They moved along the Sun's wide ring, not walking so much as letting the corona carry them. The plane of Shiora lay below like a single line etched with three names—Light, Void, Dark—while the Sun hummed in steady breath.
Valuva paced beside her without disturbing heat. "Is there anything you wish to know," he asked, "before you begin?"
Soluva watched the rim of brilliance. The six-rayed star on her chest answered with a slow pulse. "Only this," she said. "Where should I start?"
"Anywhere," Valuva said. "But choose a line and follow it. Wonder can scatter a soul more surely than any blade."
She nodded once—then the brief, eager spark in her eyes leapt. "Then start with me," she said, a grin breaking through. "Fight me. Please."
Valuva's mouth tilted. "Already?"
"Now," she insisted. The corona tossed gold through her sun-flame–colored hair as if the light itself cheered. "I love the fight."
"We could test the wards, chart the border, study the—"
"Fight me," she said again, softer, the kind of soft that bends steel. "Please."
Valuva breathed out a laugh he hadn't used in an age. "You beg prettily for battle," he said, and at last: "Very well."
He turned his palm. Time clicked.
Photons slowed to lanterns. The corona drew long, each wave a glass ribbon. Seconds folded once, twice—origami time—until they stood within a round of stillness, a practice ground set inside a held breath.
"Rules," Valuva said. "I keep the clock. You keep the flame. No killing. No rending the plane."
"Agreed."
"Another thing." His gaze sharpened. "I am a soul of Eternity and Time. I do not cheat—but I do not stand still."
Soluva smiled wider. "I am a spear of flame," she answered, voice bright. "Gold. I don't stand still either."
She raised a hand. The star on her chest condensed into her palm, coalessing into a haft of light that lengthened with a bell-note—the Life Symphony sounding a single pure tone. When the light cleared, she held a weapon simple and royal: a golden spear of flame. The heat hugged her, never burning.
Valuva crooked two fingers. The first lesson arrived without warning.
A seam opened in the air—a second sliced free and turned on its edge like a clear blade. It cut toward her with no malice, only perfect measure.
Soluva moved.
Speed did not quite describe it; belief did. She believed she could be there—closer—already moving—so she was. The spear kissed the oncoming second. Time rang like crystal. The shard sheared, fell away as glittering fragments of a moment that never happened.
Valuva's eyes softened. "Good."
He stepped and the ring of stillness precessed. A spiral of hours unfurled from his sleeve, thin and silver, coiling around Soluva's ankles—not a chain, a schedule.
She laughed, delighted—energetic through and through. The spear dipped. Heat gathered at its tip like a dawn held too long. "Schedules can't keep me," she said, and when her confidence crossed some unseen threshold, the tip blazed white-gold. She touched the spiral—snap—and every loop went slack as if time itself forgot what it meant to be a line.
"Again," she said.
Valuva obliged. A wall of never rose between them—clear as air, absolute as law. On it lay faint reflections of what might have been: different Soluvas, different suns, all closed to entry.
She ran.
The spear became a ray. She did not test the wall; she chose to pass. Her footing was conviction, and conviction fed the flame. With a single thrust she drove the point through never, unseaming it to a shower of soft glass. The barrier could have been unbreakable; it simply was not for her.
Valuva's grin showed, quick and rare. "Do you know what you just broke?"
"A rule pretending to be the world," she said, breath even.
"Close enough."
He lifted a hand. Every bell in the symphony answered—low drums, thin strings, the remembered choir. Time accelerated and slowed in braided bands, a strobing river meant to drown precision. Soluva blurred, then sharpened in the gaps, dancing where the current thinned. She loved this—every muscle knew. A cut of the spear trimmed a fast band to a manageable stream; a heel-turn and a backhand flick shaved a slow pool to wakefulness. She laughed again, not mocking—glad.
"Stronger," she said. "Please."
"Very well," Valuva replied—and showed Eternity.
Not motion now, but duration: ages layered like lacquer, history bent into a ring. It settled over her shoulders with the weight of a crown and the ache of an oath—too much for anything born today.
For two heartbeats she swayed.
Then belief rose.
When Soluva believed enough, the star on her chest did more than shine; it declared. The spear brightened to a note beyond gold. She set one foot as if staking a claim and said, clear: "I am Soluva."
The ring cracked.
Reality shards chimed down like frost. They touched her fire and became harmless steam.
Valuva's mouth was an unhidden smile now. "It has been a long time since a soul like you arrived," he said, repeating the truth from earlier as if to weigh it again. "Your mind is clear… steady. Strength is measured there first."
"Then measure this," she said, and lunged.
He was ready—he is always ready—and the ground of time gave them an honest field.
He tried stasis; she threaded it. He tried reversal; she refused to be an echo. He raised a barrier of calendared days; she split it with a forward promise. He pitched her into a pocket where only tomorrow existed; she broke out by believing in today so hard that tomorrow had to move over.
At each clash the bell-tone returned, bright and clean, the Life Symphony never loud enough to deafen, always clear enough to name what happened: cut, hold, warm, grow, notice, endure.
They parted by a breath. Steam curled from the spear's edge, gold turned soft. Soluva's smile was all sun. "Again?"
Valuva—who could have feigned boredom, who could have hid behind wisdom—shook his head once, amused. "Tomorrow," he said. "You'll want your flame for building."
She rolled her wrist; the spear unspooled back into a quiet star on her chest. "Tomorrow, then."
Time resumed. The practice circle dissolved; photons ran free. Far off in the Dark, something old shifted—Veliathen perhaps—listening not to weakness but to joy and filing it away with caution.
They finished the orbit in companionable silence. The Sun breathed; the plane held.
"Choose a line," Valuva reminded gently as the corona combed light through her hair.
"I have," Soluva said.
"And which is it?"
She looked over Light, touched the border of Void with her gaze, let the Dark stay named and distant. "Founding," she said. "I will build something worth defending."
Valuva inclined his head. "Then we will speak tomorrow, and we will fight tomorrow. Today—walk. Learn what the flame already knows."
She walked, quick and eager, her steps leaving no scar—only warmth that faded into order. The Sun felt more itself for having her; the hours, somehow, fit their sockets. And somewhere beyond sight, the Black Sun kept its own count, patient as an unopened door.