“Rakel, put it down!” Pepper yells.
Rakel pauses, a small bread knife pressed against her glowing wrist. She’s still wearing the towel.
“It won’t come out,” Pepper says. "Don’t be careless.”
I slouch in my chair, watching. We’re all gathered in the front room.
What sort of Queen is capable of this? I hadn't given it much thought before. But are the collective ‘people' behind this? Do they have a say? What kind of governance is at work here?
Smetchen is sitting against the wall, head low. The staff is in his lap. I’m pretty sure he fell asleep the moment he sat down.
Olexandrya hasn’t taken her eyes off my wrist. It’s tearing her up, being forced out of this. I wonder what I could say to relieve that.
“Maybe if we speak to the Queen,” Rakel says, lowering the knife. “We can convince her to allow me onto your team.”
“You really think she’d allow that?” Pepper scoffs.
Rakel huffs, running a hand through her wet hair.
I raise my wrist to my face, poking at the skin. It’s slightly warmer than normal.
“This magic is world-class,” I say. “If Remrey is capable of this much, why hasn’t she battled the Demon Lord herself? Surely she could at least match him.”
When no one answers, I keep talking.
“In fact, why are we obeying her every word? Why did we come to the capital instead of going straight to Verteiga?”
Rakel laughs. It's dry and flat.
“You're asking this now?” she barks.
Olexandrya just massages her brow.
“The word you're looking for is tyrant,” Pepper says. “Do you think we'd have come here if we had the option? That woman has her magic in the bedrock of this country. The Demon Lord is probably the only one who could match her now.”
Even Olexandrya? Especially before she was weakened by splitting her soul. Was the Queen stronger than her? Or does the Queen have something on her?
Or was the war some sort of three-way deadlock? I'm back to that spot I hate; too many questions to ask without looking like a fool.
I suppose it just feels strangely familiar to the way the Demon Lord ran things. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
“We have to assume it’s intentional,” Olexandrya says. “Splitting you two. The three of us functioned as a team the last time. There’s no reason to believe she’s forgotten.”
Rakel scowls at the red band on her wrist.
“I can feel them,” she says. “My ‘companions.’ I have this vague sense of how far they are from here.”
I glance at Pepper and then at Smetchen. I wonder if the ‘sense’ only triggers if they’re a certain distance away.
“They’ll probably come looking for you sooner or later,” Pepper says.
Rakel tosses the bread knife into the other room.
I clear my throat.
“Who’s going to win?” I ask.
All three women look to me.
“This is ignoring everyone else in the competition,” I clarify. “Especially Jeremias.” I shoot Olexandrya a glance as I say his name. She straightens slightly. “When it comes down to it, which of us do we want to win?”
“Rakel,” Pepper says. “Bottom line, we take the fall and Rakel wins.”
I glance at Smetchen. I doubt he’d like to hear that his team is planning to throw.
“What?” Rakel looks from Pepper to me. “Why?”
“Winning doesn’t mean the rest of us die,” I say. “It’s just important to establish now. To prevent confusion.”
Rakel chews on that.
“Why me?”
“You’re tougher than us,” Pepper says. “And you’re more likable.” She glances at me.
I just shrug.
“I don’t like it,” Rakel adds.
“Tough,” Pepper snaps.
“Not that.” Rakel turns and starts to pace. “I don’t like the team aspect. It feels too…”
“Orchestrated?” Olexandrya supplies.
Rakel chews on her thumb, nodding.
“Either way,” I say. “Wouldn't it be best if we weren't obvious about it?”
“What do you mean?” Rakel asks.
I raise my wrist again.
“Assuming her majesty isn't listening to every word we're saying. We shouldn't make it obvious.” Remrey had made it explicit that she could speak to us but couldn't hear us in return. I don't trust it.
“She's right,” Rakel says. “We don't know how long the team aspect will last. If both of our teams can make it to the teams are dissolved.”
“We can work together,” I say. “And prioritize protecting you.”
She nods.
Suella and Lloyd appear in front of the door with a pop. Lloyd’s wings are bound with a leather strap.
“What a mess,” Suella grumbles, crossing the room.
“Guys!” Lloyd raises his arm. On his wrist is a blue band.
“Damn it!” Rakel hisses. “Not even Lloyd?”
“What?” Lloyd asks, lowering his hand.
“Rakel was hoping you’d be on the same team as her,” Pepper says. “Did you meet your teammates?”
“One of them, he looks strong! He's a demon!”
I stand. It couldn't be.
Lloyd darts around the room, eyeing everyone's wrists.
“I saw someone with a red band,” he says when he sees Rakel’s. “It was a mean-looking woman. She had one eye.”
Rakel furrows her brow.
“Do you know her?” Lloyd asks.
“No.”
“Lloyd's teamed with a real charmer,” Suella says, returning from the other room with a wooden cup. “One of the Demon Lord's generals.”
Rakel and Pepper's heads whip to the boy.
“He didn't tell me that,” Lloyd mumbles.
“You're teamed with Jeremias?” Olexandrya demands.
“He's promised to help me learn to be a demon,” Lloyd says, standing a little taller. “I'll probably have to take him down sooner or later. You heard the Queen. It's all a trial, right?”
Smetchen's eyes open and his head lolls to the side with a groan.
“Smetchen!” Lloyd runs over to him. “I got in!”
“Huh?”
Smetchen startles as Lloyd starts shaking him. His eyes are wild with panic.
“I'm gonna beat you and everybody else!” Lloyd declares.
Rakel and Pepper look pained. Suella sips from her cup.
Olexandrya meets my eyes for a moment before looking to the floor.
“Alright,” I say, standing up. “I'm going to bed.”
I head up the stairs without another word, hoping Olexandrya will follow me.
She doesn't.
Daylight streaks through a window at the end of the hall. I'd forgotten how early in the day it is.
Pepper is acting strangely. She seems frustrated. I suppose I could say that for all of them.
I hadn't realized how serious this would all end up. I thought we'd just come to the Capital and head straight to Verteiga.
Nothing can be simple, it seems.
That's three teams we have information on.
Green. Me, Pepper, and Smetchen.
Red. Rakel and two unknowns.
Blue. Lloyd, Jeremias, and an unknown.
That's three people and six whole other teams left to learn. I wonder what the other colors are.
I return to Olexandrya's bed, ignoring her wrecked room. I find her pack under a toppled bookcase and fish out my frog book.
I'm thirty pages in when Olexandrya comes into the room.
“Don't take it personally,” Olexandrya says as I fold the page.
“What?”
“Pepper. What she said about you guys throwing.”
I shut the book.
“Why would that affect me personally?”
Olexandrya crosses the room and drops onto the bed.
“Jeremias,” I say immediately. “I want an explanation.”
She hangs her head back, watching the ceiling for a moment.
“I told you that I was born in this world,” Olexandrya says. “But only after I died in a different one.”
I wait, giving her nothing. I've heard this before. I remember her stories of ‘guns' and ‘televisions.’ I'm more curious as to how that nonsense relates to our conversation.
“I only have vague memories of that world,” she goes on. “Bits and pieces. Memories of violence. Stories on the screen. Feelings I'm not sure how to address.”
She looks at her wrist, as if she could will a band of light to bloom around it. I'm sure she'd do anything to take one of our places in this competition.
“But the Demon Lord and Jeremias,” Olexandrya says. “I have this sense that they're related to it.”
“They came from the same place you did?”
She runs a hand through her hair.
“I don't know. It's just a feeling. I've encountered Jeremias before and I always find myself hesitating to harm him. Like my very soul won't let me commit. Like it knows something I don't.”
I chew on that. What if my master was somehow responsible for bringing Olexandrya to this world. And Jeremias was… involved? Came from the same place?
What sticks out, though, is an inconsistency.
When I was impaled on the Soul Cleaver, I remember seeing Olexandrya in a sort of mental void.
“I never had love where I came from,” she’d said. “I died alone. A victim in a war I didn’t even know the first thing about. Masked murderers stormed my city. It’s hazy now. But I’ll never forget. Thunder fired from their hands… weapons. Bodies torn apart.”
And I’d seen images. Moving pictures contained within a box. Black-clad figures with spears that flashed like fire. Snowy streets strewn with corpses.
I’ve never spoken to Olexandrya directly about it. I’d assumed she just hadn’t felt like bringing it up.
But maybe it wasn’t ‘her’ I’d spoken to. Maybe I’d spoken directly to the fragment of her soul within me.
“Have you… spoken to him about it?” I ask, even though I doubt Jeremias would willingly exchange dialogue with Olexandrya without violence being involved.
“I tried once. He tried to take my head off.” She laughs.
I nod.
“I don't know what to make of it,” I say. “To be honest, it's just making my head hurt.”
I notice figures out the window and stand.
Two people are walking up the beach. One is a face I haven't seen in a while.
Iris. She has sandy blonde hair tied on her head and wears velvet robes. At her side is a shorter woman with messy reddish hair and a patch over her eye.
Their wrists are covered, but I'm guessing they're both ringed with red. They must be the other two on Rakel's team.
“Looks like Rakel will have a familiar face on her team after all,” I say when Olexandrya joins me at the window.
“Iris.”
“Do you know the other one?”
Olexandrya shakes her head.
Rakel appears, walking out to meet them. She's put on a brown tunic at least now.
“Olexandrya,” I say. “I don't care who wins this competition. As long as it results in me meeting the Demon Lord.”
Her eyes meet mine.
“You should probably do whatever you can to get that Lloyd kid out of this,” I add. “Jeremias enjoys feasting on demons. I imagine he'd kill the boy at the first opportunity.”
Olexandrya stiffens.
“I can't stop him,” she says. “I can't stop any of you. I'm powerless here.”
I watch her eyes fall.
“What will happen?” I ask. “When the Demon Lord is killed?”
“The ‘Dead Lands' will be taken. Remrey will have full control of Grumelle.”
“And?”
“That's it.”
I step away from the window, returning to my spot on the bed.
At the end of the day, our sides weren't that far apart. I suppose the Demon Lord was raising armies of undead and placing monster summoning seals under villages. Generally evil things.
But with the Demon Lord dead and gone, how long will it be until Remrey starts getting her fill for violence somewhere else?
“Do you feel it?” Olexandrya asks, crossing the room. “What I'm feeling?”
I watch her, unsure of what she means.
“I feel as though…” Olexandrya wrings her hands and pauses next to the bed. “This is it.”
“What is?” I make the connection as I ask.
Her eyes wobble, as if they can't focus. Her mouth hangs open for a beat before she speaks.
“I feel as though I'm about to lose everything I care about.”
Am I a part of that? Of course, I am. My life is her life. But. What do I say? I have no way to make this easier for her. I have no way to comfort her.
Olexandrya's hand comes down at my side, and the bed shifts beneath me. I watch her as she balances herself on that arm.
“I'm going to tell you the same thing I told the others,” she says, her face darkening. “This isn't worth your lives. If it gets bad, I want you to give up.”
“What did they say?” I ask, holding her gaze.
“Pepper agrees. Rakel and Lloyd think I'm being selfish.”
I nod slowly.
“Would you have given up?” I ask. “The last time?”
“It was different,” she snaps. “The war is over. There's no point to this. It's just putting off the inevitable. If Jeremias wins, he'll kill the Demon Lord, anyway.”
“I don't know if he will,” I say. “Jeremias is only doing this because he wants what I want. Answers.”
Olexandrya lowers her head; our foreheads are nearly touching.
“So,” I say. “Beyond Jeremias, do you really think any of the other competitors can kill the Demon Lord?”
“Maybe. Maybe Remrey will give them some of her magic.”
“Sure. Maybe.”
I place my hand carefully on the back of her arm. I'm not sure what to do next. Olexandrya watches as I give it an awkward pat.
“Even if all of us end up dying,” I say. “You won't have to live without us. You'll have died, too. Because of…” I tap my chest with my free hand.
Olexandrya takes a shaky breath. She raises her hand to my face, pulling me against her chest. Her other arm hooks around me, holding me there.
I blink, unsure what she's doing for a moment. She's warm, as always. And it's sort of comfortable, but by back quickly starts complaining. But I don't move; I don't even speak. Because I'm fine with this. Being here with her.
There's a knock at the door, and it opens a moment later. Rakel is there, leaning through.
Olexandrya backs away from me, wiping her face.
I straighten, pushing a bit of hair out of my face.
“Aerida,” she says, her eyes darting between Olexandrya and me. “Want to get back to training? I figure we can try to get Lloyd and Smetch into it as well.”
“Smetch?” I ask, getting up.
“Yeah, it's a nickname. He prefers it to Smetchen, apparently.”
“Why don't you come?” I ask, glancing at Olexandrya over my shoulder.
“I'd rather not.” She sits on the bed. She looks smaller, alone in her destroyed bedroom.
I decide not to insist.
“You meet your team?” I ask as I follow Rakel down the stairs. “I didn’t realize Iris was involved in this.”
“Yeah. I’m sure if the Queen would’ve allowed more compete, the entirety of the old coalition would’ve joined.”
I nod.
“The other woman is named Vola,” she says. “She’s an assassin.”
“An assassin?”
“Doesn’t even use magic. Has an enchanted rope.”
Rakel must’ve spoke quickly. She didn’t even seem like she’d been out there with them for five minutes.
She sticks her arm out, blocking me off as we reach the first floor.
“So that’s Olexandrya?” Smetchen is saying just around the corner. “The hero? The one who single-handedly slayed three of the Demon Lord’s generals by herself?”
“You’re repeating yourself,” Suella says. “Single-handedly means—”
“She wasn’t by herself!” Pepper cuts in. “We helped!”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me? I spoke to her! What? I should’ve introduced myself better. Is she competing?”
“No,” Lloyd says. “The Queen won’t let her.”
“Aerida,” Rakel says, turning to me. “I wanted to speak to you about something.”
I press my back against the wall, waiting.
“Are you and Drya…” She lowers her arm, meeting my eyes for a moment. I feel like I can see a pinkness growing in her cheeks, but it could also be my imagination.
I tilt my head, uncertain where this is going.
“Forget it,” Rakel says after a beat.
I furrow my brow as she steps away. What was that about?
Training is shocking. Rakel’s team, Iris and Vola, are hanging around. They don’t get involved. They just watch.
Pepper helps me work on drilling mana manipulation into Rakel and the boys.
With Pepper’s help, the boys pick it up almost instantly. Both of them impress me with their applications of it.
Despite his dependence on the staff, Smetchen is a natural at passive mana manipulation. He’s almost as articulate with it as I am. Once he gets the idea down, he’s effectively using the staff like a paintbrush.
Swipe: A wall of mana drawn onto the air before him. Thrust: A dense blast, strong enough to stagger Rakel, if only for a moment.
It’s too bad that swinging the staff around so much exhausts him. The thing is just too heavy, apparently.
Lloyd, on the other hand, is zipping around in the air. He’s apparently had trouble getting much speed. But now, he’s using the mana to steady his body while using the wings to direct himself.
He’s certainly fast. I just don’t see how he plans on doing any significant damage to anyone.
Rakel is still struggling. Despite Pepper’s ‘better explanations’ she’s just not finding the halfway point between mana in the air and a complete spell.
I’m watching Lloyd zip across the water when Rakel collapses in the corner of my eye.
The sun is sinking slowly in the distance, painting the buildings of the capital in its shadow.
I share a look with Pepper across the beach. She’s sparring with Smetchen. While she’s distracted, the boy drops and attempts what looks like a leg sweep. Pepper doesn’t notice the attempt.
I wave off Pepper and approach Rakel.
Rakel is lying on her back, panting. Her face and throat are coated with sweat and sand.
“You okay?” I ask, sitting next to her.
She shakes her head.
“I don’t get it. What am I doing wrong?”
I glance over at Lloyd. He hits a sharp turn and spins into a front-flip, screaming the whole way.
“You’re jealous,” I say.
“I’m not.”
“If you don’t figure this out, we’re all gonna die.”
“I know!” She buries her face in her hands.
I scoff. I’d meant it as a joke.
“Rakel,” I say. “Maybe this isn’t something you need to learn. I use mana this way because I’m weak. I can’t punch a rock and expect it to break. I can’t jump and expect to get anywhere. I can’t take many hits until my body starts coming apart. That’s why I need mana to support myself.”
“You’re not weak,” she groans through her hands.
“Compare to you? I’ve seen you scale buildings in seconds. I’ve seen you eaten by the biggest centipede I’ve seen in my life. After which, you killed the centipede.” I pause, waiting for her to say anything.
Rakel just sighs.
“You’re made of stronger stuff than I am,” I go on. “Having this would only make you, you know, stronger. So… I guess you do need it. But that’s beside the point.” I’m losing my point.
I’m trying to figure out how to rephrase when Rakel lowers her hands. Her eyes are wet as they meet mine. Then, she sits up. Her arms snap around my neck and she yanks me to her side.
I stare at the water while she squeezes me against her.
“Alright,” I say. “Sure.”