Chapter 29: Lover

I stood in the middle of the ring and did not pose.

I mean, I tried. But, my brain was still back there, thinking about divine cores and stuff. The pose panel was waiting patiently with their numbered panels in hand. I half-lifted one hand and tried to force a smile.

The three judges conferred. One of them held up a paddle.

I got a two.

[Well, that sucks. Anyway, focus up foxgirl! You’ve got a fight on your hands.]

My opponent came down the other ramp and the crystal above lit up his details for the crowd. Denholm Ricasso, a Rank F first year. An actual F-rank! Like me! So, there were two of us left in this bracket and the doves deemed we needed to be pit against one another. Awesome.

Denholm reached the center, planted his feet, and did an actual pose. He dropped to one knee, swept his practice sword out to the side, and bowed his head over it like a knight in a stained-glass window.

The judges gave him an eight.

[An eight!?!?]

The crowd loved it. His pose out-scored my entire existence by six points.

[Okay. Denholm. F-rank. He looks like he practiced that bow more than he practiced the sword. Let’s find out.]

The whistle blew.

And Denholm came at me with enthusiasm.

---

{Lily}

I found her by the food stalls.

Lady Vantecca was buying a skewer of something, perfectly composed, like she hadn’t just walked across a crowded arena and kissed my roommate in front of the entire school.

Again. In front of me. Twice now.

The first time I’d been pretending to sleep and the second time I’d been standing in a ring, and both times I had watched it happen and both times I had lost the ability to think.

I marched up to her.

"Lady Vantecca."

"Everdawn." She didn’t even look surprised. She paid the stall-keeper and turned to me with a skewer in one hand. "You fought poorly today. You’re better than that boy and you let him push you out. I assume you got... distracted by something?"

My face went hot.

"I want to know," I said, and my voice came out lower than I wanted, so I spoke louder, "I want to know what you’re doing with Kohaku!!!"

Lady Vantecca looked at me for a second or two. Then she smiled.

"Oh, you sweet thing," she said. "You really don’t know anything, do you?"

"I know what I saw."

"Do you? Do you really?" She took a bite of the skewer, chewed, and swallowed, taking her time about it. "Kohaku and I have an understanding that predates you. An arrangement of considerable depth and stakes, sealed properly, with terms. There are things passing between us that you couldn’t follow if I drew you a diagram, and frankly it would be irresponsible of me to try!!!"

[What is she talking about? What terms? What arrangement?]

"You’re lying," I said.

"Am I?" She tilted her head. "Ask yourself why Frostfall signed your entry slip. Ask yourself why your roommate is in a tournament she has no business surviving. Ask yourself who’s been moving the pieces around you all month, and then ask yourself whether a girl who lost to a second-year in ninety seconds is equipped to understand the answer." She leaned in, and dropped her voice to something almost kind. "You wanna know what’s happening?"

"Yes."

Marisol smirked.

"She and I are lovers!"

I gasped. I couldn’t help it. She kept going.

"You’re just her roommate. Do try to keep up, or at least stay out of the way."

And she walked off with her skewer, unhurried, leaving me standing between two food stalls with my mouth open.

[Lovers. They’re... Kohaku and Lady Vantecca are... No. No, that’s... She’d tell me! We tell each other things, right? We’re, I’m her, we’re...]

We’re roommates.

I didn’t know how to process that.

---

{Kohaku}

Denholm Ricasso was a big third-year, and he opened the match by coming straight at me and swinging for my sword arm.

I blocked it and the hit jolted me down to my boots.

[Okay. Okay, that’s a real hit. That’s what a real hit feels like. Noted, hate it. I’d rather be hit by the Warden again.]

He swung again, and again, big diagonal cuts with his weight behind every one, and I gave ground the whole way, because there was no version of this where I traded blows with a man twice my size, with the stats that I had, and stayed vertical.

The crowd wasn’t even excited about it. I could hear individual conversations resuming in the stands. Somebody two rows up asked "when’s Frostfall fighting?"

Here’s what I had going for me: Denholm Ricasso used the Millwheel.

It was the standard offensive Form of the Knight Course, and I knew that because I invented the Knight Course, and I invented the Millwheel, and I gave it exactly one weakness so my protagonist could exploit it and look cool. On the fourth cut of the cycle, the swing comes down from high guard, and for half a second the wielder’s chest is wide open and his feet are square.

The next cut came down, and I blocked it.

[One.]

I dodged the one after that, and the tip of his sword took a lock of my hair off.

[Two.]

The third I caught on my blade, and my arm went numb.

[Three. If I miscounted his cycle, I’m about to eat a practice blade with my whole face.]

His sword went up to high guard.

[Four.]

Denholm Ricasso swung, I stepped inside it the way my book said you were supposed to, dumped every scrap of mana I had into a shove at the exact last second, and put the flat of my practice blade into his sternum hard enough to sit him down on the stone.

He didn’t get up in five.

The whistle went. The crystal flashed my name. Somewhere in the stands, exactly one person cheered.

"RING ONE GOES TO SAKANA!" Prue bellowed. "THE UNDERDOG ADVANCES, AND FRIENDS, I don’t know WHAT that pose was, but THAT’S WHAT I CALL A DUEL!"

I stood over Denholm, breathing hard, my arm completely numb from the wrist to the shoulder, and helped him up because he seemed like a nice guy.

[One down. Whole tournament to go.]