A Light Not Extinguished

Interlude: A Brutal Ballad [2/2]

"Get up." Khiraen ordered. "We're done until I say we're done."

"Why are we doing this?" Qa'leh questioned petulantly.

"Because you rashly announced your challenge to take the position of High Priestess." Khiraen retorted peevishly, pacing the room. "We have barely forty cycles to prepare."

"I'm already strong enough." She boasted. "You have nothing left to teach me. It won't change a thing."

Khiraen stopped his pacing. "You do not seem to understand the gravity of the situation. This is a fight to true death. No afterlife awaits, and your soul will be struck from the firmament forever."

"Good, then that means it will be fun." Qa'leh laughed. Centuries had passed in the blink of an eye, and now her eyes blazed with white fire instead of a dull white, the power of her soul fully awakened. Her psychic strength exceeded that of her mentor's by many magnitudes now, and the majority of Eldar warriors at that. "The stakes are as high as they can be. All the better." By now, Khiraen had taught her everything he knew. The art of the sword had become as easy to her as breathing, and she had become a terrible force in her own right.

"Stop treating this like a joke." He hissed. "You think this is some game? The High Priest has held his position for seven thousand passes, and that old monster isn't getting any weaker."

"He will die. Or I will die. Simple as that." Qa'leh idly summoned a halo of blades around her hand, flicking them one by one at the far wall. "I don't understand why you're getting so worked up about this."

"Don't understand—" Khiraen cut himself off angrily. "Of course you don't."

"Why are you doing this anyway?" She questioned, standing up with her head tilted curiously to one side. "We all die one way or another in the end. Why do you even care?"

"I don't want you to die!" Khiraen shouted. "I don't want you to die." He repeated softly. "We have fought together. We have bled together. We have trained together. That makes you important to me."

The room fell silent. The white flames in Qa'leh's eyes guttered and flickered out in surprise. "...You really mean that."

"Of course I do."

"You're a fool, then." Qa'leh frowned. "If you choose to care about me, of all people."

"And I wouldn't have it any other way." Khiraen said earnestly.

She looked away. "All right then." He knew that she was too prideful to apologize— but this was as close as it got. "I'll listen."

"Good." Khiraen grasped a shortsword with his mind from a rack and threw it to Qa'leh, who grabbed it without looking. "Let's go over how to counter each style in detail. First of all..."

The party was now in full swing. It was the sort of party where the members were the cream of Aeldari society, the movers and shakers who directed the pulse of the Empire, and those priests and acolytes who were greatly favoured by the various deities of the Pantheon.

Khiraen found it a little inappropriate. Death was something that should be observed in silence, with serious rituals and such to accompany it. But right now he was having a hard time caring about that.

His student lived.

It had been a magnificent duel, the sort that would be told in stories long after he died. The world shook as those two titans clashed again and again, their blood watering the red sands of the arena. Qa'leh ferociously striking again and again, her blade burning hotter than a star as she finally disarmed the High Priest. The crowning blow that surely would have cracked the planet wide open if the wards hadn't done their job.