"I have never once beaten you in a duel because you always use foul tricks," Orin growled in a furrow.
Ramius lifted both hands in mock surrender as he tilted his head backwards. "Hey, it's not my fault you only know how to dice and slice with those pretty twin daggers of yours."
His gaze temporarily shifted to the matched weapons riding low on Orin's belt, the hilts were wrapped in black leather. The sheaths were worked with subtle gold filigree that only someone very rich or very deadly could afford.
"Besides, using my head does not count as foul tricks. I'm not the one who has his brain traded for a potato."
Orin's hands dropped to the daggers in perfect unison. His fingers curled around the grips as the steel whispered half an inch from its leather.
The two palace guards stationed by the throne-room doors went rigid.
'Please, not here,' one thought as sweat prickled beneath his helmet, staring at his comrade.
'The Tyrant and the Kingdom's General strategist taunting each other in the middle of the corridor would get us both executed before breakfast. And Lady Nyxelene is literally on the other side of the door. Please, have some mercy.'
"Hey," Ramius said suddenly, genuine curiosity replacing the mockery, "where did all your scars go?"
Orin froze.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, he lifted one broad hand and traced it across his cheek, then down the side of his neck where the long, pale burn from a fire-arrow had lived for years.
There was nothing.
His skin was smooth as a child's.
The realisation slammed into him like a warhammer to the chest.
'Lady Nyxelene healed the scars that had been on me for several years just by wiping them with her thumb? And she didn't even speak the language to do it. She just… brushed them away like dust.
The rumours never came close to the truth. She might be more terrifying than any of us ever imagined.' Orin thought.
"Not one of your problems," Orin muttered, forcing his hands to relax and the daggers to slide home.
The guards exhaled in audible relief.
"Why are you even here this late, Ramius?"
"Believe me, walking around this late is not my idea of joy. I came to deliver the new attack patterns for the coming years against the Kingdom of Namesh to Lady Nyxelene. Here—this one's yours." Ramius sighed, pulling a tightly rolled scroll from inside his richly embroidered tunic.
He flicked the scroll through the air and Orin caught it without looking.
"Honestly, you should be the one doing this sort of thing. You're the commander not me. Yet you're too thick-headed to show your own men how and when to strike the enemy. If you had even half a brain, my job would be so much easier. What did I do to deserve being stuck with a potato-headed brute like you?" Ramius continued, already turning away.
The words had barely left his mouth when steel flashed.
Orin's right dagger left its sheath faster than the eye could follow, a horizontal silver arc aimed straight for Ramius's exposed throat.
Ramius tilted his head slightly, just enough—without even turning around.
The blade passed a finger's breadth from his skin and buried itself in the marble wall with a ringing shriek.
Ramius straightened his head, clicked his tongue, and kept walking.
"This exact habit of yours is an example of what I was saying. Going for my neck the moment you get annoyed like you always do. So predictable," he called back with a light voice.
The guards opened the outer doors for him quickly, eager for all this nonesense to end.
"You're like an open book, Orin. But you needn't fret. That was just how you were made."
The doors boomed shut behind him.
Orin stood alone in the sudden quiet, staring at the dagger still quivering in the wall.
'He looks like he's taking a stroll. And yet he got faster again. I always won our duels before because he never took them seriously—fighting with elbows only, or the back of his hand, sometimes closing both eyes just to make it fair. Under those odds, of course I won.
Today, though… today he almost had me.' Ramius thought as he strode in to meet Lady Nyxelene. His right hand trace the faint crimson line along his neck were Orin's dagger had missed.
He then clasped both hands behind his back with a faint smile playing on his lips.
The great doors had shut with a final, echoing boom.
Only Orin and the two palace guards remained in the corridor.
Orin stood motionless, staring at the dagger still quivering in the marble wall.
His right hand slowly tightened around the hilt of its twin.
One of the guards swallowed so loudly it echoed.
'I just want to go home. Please, gods, don't let him decide to take his mood out on us,' the man thought as sweat rolled down his spine beneath the heavy plate
Orin's gaze slid sideways, locking onto the guard.
The man went pale as milk.
After what felt like an eternity, Orin yanked the dagger free with a sharp screech of steel on stone, sheathed it, turned on his heel, and strode away without a word.
The two guards sagged against the wall, breathing again.
...
There was darkness everywhere. No matter where she looked, she couldn't see anything. Nothing was visible.
Then all of a sudden, the darkness dissipated. Before Aeloria stretched an endless field of grass with different types of flowers and trees.
There were abundant food and the river that flowed was milk. There were children everywhere, little children, from infants to early teens.
There were also grown women clouded in white. Beautiful women who all had white hair. Some breastfed the children, some played with the children, while others taught them good and evil.
Aeloria watched the scene. She smiled at how all the children seemed happy.
Suddenly, a child pulled her gown. She looked down and found a child with black hair as her own and matching black eyes. There were bite marks all over her body, at every spot her mother bit. There was no doubt in her mind. This was Lira, the very daughter she ate.
The child looked up and smiled, but there was not a single tooth in sight. "Ma.... ma."
Aeloria quickly carried the child in a tight embrace.
"You can sit now? How have you been? Do they feed you well?" Aeloria said with tears down her cheeks, as though the baby child could respond.
"You need not worry, madam Aeloria. Lira is a wonderful child. She smiles the brightest out of all the children. Do not feel guilty, Lira holds no resentment. I'm treating her wounds, it should be gone the next time you see her. Also, you should listen to her now that you are here. She would always come to me that she had some thing to tell her mother. Looks like she finally had the chance."
On saying that, the woman in white robes faded away like fog.
"What did she mean by 'say?' Lira can't talk yet." Aeloria whispered.
"I can, mom." Aeloria looked at the girl in her arms and nearly stumbled.