“Ms. Dusko, do not twist facts,” Enaricus barked, forcing a scoff he hoped sounded confident. “For all we know, it was you who summoned them.”
His denial echoed thinly, already fraying at the edges. Percival brushed imaginary dust from his velvet cuff. “Onneas, be sensible. Step aside. Let Enaricus inspect the palace in peace.”
The words, delivered with elegant cruelty, left Enaricus sweating beneath his collar, the prince’s casual betrayal had dragged him onto center stage.
“Interfere with our internal affairs, and you kindle war between our halls,” Onneas warned, every syllable edged with holy fire. She knew full well the prince had not journeyed here on a whim.
The grand elder advanced one measured pace. Power billowed from him, an invisible mountain that crushed air from lungs and courage from hearts. Celestial Guards behind Onneas bent at the knee, gasping beneath the unspoken threat.
“Little girl,” he growled, his words rimed with frost, “Show respect while you still breathe. We will enter this palace today. Stand down, or accept the consequences written in blood.”
The verdict in his tone left no room for negotiation. Onneas clenched her jaw until pain spiked through her temples. The pressure made her limbs tremble, yet her stare remained immovable. “You pass only over my dead body.”
Within her chest, she repeated the vow again and again. This battle directly affects the palace’s honor and future. I will not retreat! The grand elder‘s smile never touched his eyes. “Then we have no choice but to take action.”
A spark of killing intent flickered behind his lashes, dark and absolute.
“Hold…” Percival lifted one gloved hand. “Grand Elder, leave the Fourth Hall Lord to me. A single duel will suffice, and after her defeat, I will take whatever spoils are owed a victor.”
He glanced sideways at Enaricus with venomous courtesy. “You do not mind, do you? I have yet to experience a contest against a celestial woman.” Enaricus’ cheeks twitched. He forced a brittle nod. “If that pleases Prince Percival, by all means.”
The trap had snapped shut. Any further protest would only tighten the noose Enaricus himself had braided from greed and treachery.
In that breathless instant, he understood one thing with blistering clarity, tonight he was not allowed the luxury of defeat. Victory was no longer a hope or even a goal. It had become the air in his lungs, the pulse in his veins.
“Enaricus, you shameless cur! How dare you crawl into bed with the fiends from the Malevolent Path Hall?!” Onneas hurled the accusation skyward, her voice ringing like steel across the courtyard.
“Save your breath, Ms. Dusko,” Percival replied with a slow, venomous grin. “You’ll need every ounce of strength when my blazing fire begins to scorch your bones.”
The promise slithered from his lips, oily and obscene. “Try surviving my blade first,” Onneas answered, her tone a slice of winter.
A tremor of power rippled through Onneas’ slender frame. In a flash of pale light, she rocketed upward, cutting a silver path into the night sky.
Without looking away from his prey, Percival murmured to the robed elder at his side, “Steady yourself, sir. Once I break this woman, the Celestial King Palace will tumble into our laps like overripe fruit.”
“Mind your footing, my prince,” Esorin warned, his voice a measured rasp that carried more gravity than the moon.
Percival dipped his chin, then burst upward in a streak of onyx brilliance. Half a heartbeat later, he and Onneas collided at cloud height, two meteors locked on a single ruinous orbit.
Their overlapping energies warped the heavens, folding air and starlight into trembling vortices that crackled between them.
Onneas raised her longsword. Its argent edge shimmered with a chill so pure it seemed to drain color from the night. Her hawk-sharp eyes never left Percival’s heart.
Opposite her, Percival clenched both fists. Demonic aura coiled around his knuckles, exhaling a tomb-cold malice that made the sky itself flinch.
“Today, Ms. Dusko, your legend sinks into the sand and drowns,” he roared, voice booming like a war drum. He lunged first, an ebon comet howling through the dark, fists aimed to cave her ribs to dust.
Onneas scoffed, slipped sideways on a whisper of wind, and answered with a single, gleaming sweep. A crescent of sword energy screamed from the blade toward Percival’s chest. The arc cut so cleanly that thin fissures split the sky in its wake, tiny cracks in reality’s porcelain skin.
Startled, Percival twisted at the last moment. Frost-bright energy skimmed his coat, slitting the fabric with surgical contempt. He tasted the bite of danger and hissed in silence.
So this woman’s thorns run deeper than I guessed…
