The air in the domed chamber of the Lugh-Grange was still and heavy, thick with the scent of cold stone and old smoke. Marya followed Archibald Winn Lima-Sabin around the final corner, her gaze ripping away from the haunting mural, and stepped into a vast, ominous space. The ceiling arched high above, lost in shadow. In the center, Grutte Pier Dorian was a mountain of a man, reclined on a split boulder as if it were a throne, a heavy book open in his hands. Near a cluster of bound figures, Paula Cupcake Pope sat on a crate, the glowing ember of her pipe a single red eye in the gloom. She blew out a slow, contemptuous plume of smoke that curled toward the ceiling.
"Took you long enough," she drawled, her voice rich with amused scorn. "Didja get lost, or were you just admiring the decor?"
Archibald spread his hands with a theatrical flourish, a puff of chalk dust escaping his sleeves. "We paused to admire the art! Youth need inspiration."
Marya and Galit's eyes swept the room, their assessment swift and cold. Their search ended at their captured crew: Vesta, Jannali, and Eliane, their wrists bound in heavy manacles. Against the wall, Atlas Acuta was slumped, bandages stark white against his rust-red fur, unconscious. A dark bruise colored his jaw.
Galit's lip curled. "Really? The furball is down again?"
Vesta, chains clanking, jumped to her feet with a jangle of metal. "Hey! You found us!" she called, attempting a cheerful wave with her shackled hands. Beside her, Eliane stood, her young face pale but determined. "You came!"
THWUMP.
The sound was a physical thing. Pier's massive book snapped shut, the echo swallowing all other sound in the chamber. Every head turned toward him. Slowly, with a weight that bent the air around him, the Sovereign of the Unmoving Kingdom stood. His violet eyes, sharp as flint, locked onto Marya.
Marya didn't flinch. She met his gaze with a challenge as solid as the mountain they stood in, her own golden-ringed eyes unwavering.
A low, rumbling sound built in Pier's chest and spilled out as a chuckle. He crossed arms thicker than ship's timbers and leaned back against the boulder. "You look just like him."
Marya's jaw flexed, a tiny ripple of tension.
"He never told you, did he?" Pier mused, the chuckle fading into something colder. He waved a massive hand. "No need to reply. I can see the answer on your face." He pushed off the stone, his shadow falling across her. "I assume you are the product of him and that woman he was with. The scholar. I look forward to seeing his face again when I return you to him."
Marya took a slow, deliberately annoyed breath, the sound loud in the quiet. "I don't know what you're talking about." She jerked her head toward the prisoners. "I'm here for them. That's all. I'm not interested in whatever history you have with my parents."
Pier let out a booming laugh that shook dust from the ceiling. "You sound just like them! Stubborn to the core." His mirth vanished as quickly as it came. "Well, girl, you may not be interested, but I am going to tell you anyway. That way, when you see him again, the full weight of his actions—his theft—will be understood."
Marya sighed, the picture of exasperated boredom. Under her breath, so only Galit could hear, she muttered, "Monologuer."
"Should we…?" Galit whispered back, his neck coiled tight, eyes darting between Pier and the relaxed but watchful commanders.
"We need a plan to get them out and deal with these three," Marya replied, her voice a thread of sound. "They won't go down easy." Galit gave a minute nod, his mind racing through angles of attack and escape routes as Pier began his speech, his voice filling the chamber like a slow, inevitable avalanche.
"That is no mere trinket you carry," Pier intoned, pointing a blunt finger at Nisshoku's hilt. "Tsukimichi is the instrument of the everlasting dream. Older sister to Yuro, they were born of the same master but created for different purposes. Tsukimichi forged the path, and Yuro is the key that walks it." He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the ominous space. "Tsukimichi's purpose was to be here, to keep the path alive and well-guarded. And fate," he said, locking his terrifyingly focused gaze on Marya, "has returned what was lost, so the world stays in its proper balance."
Marya couldn't stop an audible sigh from escaping.
"Since you are unaware," Marya interrupted, undeterred, "allow me to enlighten you. Tsukimichi has been reforged by Igutoshi. It is now Nisshoku. It appears fate has decided to add a plot twist."
A slow, devious smirk spread across Pier's face. "It makes no difference. The blade's true purpose and real history are all that matter." Pier cocks a hip, "I wonder why the truth was never revealed to you."
Marya, rolls her eyes. "My father doesn't invest in details."
Pier crosses his arms, "and yet he felt it necessary to make you the blade's wielder. I wonder why that is?"
Maryra shrugged, the leather of her jacket creaking. "Does it matter?"
"The arrogance of youth," Pier murmured, almost to himself. Then he moved. It wasn't a rush; it was a tectonic shift. He took one heavy step forward. "I will be taking it back now."
Marya's hand moved in a blur, reaching behind her to grip the leather-bound hilt of Nisshoku. The air began to grow colder. "That will not be as easy as you think."
A genuine, dark delight flashed in Pier's eyes. "I will admit," he conceded, "the fact that your father was able to free the blade from its stone scabbard was an impressive feat all on its own." His voice dropped, becoming a threat made physical. "But you are not him."
Marya nodded once, a sharp, decisive movement. "In that, we both agree."
In one fluid motion, she drew Nisshoku. The dim light of the chamber died where the blade passed, swallowed by the utter blackness of the obsidian. Then, as if in answer, the crimson runes etched along its length ignited with a deep, bloody glow, pulsing like a slow, monstrous heartbeat.
Pier's eyes narrowed to slits. "What you say is true. The blade has been reborn." He reached over his shoulder, his hand closing around the hilt of his own sword. He drew Saigen. There was no flourish, only the grating song of seven feet of black iron leaving its scabbard. The blade was wider than Marya's torso, a slab of darkness that weighed down the very air. He held it in a ready stance that spoke of endless, patient violence. "Let us see if you are half as talented as he was."
Marya didn't look at Galit. She didn't need to. Her slight shift in stance was language enough. On her shoulder, Jelly, who had been trembling silently, gave a soft bloop of understanding. In a shimmer of blue gel, he launched himself, landing in a wobbly mound on Galit's shoulder.
In the space between one heartbeat and the next, stillness shattered.
Marya moved with the silent, direct fury of a hawk's stoop, she focused—empty mind—erasing all but the target. Pier moved like the closing of a continent, Saigen a black blur of pure mass.
The two colossal blades met not with a deafening clang, but with a deep, resonant GONNNN—a sound less of metal and more of two great bells struck together, a tone that vibrated in the teeth and bones of everyone present. A shockwave of force whipped out from the impact, stirring Paula's hair and making Archibald's cloak flap. Sparks, not of light but of abyssal black and angry crimson, exploded from the point of contact.
Nisshoku's runes blazed, swallowing the energy of the impact. Saigen, unyielding, did not budge an inch. Behind the locked swords, Marya's golden eyes, calm and fierce, met Pier's violet ones, alight with a hunter's grim satisfaction. The duel for the past, and the future of the captured crew, had begun.
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