Elowen's presence was always silent until it ceased to be. A shadow beside Venara's shoulder, her voice low enough to slip past even the breeze.
"She's Lysara," Elowen whispered, her eyes fixed on the woman standing opposite Caelvir in the arena. "Friend of Valkira."
Venara did not glance at her guard. Her gaze remained on the pair below, caught in the eye of a colosseum that had fallen into awed silence.
"I remember," Venara said, her voice as steady as her posture. "Valkira once requested to train with her on the Goldmere grounds. She claimed Lysara's blade was precise and believed she could learn something new from her."
"She did." Elowen's voice shifted from thoughtful to edged with concern. "Are you rooting for Caelvir?"
Venara's smile curled, neither unkind nor warm. "I'm rooting for my investment."
That made Elowen chuckle once, breathless. "Valkira will take a blow, emotionally."
She paused, caught herself, and corrected, "Then again... they belong to you, after all."
Venara said nothing for a moment. Then, with a cool detachment, she replied, "This is the colosseum. It exists to entertain, and cruelty is part of its design."
Her fingers clasped lightly as her eyes never left the ring.
"One life given," she murmured. "Another taken. That cannot be helped."
A sigh followed, soft as silk.
"Losing either of them would be a shame, yet the rules remain what they are."
Then the announcer's voice rang out, slicing through the quiet with sharpened pomp.
"Would Her Majesty the Queen honor us by signaling the beginning of this sacred duel?"
All eyes turned toward the velvet throne.
The Queen rose.
Her movement was slow and precise, one gloved arm lifting like the swan's wing before a plunge. A pause, with eternity condensed into a breath, and then her arm cut downward.
The signal.
A horn blared, deep and ancient, its sound echoing like a dragon's call across stone and sky.
A cold breeze licked across the colosseum, sharp, sudden, and almost unnatural. It tugged at cloaks and kissed skin with ice. Venara felt it down to her bones, and from the twitch of Elowen's brow, she knew the guard felt it too.
Then they moved.
Lysara shot forward first, as expected.
Her figure launched ahead like an unshackled gust, feet barely brushing the sand, as though the air itself urged her onward.
Her mismatched armor shifted with each stride, one oversized pauldron catching the light like a dented moon while the other shoulder remained bare, unprotected, exposed.
She wore it not as a flaw but as a badge, a declaration that said, This is who I am. I don't need symmetry to kill you.
Sand whipped in her wake as she lunged, her blade a blur of steel and wind.
She moved like wind incarnate, a stream of silver steel and pale limbs. Her sword arced toward Caelvir with the precision of a needle's point. He met it with a clean parry, his feet braced wide and body still as stone.
Clang. Steel struck steel.
Lysara's eyes, sharp and alert even in mid-swing, flicked downward for the briefest instant.
She saw them.
Daggers. One lay to his left, the other to his right. Sleek, black-handled, perfectly positioned. Still sheathed, but waiting. Waiting for a moment of carelessness that would bring them into his hands.
She had no intention of giving him that moment.
Lysara twisted on the balls of her feet, swept low, and brought her blade around with such speed that the air split around it. Caelvir stepped back, but just barely. A strand of his hair floated down.
He exhaled and smiled faintly.
Lysara's face remained still, not an inch of it moving. Her pale eyes stayed empty and cold. Her breathing, if it happened at all, was invisible to the eye.
She charged again, light-footed, nearly gliding. Each step grew faster.
She was harnessing the wind, not in a visible or flashy way, but in the sudden snap of her legs, in the way her sword danced just a fraction too fast, in how each of her dodges timed themselves to miss by only a hair's width.
Venara narrowed her eyes.
A gust carried dust from the ground, swirling around Lysara's feet and rising with her movements.
Caelvir blocked again, then stepped into a counter. It came forcefully, a shoulder behind the strike and a warrior's weight in the blade. But she spun away, let it slip past, and sliced from below.
He ducked, barely.
Again.
Again.
Clang, slash, step, spin, clang.
This was no brawl.
It was not an act of brute carnage.
It was a dance.
Lysara moved like a whisper. Every step she took was deliberate. Every angle she chose forced Caelvir to retreat. Her sword became her tongue, cold, sharp, and silent.
Yet Caelvir was no fool.
His shoulders were broader, a fortress of form. He made fewer movements, but each one was deliberate. He allowed her to come, waited, blocked, then struck with the weight of hammer to anvil. His parries absorbed her strikes, and his counters came close to breaking her rhythm, but not entirely.
Now they circled one another.
Sweat beaded on Caelvir's brow. Lysara, still expressionless, began to breathe just slightly faster. Her light frame would tire first.
And she knew it.
She surged forward again in a blur. Her blade came low, then twisted mid-strike to rise high, a feint delivered with the footwork of a dancer. Caelvir blocked high just in time, but her boot struck his shin.
He did not fall. He didn't even flinch. But the crowd saw it, and a gasp rolled like thunder above them.
Venara's fingers tightened. Elowen leaned in.
"She's too fast," Elowen whispered.
"No," Venara said. "Her speed is just right. But he is observing."
And indeed, he was. His eyes tracked her not only in motion but in the patterns of her movement. His steps became more centered, his posture adjusted and ready.
Their swords clashed again. Sparks flew. Dust spun around them. The rhythm accelerated, two dancers pressing to find which would lead.
Lysara's blade nicked his shoulder, his cloth torn but skin intact. He grunted, impressed by her attack.
Caelvir's strike caught her side too but not deeply, though enough to make her step back.
Their eyes locked.
One breath.
Two.
The crowd fell into silence, watching every twitch with bated attention.
Then, once more, they rushed forward.
The dance resumed, a blur of strikes and parries, of air split and steel that screamed. The sound of metal upon metal rang like music through the colosseum.
Neither had fallen, but one eventually would.
Venara sat still upon her seat, unmoving in form, yet inside, her pulse mirrored the rhythm of their blades.