“You again, Ras? We have a front door, you know!”
“Sorry. Send Fon the repair bill, will you?”
Fon was the owner of Ras’s favorite brothel. Ras often brought trouble to this tavern, and it was usually related to a woman. As he passed through the crowded tavern, patrons recognized him and called out.
“Ho there, Stallion! Pissed off an aura knight this time? You’re a braver man than me, aye!”
“When she gets a hold of you, I hope she cuts your balls off!”
“Shut up! Out of my way.”
Ras had somewhat of an ill reputation. He’d made plenty of enemies, and even when he hadn’t, his popularity with women meant people still bore a grudge anyway. Ras had to endure taunts from jealous citizenry wherever he went.
Several of them tried to block his flight, but Ras barged past them and exited the tavern through the rear door. Kanalayka was nowhere to be seen, so Ras assumed he must have lost her. Just a little farther, and Ras would enter a labyrinthine residential district filled with twists and turns. They would have no chance of following him in there.
Ras chuckled to himself, relishing the thrill of escape. It was at that moment the sky directly above his head lit up.
“What the—?!”
The source of the light was a burning fireball, more than one meter in diameter. It flew over Ras’s head like a cannonball and crashed into the ground just ahead of him, where it exploded, filling the narrow alleyway with flames. Ras found his path barred by blistering heat and an acrid smell like burning lamp oil.
This was the result of sixth-level auramancy called Fiery Blast. It utilized moisture and carbon dioxide in the air. The caster had to be somewhere nearby.
“What are they thinking, setting off an explosion in the middle of the city?!” Ras muttered to himself. He spun around and looked in the direction where the fireball had come from. There, on the rooftop of the tavern Ras had just exited, stood a hooded woman—the silver-haired figure, Kanalayka’s companion. Ras glared at her.
“Did she predict I was going to come this way? Who is she anyway?”
It wasn’t the woman’s auramancy skill that weighed on Ras’s mind, but the swiftness of her response. It was like she knew what Ras was going to do before he did. Her fireball had served not only to cut off Ras’s escape route but also to alert Kanalayka of his whereabouts, and it wasn’t long before the imperial guardswoman, attracted by the sound of the explosion, burst out of the tavern and cornered Ras in the alleyway.
“Found you, Ras Talion! You won’t elude me this time!”
Seething with anger, Kanalayka pointed her rapier. Ras turned and sighed. He’d been hoping to slip away and avoid an incident, but there was little chance of that now.
“I didn’t want to do this,” he said. “Do you know what they do to the poor bastards who injure an imperial guard?”
“Ha! Is that a joke? As if you could lay one scratch on me!”
A pattern of red lines, like blood vessels, appeared across the surface of Kanalayka’s blade. It was a sign that the swordswoman had infused her weapon with aura. Though made of solid stone, an aura knight’s sword could slice through just about anything when in this state.
On the other hand, such a sharp blade left a clean wound, easy to treat using rudimentary techniques. Kanalayka was no doubt intending to cut off an arm or a leg to incapacitate him, then put Ras back together later.
It was a sound plan…against any other foe, at least.
Ras sighed again. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He strode toward Kanalayka, but there was no sign of a weapon or anything in his hands. The imperial guardswoman was surprised by that, but it didn’t delay her decision-making for even a second. Quick as a flash, she leaped into the air, swinging her sword in a downward arc.
However, her attack never made contact. With split-second timing, Ras slammed his palm into his fist, catching the blade between them.
“What?!”
Kanalayka couldn’t believe her eyes. Her enhanced weapon was sharp enough to cut through steel, yet Ras broke it into splinters with nothing more than his bare hands.
“Y-you shattered my sword… How?!” Kanalayka reeled in shock, but Ras simply stepped right by her and kept on walking.
“Sorry about that,” he said, “but I’m not paying for it. You attacked me first.”
Just as Ras was about to leave, he paused in his tracks. Standing in his way was the hooded woman with silver hair, blocking the very path down which he had intended to escape.
“You haven’t lost your touch,” she said. “Even Kanalayka wasn’t enough to bring you in.”
The silver-haired woman didn’t seem too surprised. Considering Ras just trounced the Imperial Guard’s top knight, he expected more of a reaction. Instead, it almost seemed like this was just another thing she’d predicted.
“Who are you?” Ras asked. He couldn’t shake the feeling the silver-haired woman was acting differently now, like her prior behavior had only been an act. When she spoke, it brought to mind a memory. A memory of a time long ago.
“If you would like to know who I am,” she said, grinning and drawing her sword, “then why don’t you come and find out?”
Ras was surprised to see her armed with a blade. Usually, auramancy of the caliber she had fired off earlier required focused study, but judging by the glow of her weapon, he assumed this woman was fairly proficient in the physical arts as well.
Still not as skilled as Kanalayka, though, Ras thought. He’d have little trouble removing the woman’s hood and seeing the face she seemed so intent on hiding. He had to admit, he was a little curious. But more than anything else, Ras just wanted to wipe that all-knowing smirk off her face.
“Don’t go crying to Auriol if I end up hurting you,” he jeered.
“Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the one crying.”
“Like hell!”
Ras lunged, and the silver-haired woman swung her sword. Her attack was much faster and more forceful than Ras had been expecting, but it seemed that despite her ferocity, the silver-haired woman didn’t want to hurt him. She was holding back, and that meant Ras had just enough room to avoid her attack. As he stepped past her, he grabbed her hood, ripping it back.
Silver threads glistened like a snowfield under the moonlight. When her hair settled, she turned her violet eyes on Ras.
Ras couldn’t breathe. Not because the woman before him was like an angel given human form, but because her flawless features were those of someone he knew very well.
“Your Highness!” called a voice from behind them.
Finally over the shock of losing her sword, Kanalayka rushed around the corner and onto the scene. But her words only served to reinforce the impossibility of what Ras was seeing.
“Th-that…can’t be,” he stammered, as though his voice might give out at any moment. Search as he might, he couldn’t find the words. The disturbance he felt at that moment eclipsed all else.
The lady standing before him could only be one person. But it was a person who could not have existed.
Because she was meant to be dead. Killed in the rebellion of two years prior.
“I finally found you, Ras.”
The violet-eyed woman brushed her fingers softly against Ras’s chest. He felt the aura surging through her fingers, signifying the invocation of a technique: third-level auramancy called Thunderbolt, which amplified ambient static electricity into a high-voltage current powerful enough to bring a man to his knees.
“Fi…,” he murmured as his consciousness slipped away. “Why…?”
But Fiarca Jeva Argenteia, the dearly departed imperial princess, only smiled.