Beside her, Garnet gave Ennanis a startled glance. “So you do know each other after all!”
Ennanis looked at the Brigadier. Ulysses was in uniform, blue sleeveless topcoat and matching shorts. His breastpocket displayed his rank insignia prominently, the single-lobed paired wing of a Brigadier, and its matching azure ribbon. He was a good couple years younger than Ennanis was; she supposed he must be in his early twenties by now. Maturity had defined the lines of the man’s face, broadened his shoulders and filled out his uniform, drew his height up to almost—but not quite—as tall as her. His bright blue hair was cut short now, buzzed close to his scalp. But beneath his hardened browridge, his angered gaze was the same as she remembered.
The last time she’d seen him, anyway.
“You could say that,” Ennanis muttered.
“So the rumours are true,” Ulysses began in a drawl. “The Graveyard Commander is in the undercloud. But the sun is setting soon—shouldn’t you be hurrying back to Mount Casca?”
Garnet stopped trying to get Ulysses’ attention, instead standing in place to gawk, flabbergasted. Walden did his best to look somewhat shocked too, but did a poor job of it. He ended up standing uncomfortably to a side.
“What? Commander? But you said you were a lieutenant… And what’s the Graveyard?” Garnet demanded.
“It’s quite the long story, Miss Lapice,” Ennanis said quietly. “I apologise.”
“Oh?” Ulysses swept his blue fringe out of his eyes and bared his teeth. His smile was a jeering thing. “An apology from the great and mighty Commander Zoleil? Who would have guessed?” He leaned against the rail of the bridge, appraising the son of Vabolt and the daughter of Lapice. “No—you’re not sorry at all. Anyone can see you’re only playing nice with these highborns to gain something from them.”
Ennanis levelled a stare back at him, and at the noblelady on the other angel’s arm. “Are you any different?”
“Oh! And she admits it too!” Ulysses’ eyes widened, glancing at his noblelady with exaggerated surprise, who answered him with a demure giggle. He turned his gaze back on Ennanis. “You really have no shame. Nine years haven’t changed you at all. It’s just like you, using people until you don’t need them anymore. And now, you’ve been exiled from Mount Casca, haven’t you? How does it feel, being the one discarded this time?”
“Believe whatever you wish,” Ennanis said evenly. “What do you want, Ulysses?”
Ulysses drew his sword from its sheath and pointed it at her. The tip gleamed in the fire of the pavilions’ lanternlight. “Before the sun sets, I want a duel. I want to show you, in front of everyone here, who’s the better one of us now… former mentor!”
There was a roar throughout the crowd.
“She was his mentor?...”
“Who’s this angel? Does anyone know her?”
“I’ve never seen her before. Did she really once teach Ulysses?”
Ennanis merely regarded him. “I would not advise that, former disciple. You would only humiliate yourself.”
“Blow all the hot air you want,” Ulysses spat. “You might be a Commander in name, but do you think being commanding the Graveyard Division is anything to be proud of? A bunch of dimwits and crooks? Anyone could’ve led a division like that! Admit it; you’re just afraid that I’ll wipe the floor with… you…”
Then he trailed off, for there was a strange sound in the air.
“Pffffft-”
Ennanis was laughing.
The angel who only ever spoke in a drone, who had never broken so much as a smile on her face, never cracked more than a dry joke—was laughing. It was a mad, bone-chilling sound, and it made everyone so perturbed that they backed away, including Walden and Garnet. An uneasy ring of partygoers formed around the two angels, too scared to stray any closer, but too curious about the commotion to turn their backs on them.
“Afraid?” she almost wheezed, wiping her eyes. “Really? Hahahahahha—! I don’t think you’ve ever felt fear in your life, Ulysses. Why would I be afraid of you?”
Incensed, perhaps a little shaken too, Ulysses raised his sword at her and charged.
Then Ennanis disappeared. Or, rather, her movement was so fast that the onlookers could not even see her. Only felt the gust of wind that slapped into them, sending them all stumbling backwards, as something blurred behind the forward-rushing Brigadier. There was a flash of blinding light, and it was then everyone finally saw the angel commander once again, standing in her fire-red dress, her lifted chin and flared wings lit from below by the glow of her extended spear. She was not using the flat of the spear; she jabbed the longest point of Lienna’s five prongs straight in Ulysses’ back. In a real fight to the death, he would have already been run through.
“There you go,” Ennanis said curtly. “A duel.”
Ulysses staggered forward away from the speartip, still in shock. His eyes found the noblewoman he’d curled by his side earlier. The lady had an astonished hand over her mouth, doe eyes quavering.
Perhaps this fight had already made it clear that Ulysses was far out of Ennanis’ league. But after all the smack that Ulysses had talked earlier, he couldn’t have just taken the embarrassment lying down. Gnashing his teeth, he swept back his blue fringe and straightened himself, whirling around. Indignantly, he spouted: “That’s not fair! You can’t use that weapon of yours!”
“......” Ennanis thinned her eyes, lowering Lienna. With a snap, it was a gold ring on her finger once more. Then, everyone watched as she simply folded her wings and turned her back on him. She began to walk away.
Ulysses trembled. “Hey! Don’t ignore me!”
He charged towards Ennanis’ back, sword raised anew. As he ran, the tip of his sword glowed red-hot, before a bullet of Soleki shot forth, aimed directly between her shoulderblades.
But then, it froze in mid-air. The bullet and the firer both.
Her hand raised, Ennanis turned around once more. Her slit-gold eyes reflected the yellow glow glimmering around her hand, yet they still looked so very dark. Ulysses tried to move, but found that he couldn’t, not with the threads of light that tethered him to the air and bridge. His eyes bulged in disbelief.
“Let- let me go!” he rasped.
Ennanis didn’t answer him. She made a downward strike with her glowing hand. Then the beam of Soleki began to move again—except it whipped backwards towards Ulysses instead. Immediately, Ulysses raised his sword to block it. There was a hiss of smoke as the the metal caught the bullet squarely.
It was only then that a thought flashed past his mind: since when was I able to move again?
And then, a split second later—the sword shattered apart.
The platinum shards flew, some spinning into the lake, some impaling themselves in the darkened bridge. Ulysses was smart enough to let go of the sword at the last second, but he was still knocked backwards by the force, falling on his buttocks. Dumbfounded, Ulysses stared as Ennanis lowered her hand.
It took a while for the onlookers to parse what had happened. While Ulysses had been distracted by his opponent’s handstrike, the threads of light had lifted from his body, allowing Ulysses to swing up the sword by instinct to block it. Then, the threads had refastened to the sword, holding it fast once more. Normally, a deflection move involved the sword tilting backwards to slow down and absorb the force of the projectile, then launching forward to thrust it back. But with the sword being frozen exactly where it was, all that energy had nowhere to go: the sword took the full force of its own Soleki beam, and, unable to withstand it, had broken apart.
“How…how could you?” Ulysses babbled as his comrades helped him up. “You’ll pay for this!”
Ennanis arched a brow. “I didn’t use anything you couldn’t have used yourself. It was a fair fight.”
Ulysses seemed too pissed off to muster a response, so one of the angels who had hauled him up spoke up for him.
“Now see, it was a fair fight, but you didn’t have to be nearly so brutal, Commander,” the other angel said, wringing his hands uneasily. “Beating Ulysses in a duel is well and fine, but in the end, he’s your comrade. And your former disciple, yes? In front of all these spectators, you could’ve let him save some face. And you could have beaten him in a number of different ways: tapping his vital spots, disarming his sword from his hand. Destroying his sword entirely like that was simply… how we say… excessive. How could you leave an angel without a weapon in the undercloud, now that the sun has set? You’ve essentially left him defenseless.”
If you can’t defend yourself at night, then you shouldn’t be in the undercloud at night, Ennanis thought to herself. But murmurs of assent rolled through the onlookers. No one came to her defence; even Walden and Garnet were looking away from her. Either because the pressure made it too difficult for them to disagree openly, or because they in fact agreed with the others.
Well.
None of this mattered to Ennanis. She hadn’t come here for any of these people. Not for daughters and sons of noblehuman families, not for Derrick and Sabira’s hastily cobbled-together company of volunteers, and certainly not for old comrades with unsettled grudges. But seeing as the festival had stretched on for so long with nothing in sight, perhaps tonight had been a lost cause after all.
Just as Ennanis was deciding on her next course of action, though, a sudden vibration thrummed through the bridge under her feet. Everyone present was suddenly met with a spray of water, as the sound of pattering on stone filled the air.
“Huh…” Drenched partygoers looked up, dismayed. Some held out flipped palms in the air.
“Did it start raining?”
“Not again…”
But then, the pattering suddenly stopped.
It wasn’t raining, no—it was something far worse.
Boots thundered on the bridge as someone came running up to them, huffing and panting as they hollered:
“There’s a Beast! A Beast has attacked!”