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As boisterous as the cheers from the crowd were, here, they felt dreadfully far away. Here being a tunnel leading to the field of battle, under the spectator seating. This was a place only those who were not yet winners—but were not yet losers, either—could go. It was isolated from the sunlight, illumination provided by just a few candles.
It almost looks like a dungeon, Priestess thought and then chuckled to herself.
She herself had been in a dungeon proper only once or twice. Nonetheless, the sense of prebattle tension in this place was very much the same as what one felt in an underground labyrinth.
She stood there among the echoes of the shouts above, which came in like waves on the shore. A racer covered in honor, her svelte, beautiful body clothed in colorful garments. A single shooting star flew across her forehead: Silver Blaze.
She stood with her eyes closed, appearing distant, as she waited for her great race, but it certainly didn’t mean she wasn’t ready. She was like a bow before it was fitted with an arrow, taut as a string.
Thus Priestess, the only other one left there, hesitated greatly to speak to her but finally said, “I’m sorry… I wasn’t sure if before or after the race would be better. But I couldn’t help thinking… I really felt I ought to talk to you.”
“Yes… Of course.” Silver Blaze blinked several times, drawing her gaze away from the nothingness. “It’s fine. Probably better before I run. Yes, definitely better.”
Priestess thought she understood what Silver Blaze meant, more or less.
“I—”
“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things,” Priestess said, cutting off the centaur, hoping she had understood correctly.
Silver Blaze didn’t respond but made a gesture that might have been one of amusement or her way of saying she wasn’t interested. Priestess didn’t mind either way. She hadn’t been looking for an answer anyway.
“In any case…”
He’d said the kidnapping by the coachman and Silver Blaze’s disappearance had turned out to be unconnected, and she was sure it was true. If the coachman had tried to sell Silver Blaze with an eye to profit, the whole thing wouldn’t have blown up the way it had. Silver Blaze would have surely reappeared at some arena or another, her silver lock hidden with hair dye or something. There was also the possibility that the coachman could have killed Silver Blaze when the matter began to get out of hand.
“But since you’re standing here, he obviously didn’t.” Priestess tapped a thoughtful finger to her lips.
That, however, still left one question: Was it the immortal sorcerer who had killed the lanista? Or was it the doing of some passing goblins who had seen the pretty centaur girl and murdered her escort without a second thought?
If he was killed by goblins, though…
Then Priestess wouldn’t have expected the body to be left in an identifiable state. Because he was a man? Hardly. Priestess remembered the awful death of that warrior she knew so well. It was simply the way of goblins to enjoy tormenting their prey, hurting them.
Whether goblins or sorcerer, the corpse wouldn’t have been left as undisturbed as it was.
All right. All right. So if it wasn’t the sorcerer, and it wasn’t the goblins, and it wasn’t the coachman…
“There was only one other person there with that lanista,” Priestess said.
“…”
Silver Blaze didn’t respond right away but looked at her feet, checking them like an adventurer about to burst into a dungeon chamber. And then she let out a breath gently, something close to a sigh of resignation.
“One of my friends has bad hooves, but she never lets on,” she said. “She always runs with all her might. With a sound like lightning.”
“Ah,” Priestess said, remembering. The lovely centaur racer from the other day’s race, whom they’d met at the ludus.
When she saw Priestess’s expression, Silver Blaze nodded briefly. “She has tremendous power in her legs but also a large body. Her hooves can’t take the strain.”
“Well—”
“But it doesn’t stop her from running.”
There were many other racers, too. Those who ran flat out, vying for the win. Those who simply loved nothing more than running. Those who were totally committed with a consuming desire for victory. Silver Blaze spoke of them one by one, spoke of all those against whom she had raced. She looked the way Priestess did when she thought of friends past and present.
Thus it was, Silver Blaze told her—thus it was that…
“Thinking of them, I finally couldn’t stand the idea of letting a race go to nothing just for some bets.”
That’s probably the whole truth of that night.
Even Priestess, somewhat naive about the world, could understand, more or less. Someone desperate for money had sought to cut Silver Blaze’s legs in an attempt to manipulate the race’s outcome. You only had to observe the furor when she had gone missing, and the passion on display now, to understand: The legs of this beautiful centaur, forged into tools for the sole purpose of running, were worth their weight in gold.
Silver Blaze looked at Priestess and understood that all had been communicated. The smile she gave the young woman then was almost translucent—it was a fleeting wish and the knowledge that that wish would never come true.
“So… What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Me? Nothing, really,” Priestess answered without hesitation.
The centaur’s eyes widened. Her ears, which had been standing straight up, flicked, and her tail swished. The body language could not have been clearer: She didn’t understand what Priestess meant.
Priestess shook her head slowly and puffed out her modest chest proudly. “I’m an adventurer who came here to rescue a centaur princess and exterminate some goblins.”
All else was speculation, without proof. Whatever might have happened between Silver Blaze and some lanista with a debt to pay off, Priestess didn’t know. Perhaps that detective they’d supposedly summoned to the city wouldn’t have let the matter lie, but she saw no need to pursue it.
An interrogation in the name of the Supreme God using the Sense Lie miracle might have found criminal wrongdoing. But—ah, yes. Priestess felt it was wrong to have to carry that weight. To have something like that weighing you down as you tried to run.
“You’re Silver Blaze. That young woman’s princess and this arena’s…racer.” It was Priestess’s mission to protect, heal, and save. Including this beautiful woman who had been born to run. For her mission was…
“Therefore, I believe you ought to run.”
“……”
Just as Priestess had chosen to walk the path of an adventurer, Silver Blaze had chosen to come here, had made it here, in order to run.
There was a very long silence from Silver Blaze, who took a deep breath in, filling her chest, and then let it out again. Then with her four feet, she stamped on the ground, a sound of resolution.
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll continue to run. Will that be good enough?”
Of course. Priestess nodded. Yes, she thought, that will be good.
Silver Blaze’s expression was no longer pellucid; now a fire burned in her eyes. She was going to wage the contest of a lifetime with her companions, those who ran with her. So Priestess prayed for Silver Blaze, prayed for her victory, the centaur who stood there facing away from Priestess, looking gallantly toward the racetrack.
Then she said, “Oh!” It sounded so silly.
Silver Blaze, caught by surprise, scuffed with her hooves again, then stopped. She turned, and there was confusion on her face. “Is there something else?”
“Oh, no… Um…” Priestess blushed furiously, and she tried desperately to think of what to say. Argh, this wasn’t getting her anywhere. But it would be pointless if she didn’t press on.
She was distinctly embarrassed, distinctly hesitant, but nonetheless she managed to look Silver Blaze in the eye and said, “D-do you suppose I could have one of your horseshoes…?”
Silver Blaze blinked her beautiful eyes, then smiled. “Yes, I think so. I’ll make sure to put my very best luck into it.” Then Silver Blaze began walking, like a fresh breeze, out into the sun-soaked arena.