Day Four: Preparation
The duel day broke with pitiless indifference.
The sun rose bright and clear over the northlands, lighting a world that seemed all but oblivious to the fact that one of its turning points was unfolding before it. Birds sang their sweet melodies. Merchants rolled back the awnings on their stalls. Children ran laughing in the streets of villages that had lived through the savagery.
Life went on, unaware that all could be transformed by sundown.
Lioran stood in the Blackspire courtyard, clad in the armor that had been crafted from the scales of Kyrris. Dragon-hide shone bright in the early sun, each plate reflecting and bending light into patterns that seemed to writhe and twist. The helm rested heavy on his brow, the faceplate a dragon's snarl, fierce and old.
Surrounding him, the rest of the Flamebound converged. Maybe thirty now, strong—the warriors that had remained despite being aware their lord might not come back. They regarded him with faces that combined dread and something that could have been trust, though it was weak stuff, tattered by loss and sacrifice.
Mira came up to him, and Lioran knew she'd woken before the dawn. There were dark rings under her eyes, and the movements of a woman who had spent the night praying.
"You look like him," she told the armor. Not to Lioran, but to the memory of Kyrris. "Like the dragon-riders that I feared as a child. There was so much nobility to them. And so much cruelty."
"Which am I?" Lioran demanded.
Mira smiled sadly. "You're still becoming. That's the truth I've had to learn about you, Lioran. You're not complete. You may never be complete."
She reached up and tilted the visor of his helm slightly, a move so ordinary and maternal that it seemed to span the space between what he was now and what he once had been.
"Don't fight to win," Mira instructed. "Fight to learn. That's all I'm asking. Whatever you do on that plain, whether you die or live, at least learn why it's important."
"I don't know if I can make you that promise," Lioran confessed.
"I know," Mira replied. "But I'm asking anyway."
....
The Journey
The Plains of Ashenmere were three hours' ride south of Blackspire, a wide, flat expanse of grass that for generations had been neutral ground—neutral ground for the transactions of warring kingdoms, for tournaments of champions, for transition ceremonies.
Lioran rode alone, as Kaelen's letter had commanded. No guards, no army waiting beyond horizon to obstruct. Only a man in dragon-scale armor, riding towards a battle that could destroy everything.
The spark in his chest was calm now, near contemplative. It wasn't urging him toward violence or craving blood. Rather, it looked curious, as if even this old power wished to learn what would occur when it faced an enemy that could not be incinerated.
The plains unfolded themselves slowly as he rode—first as faraway grassland on the horizon, then as the country flattened out and lay open beneath his eyes. The grass was tall and yellow here, rippling in wind that bore the smell of distance and earth.
When he crested the last rise, he saw Kaelen.
The knight had already arrived, standing at the middle of the plains as if he had been waiting for hours. He had armor as well—not dragon scales, but the best steel Lioran had ever seen, polished to such a sheen that it appeared to reflect the sun itself. His sword lay point-down in the ground next to him, and in the distance Lioran could make out the Rhaemond army—some several thousand strong—standing at a watchful distance from the grounds of the duel.
They would stand. Witness. But not get involved.
Lioran got off his horse and allowed it to roam free. It would return to Blackspire or the nearby villages. These things no longer mattered.
He crossed the plains, dragon-armor shining with every step, until he was thirty paces away from Kaelen.
The knight did not stir until Lioran was almost on top of him. Then, slowly, he pulled his sword out of the ground and faced him completely.
"You came," Kaelen said. There was something in his tone—respect, perhaps, or acknowledgment. "I wasn't sure you would."
"Neither was I," Lioran confessed. "But I've run enough. From Ashvale. From the duke. From what I am becoming. I figured maybe it was time to stop."
"And what have you turned into?" Kaelen asked.
"I'm still trying to figure it out," Lioran replied. He pulled out his own sword—not dragon-forged, just a plain steel blade that Torven had given him. It felt comfortable in his hand, balanced and straight. "Perhaps you can assist me in sorting it out."
...
The Duel
They didn't charge at one another.
They circled instead, each of them gazing at the other with the measured regard of predators eyeing a competitor. Kaelen stepped with the fluidity of one who'd trained since boyhood, each step measured, each muscle conscious of its own placement.
Lioran stepped otherwise—with the confidence of one who'd incinerated whole armies, but also with doubt, as if he wasn't entirely certain where his human form left off and the flame started.
"You're scared," Kaelen noted. "I can see it. You're scared of what you'll do."
"Yes," Lioran admitted. "I'm scared of burning you. Of unleashing the fire and not being able to stop it."
"Then don't use fire," Kaelen suggested. "Just steel. Just skill. Just a man confronting another man."
They fought.
Kaelen's sword was quicker than Lioran had anticipated, slicing through the air with accuracy that testified to the thousands of hours he must have spent honing himself. Lioran countered, and the shock ran up his arm. The knight was powerful—inhumanly powerful for a man with no magic.
Lioran was more powerful.
He parried Kaelen's push with a crushing blow that sent the knight stumbling backward. Kaelen rolled away from it, transferring the momentum, and launched a riposte that would have removed Lioran's head were it not for the dragon-armor defending him.
They danced on the plains, engaged in battle that was deadly and close. Both knew the other's technique, had learned it from past battles. There was a cadence to the fight—Kaelen's precision cutting against Lioran's strength, technique against brute power.
Time warped. Minutes turned into hours, or hours turned into minutes. Lioran had no sense of anything but the next blow of a blade, the next parry, the endless counting of where steel would land next.
His arm ached. Blood seeped through tiny crevices in the armor where Kaelen's sword had discovered openings. But they continued to battle, unable or refusing to give in.
Lastly, as the sun started to go down towards night, they both recoiled in unison, gasping for breath.
"You're stronger," Kaelen croaked. "And quicker than you should be. But not as trained. Not yet."
"And you're more trained than strength," Lioran said. "But not as strong."
"So neither of us can win," Kaelen stated.
"No," Lioran concurred. "Neither of us can win."
They faced one another, swords down, armies standing at a distance that now felt irrelevant. Two men, exhausted and bleeding and still upright, having discovered what they'd come to discover.
"I could have killed you," Kaelen said at last. "Three times, I had the chance."
"I could have burned you," Lioran answered. "A dozen times, the flames were waiting."
"But we didn't."
"No," Lioran said. "We didn't."
Kaelen sheathed his sword completely, sticking it point-first into the ground again. "Then what does that mean?"
Lioran thought about the question intently. The ember thudded in his chest, bewildered by this result, this denial of outcome in victory or defeat.
"It means," Lioran spoke slowly, "that perhaps there's something else. Not merely fire or metal. Not merely victory or defeat. Something else."
He unsheathed his sword and stood weaponless before the knight who had ridden in to kill him.
"What do you desire, Kaelen? Not what the Church desires. Not what your army needs. You."
Kaelen was silent for so long. When he did speak, his tone was gentle. "I want to know you. To know if you're really different from the warlords and tyrants I've battled before. To know if there's hope for a man with power to wield it well."
"I don't know if I'm any different," Lioran conceded. "I don't know if I have the ability to use power well. All I know is that I'm going to do my best. And I'm going to need people around me who'll tell me when I begin to go wrong."
Kaelen smiled. It was the first authentic smile Lioran had ever seen from him. "Then maybe," the knight said, "we don't have to be enemies."
He held out his hand.
Lioran accepted it.