At last, the story begins to come to a head. Allow me to paint the scene. The throne of Rackvidd. Once, an opulent thing of gilded wood, by then replaced with a plain seat of oiled pine, as tradition within Vassermark. The seat had been crafted from heartwood taken from the king’s hunting grounds, and made to a delicate level of opulence, situating it properly among its four legged peers throughout Vassermark. Though of less value, as Rackvidd meant little more than naval force projection, it had nonetheless been crafted by the same artisans that crafted King Arandall’s throne. That, combined with the imported, Alliesterran cushions made for a splendid chair to lord over the barren meeting room.

If the little dias had not been sufficient for the city lord, at its back glowed a stained glass mosaic depicting a clash between a dragon-like eruption of fire below and the azure rebuttal of Saphira above. The goddess in cycle and yet above the tumult of the Ash Fall Mountains, chaos and order in balance with one another.

A beautiful work, but the light came from nothing more than a little internal garden, and hardly reflected the varied faiths of the city. It gave nothing more than a humbling air when people turned to the throne as they argued their contractual disputes, their disagreements of law, their political misfortunes and their plights of favor.

The throne was a despairing thing of trifling arguments and little power. It ruled over people who hated it, and bowed to distant nobles. It balanced the tugs of faith between the temples and churches without so much as a scrap of magic bestowed upon it. And yet, it was more precious than heaps of gold to Medorosa Canta. It had, in the lengths of his imagination, bundled unto itself all the hardships of his revolution. The false belief that some cosmic scale kept balance, that the anguish and death and suffering made for an ever grander prize.

Nothing but a fallacy, a fabrication of his despair to cling onto.

He had fought his way in among those stone pillars to the very foot of the throne. Dogged by wary guards, dragging with him the fears of punishment with every step he took. No armed force of Cynizia had arrived to the palace. One man hardly raised concern. They hadn’t even shut the main doors on him. Progress further, however, was blocked by spear points. He could get to the throne, but any door out, to the wings of residential rooms and meeting rooms, to the barracks and battery, to the storerooms and kitchens and aerie, to everything with true utility, was blocked.

“Harder to pin down than a greased hog,” Oscar declared as he marched towards him.

The leader of the Cynizia could hardly catch his breath. His frantic scramble of pounding feet and blood had come to an end, and his body cried out for rest. “Karakale has taken down the walls. The mountain men will butcher you all!”

“Erdro Karakale is dead by my hand,” Lucius said, his voice echoing down the hall, amplified as though in an opera hall. Vehemence sprang into the air between them, those two men who had not seen one another since the night in Puerto Faro, and yet whose influence had always been at the other’s throat.

“Solhart!” Medorosa shouted.

“Lucius?” Aisha cried out, held to the side by a soldier with thoughts of chivalry in his head.

For a moment, my pupil found himself speechless, his mouth gaping like any other boy of eighteen. The sight of her broke down walls of worry and concern that built within his mind like piled debris. He barely wrested himself back to Medorosa as the Giordanan circled round the throne. He marched out before the encircling wall of Vassish soldiers.

“Who are you?” Oscar asked.

With a grin and conviction, with the shackles of fear and doubt falling away, my pupil announced, “I’m Lucius von Solhart! The man who will put down this rebellion. I’ve slain the lord of the Black Keep and now I shall cut down Medorosa Canta. This duel is mine. Let me finish it.”

This tore at Oscar, unfairly in a sense. He stepped away, in deference to Lucius’ noble status despite his own desire to avenge his men. He gritted his teeth and hoped that Lucius would fall, that the glory would be his, but did not impede his way as Lucius approached Medorosa Canta.

The Giordanan merchant spread out his hands. In one hand, he held his saber and in the other his honor blade. Both dripped blood across the stone beneath. “We meet again you luckless bastard.”

“What I lack in luck, I make up for in tenacity,” he answered, taking his time to size Medorosa up. He needed a gauge of the other man’s injuries and exhaustion, and found Medorosa only as worse off as he himself was. Lucius was healing however, Medorosa was bleeding.

“How have you not died? I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve killed you. At least three, probably more in those mad brawls you call combat. What sort of stigmata do you have?” Medorosa paced, letting his attention slip from guard to guard and finding that none wanted to step forward. Like an iron maiden from the deepest dungeon however, he could not move towards any of them without finding their steel thrust at him.

“I heal. You have to try a lot harder to kill me.”

“I saw your fucking head cut off!”

“But you didn’t see the head, now did you?” I can only imagine the grin my young pupil had as he said that. All the better for it too. Lies and grandiosity beget legends, and legends beget fear. We may never know how many times his life was saved but these displays.

“Lucius!” Aisha called out, forcing the room’s attention back to her. “Please, is there any way to spare my brother?”

He hesitated. A glance to Oscar, though he only knew the man had an air of authority, earned him a stern shake of his head. “Even if I took him prisoner, he would be executed by the king.”

“I can barter for his life!”

Medorosa roared, “You will not! You will not talk of me like this, sister. I have not been defeated. I am a free man. I am at war with Vassermark, not its pawn nor subject. If they want my life they will have to take it.”

It was not Medorosa’s rage that reached Lucius’ heart, but the pain of Aisha grasping at anything she could, trying desperately to not lose anything more. The tears in her eyes struck him worse than the cleaving blows of Erdro Karakale. Alas, a fleeting sympathy did not bear the weight of responsibility he bore upon his undying shoulders. Lord Raymi had given his dictate, named his price, and that left no room for negotiation.

Medorosa Canta had to die.

He shook his head and glared at the Vassish man holding her by the arm. “Take her away. What is wrong with you men? You would force a woman to watch the killing of her own brother?”

“She’s no sister of mine, not after her betrayal,” Medorosa said.

Aisha collapsed, her legs giving out beneath her. If not for the support of the guard, she would have fallen to the ground at Medorosa’s words. The pull of the man swept her back, into the halls of the palace and away from the fight.

Lucius turned to him. He marched to the dias. “Family is not something that should be forsaken. They’re the deepest bonds, and the void left by tearing out the roots can never be filled. You surely wound yourself as much as wound her.”

“What would you know, Vassish? You people don’t even understand what a marriage is between a man and a woman. You treat children like communal property(1),” Medorosa saids.

Lucius pressed his lips into a line and shook his head. He lifted his sword before himself, gripping the pommel with his other hand. A fatigued duel often does not survive to the point of a bard’s retelling. It can impress only other warriors, who know what it can be like to exert one’s body past all limits. How a sword can feel so heavy in the hands and feet so leaden. Grand attacks and flourishes are, by necessity, abandoned, as the fighters can only manage the most simple of attacks.

But, it is within the grips of exhaustion that excellence wins out. About them, in the streets of Rackvidd, the mountain men were being put down one after the next, run through with Vassish spears from the calm and unyielding guards. They had sprang into the city filled with vigor and adrenaline, but their running about drained them. The brushes with death clasped their limbs like chains. The creeping thought of waning retreat pulled them away and the frenzy began to fail. Only then did training win out, did the blue-cloaked soldiers turn the tide with hardly a loss on their own side. It was easy for them to stand behind their shields, to ward off attacks until an ally could gut the barbarian for them. Not so easy to be in a rabble, in an unknown city, against men with faces hidden behind calm masks.

The direct victory of the siege drew to a close around them, by the inexorable forces of kingdom and economy, the might of Vassermark unyielding against a spurious rebellion. Lucius and Medorosa held between them the spirit of the victory. The Canta boy was right in his reckoning that the symbols of power had a degree of it themselves.

Medorosa put his back to the throne and held up his blades.

Lucius accepted the invitation and lunged into the fray.

Medorosa Canta was of a quite discriminatory sort, in regards to the marriage customs of Vassermark.