Verita - The Guardian of Darkness

63 - The Eternal Solution

She could feel her  determination waver and her anger grew. Who was he to continuously deter  her from doing what was right? No matter what Aetrian said, they  weren't simply a warrior and a mage; they were born royalty and had  lived lives of privilege with which certain duties came to rest on their  shoulders.

Elanthin  gripped the hilt of her swords until the circulation in her fingers was  cut off. Was she going to extremes lately? Definitely. But if there'd  been a way to save her people without sacrificing herself, she would  have taken it.

No  amount of talking would change her resolve, seeing as there wasn't an  alternative causing less damage. That meant there was only one thing to  do: Begin with the descent whose topmost step started behind Aetrian.

"Stop talking and get out of my way. I mean it."

"I mean it as well", he replied immediately. "I won't marry you if you become one of those monsters."

There  he went again, spouting ridiculous things despite the situation. Even  though she glared daggers at Aetrian, he didn't step aside. His hands  wavered around the height of his waist, ready to grab unto her if she  tried to get past.

"I  won't repeat myself", promised Elanthin, who put as much spite into her  words as she could muster while looking at him. "I will get my mind in  this matter."

For once, Aetrian didn't reply to her slip of tone with a smile but narrowed his eyes as well.

"If knocking you out is the only way to stop you, then I won't hold back", he promised her grimly.

To  her own surprise, Elanthin felt her confidence waver. Aetrian might be  hopeless with a weapon, but she'd seen what he could do with his little  tricks and trinkets and she wasn't exactly prepared to counter them.

Straightening  her back, she grit her teeth and banished her doubts. She was no one  other than queen Elanthin, last of house Verita and queen of the Forlorn  Plains. For nearly ten years, she'd ruled over land so barren and  hostile that the Gratians had sealed it off for a three hundred years;  she'd stood on the Plains and looked into the abyss until it had become  part of her, so what was there for her to be scared of?

Aetrian was far from being a monster – but perhaps that was what scared her.

Without  allowing herself another thought, she drew her short swords. The  metallic sound of two blades scraping against the clasps of their  sheaths stirred something oddly nostalgic and calming inside of her.

It  was time to fight. There'd be no reason to think about anything besides  her opponent's weak points or attacks; she wouldn't have to worry about  lace dresses or marriage proposals any more than her past self.

#

Facing a situation she'd never imagined before, Elanthin felt her heart pick up its pace. In the past, she'd considered it likely that she would have to die by Aetrian's sword – and during the past week, she'd come to think they would be married.

But never, in no possible outcome, had she imagined picking up the sword to fight him one on one. If Elanthin had, she would have spent more time learning about magic and its uses in battle.

Elanthin swung one of her blades at him in a more or less playful manner, hoping for him to retreat and admit he wasn't serious about fighting her. That he didn't want to or couldn't. But Aetrian seemed determined to follow through on his promise to stop her, whatever means necessary.

If he doesn't honor defeat, I just have to render him unconscious, she remembered. I can do that much without giving him a lasting injury.

While she was considering her first move, Aetrian had taken a few steps back. Between them lay the nothingness of the Deep's landscape; little clouds of dust had risen with each of his steps.

"You can't fight me, can you?", he asked plainly.

Elanthin grit her teeth. It was apparent to her that Aetrian was mistaking the reason behind her hesitation. She wasn't unsure of her ability to fight someone she knew; she just didn't want to storm in blindly, when his magic was largely unfamiliar to her.

"Arent' you the one who can't? How will you fight me without a weapon?"

"Don't worry about that." He smiled confidently. "Just admit that you don't wan–"

The whizzing of a dagger flying past made Aetrian forget the rest of his sentence. Slowly, his head turned to look at the blade which had buried itself into the darkened soil. A second passed, in which they both stared at the tear it had caused.

Elanthin hadn't held back when throwing it.

When he'd overcome his initial surprise, a low chuckle left Aetrian's lips. His hand wandered up his robe, to a place slightly above his heart. First, Elanthin thought he was going to do a proper Gratian reverence. Perhaps something to do with their odd way of fighting in a honorable way. But when his fingers slipped below the blue fabric of his robes, she'd to realize that he wasn't planning on being polite or honorable.

No, he'd come prepared.

Elanthin wasn't too surprised when he pulled a folded piece of parchment out from under his robes and ripped it into two. Living with the mages for the past days had taught her some basic rules; amongst them was the need for magic circles when it came to certain types of magic. The paper lit up and crumbled to ashes in a matter of seconds, reminding her of Aetrian's contacting spell in the tavern. The remains mixed themselves into the dust at his feet, disappearing without a trace.

Is he calling for back-up?, she considered before overthrowing that thought. There was no way he could hide a troop of soldiers on the bare Plains.

She'd nearly opened her mouth to warn him about anything other than fighting her one-on-one, when faint lines of runes began to spread over his hands. Even a Veritan could recognize the sign of elemental battle magic.

Despite the uncomfortable crunching the ice made while growing around Aetrian's skin, she felt herself calm down on the inside. This spell wasn't unfamiliar or complicated at its core. She'd fought against Living Ice before.

The noise died down and the grow ceased when he was encapsulated in a thick layer of ice up to his elbows. Aetrian moved his hand a little as if he wanted to test the functionality of his spell; looking satisfied, he nodded at it.

"Now, let's see who's going to get their way."

He didn't have to tell her twice. All the irritation, which she'd suppressed and carefully hidden away, welled up inside of Elanthin as she watched him stand in front of her, looking like he was about to conduct an experiment.

Reaching for the second dagger hidden inside her boots, Elanthin decided to end this farce of a fight quickly. She sent it flying with no less force than the first one, but this time, her throw aimed at his left leg, which wasn't covered in ice. Rendering him temporarily unable to follow her on his own two feet seemed, after all, like the cleanest option.

The motion was barely detectable but the fingers of Aetrian's right arm twitched a little when she threw her blade. Dragging his shoulder back and raising his hand as if he was going to throw a ball, Aetrian threw a fist-sized piece of ice at her. It collided with her dagger mid-air, shattering into a million tiny pieces. When they were met by a solitary ray of sun, they glittered like glass.

Elanthin jumped back immediately but there was no way she could avoid the splinters completely. Some of the sharpened ice grazed her right shoulder, leaving behind the burning sensation of a million paper cuts. As tiny drops of blood started to form on her skin, she felt strangely freed.

Her feet moved on their own. Now that the adrenaline shot in, it wasn't about who she was fighting anymore. All that mattered was that she needed to win.