As midday came closer, the hills around the dueling grounds steadily filled up with mages. At a glance, Arran thought there were tens of thousands of them, and more kept arriving with each passing minute.
The three Elders who would face Brightblade arrived as well, a large group of other mages following behind them. It was clear that they had many allies, both in the House of Seals and in the other Houses.
Arran stayed well away from the group. Giving them the chance to seek a confrontation would be foolish. It would hand them a way to get to Brightblade through him, and for no good reason.
Instead, he swallowed his anger and turned away from the group. Brightblade would put them in their place soon enough.
More mages gathered around Arran and Elder Theron as well, however. Some of these merely gave friendly nods and smiles, but others came over to introduce themselves, and a few even approached Arran to discuss his plans after the duel.
Most of them understood quickly that Arran was not in any mood to talk, but a few insisted anyway. In particular, a burly man from the House of Fists was adamant that Arran train with him when the opportunity arose.
Yet as the man was talking to Arran, Brightblade arrived.
Arran had expected her to be alone, but instead, she approached the dueling grounds at the head of a long procession of House of Swords mages. From what Arran could tell, it seemed like none had been left behind — there were thousands and thousands of mages, with even the initiates having joined the group.
At the head of the group, right behind Brightblade, were the strongest mages. Arran recognized Grandmaster Solin and Elder Kallias, along with others whose names he did not know even if he had seen them before.
When the front of the procession reached the group that had formed around Arran, Brightblade briefly greeted the strongest mages there, then immediately turned to him.
"Follow me," she said curtly. "We need to speak."
Without waiting for a response, she headed toward one of the few empty spots that still lay around the dueling grounds, then put down a strong ward that would stop others from seeing them.
"Take this," she said, handing Arran a small bag.
"What's—" Arran began.
Before he could finish the question, Brightblade continued, "This void bag contains a number of my belongings. It's bound to me, but if I die, the bond will disappear and you will be able to open it."
"If you die?" Arran looked at her with wide eyes. While he had known the duel was dangerous, some part of him had still believed that she had some trick up her sleeve — some way to guarantee victory. But instead, she seemed to consider death a real possibility.
"If I lose the duel," she went on, "do not linger here for even a second. Do not mourn me or try to avenge me. Head to my mountain estate immediately — the wards there should buy you some time. Take the contents of my bag, then follow the path into the mountains. It will be dangerous, but they will have put up guards at the Valley's gates."
Arran stared at her wordlessly, still shocked that she thought she might die. But when his mind calmed a bit some moments later, he asked, "Didn't you tell me that path only lead to death?"
She nodded, her expression severe. "If you follow that path, with your current strength, you will likely die. But it will give you a better chance than staying in the Valley."
Arran swallowed hard. "Do you have to do this? Can't we just leave the Valley?"
Brightblade responded with a firm shake of her head. "Even if I wanted to, it's too late for that. But this fight…" She sighed. "It's necessary. Not just for your future in the Valley, but for the Valley's own future as well. If I don't fight, or if I lose, the Ninth Valley will fall. And sooner rather than later, I suspect."
At this, Arran knitted his brows in thought. He knew it had to do with the things Elder Theron had told him, but from what Brightblade now said, it seemed the situation was far more serious than he had believed.
"Still," he said, unwilling to accept the situation so easily. "Isn't there some other way? Something that doesn't have you risk death?"
"Some fights cannot be avoided," she responded. "This is one of those. And if this Valley is to survive, I fear it will not be the last."
Arran barely understood what she was talking about, but with a heavy heart, he nodded. "Just be careful."
Brightblade grinned in response, though the grin looked a bit forced. "I have no intention of throwing my life away," she said. Then, more confidently, "And I am not so easily defeated."
All Arran could do was nod and hope that she was right. Because although there were many other questions he wanted to ask, a quick glance at the sky told him that it was already midday.
"It's time," Brightblade said. "With a bit of luck, we'll be talking again soon enough."
She flashed him a last smile, then started toward the dueling grounds. As she left, Arran found himself at a loss for words. While there were many things he wanted to say, all the words that came to mind seemed trivial now — unfit for the situation.
"Good luck," he finally said in a soft voice, too late for Brightblade to hear him.
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He didn't leave immediately. For some moments, he merely stood there in silence, watching Brightblade as she approached the dueling grounds. The feeling was far worse than what he felt when going into battle himself — at least then, he controlled the situation.
But now, all he could do was hope, and trust in Brightblade's strength. Yet no matter how much he tried, it wasn't enough to silence the uneasy feeling that crept through his body.
"Come."
The sudden voice startled Arran, but when he turned around, he saw that it was Elder Theron.
"Let's return to the others," the Elder said. "Standing here alone and worrying won't help. What happens next is up to her, and she's strong enough to win this."
Arran nodded, trying to convince himself that Elder Theron was right despite the doubts he felt as they walked back to the others.
The strongest mages from the House of Swords and the most powerful of Elder Theron's allies had taken up the top of one of the hills surrounding the dueling grounds, and Arran now joined them there, his eyes fixed on the flat grasslands ahead.
While the mages had been talkative earlier, now, all but a few had gone silent, and they looked the grasslands that would soon be consumed by battle with both anticipation and worry in their eyes.
Arran, for his part, frowned in wonder. The duel hadn't begun yet, but Brightblade and her opponents had already entered the battlefield, and the scene looked deceptively peaceful.
The dueling grounds were vast, and on them stood four people. Brightblade was by herself, a lonely figure in the distance, surrounded by nothing but flat grassland. And a mile further stood her opponents, the three of them spread a few dozen paces apart, standing still as they waited for the battle to begin.
They stood like that for several minutes, but nothing appeared to be happening. The Matriarch didn't step forward to begin the fight, and neither Brightblade nor her opponents showed any sign of attacking.
Puzzled, Arran leaned over to Elder Theron. "When does it start?" he asked in a soft voice.
"It already has," the Elder answered. "They're just waiting to see which of them will be the first to reveal their hand."
The answer didn't make much sense to Arran. He had thought attacking first would give an advantage, but instead, both sides appeared to be in no hurry to launch the first attack. Why this was, he did not know — but then, there was much he still didn't understand about magic.
They stood there for a quarter-hour, barely showing even a single movement the entire time. But then, suddenly, Arran Sensed it — Brightblade's opponents seizing a staggering amount of Essence, so much that his eyes briefly grew blurry.
In the corners of his eyes, Arran saw that more than a few of the mages lower on the hills had collapsed from the sudden pressure of Essence.
He paid them no attention — all that mattered now was the duel, and he trembled at the thought of what attack Brightblade's opponents were about to launch with such power.
There was no need to use his imagination. Barely a breath later, a violent mass formed before the three Elders, a giant ball of fire and lightning a hundred paces across, roiling with power. And even as it formed, it shot toward Brightblade.
Arran felt a surge of nausea when he saw it. The energy was terrifying — enough to flatten a mountain. And there was no time for Brightblade to evade the attack.
The mass of Essence struck her like an avalanche bearing down on a village, tearing through ground and rock alike as it engulfed her, the sound of the impact shaking the hills around the dueling grounds.
The power was too much to be contained in so small an area, and a wave of violent Essence surged forth toward the hills, charring the ground where it went. Yet then, it came to a sudden halt as it hit the Matriarch's formation. The energy caused a brief flicker in the formation, but it held strong, if only barely.
Arran had no eyes for any of this. His attention was fixed on the area where Brightblade stood — the area where the attack had been strongest, and which was now filled with a dense smoke that obscured it from view.
Then, a sudden streak of bright white light surged forth from the smoke. Barely as thick as an arm, it radiated power as it shot toward the three Elders, moving so fast it could barely be seen.
Too fast for the Elders to counter, as well — because Arran now saw that Elder Heran's upper body was gone. It had happened too quickly to see, the Elder defeated before Arran had even registered the attack.
Almost instantly, half a dozen more streaks of light shot toward the two remaining Elders. Yet although they moved faster than Arran could see, they were somehow blocked by invisible shields, glancing off the air just paces away from their targets.
Another streak of white light shot out, just slightly slower than the others had been. Arran thought it was another attack, but as it reached the Elders, he realized it was Brightblade herself — enveloped in white flame and moving impossibly fast, her blinding blade already lashing out at Elder Danae.
If the Elder had recognized the attack before Arran, it was still too late — her body fell to the ground before she could even move, cleaved from head to waist by Brightblade's sword.
But even as another Elder died, Brightblade's body was suddenly flung several hundreds of paces backward, struck by some invisible force. And although she got up again instantly, Arran realized with shock that she seemed unsteady on her feet, as if the attack had shaken her.
"Just Straton remains," Elder Theron said softly. "Now, the true duel begins."