A Journey of Black and Red

Chapter 190: Solstice

The brightest sun of the spheres nourished the rolling hills, where the royal capital spread amidst quiet glades and ripening fields. Countless statues of white marble and gold filigree recounted the exploits of generations of warriors, scholars, millennia of victories. Banners from every court captured in battle hung from the walls of barracks, loaded with the weight of a glorious tradition. A new statue of a raging minotaurs dying on his knees now adorns the main thoroughfare. It had been cast in the bronze of ten thousand captured blades from the latest war against the court of blood and its endless aggression. There would be more. There were always more. Slowly, summer was expanding, ever victorious, ever confident, ever arrogant. The light never dimmed on the most radiant of spheres.

After more than two centuries, Sinead was home.

The court’s power waxed ever so slightly as winter’s grasp ended. Sinead could feel it in the wind, the sun beating on polished stone. He could taste it in the warming air. He could hear it in the cheers of the crowd and the songs of distant birds. He knew it in his heart, wanderer that he was. The king’s blood had never truly left him.

He sighed and leaned forward, taking in the sights from his high perch above the pit.

The Court of Summer had used claw fiends as a test of might for generations. Hopeful princes and princesses, eager to display their might, had challenged those fearsome foes on the crimson sands of the Zenith Arena to prove they were capable fighters in their own right. To demonstrate to everyone they were worthy of commanding a golden legion in glorious combat. Claw fiends shared the resilience of winter and the ferocity of the Court of Blood. They stood on four razor-sharp legs, using two forearms to grab and two claws to mangle. Quite a few candidates earned wounds from the reveal of a hidden, retractable stinger camouflaged in one of the appendices. Their location changed from specimen to specimen.

Between their thick armor, range of motion, and terrifying bouts of speed, a claw fiend allowed a gladiator to demonstrate the full range of their talent. A claw fiend fight attracted spectators without fail if only because of the casualty rate. One in ten hopeful royals lost their lives in the arena. Many more were maimed before being rescued. Such was the fate of those too weak to fight, for they were trying to join summer, and summer was the season of war.

It made the current situation all the more farcical, Sinead thought.

“COME BACK HERE MISTER LOBSTER MAN!” Ariane bellowed with obvious annoyance.

Her bare feet danced on the powdery ground, lifting puffs of dust with every flourish. Oh, Sinead had tried to make her wear shoes, but her answer had been as definitive as it had been clear.

“Nah. I don’t want to.”

It was unfortunate that no one short of an assembly of princes could force her to wear anything. Even Cadiz had excused himself from that battle. The genius swordsman had claimed he would not taste the bitterness of defeat for such a worthless cause. And so the vampire wove across the field in a short linen dress, hair free, wielding a giant chef knife as a weapon. Said chef sat in the bleachers, occupying eight seats with his girthy bottom.

“You have to expose ze entire muscle, or ze sauce will not be spread evenly,” the titanic man helpfully suggested.

Ariane ducked under the stinger, used the creature’s blind spot to race along razor-sharp legs, then jumped over a claw backswing. She landed pommel-first on the exposed appendage, cracking the shell and exposing the quivering, pink flesh underneath. Another chitinous plate joined its brethren on the floor. The claw fiend whined piteously.

The vampire raced back to the large bottle of dark sauce discarded against the wall and picked it up. She ran back to find that the fiend had once again moved from the position she had left it in, much to her surprise. Ariane’s addled mind had not yet processed that her victim would run rather than having acidic sauce poured over a gaping wound.

“Arg! Where are you going?” she demanded, before swearing in the vampire tongue. A joust followed, with the foe trying desperately to shatter the container and the vampire doing her best to pour the precious liquid to finish preparing the beast for consumption. It did not help that, for this attempt, she had forgotten to remove the stopper. Finally, she lost her patience and returned to grab the knife for another peeling session.

It had been going on for quite some time.

“No need to panic, fiends stay fresh for half a day,” the giant helpfully added.

The spectators were now betting on how many cycles it would take to finish the bullied monster.

The crowd cheered after the pommel descended on its blue shell, eliciting another ghastly crack.

In Sinead’s mind palace, the giant chef finally registered as an entity worthy of his time. The mountain-like man clad in pristine white fabric was a herald of the feast. The dishes he fashioned graced the palates of the king. With a sigh, the prince stood from his seat and took his leave. For now.

“Please excuse me, I must greet an old friend,” he told the master of ceremony.

His richly dressed host showed no reaction, then his keen eyes noticed the prince’s body language. He finally granted him a delayed smile.

“But of course. Your time here is precious,” the man casually replied.

Sinead turned around and walked out of the lodge of honor under a bright sun. Once again, a part of his consciousness registered the message hidden behind honeyed words. The master of ceremony believed Sinead’s point had been made, and that his agent should expedite the combat. Talking with the herald of the feast could satisfy this request as well, if Sinead played it well. He recalled the little he knew. A passion for cuisine, obviously. Trained in the Court of Stone.

The prince had been away from the palace for too long, and it was too late anyway. The chef turned a beady eye towards him in a way that showed he expected the visit. Sinead expected it. No amount of skill sufficed here, at the edge of the royal domain. One had to understand politics to survive.

Sinead hurried his pace. The arena was growing to accommodate newcomers, the summer citizens here to watch this strange display. New levels rose from the ground to expand the sitting areas. He only slowed down to bow gently. Although a prince technically outranked a chef, there were many princes and princesses, but only one true master of the culinary arts. In any case, Sinead had learned to show respect unless he had a reason to do otherwise.

“A good day to you, Herald of the Feast. I hope my friend will not damage your knife through prolonged, poor handling. She is not quite herself,” Sinead said amicably.

“Oh, Amaryll’s child! Sinead, was it?” said the giant. “Do not be alarmed, this is merely a training knife. You know, I have always entertained the thought of cooking as a spectator sport. I simply did not expect it could be a comedy as well!”

“She is full of surprises,” Sinead admitted with a grin, then cursed himself immediately as the giant’s massive eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

“I found her display refreshing,” the chef replied, then he proved he had not missed the meaning hidden behind Sinead’s use of ‘prolonged’.

“But I believe I will relish her duel more.”

He turned his massive chest towards the center and bellowed in a voice like an earthquake.

“Can you be a dear and cut the head cleanly? I can use it for a soup.”

Ariane twisted on herself to give an obvious, unnecessary nod of assent. The fiend did not miss the opportunity presented by an exposed back, and Sinead’s breath caught in his throat.

For one fugacious instant, all of his plans, all of his schemes collapsed. The partitions in his mind crashed down, undone by the intensity of his concern. She would be fine. She had to be fine.

He went for his blade.

A root launched her above the thrust of a poisoned stinger. Gravity stuck her dress to her body, the thin cloth kissing the curve of a thigh, the flat expanse of her stomach up to the twin vales of her breasts. Blonde hair trailed her lovely face like a halo. At the apex of her jump, she was a dancer and a slayer, seamlessly joining both arts. Dainty toes caught another root. She fell with the finality of a guillotine’s blade.

The chef knife cleaved through the beast’s neck at a perfectly perpendicular angle. Its blade stuck in the sand. She landed on the pommel with preternatural grace while the fiend’s decapitated body contracted like a clenched fist.

Sinead released the death grip on his sword finger by finger. He buried the terrible longing under layer upon layer of masks, drowning the pain born from her rejection. He deserved it, he reminded himself. He deserved it for not trusting her, for betraying that pure affection. He had lost her as surely as if she had died. If he repeated that sentence often enough, perhaps he would eventually believe it. Hope could be so cruel, sometimes.

Momentarily stunned by the abrupt end, the crowd nonetheless cheered. They believed Ariane had been fast and decisive to finish the show. Sinead knew she was still merely playing around. He returned to his seat after taking his leave.

“I am convinced,” the Master of Ceremony said drily. “You can indeed bring her as your third in the duels.”

“Second,” Sinead corrected.

The two men glared at each other in silence, each bristling from the other’s understated rebuke. Nevertheless, Sinead could not back down due to their respective roles, and the master knew he had let his impatience get the better of him. It was, after all, a very minor event in the grand scheme of things. Only the first eight heirs shuffling would matter to the court at large.

It mattered to Sinead. In fact, it mattered a lot, because he had offered her to leave and she had decided to stay, even as the rush blurred her mind. She still cared for him, deep inside. No, she did not, he had to forget that soon they would be parted for an eternity. He would win this contest no matter what, or his eternity would end today. He would not waste this chance.

“Very well. I was told her kind only ruled because of the rigidity of their own sphere, yet it seems they can still perform in a real domain. I believe Prince Revas is ready. Now that the preliminary match is over, I shall start the main event. If you will excuse me, I have a few small matters to attend to before we begin. I am sure you do as well.”

Sinead nodded. The Master of Ceremony had unsubtly revealed Revas had suggested the contest, possibly in an attempt to distract or handicap them with wounds. His last words suggested there was another trap. Although Sinead appreciated the warning, he knew Revas had already tried to have Khadras recalled at the last minute. Truly, his elder brother did not balk at the lowest of tricks despite his valorous persona. It was a shame for him that the Seeker Sovereign had taken the scheme personally.

The prince stood and walked to the gladiators sitting tightly in the rafters in tight ranks around his mother, wife, and son.

“It is time,” he told them.

While his family ritually embraced him to wish him luck, Ariane’s free gladiators kept an eye out. They were an eclectic sort, even decked in a blue and gold uniform to signify their allegiance. They truly represented what it had taken for Sinead to reach this moment where a lost lamb could challenge an established power.

The other liberated fae were here as well to offer their tacit blessing, so that the arena showed an extraordinary number of strangers. Revas would try to argue Sinead was an outsider backed by more outsiders. Sinead was expecting it. Sinead was counting on it. He breathed deeply to push his fears away. He had done all he could to prepare.

The prince turned on himself just to see Ariane chew on a strand of fiend claw flesh, its extremity quivering under the effect of the sauce. Sinead believed she could not truly eat it. It was not for lack of trying, however.

A hand sign on his part gathered her attention. She replied to his signal with an exaggerated wink, then she waved the piece of meat, collected both knife and sauce, then left the arena through the victory gate.

It was going to be a long day.

Six contestants stood across the sandy expanse of the fighting pit. They carried their helms in their hands while their blades were sheathed as protocol dictated. The Master of Ceremony waited at a distance in the early afternoon’s stifling light.

Sinead himself wore gold and blue scales, an armor designed by Sivaya herself. His sword radiated heat despite the hand he kept on its bone handle. By his left, Khadras bore the silver armor and crystalline halberd he favored. Revas would not fail to notice the seeker’s disheveled appearance, but would not know what to make of it.

Ariane had taken this step seriously. Sinead suspected the vampire was no longer quite as drunk as before, possibly through an effort of will. The Aurora armor clad her body while she kept Rose hidden, having instead taken a saber which hung from a sheath on her back. She appeared relaxed compared to the rest of them. Her only concession to comfort was the parasol she insisted on keeping above her head when she was not fighting.

Revas had once again chosen the garb of a warrior heir in golden plate armor. A broadsword and shield pair hung from his back. They glowed with barely contained power. The red woman who served as his second bristled with rage. Her attention would not leave the uncaring countenance of the vampire. Her left hand had been replaced by a prosthesis covered in amber stone, the fingers ending in claws. The skin was red and puffy around the edge, and black veins expanded from the stump like swirling tattoos. The last member of Revas’ retinue was a member of a rare and elusive race called the Mon. Stone covered most of its features and it held a mace in its craggy fingers. Sinead knew the Mon were considered immune to mind magic of any form. He stopped himself from smiling at Revas bringing foreign assets for his last battle. It reeked of desperation, to replace known allies by agents taylored to counter opponents. Adaptability was not part of Revas’ persona. The man had always favored tradition. The mask he had chosen was starting to crack at the seams.

As for Sinead, he had rarely been himself more. After all, he had brought two royals to a royal contest. The amusing thought soothed his frayed nerves. In games like these, only when the last card was down would the game be decided. The chaotic contest he had chosen introduced too many variables.

Just as Sinead thought he might relax, a whisper breathed through the arena. A hiss of warm air quieted the diverse crowd. For a single instant, the light shone so much it seemed Ariane would wither. Her parasol cast a shade the size of a ball on the blazing sand, so small it seemed barely more than a pinprick of darkness, then the moment was gone. To his side, the Master of Ceremony blinked once. Revas’ nostrils flared. He knew. They all knew.

Ariane grumbled under her breath and soon, a wave of cold air spread out. A few droplets of water fell from the eternal ice of her armor.

The king was in attendance.

As one man, every citizen of summer turned and bowed, leaving their many guests sitting awkwardly, willing to honor their host but unsure how to proceed. A benevolent wave of hand that was more felt than seen freed them from protocol. The sovereign was not here in his official capacity.

His aura retracted until it was almost imperceptible. Only a remnant of it remained, a mere trick of the light, a ghost at the edge of the vision. It would… complicate matters for Ariane, but she was more than a match for their foes, he thought.

The Master of Ceremony retrieved a ceremonial coin from his pocket and flipped it. It fell on the edge, as was normal. The side facing Sinead showed the emblem of a moon.

“Prince Sinead will come second. Prince Revas selects the order.”

Sinead held back a smile, as the order favored him this time. A good omen.

“The seconds shall face each other, then the third, and then us if necessary,” Revas declared.

“Gor is my third, Lady Mareath is my second.”

It was Sinead’s turn to announce. It would let him swap his second and third, thus canceling the prince’s favorable matchups. The Court of Blood madwoman foamed at the mouth at the thought of being deprived of a rematch. The Master of Ceremony stared, waiting for his decision. This time, Sinead did smile.

“Ariane of the Nirari is my second. Seeker Khadras is my third.”

Sinead knew he had declared his absolute confidence in his success, and that fortune did pay attention to the daring. Sometimes, she took them down, but Sinead’s confidence did not come from sheer cockiness. He had seen Ariane fight now. Or rather, he had not seen. As for Khadras, the stone creature was in for a nasty surprise.

“Very well. The contestants except the seconds will return to their quarters until summoned. May you fight with all your might, for you fight under the gaze of summer…”

“And summer is the season of war,” they finished.

Sinead walked back to his gate with Khadras in tow. It took a solid minute to reach it, because the area had grown yet again to accommodate the influx of spectators. Such was the sovereign’s influence that thousands would flood the rafters over the next minute, eager to see what caught his eye. It would make the world more willing to bend, which suited him just fine.

The prince and the seeker stopped near a wall, where a mirror showed the upcoming fight.

The red woman clanged her scale armor with her fist. Her move signaled the beginning of the time-honored tradition of pre-duel banter. The arena crowd loved it, yet beyond that it would also set the stage for their whole confrontation. The spheres loved a good show, especially when it ended in death.

“My name is Mareath, the unbound. I have broken free of the frenzy of my sphere and cast its perpetual rage from my heart. I have left the red lands and crossed the battlefield towards the side of good. Now, I serve summer through my allegiance to Prince Revas whose exploits I have no need to repeat. You are a creature of the cold dark, vampire. I know your kind. Your ‘rescues’ spoke to us of their treatment at the hands of your kin. But that is not all we learned. You fear the light because they reveal what you are, beasts without substance. Fakes who steal a body to plague your world, hiding in the dark corners with your schemes and your games. You fear fire for it will purge your existence and return you to ash. You are in summer now, creature, the seat of fire and light. Your arrogance led you here, to me. This is the end of your tricks.”

The red woman ceremoniously placed a circlet on her scarlet brow. Sinead recognized a ward against mind magic. Ariane visibly rolled her eyes. She was still holding her parasol, which meant it would technically be counted as her chosen weapon in the official records. Her foe was not done yet, however.

“I will cleanse this place from your presence as the first act of justice against your entire race of jailors and parasites, and then I will rebuild myself a hand with your frigid entrails,” the red woman concluded.

Sinead’s dear poppet inspected her frozen gauntlet, before replying with a bored voice.

“Good luck with that. My name is Ariane of the Nirari and I do not trade barbs with my appetizers.”

The crowd conceded appreciative ‘oohs’ because they loved supreme confidence the most. No matter what, one person would be humiliated before this was over.

Sinead smiled in his heart, knowing for a fact Ariane did, in fact, exchange banter with her appetizers on several occasions. The intensity of her provocations were proportional to her foe’s susceptibility to them. He could hardly blame her for the hypocrisy considering he did the same.

The Master of Ceremony left the sandy expanse and reappeared shortly at the lodge of honor. He held a marble in his hand.

“This duel has no rules, save for that of interference. You may begin at the ring of the bell.”

Ariane and Mareath stood apart. Silence reigned in the bleachers, where thousands of people had gathered with still more taking their seats. A light wind blew over the arena.

The honor lodge’s deep bell chimed.

Ariane unfurled her parasol immediately and waited. As for the red woman, her time had come to take her revenge or die trying. The amber stone in her gauntlet shone with ever-increasing intensity. Soon, even the mirror was blinded by its intensity. Only a dark spot remained in the sea of light some distance away. Sinead spotted the shape of an extended hand at the epicenter of the miniature sun, then fire joined the blinding radiance. Crimson tongues licked the sand, melting it. The purifying torrent went on for a while. Its intense heat forced the closest spectators to recoil before the onslaught. It culminated with a cry of pure rage and desire to live.

Slowly, the light returned to the softer glow of a summer afternoon, revealing snakes of molten glass expanding from the now kneeling Mareath. Her gauntlet hissed, red and angry. The amber stones had dimmed considerably after the onslaught. Mareath searched the ground for a trace of her foe.

Sinead knew she lived, for his eyes had never left the spot of darkness. The ruins of the torched parasol fall to reveal a ball of entwined roots. A large circle of frozen ground remains. The ground there is the blue of permafrost. Hot and cold air form a powerful current that lifts scorched fabric towards the sky.

The sphere of roots exploded outward in a flurry of limbs that the tiny ball could not possibly have contained. A thin branch grabbed Mareath by the ankle and sent her against the nearby wall with a dreadful splat. It was so fast that Sinead could barely follow it. Sinead smiled. He knew his poppet would not resist.

“Oh no, light and fire, my true weaknesses. Oh no no no how could have I foreseen this development? I am undone,” a bored voice said. “If only I could have prepared a countermeasure.”

And there it was. The banter.

Ariane stepped out from the protective embrace of her Magna Arqa, which expanded to cover the entirety of the arena. Above her, in the jealous sky of one of the oldest spheres, the entity she calls ‘Hayatu’, the Watcher, opened a slit pupil. Sinead recentered his attention to the ongoing conflict before the horror’s gaze could capture his mind. Some of the spectators were not so lucky. The prince had felt its influence only a few times but he knew it was as powerful as it was distant.

The sovereign allowed the foreign influence to affect his subjects and guests for a moment, then he grabbed their attention back with a wave of his domain, thus freeing the unwitting moths from that alien light. The eye remained however, and so did its champion. Ariane did not move from her spot. She did not draw either.

Mareath coughed and fell to her knee. A wave of her hand incinerated the branch. She stood through a sheer effort of will and gasped.

“This is not over! Hellish Pursuer!”

A ball of roaring inferno arched over the arena. Once it reached the halfway point, it met a cold front. The projectile petered and died a few paces away from Ariane’s impassible face.

“Hm? Oh, yes. Polar midnight.”

Voiceless casting always remained a mark of power. This was not a battle, Sinead thought, but a humiliation. He always found Ariane amusing when she was dominating her opponent, a bit like a cat playing with her food. She also avoided the old pitfall of underestimating her opponent too much. Even now, her domain expanded far to keep the situation under control. Mareath knew it. Her expectations had been dashed, but she was far from giving up. Sinead fully expected it. Someone who escaped the Court of Blood could not give up, even in the face of desperate odds.

It was touching, how she charged forward into the hell of thorns with nothing but her courage. It was not enough, however. It would never be enough. The spheres did not do happy endings.

A curtain of thorns opened to her side. A massive arm punched out from its confines, hitting her side with a shriek of tortured metal. She rolled to the side and came up, gauntlet raised to fend off the titanic wolf man emerging behind her. She was so focused that she failed to notice the next rift open.

A battleaxe of monstrous size descended on her extended hand and severed it, slightly above the stump. The red woman’s gauntlet was sent flying. She gave a shrill scream. It ended when armored knuckles compressed her windpipe. Ariane exposed her neck and bit… and then pulled back.

“This saber belonged to Syma the Red,” Ariane commented as she pulled the saber from her back.

“I got it for her. She was an ally. I have left a great many of those in my wake to come to this point. Dalton. Nashoba. Mannfred. Names that mean nothing to you. Syma was an arena fighter like us until you shamelessly poisoned her with a dart. See, I may have lost people but I do not forget, and in the end, I always, always… get… even.”

Ariane skewered the other woman through the armor and let the body fall, then she withdrew her Magna Arqa and walked back to him. It amused Sinead that she was supposed to leave through the gate of the victors. She must have been distracted and returned to him instead. Her mind was perhaps still not yet recovered. The accidental attention pleased him nonetheless. He smiled broadly when she sat by his side.

“Congratulations are in order, poppet. Are you back to your normal self?”

The woman glanced at Khadras who appeared to be meditating with mixed results. She shrugged.

“Not quite yet. I had a… premonition, of sorts. It was a rather unnerving and unexpected occurrence, so now my fun is gone and I am trying my best to focus. I still feel a little out of sorts, that is why I did not approach Mareath before disarming her, just in case she had a way to detonate her stones. Now that I had this vision, I know this battle will decide much. I also know what to ask as a prize.”

“Please do not request the blood of my father. He will not take the request kindly.”

She waved his concerns aside.

“I am not so bold, Sinead. I need something else. I absolutely must have it before I return.”

“And what is that precious prize?”

“You will see.”

The voice of the Master of Ceremony interrupted their discussion, announcing the coming of the next fight. Khadras grabbed his halberd between two silver-clad hands. He was sweating. A nervous tension shook his stooped shoulders while his ears shivered above his head. There was pain in the pink of his eyes. Pain, and anticipation. To everyone outside, he looked like a man on the verge of collapse, but Sinead knew better. Khadras was on the verge of a difficult choice. His handsome face scrunched in anticipation.

The Master of Ceremony stepped up from the honor lodge the king occupied.

“You may begin,” he merely said.

The two contestants burst into motion. Khadras lunged gracefully. The tip of his polearm slid over a hastily raised mace, scoring a small gash in Gor’s stone skin… and little else. The heavy warrior immediately slapped the haft aside with a swing of his heavy mace, then counter-attacked.

It soon became apparent that Khadras could not compete in terms of strength with the large golem-like warrior, and so he did not try. He would dodge backward or duck under heavy mace swings with practiced movements. His landed accurately and any other foe would be bleeding from a dozen wounds by now, but Gor simply twisted on himself, angling his body to absorb the shock and only leave behind the barest of scratches. All of his efforts were for nothing. After a particularly heated exchange, the seeker spoke a few words and the air blurred around his foe. It was clear he expected little. Even the mind-numbing magic felt brittle to those who were familiar with seekers, and Gor shrugged it off completely. It was obvious that Khadras was slowly being pushed back while his enemy conserved his strength, patiently backing him in a corner.

Sinead waited for the fateful moment when Khadras would face the abyss and take a bold step forward. It happened later than he thought, but not too late to condemn him. After a particularly vicious exchange where the seeker carved a furrow in the stone man’s face, an enraged backswing smashed into the crystal blade and shattered it.

Pieces of diamond rained on the ground, pearlescent shards as lethal as any blade. The crowd held their breath as they knew it was impossible. No seeker weapon should have been destroyed so easily. Even Gor seemed taken aback by this unexpected development.

Khadras gasped and kneeled, grabbing the largest piece with firm resolve. Crimson blood stained the sharp edge.

“I didn’t know if I could find the strength, yet now I have no choice but to do so.”

He then resolutely planted the improvised weapon in his eye.

Khadras screamed a horrible, soul-rending shriek. A cry of such exquisite agony that shivers spread across the spectators like a ripple across a calm pond. The cry did not stop for several seconds while he used the fragment as a lever. An orb of crystal still attached to fleshy tissue popped out of the socket with a torrent of blood, each strand breaking one by one. Khadras was no longer driven by choice, but by insanity born from the bleakest torment. The ghastly spectacle froze even Gor in his tracks.

After what felt like an eternity, the hare-eared warrior held a pinkish globe in his trembling fingers.

Gor knew he had let an opportunity pass and, with a roar, he charged forward.

Khadras casually tossed the remnant at his foe. The jewel exploded in a shower of mineral shrapnel and the stone man roared, grasping at his savaged face. In turn, the lost seeker did not attack. He grasped feverishly for an item from his pouch and brandished it towards the sky. The mirror focused on it, revealing a tiny scale imprinted with an ancient rune of the red moon.

“Grandmother. Please. I beg you. Please.”

A breath caressed the arena. The sovereign deigned to withdraw his influence, and the afternoon sun turned momentarily to twilight. All eyes glanced up to a new celestial body, a visitor in those proud skies. A temporary guest.

The moon hung there, full and dripping. Shadows extended from every shade. They melded together in seas of dark. The seeker cried tears of blood, enraptured by whispers at the edge of Sinead’s hearing. Khadras could hear, understand. He offered his reply.

“Yes. Yes of course. We do not ask. We take. I will be worthy of you, grandmother.”

The dragon scale pulsed and flattened. Khadras smashed it against the gaping wound of his orbit. It stuck, forming a runed eyepatch.

“Yeessssssss.”

Antlers grew from Khadras’ brow. The end of his halberd turned from shattered to jagged. He leaned forward, all placid countenance lost to a deep fury. He gave the recovering Gor a pink-tinged sneer filled with the promise of violence.

And then he charged.

At first, the hurt Gor and changed Khadras were evenly matched, but the experienced stone man soon recovered. Khadras was not used to this new aggressive style. He was more cub than lynx, and while the changed spear bit deep, it did not bite deep enough. Gor finally scored a glancing blow and sent Khadras careening to the ground. The fallen seeker winced as he stood back with difficulty. It soon turned to a wide grin.

“I have never felt so alive.”

By Sinead’s side, a voice spoke.

“A TRUE HUNTER UNDERSTANDS PATIENCE.”

Sinead froze in fear before remembering that screaming advice at fighters was legal. Khadras hummed and returned to the fight. He was less messy now, hints of his earlier control seeping in the way he moved. He did not take long for his spear to catch Gor in the elbow, digging almost to the hilt. The fallen seeker withdrew a blade stained white.

“So you do bleed,” he hissed.

Gor bellowed in pain and anger. He went on a rampage, swinging the heavy implement with furious abandon. The series ended with a powerful downward swing that missed Khadras by a hair. The fallen seeker planted the spear in Gor’s revealed wrist, skewering it. The stone man lost his grip.

Khadras grabbed the mace with both hands, laughing all the while. He took it and smashed it against the stone man’s body.

The rest of the combat was more of an execution. Gor never surrendered. Or perhaps he was not given the opportunity.

The red of the blood moon lingered until Khadras left the arena, trailing his gore-drenched trophy behind him. The one-eyed Prince of the Court of the Blood Moon greeted Ariane with a nod, from one hunter to another. Then he collapsed, thoroughly exhausted. Sinead and Ariane caught him as he fell. The vampire looked up to him, still calm and composed.

“Hm, unless I am mistaken, welcome to the council, Prince Sinead,” she said.

“You may kneel,” he deadpanned.

“You wish.”

A healer moved towards them and the pair left Khadras in her care. It was time to collect.

Sinead felt very strange. He who had lived for a thousand years had experienced so many events. Great food and great wine could be appreciated, but not as much as the first time. He had long believed the only raw emotion that could still move him was a deep love, but it appeared relief and triumph could move him to tears as well. After decades of surviving Revas’ petty persecution, after nearly a century of suffering on the human world where he was but a shadow of his true self, after the subjective years of trying and preparation, he had done it. He could feel in his breast the fire of summer rise like a new dawn, acknowledging his victory. A heady pleasure rushed through his body born of pride and the knowledge that he could finally turn his back to a door and reasonably expect that there could be no assassins. Oh, it would not last, but nothing in life did, and he had long since learned to appreciate the moment.

There was just one thing left to do.

Leaving through the gate with Ariane by his side, Sinead walked out over the warm sand under the cheers of ten thousand throats. The master of ceremony waited for him, as did a stoic Revas and a tall figure in a yellow doublet, his noble brow bearing a crown of molten gold radiating heat. He stopped at a short distance and kneeled while Ariane gave a deep bow, as befit a foreign dignitary.

“Father,” he greeted.

MY SONS.

The sovereign held himself back out of concern for Ariane, which Sinead appreciated. Though the laws of hospitality protected her, he could have decided to ‘accidentally’ make her uncomfortable.

Once more, a peculiar sense of unreality shocked the prince to his core. The times he had met his father could be counted on the fingers of two hands, and now he was so close, so real. A family member rather than a distant king. Sinead looked in those eyes as intense as the sun and felt familiarity, a sort of resonance. He was truly of summer, not just an exile among wandering performers. It was all he had hoped for and more.

The sovereign inspected the still bowing Ariane and frowned. Looking up, he waved his hand at the distant form of the Watcher. Although the spectators would miss it, Sinead felt the roll of an immense power, a world-changing might that could open volcanoes under enemy cities. Such contained power defied understanding.

Sadly, nothing happened. The Watcher kept watching.

The king’s mouth formed an appreciative ‘oh’ of surprise. Sinead pretended very hard that nothing had happened.

YOU BRING ME AN INTERESTING GUEST, PRINCE SINEAD.

AS BEFIT THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL.

He breathed out, and suddenly all the arena was within his domain.

SUMMER IS ETERNAL, YET WE ARE NOT. ONLY THOSE WHO CHANGE REMAIN ON TOP, ONLY THOSE WHO NEVER STOP NEVER TRULY FALL.

FOR EONS, THE COURT OF SUMMER HAS SHONE OVER THE LIKAEAN SPHERES, KEEPING ITS FOES AT BAY THROUGH MARTIAL MIGHT, INTEGRITY, AND TRADITION. WE HAVE DONE SO THROUGH CEASELESS EFFORT AND WE SHALL KEEP DOING SO UNTIL THE LAST STAR WINKS OUT.

TODAY, A PRINCE FALLS AND A PRINCE RISES. SUCH IS OUR WAY, FOR ONLY THE BEST SHOULD RULE. MAY THE RISEN NEVER GROW COMPLACENT, AND MAY THE FALLEN RISE AGAIN ONE DAY. ALL HAIL PRINCE SINEAD, FIFTY-SIXTH OF THE COUNCIL OF NINE TIMES NINE. MAY HE MEET WITH SUCCESS.

The crowd cheered once more, even the foreign guests roaring their approval of his victory. Sinead found his mother and fiancee cheering for him, along with some of his children. It was an amazing moment.

WHAT WILL YOUR FIRST ACTION BE?

The king’s smile was resigned. He must already know, of course.

“Ladies and gentlemen, spectators, appreciators of the fine arts, greetings!” Sinead bellowed with his arms apart.

The crowd loved it, of course. Sinead felt the electrifying pleasure of his own nascent domain expand as his rightful rank helped him grow in power. He knew what he was. He knew who he had always been. He was an entertainer, a dancer, a duelist and a scoundrel.

It felt great to be truly oneself, sometimes.

“Far from me to begin my tenure by robbing you of a good fight! I know you were expecting three duels… You were, you blood-loving rascals! You expected one of us to lose!”

The crowd returned good-natured jeers. Sinead waved them off.

“I do not truly blame you, and so my first generous act as your fifty-sixth prince will be to return what I was only too happy to rob: your last duel… provided my brother agrees, of course.”

For one moment, Sinead truly believed Revas might refuse. It would be an acceptable move, and one he could graciously execute by suggesting a better candidate. In a few hundred years, no one would remember and he could return… but Revas was too greedy. Sinead could see the fire of ambition burning in his eyes. If Revas were to slay him now, he could claim final victory in the contest and declare Sinead lost to his own sense of flair. It was a lifeline to the preservation of his status.

Revas always believed he was the hero of his own tale while Sinead knew better. Fate did not favor the hero or the villain. As Ariane would say, fate favored superior firepower.

And Sinead had not brought his dragon boon for nothing.

“Of course, I would not want to disappoint, brother,” Revas stated.

The sound carried over the sand and the spectators went wild, all except Sinead’s family and the king himself. He knew he would watch one of his children die today. Sinead would have more sympathy if he had not been at risk of dying for a very, very long time.

THEN YOU HAVE MY BLESSING.

BE STRONG, MY SONS, FOR YOU ARE SUMMER…

“And summer is the season of war,” they both finished.

The king left while the two siblings faced each other, light armor and long blade against heavy plate with sword and shield. Sinead had prepared for this moment for a very long time. After they had won the dragon hunt, he had returned to the time chamber for one more year and a half. The Blue Court had provided masters and training partners specialized in close forms of fencing. Sinead was as ready as he was going to be.

Revas drew first. The sun reflected on polished, summer-made metal shimmering with enchantments. It was a noble blade. He must have paid a pretty sum for it.

Sinead drew as well. The white, mineral blade ignited with a deep blue fire. Whispers spread across the bleachers. Many recognized the appearance of the blade. After all, his father had a similar one. He felt his domain expand and settle a little more with every piece of legitimacy he acquired. By comparison, Revas’ domain waned but only a little. He had been on the council for a very, very long time, and nothing could dull his achievements.

Revas knew in which direction the momentum was going. Time was not on his side. He struck first, and Sinead danced.

He was free.

For the first time since he first escaped his brother’s goons, he was free, himself, unmasked, and unbound. He wanted the world to know it. He also didn’t want to become a cautionary tale, so he parried Revas’ blade without flourish. Time was on his side. He would dance carefully. And he did.

Revas was a moving rock, trained to be an anchor at the heart of a summer formation. He attacked with relentless fury for short periods of time then returned to defense, where he would occasionally throw a spear of flames or another spell. Sinead waltzed around his figure, poking and prodding. When Revas attacked, he twirled away and respected his foe to get used to his unique style. There was no need to hurry. Revas remained extremely dangerous as the veteran of a hundred battles. His shield was not just protection, it was also a bashing weapon in its own right. The two attacked each other relentlessly until seconds turned to minutes, a breathless exchange that never truly stopped. The crowd stayed at the edge of their seat, waiting for one of the combatants to falter, but they never did. Both were princes of a war-like nation, though they differed in many ways. Both were formidable in their own rights.

Sinead was having the time of his life. Despite the risk of death, his heart beat a maddened rhythm. Revas would let blows slide over shield and pauldrons. He was the immovable object to Sinead’s unstoppable force. The tall warrior’s fierce offenses sent chills down Sinead’s pine with their precise violence. Their domains clashed, almost matched now that Sinead had formed his own… but Revas had made a mistake.

He had hired an outsider to beat Khadras.

Revas embodied tradition, and instead of calling upon an ally, he had selected a warrior likely to counter a seeker. Worse, his scheme had failed. It created a chink in the man’s persona while Sinead was and had always been his own self. Little by little, white pinpricks accumulated on the shield and armor where Sinead had struck them. By the time Revas realized, it was already too late. His right pauldron was ablaze.

Fire magic was a summer speciality. Revas managed to keep the flare under control through an effort of will, but he could not completely smother it. His attacks grew more frantic. Sinead still waited for an opening. It would come, he knew. Victory was within his grasp.

Suddenly, the shield was much larger in his field of vision.

Suddenly, the shield slammed into him, thrown away by his foe.

Revas’ blade pierced through the fragilized membrane and right into Sinead’s heart.

Or where the heart would have been if he had not twisted at the last instant. The damaged summer blade slid over the powerful defenses of Sivaya’s armor. His own blade hit higher. He was rewarded with a choking sound.

The shield fell in fragments, revealing a very surprised Revas with charcoal where most of his neck used to be.

“Just like you to throw your precious things away. Goodbye, brother,” Sinead mocked.

The victor spread his arms and basked in the adoration of the crowd.