"Yes, there was an eventual response from Spesavia," the librarian replied, "'Wait.'"
"Just that? She didn't add anything else?" Aureum asked, leaning into the counter.
"Mmmhmmm. No."
It was the day after Nivis and Mendax fought. Aureum had washed and now wore her familiar cloak despite a bit of dampness. It felt like an old friend returned, if a bit stuffy.
Aureum and Mendax looked at each other.
He hadn't slept when they returned, but that was all Aureum was certain of. Whatever he had done, he looked just as worn as he had before.
She hadn't wanted to bother him to come here. He had suggested it.
Aureum nodded. They turned and left before the groveling scholar could make his appearance.
"Should we train?"
"Sure, I don't think he'll find us there."
They did. It was difficult for Aureum to focus, as excited as she was. Finally, Spesavia would come. When Aureum got back, she layered her pearl, as she did every day. The same way she ate, slept, and bathed.
The afternoon sun met her when she finished. It was a day devoid of panic or worries, and that felt strange.
Training together happened less and less these days, but Mendax encouraged her to go through the motions and the positions on her own. She tried her best. A few weeks or more had hammered in the basics, but she wasn't anything phenomenal. Closer to jerky and nervous.
Since Spesavia was unlikely to give any meaningful replies, Aureum didn't bother to go to the university.
It was a very uneventful handful of days, only broken by one short visit.
She couldn't stand it.
Bang, bang. Bang, bang, bang.
Her knocking on his door was the result of hours of patience burning out.
But he wasn't there.
"Aureum?"
"Wha—
Aureum twisted to see him in the hallway.
"Did you just come back? What were you doing?"
"I was getting food."
Is it breakfast or dinner? She thought.
"Lacuna came by," Aureum said.
"How is she and Sitis?"
"They both seem good. I guess as individuals and as a couple."
"Pfft."
"What's so funny?"
"Still watching them?"
Mendax started waking again as he spoke.
"It's fun," Aureum said.
"Is that all?"
"Well, Lacuna needs somebody to watch out for her," Aureum said.
They stood next to each other in front of his door.
"I think," Mendax said, looking down, "Lacuna will be fine. She can still shoot lightning if I remember."
Aureum chuckled.
"Lightning can't solve all problems."
"I don't see how worrying about them fixes her's either."
"You always think I'm so nice," Aureum said.
"I've only seen you act nice, so how can I think anything else?"
The smile that had grown on Aureum's face without her knowing dimmed a little.
"You're a quick judge," Aureum said.
"That's impossible," Mendax said.
Aureum shook her head.
"Look. When you escaped, you could have turned your fellow prisoners in for a chance at easy freedom, but you didn't even suggest it."
Aureum froze.
"Who would even suggest that?"
"Not you," Mendax said. "And then you helped out Vitreum. And Lacuna too, according to her. Nearly everyone who knows you now was helped by you."
"We all met very recently," Aureum said, her voice soft. "I think I caused just as many problems as you're saying I helped."
"No, Aureum," Mendax said, "I'm the one who's not nice, and that's why I know you are."
She felt warm. She'd never thought of herself as a nice person. Never even thought she wanted to be one, but his words were like flowers.
"Do you want to come in?" He asked.
"No, I just had a question."
He adjusted his feet and rubbed his neck.
"Alright."
"The preliminaries for Viadelux's tournament are happening soon."
"I guess Sitis is competing."
"Yes. Lacuna wants a friend with her as she watches him. I said I would go earlier… but you did say that some woman was trying to kill me. I'm guessing I should just wait for Spesavia to come. She's fine if I don't go."
It was nonsense how the potential threat to her life was treated as a daily affair, but that's where her life was at.
"When is it?"
"It's the second day of the week's end."
"The holiday? That should work."
"Really?"
"Maybe. Yes, it will work. But wait for Spesavia here until then. I already left a message to give her directions to where you're staying. I'd suggest leaving Fluentem take priority.
"Thanks, I guess. Do you want to come too?"
"…I don't know if I can make it in the morning."
There was another pause. More questions, no answers. It cooled Aureum off completely.
But she still remembered the feeling.
"Hey, what's your relationship with Nivis?"
"Nivis? It's… nothing."
"It didn't seem like nothing. That makes it sound weird. I don't think you're friends anymore, but. Well, you weren't strangers, that much was obvious. So what's going on?"
"He's a spoiled brat I know."
Aureum nodded.
Repeat the question back as an answer. How smart. Fine.
"As you know, he was my fiancé. He courted me after seeing me and my sister dance. I thought… I thought he'd chosen me, but now I realize it was more about convenience than any of my qualities."
Aureum ripped the stitches out. The words hurt less than expected.
"Your father told me… some of it."
"Uh-huh."
Aureum waited, tapping her crossed arms. Nothing.
"Ah, forget this," she said.
She waved as she went to her room.
"Good luck sleeping!"
Mendax watched, a muscle flexing on his jaw, difficult to spot. Her door shut before he took a step.
Yes, this could not go on.
The next few days, Aureum didn't even bother to contact anyone. It was enough that she had one definite thing to look forward to. And one definite thing to avoid.
The small table and chairs were moved to the side. With a fury and a passion, Aureum spent her time alternating between the spear and layering.
It felt pointless. Frustrating.
There wasn't a distinct wall blocking her, and it wasn't a lack of motivation. Every time she thought about anything related to Mendax, it was a tip that stabbed through into Nivis, which led to Nix, which ultimately shattered inside her with Caducus, the Cyclops.
And the jagged edges of a fear that had been broken into her was motivation enough.
No. The difficulty came from a lack of clarity. Where did she go from this step into that stab? Was she supposed to drag her feet just above the ground or lift more?
A guide's absence was felt. And ignored. She'd have to do it herself eventually. May as well be now.
She wasn't at the point where she needed to condense the layers of her pearl. Progress was slow. She had expected that. With the pearls of beasts she'd gotten, her progress was already more than she could have hoped.
Bam!
Her fist hit the floor in front of her, where she sat cross-legged.
Hoping and beginning was one thing, but enduring and continuing was something else.
So she picked up her spear again. Alternating as it suited her mood.
———————————————————
The day came quickly for some, and slowly for others. Mendax, whose day seemingly never ended or began, went to his own tournament before the moon reached its height.
The building was neither flamboyant or luxurious. It was difficult to call it a building of its own at all, mostly joined with the shops to the right and left of it. Mendax had needed an easy fight to get into, after all. It was a drab and nondescript door that led to a room that happened to lead to a very big cellar, which is where the majority of the fights went on.
When Mendax saw the door, he noticed nothing wrong. When he neared it, he heard nothing.
That was his warning.
He stopped before it and took the embarrassing moment to press an ear against it.
He still heard nothing. It was impossible for it to be a slow night. Either everyone was already gathered in the cellar...
Or.
He opened the door. It was empty, but calm. The bar was unmanned. Mendax walked around the room. There was the thick smell of smoke that covered something strong and cloying.
The bar was not empty. The man who should have stood behind it was dead on the floor.
Mendax's breath caught in his throat. There was much red behind the counter. Some of it reached up the wall, but the dim lighting had hidden it.
He turned.
Quick and heavy steps down into the room, and he was where the fights took place. There was the same peace there. A stillness to the air. The smell was too thick to ignore. The floor was layered in red. Within a massacre of bodies strewn around, dying maybe minutes earlier, a woman stood.
Her back was turned away from the door, her greatsword resting in her hands. She breathed hard and was splashed with drying red.
"Should I call you Aureum now?" She said.
Mendax waited. She heaved the sword up over her shoulder with a sigh. The muscles in her arms pulled as she did so. Nola, the bell, turned to face him.
"Do you think me so stupid that I wouldn't do an early check? That I wouldn't catch you following me these past days?"
"Arrogant."
"What?"
"I think of you as arrogant," he said, as he stepped past the corpses. "Not stupid."
"Says the man who wants to betray Nix twice."
His boot entered the ring. Then the other.
"I never betrayed Nix," Mendax said.
A sneer split her face, her fury rising in her eyes.
"Is that denial for me or yourself?!"
Done waiting, she charged, her sword lifting alongside her voice.
Mendax's swords were pulled from their sheaths within a heartbeat. Their crossed edges slowed the Bell, and he slid to the side before breaking contact.
The greatsword fell down upon the arena with a crash. A cloud of sand rose from it.
Mendax twisted to Nola's side, a few slashes aimed. One for the neck and one for the arm. She turned with a scream, lifting the greatsword up and batting his cuts away.
"AAAHHH!"
She brought it down again. The thick edge shining above him for a moment as he glanced up. He leapt back. It crashed down again.
"Why did you wait for me?" Mendax said, his breathing noticeable now. "You could have gone after your target already. That makes you the arrogant one."
"Pffft!" Nola spat.
She raised her sword before her in one hand.
"I am doing as I have always done. Destroying the threats to Nix and its Lord."
She sees me as the greatest threat.
"And these people? What have they done to deserve death?"
"Criminals? Criminals already owe their lives. Either they work it off or die to make room for others. I'm doing this city a favor."
Mendax's pupils shrank.
"This is arrogance!"
He yelled.
He felt vile. As he always did when he dealt with Nola.
"So what if it is? At least I'm not a little princeling who betrayed his people!" She smiled. "Always acting like you're so hard done by life, just because of some scales."
Mendax darted forward as she spoke. Quick as he could. Nola was fast and raised her sword to bat them off again. But Mendax slid to the ground, his swords aimed for the right leg. She swung through air as she tried to step to the side. Blood splattered across the arena and the trail of ice Mendax used to speed his way.
"Going for the slow kill again? What gives you the confidence you'll last?"
Mendax said nothing. Nola had already frozen the shallow cut.
"I always knew you were gonna do it again. Betray anyone who had ever given you anything."
"You!" He said. "Are a brainwashed child who sold your soul for scraps! What would you know of me?"
She charged again. Faster than the first time. Instead of taking the time to swing her great sword, she dragged it alongside her free hand and punched him with her right.
He did have enough time to properly block it. She shattered his thin shield of glass.
He let the hit push him back, off-balance, a few steps instead of fighting forward. The greatsword fell down again, wielded by Nola's one hand. It's tip a hair from his head.
That's ridiculous.
Mendax stared at her incredulously. She breathed hard as the sweat poured down her. Her grin was like diamonds. Sharp and priceless.
"I know this," she snarled, "that other lords have never taught me at all. That they left me to die on the streets in droves."
She spoke as she took labored steps forward, and Mendax stepped backward.
"So what if I do a dirty job?
A lot do. And I get paid nicer. And what of the morals of it?"
He tripped backwards over an arm, scittering to right himself. She continued at the same pace.
"If I didn't do it, someone else would. There's always people like us for people like them. And why shouldn't there be?
There are always bullies stealing whatever isn't nailed down.
I'm order. I'm just the nail holding things where they should be.
Hah! You act like you should be the king, like tossing aside everything a city has worked for for half a century is nothing."
She looked at the ceiling, her smile breaking into something like horror. Her eyes looked back down at Mendax again. His back reached the wall.
"You're spoiled. You spit out what you're given. You ran away, and when the world was too tough, you ran back.
And you aren't even grateful for the second chance! How dare you think this life is beneath you! It suits you."
"It doesn't fit," Mendax said.
She spat to the side.
"Then show me through your swords!" Nola said, lifting her greatsword again as she charged, wearing a crazed grin.