The World of Emns 2: Arena

Chapter 13: Suspicions

Neither of the three girls responded. Ariana looked a little lost, so Kaya must not have told her everything, but even if Olivia denied everything right now, she was sure that to Wynn, he must have been fairly sure he was right on at least some parts.

Kaya held on. "I thought that Steven died with his mother. That's what those reports say."

"So did I," Wynn went on stubbornly. "And I always adored the heroes of the rebellion against Manstear. I used to slave away reading all the old notes, recalling every detail, remembering the name of all who gave their lives. Thing is, not too recently ago I visited the graves on Starfern island. Noticeably, the grave of Steven Clipium... Steven Kaynes whatever, was missing. Now, they might have simply buried him somewhere else, but why would they separate mother and son?"

Olivia remembered the graves from their own visit to Starfern island. Steven cried at his mother's grave. And there certainly wasn't a grave with Steven's name on it.

Wynn turned away from Kaya and Ariana, hopped over the bench, and sat down next to Olivia. "Do you know anything about all of this," he asked, folding his hands together.

"I- Uh..."

"I promise you I will not tell another soul. I simply just want to know if my suspicions are right or not."

The clashing of swords continued down in the arena. Noticeably so, Steven looked to be pushing back against Kyzer more and more, but not by much. With a good blow the tiefling could easily win the fight.

One particularly hard swing sent Kyzer back a few steps, and formed a chip in the sword he was using. Stammering to his feet, he laughed a bit.

"Good hit, boy."

He snapped his fingers and the red-blackish smoke formed around the blade. As it dissipated, the sword remained the same, but the chip was gone. Then, a darkish fog swelled up around the blade one more, and an ominous magical feeling came off Kyzer's body.

"Let's go for real now," he yelled at Steven.

Olivia bit her lip. "If you're not going to tell anyone, why would you even care," she called back to Wynn without taking her eyes off the fight.

"Right now, no real reason," Wynn said with surprising honesty. "But in the future, maybe I'd like to contact Steven again, if he is the person I think he is."

"You think he's someone who lived like one and a half centuries ago?"

Wynn raised an eyebrow. "I was more so going to propose that the original Steven Kaynes survived in secret and his line continued to a great grandson who was named after him. It's quite interesting you'd bring up them being the same person as the first possibility."

"What would you want with Steven," Olivia asked, trying to be more clear.

"If we're ever in trouble, I'd like to recruit him. Or at least have him as an ally. I know how strong someone like him will be at full potential."

Olivia raised an eyebrow. "You just want to use him because he has a lot of potential?"

"Something like that," Wynn grinned to himself, even when Olivia failed to see the humour in it.

The metal clangs became louder and more frequent. Steven, ever so slightly, seemed to be holding his own more and more.

Kyzer served a heavy swing, to which Steven flipped out of the way. While dropping back, he swung his arm, sending a bolt of lightning to the tiefling, which hit his sword and bounced onto the floor.

The lighting around Steven had become very wild. It was bouncing around unevenly, and not for a moment did it sit still on him. Steven dashed forward and delivered a blow against Kyzer's sword. One that pushed him back quite a bit. This was followed up by a jab, one which barely missed the tiefling as he moved left to get out of the way.