her. Going forward, if she wanted to replicate the conditions of this cycle, she never would meet her. Mirian missed her, and the ache of loneliness she felt seemed ever-present. Was it so wrong to take love where she could find it? Who did it hurt? Or was that just an excuse she was using to justify herself?

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It was the emptiness inside her, yearning to be filled, that won out. She so badly wished for someone else to share the burden she was carrying. To be with someone who understood her. Valen wasn’t that, but she was there, and she understood at least a piece of who Mirian was.

Mirian leaned over and kissed her.

It wasn’t at all like kissing Selesia. She had never had that primal desperation that Valen had. Afterward, she didn’t want to talk, just wanted to look up at the stars together. Mirian didn’t. Each time she saw the Divir Moon, she remembered how this was all going to end. Still, she looked up with her.

“It won’t last,” Mirian said.

“I know,” Valen said. “Nothing does, in the end.”

***

The next two days were a whirlwind of activity. No one ever made an official appointment or announcement, but it became assumed that Mirian was essentially a sixth captain of the militia. Her bodyguard became something more of a secretary as people consulted her on defensive emplacements, or asked for another detail about the attack. Preparations continued, with lines of trenches being dug just around the border of the town, and dozens of buildings were knocked down so the rubble could be used to create barricades. Only two trainloads of evacuees were dropped off before the train continued back to Cairnmouth so it could get one last load of supplies and emergency recruits.

On the evening of Firstday, she saw Valen again. Again, Valen didn’t want to talk. Part of Mirian did; she liked talking through things, and Gods there were a lot of things to talk about. Part of her, though, was fine turning her brain off and just speaking—as Valen liked to call it—a real language. One that needed no translation or interpretation, the one that was a whirl of emotion and impulse.

When she looked at Valen now, she saw a different person. She couldn’t forget all those small cruelties, but she was starting to understand that Valen hadn’t seen them that way. Despite her insistence that actions and expression were a universal language, it seemed to be only part-true. Their lives had been so different, and as a result, their understanding of people diverged. Still, even across that gap, there was a connection. There was something profound in forging a chain across such a wide chasm.

Secondday, she went on a tour of Bainrose with Respected Jei.

The library was a mess. Dozens of shelves had been moved and pushed against one wall, and in such haste that hundreds of volumes and scrolls had fallen to the ground only to be trampled underfoot by soldiers as they moved in ammunition crates and communications equipment. It seemed like a desecration of a sacred place; Mirian only took solace in knowing the destruction wouldn’t last.

Soldiers were rolling out magical telegraph lines to the different command posts and through Bainrose. General Hanaran’s voice had gone hoarse from nonstop discussions as she consulted her commanders, issued orders, and poured over long lists of supplies.

In another corner, two priests and several acolytes were setting up beds for the soon-to-be-injured. Priest Krier was nowhere to be seen. “Do we know what Priest Krier is up to?” Mirian asked Jei.

“No. Rumor is he is gone. Evacuated, maybe, but he did not tell the others. They are not happy.”

Strange. Mirian wasn’t sure what to make of that. It didn’t seem like the actions of a man who thought she was a lying heretic. Always more layers, she mused.

With so many new people entering Torrviol and more food redirected south to the temporary evacuation camp, food was getting scarce as the army churned through the grain silos and the Academy stores. One regiment was sent out to the lake to fish, even though they were badly needed to dig trenches and erect barricades as well.

They passed Cassius as they walked along the western wall. He looked like death warmed-over. He pushed the Academy sorcerers under his command hard, but he’d pushed himself even harder.

“Rest, you idiot!” Jei snapped at him as they passed. Cassius just rolled his eyes and made a rude hand gesture, his usual formal as depleted as his aura. He did slouch down by one of the parapets to sit.

His efforts hadn’t been in vain, though. He and the other Academy sorcerers had managed to position nearly eight guns on the towers of Bainrose, and then had managed to get more of the six-inch guns on the roof where they were currently aimed towards that spot in the sky where the airships would come from.

It was unspoken as to why Jei was taking Mirian on this tour. Most of the people knew that it was unlikely for the defenses of Torrviol to hold. Still, they clung to that hope, that they might. But Mirian and Jei knew with absolute certainty that they would not.

“When I was a girl,” Jei finally said, “One day I was tasked with watching my little sister, and fixing up the garden wall. When I was pushing the wheelbarrow of bricks past her, I hit a rut, and the wheelbarrow tilted. The bricks came tumbling down. Bao was always crying. It was when she didn’t cry I knew how bad she was hurt.”

They continued walking along the battlements. Despite Jei’s steady voice, Mirian could tell how hard it was for her to tell this story. “At first, I begged her not to be hurt. Then I knew I must act. The hospital was too far. The Baracuel embassy was close. I had heard many times how hated the Baracueli were, but I also had heard they had a priest. The priest did his best to heal Bao’s head wound. He probably saved her life. But Bao was never the same after that. The priest could not repair her mind.”

They continued walking, then stopped as Jei gazed out east, over the lake and forests, the distant hills hazy, the sky looming low with the thick bellies of clouds. “I kept the story hidden from others to hide my shame. My parents cried a lot, but they also knew it was an accident, and when they told the story, they omitted that it was I who was pushing the wheelbarrow. Some of my relatives still do not know the truth. You understand why I am telling you this.”

Mirian nodded, feeling tears welling in her eyes. She was picturing little Zayd. How would she have felt if she’d ever hurt him like that?

“For years, I hated myself, and wished again and again I could turn back time. Cosmic joke that I learn now it is possible.” She paused again, gaze still fixed on the horizon. “It would be a long time before I learned more of the language, but the first words I learned in Friian were ‘thank you.’ It is strange to think back, because had the accident never happened, I likely never would have come to Baracuel. It is a regret like no other, and yet, it set me on this path.” She paused, then said, “That should be enough. I also understand this: you cannot save every person every time. It all must serve the greater project. I hope that when this is over, what emerges is a better world.”

“I’ll try. I promise.” Mirian shook her head sadly. “No one deserves what’s coming next.”

They walked in silence after that, down to the basement where Mirian examined the defenses they’d set up. Several professors had looked up the old maps of the underground that had been locked away and found several more passages Mirian hadn’t known about, and suspected the spies might not know about them either. They’d found the passage by the market forum. Detect iron spells had even located another route no one had recorded that went from the basement up to the fourth floor. Plenty more had been walled off, or the mechanisms deliberately broken so no one could use them.

After that, they made their way along the rim of Torrviol, past hastily erected barricades as soldiers prepared firing positions and pre-sighted their artillery. As a last ditch effort to get them out of the battle, Lake Torrviol’s fishing boats were ferrying non-combatants across the lake, because the next train would be reserved for withdrawing as many soldiers as it could, should they need to retreat. Across the lake, they might get attacked by myrvites, but the odds of that were acceptable given the alternative of staying for the battle.

They finished their route back before Bainrose Castle, making their way from the south up to the plaza, where Professor Torres had finished setting up her special artillery piece.

Jei looked out across Torrviol, taking it all in one last time. The way the glyph lamps gave the cold streets a sense of warmth. The hushed silence of anticipation, as the town braced itself. The way the wind whipped the rooftop banners. The way the last light of dusk gleamed between the buildings and set fire to the western clouds.

“Remember,” was all she said, and clasped hands with Mirian.

They locked eyes. “I will,” she promised.