Lena Eckhart stood at the center of the ring and she felt tall. The stands were full. She had known they would be. Word of a ranking match traveled fast in the Academy, and word of a duel traveled faster still. Lena felt the ten thousand eyes, though there couldn’t have been more than a thousand people watching. She stood with her chin raised, and her shoulders open. She looked at the Inkers. At the other students. She spared a glance for the Archon behind her. Finally, she stared at her father’s raised podium, if only for a moment.
Lena Eckhart looked everywhere except the western tiers, where a certain half demon sat. She had promised herself she wouldn't. She had made one this morning to a face that did not answer.
I'll handle it, she had told him. You'll see.
Somewhere high above her, a bird chirped. Lena found it an irritating sound. It was a small irritation, one she put out of her mind, because the half-demon stood before her.
"You still have a chance to end this," The half-demon said.
It was hard not to snort. It was the most obvious attempt at saving face she had ever heard. Lena spread her arms wide as she took in the crowd. "What's this? Scared for your safety, half-demon?" Lena asked.
Lysanthia looked at her, and the look lasted only for a moment. Then the half-demon raised her arms, and then something came off, from both her arms at once.
Lena had not known the half-demon had been wearing anything on her arms. That was the first wrong thing. One moment the woman's forearms were bare, and the next two thin bands fell to the floor. They looked like bracers.
The second wrong thing was the half-demon’s arms. The red and green Lines were gone. In their places ran a Line of purest black down the right arm, and a Line of purest white down the left, and the black was a color that made Lena shiver to look at. The white was a color that sent Lena to a place far away, to a room that smelled of herbs.
The noise of the stands dipped. Lena found herself turning to look at the Archon. Even she didn’t know why. The old man had gone very still. Next Lena’s gaze went to a knot of Inkers by the south benches. Inker Lorin sat up straight. The lazy fool man never cared for anything but his histories. Lena was surprised to even see him here, and now he had sat up straight.
Her father sat as he had the last time Lena had seen him. Imperiously, one hand on his chin. That gaze did not soften when it reached her. It never did.
In the western tiers something moved. Lena had broken her promise and looked. Ilyasviel had leaned forward. That, more than any other reaction, bothered Lena most.
"And just what is that?" Lena demanded, pointing at the bracers on the ground. "What is the meaning of this? What kind of demon trick is- hiding something, are you, half-demon?"
Lysanthia looked down at her own arms for a heartbeat, before looking back up at her. "Does it matter?" she said. "Are you not the one who believed in the difference between our marks, girl?"
Girl. Lena's jaw tightened, and then she made it loosen, because the half-demon was right about one thing. They were Lines, whatever color they came in.
She drew in Essence and projected her voice, enough to fill the hall. "No. None of your tricks matter to me, half-demon." As she said it, her hand rose and brushed the front of her uniform, just over her sternum. It was involuntary. She took the hand away.
She looked to the Elf. The Elven Inker had come to the Academy a year ago, a posting Lena's father had forced in exchange for his continued support. The elven woman knew whom to listen to, and the single glance was enough.
The Elf raised one hand, and her voice went out over the stands. "Before we begin, let the duelists give their assent. Let them take their vows."
She turned to Lena first. "Do you vow to abide by the terms set forth in this duel?"
"I do," Lena said, smirking, and the weight settled. It came down over her like a hand closing loosely around the back of her neck.
The Elf turned to the half-demon. “And do you vow to abide by the terms set forth in this duel?”
“I do,” Lysanthia said. And Lena watched Lysanthia startle. It was no more than a widening of those red eyes. How strange. As if the vow itself had surprised her, and not the terms.
The Elf's hand rose. The crowd's roar rose with it. The hand fell. "Begin!"
Neither of them moved at first. Lena smirked and flooded her Sigil. Blue light crawled up her forearm and crackled at her fingertips. "Hope you don't blame me for what happens next."
She raised her hand and fired. The lightning crossed the ring in a blue-white instant. The half-demon raised her right hand, and black fire poured out to meet it. Lena's smirk brightened, for the fool was challenging a Sigil head to head with a Line, and then it dipped, because Lena saw what she was challenging her lightning with.
It looked like black fire at first. It was more than that. It was an absence in the world. Where it met her lightning there was no clash. Her lightning simply ceased, and the black fire was coming for her then. Lena threw herself sideways, and it bit through the stone where she had been standing. She came up fast, heart hammering.
"You did something! You did something, didn't you?!" Lena demanded.
Lysanthia tilted her head. She looked, of all things, puzzled. "You wished to match strength," she said. "I matched it. It seems yours is lesser than mine."
Lena hissed and threw everything her mark could channel into a wave of blue that lit the whole Arena, and the black fire rose again and chewed a hole through the center of it, and a Sigil dodged a Line’s attack for the second time in one day.
Lena came up snarling, and then she made herself focus. The half-demon wasn’t sweeping the arena with that black flame like she could have. She couldn’t. At Line, all she could do was project that strangeness. She was still just a Line. Perhaps that freak mark could beat her lightning. That was just one of the differences between their stages.
Lena closed the distance. The body of a Sigil could not be compared to the body of a Line. Hers was stronger and faster, and more than the mark, there was the training, years of it, from instructors her father had brought from three different Provinces, and before any of them, there had been her brother, correcting her stance with endless patience.
The stance was his. Lena put her weight forward, lightning sheathing both forearms. Lena rushed forward and she swung, and the half-demon dodged. Barely, and by a hair, and again by a hair, always a finger's width from ruin, and it should have been satisfying and instead it was infuriating, because the woman should not have been able to dodge at all. Lena feinted low, went high, and finally landed one clean blow, her fist taking the half-demon in the chest and hurling her back three staggering steps.
It hurt. Lena's knuckles ached with it. It had hurt more than punching a Line should hurt. The half-demon recovered and winced. Her face still had no fear. If anything, she looked even more confident now than when they’d started. Lena hated her more in that moment than she had hated anything, except one person.
Black fire came at her in a gout. Lena stepped around it, and charged into the opening with her speed, because the fool was over-reliant on her mark, and now, while she was committed-
The fire cut off mid-stream and a kick came out of the space behind it, and Lena read it with half a breath to spare, swaying back so close she felt the wind of it on her chin.
She retreated four steps. Across the ring, another of the half-demon's bursts went wide entirely, splashing against the pale stone near the western edge. Sloppy, Lena thought. She can barely even control that mark. No better than any other Line.
The stands had gone uneasy. Lena could feel it. She stood tall, and projected her voice again. "You're a little better than I thought, half-demon." She kept her voice even. "No wonder they made you a Consecrated. A shame it doesn't matter against me."
The half-demon's voice went out over the stands too, and Lena did not see the slightest strain on the woman’s face. As if the projecting had cost her nothing. "In comparison," Lysanthia said, "you are worse than I had thought."
Someone laughed. There was no way to tell who, but someone would tell Lena, and she would deal with them later.
She didn’t want to do this. Using a Tenet against a Line looked desperate. She should have been able to handily win without it. Still, letting this drag out looked worse. Every exchange the half-demon survived fed the crowd's unease. "Oh?" Lena spread her hands. "Feeling confident, are you?"
"As confident as that the sun will rise tomorrow," the half-demon said. "Unless I have something to say about it, perhaps."
Inwardly, Lena sighed with relief. Outwardly, she laughed for the benefit of the tiers. "Very well. I'd wanted to take my time. But I don't mind crushing you quickly, if that's what you beg for."
She took a breath. She reached inside of herself, past the place where the mark lived, to the place where the inside and her mark had become the same thing, and she pulled.
Her Essence began to drain at once. Lightning took her whole body. It sheathed her from ankle to shoulder in crawling, crackling blue, and with it came the urge to move, to move, so strong it was nearly unbearable. The crowd's roar rose to meet the light. Perhaps she should have used this from the very start after all.
Lena launched, and for the briefest of moments, she saw the half-demon's eyes widen. Good, she thought. That's what I wanted to see.
Her fist took Lysanthia in the side before the black fire had even begun to gather, and the half-demon left the ground, hurled across the stone, skidding, fetching up an arm's length from the ring's edge. Lena was already moving. Black fire rose to meet her. Lena leapt above it and came down with an axe kick on the woman's shoulder.
Something snapped under her blow. Lena felt it travel up through her heel.
The half-demon cried out and dropped to her knees, her right arm hanging wrong from the joint. Lysanthia forced the hand towards her and more black fire came from her right hand. Lena stepped back from it with almost contemptuous ease and stood there wreathed in blue.
Lena had forty seconds left, maybe less. Her Essence was pouring out of her and it was starting to strain. She could not, under any circumstances, look like she felt it. "So, half-demon." She said. "How are you feeling now?"
The woman knelt at the ring's edge, with her right arm dangling. The half-demon reached across her own body with her left hand, and Lena wanted to laugh. What does a Line think she can do with an injury like-
White fire poured from her left. So bright it was hard to look at. Lena's eyes watered and she blinked, and when she could see again the arm was fine. The shoulder sat correctly in its socket. The half-demon rolled it once, as though checking a stiff muscle after sleep, and rose to her feet.
A Line healing mark can't work that fast. She thought. Even for a Line that looked to be on the verge of branching, there were rules.
"You struck a blow," the half-demon said. “That is more than many mightier than you can say. You should be proud, girl.”
Somewhere above, a damned bird chirped again. Lena's jaw ached from clenching. Lena charged forward again.
She was faster, especially when she was using her Tenet. She was stronger, just by virtue of being a Sigil. It should have mattered.
Lena charged through a wall of black fire and felt her Essence gutter at the contact. She landed a blow across the woman's ribs that would have folded half the Sigils she knew. The half-demon fell back, and that white fire healed her before she finished falling.
Lena launched again, planted her lead foot, and the stone gave.
It crumbled under her boot into powder, and Lena's balance went sideways. Her arms windmilled, she staggered, and the half-demon was already inside her guard, and punched her bare-fisted. Through the Tenet.
Lena's head snapped around. She reeled back two steps with her ears ringing, and the ring swam. When it steadied she saw Lysanthia shaking out her hand. White fire already crawled across her own split knuckles, knitting them closed.
It made no sense. The half-demon woman willing to break her own hand on Lena's armor? Everyone was right. Half-demons were creatures that could not be reasoned with. For the first time, Lena Eckhart wondered if she could lose.
She flinched from her own question. And into the space the flinch left came her brother. He lay in the white bed with the herb smell, surrounded by healers who could do so much and yet had done nothing, because none of them could heal whatever Ilyasviel had broken. It must have been a trick then. For her brother to lose to anyone, let alone a half demon. Just like there was some trick now, for someone like her to struggle here.
She’d had enough.
Her Essence was nearly spent and so she had to make the remainder count. Lena extended her right hand out to the side. The lightning left her limbs and gathered there, coalescing and condensing. It elongated into a short crackling spear of blue-white, and across the ring the half-demon's right hand was only beginning to rise.
Lena threw, and her spear took Lysanthia through the stomach.
The half-demon gasped and folded onto her knees. Blood came, and it smoked where it fell. Lena released the Tenet and the whole world got heavy at once. She locked her knees and forced her spine straight by will alone, because the fight was over. The fight was over. She had won.
The crowd erupted, and strength returned to her legs with it. The sound of it hit her like a wave and she turned into it, arms rising. She looked for her father. Was he smiling? It was impossible to tell. Lena hoped he was, though she could not recall what any other expression might have looked like on her father’s face. It had been four years since she'd seen anything else.
Lena turned instead to the western tiers. To the empty rows, and the one thing sitting in the middle of them. Someday it would not be this half-demon calling herself Lysanthia across from her. Lena pointed with her whole arm up at Ilyasviel. Someday it will be your turn.
Ilyasviel pointed back almost lazily. And Lena realized that the line of that arm did not end at her. It passed over her shoulder and behind her. Lena turned. The half-demon was standing.
Lysanthia was wobbling, left hand pressed white and blazing against the ruin of her stomach. Blood ran down her front and pooled on the floor, but she was standing. She spat blood to the side and wiped her chin with the back of her wrist.
"That was a rather considerable amount of pain," Lysanthia said. Her voice went out over the whole Arena, and it was not even strained. "Be proud. The last one to wound me so was a god, child."
The crowd did not know how to laugh at that. Neither did Lena. She reached for the Tenet.
The lightning came to her, rose along her arm, and guttered out in the same breath. She reached again and this time she found nothing at all.
The half-demon stepped forward. Her voice was almost conversational. "It seems you can barely maintain this Tenet of yours for half as long as Ren. Still, I had not expected it to grant speed. The world is strange now."
Lena screamed and threw lightning with whatever Essence she had left. It struck the half-demon's side and burned skin and should have torn through to the other side. But the white fire was already there, and Lena heard her own voice cracking across the ring. "You damned half-demon, I will kill-"
Lysanthia stepped forward and swung her arm. One moment Lena was standing and the next the world was stone and pain. She only stopped at the ring's edge with the taste of copper filled her mouth. Everything hurt. Everything was one hurt with no edges to it.
How much Essence was in that one hit? The thought came slow. The crowd was very quiet. Very quiet save for that damned chirping.
"I have never believed in prolonging the inevitable," the half-demon said behind her. "I will make this quick, girl."
No.
Lena's hand moved before her shame could stop it. It slid into her uniform, closing around the thing over her sternum.
She had sworn she would not use it. She had sworn she would not need it. She had bought it anyway, and she was using it now. Her brother had been pure and he had paid for it. No one could blame her for this.
Lena pulled it out and rolled to her knees. In her hands was a small B-rank Essence Heart, smaller than her palm. Light crackled faintly in its shell, and across its surface was a thin thread of black that shifted, and vanished, and shifted again. Dishonor was better than losing, and none could interfere with a vowed duel already taking place.
"I will give you one chance to surrender," the half-demon called out behind her. "Just one. Take it, fool."
Lena turned, snarling, and watched the half-demon's gaze find the orb in her hand. She watched the red eyes go wide.
"Girl," Lysanthia said, and her voice had changed, "don't-"
Lena crushed the heart. The shell shattered in her fist and blue power flooded the air around her, rushing inward, roaring toward her mark, and riding in with it, came the black.
Lena screamed. The chirping finally stopped.