Chapter Twenty-Five

The green leaves of the trees shaking gently in the breeze were a sure sign that spring had fought off the last vestiges of winter at last. In this part of the continent, that was. The scenery farther north may well have still consisted of bare branches and snow-laden fields.

It was getting warmer as well. Lusya was fine. Her wardrobe was selected to allow acceptable levels of comfort at just about any temperature, rare extremes excepted. Ariya, on the other hand, had once again had to take off her coat and carry it. She still looked uncomfortable, though, huffing and panting as she walked along with her face flushed and a light sheen of sweat on her brow. Her dress did not look warm, but perhaps it trapped heat better than it appeared. Or maybe holding the coat so close to her body caused it to keep her warm anyway.

It was doubtful it would be cool enough for the child’s heavy coat again for some time. There was little point in having her wear it and take it off all the time, nor in having her carry it constantly. It may have even slowed them down. Ariya was keeping pace for the moment, but she did look to be struggling with the coat. She battled to keep it in a neat bundle in her hands and her gait turned to an awkward waddle every time part of it came undone and she tried to fix it.

“Would you like me to put that in my pack?” Lusya asked.

Ariya’s expression shifted to surprise for an instant, then she smiled and gave an enthusiastic nod. “Yes, please.”

Lusya slung off her bag and packed the coat away. She put the pack back on and hesitated, staring off into the woods. Something had brushed against her detection radius for just an instant. Perhaps the Sacred Knights? If they were in a hurry, they could overtake her and Ariya without issue. Who or whatever it was, however, was keeping their distance. Whether that was intentional or not was hard to say and the sensation had been too brief to get any details. She was not even sure if there was more than one entity.

“Is something wrong?” Ariya asked. “You look like you’re thinking about something.”

“I am always thinking about something,” Lusya replied. She waited another moment to see if whatever it was would return. It did not. “You do not need to worry about it, child. Let us continue.”

“Yes, Lusya.”

They continued along the road, a simple path of packed dirt through the woods. It obviously saw enough traffic to make a roadside inn worth running and it was wide enough for several wagons side-by-side, but Lusya had not seen another soul for some time. Perhaps it was seasonal.

Before long, Lusya sensed the same presence as before. It was just one person and now they were standing still down the road, waiting. She was confident she knew who it was too.

If he had gone to the trouble of intercepting her here, she doubted evading him would be simple. She would need to confront him instead. So, she kept walking until she got to where he was waiting. He was within the trees, off the road at a place where it was intercepted by another, smaller path. Maybe he had hoped to glean some of her intentions by observing which way she went.

Instead, she stopped in place well before reaching the intersection. She slung off her pack and tossed it behind her. It would have been in the way and there was nothing fragile within to worry about. Ariya stopped a moment later and looked up, a question clear on her opening lips.

“Get behind me, child,” Lusya said.

Ariya shut her mouth, nodded, and scurried behind Lusya, staying close.

Lusya’s eyes went to where their pursuer was hiding. “Show yourself.”

There was a second of stillness and silence, then Captain Kadel Highmoor walked out from behind a large tree trunk and strode into the center of the road some twenty feet ahead. As she had suspected. She had been careful to commit his presence to memory. His subordinates were nowhere to be seen, nor could she sense their presences nearby. There were techniques to suppress one’s presence, but they were advanced and could only make one appear weaker than they were, not hide the user outright.

It was not impossible that a Blade’s ability could have concealed them, but the odds the blonde girl had such a power were low. He was alone. He also seemed to have discarded the sword he had been carrying earlier. Contrary to what those unfamiliar with motomancy might have assumed, that was not a gesture of peace or goodwill. He wore no sword because it would have been useless at best and a slight hindrance at worst if—or rather, when—they fought.

“I didn’t think I could hide from you,” he said. “But it was worth a try.”

She tilted her head at a slight angle. “Why are you here?”

“There was something I needed to make sure of,” he said, eyes narrowing to slits. “And some things I needed to do if my hunch was right. Which it seems it was.” He frowned. “It’s remarkable that I’m not sure. I wouldn’t have noticed at all if I wasn’t looking for it. The Natural Philosophy Corps would love to have a look at you, but I get the feeling I won’t be taking you alive.”

“You will not be taking me at all,” Lusya said. “Leave, if you wish to survive. You will not receive a second warning.”

Kadel shook his head. “I can’t do that. Now that I’m here, I must do my duty as a Sacred Knight. I even left the others behind so they wouldn’t slow me down or get caught up in a battle beyond them.”

“Lusya, what’s happening?” Ariya asked in a small, shaky voice. She peaked around Lusya, hands wringing the cloth of her dress.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Lusya said. “The situation will be resolved soon.”

Kadel pursed his lips in thought. “To what end are you trying to shelter that child? You really are a strange de—”

Lusya surged forward and closed the gap between them in an instant. She drew a fist back and launched powerful punch. Kadel’s eyes widened, and he hurriedly assumed a defensive stance. He blocked her fist on his forearm and dug in his heels, but the force of the blow still sent him sliding back along the dirt.

He lunged and countered with a punch of his own. She weaved around the blow and tried to sweep out his legs, but he moved back to avoid it. She continued her movement, flowing seamlessly into a roundhouse kick. He caught that kick, using both forearms to guard.

The force of it and the shockwave released took him off his feet and sent him flying into a tree, but after that impact he landed on his feet with no apparent injuries. He rushed at her without an ounce of hesitation. She dodged the first punch, but the second turned out to be a feint and a third caught her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. It took her off her feet and she sailed through the air for a moment. Kadel moved to take advantage of that opening with a kick, but she managed to create an invisible pad to jump off the air and move away from him. She landed back near Ariya.

They both stopped, catching their breath and waiting for the other to make the next move. It had been some time since she had fought a genuine threat. She knew she could not rush in and hope to win. She could not know what he was thinking, but she assumed it was along similar lines. One mistake could cost either of them the fight.

“So, she doesn’t know,” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Deception is in your nature. Who knows how many other lies you’ve told her?”

“I have not lied to Ariya,” Lusya said.

He scoffed. “I don’t care how you justify it to yourself or anyone else, deception is deception.” He paused, assessing Lusya. “Perhaps I’ll withdraw for now, but it will not be fruitless.” He extended a hand to his side. “Envili.”

A weapon formed in his hands. As Lusya had suspected, he had a Sacred Blade. In the broadest sense, it resembled a whip. Instead of a lash, however, a mass of dozens of writhing, thorned vines was attached to the handle. He swung the weapon and the vines surged toward Lusya, stretching to reach her. She prepared to defend, but Kadel gave a flick of his wrist and the vines swerved around her toward Ariya.

Lusya whirled, but the vines wrapped around Ariya before she could react and retracted. Lusya could perhaps have caught them, but if she did not extricate Ariya properly, she may have just made things worse.

The vines drew back to their original length, some unfurling for future use, while the rest stayed wrapped around Ariya to restrain her. She squirmed and struggled, but the vines gave no sign of releasing her.

“Lusya, help!” she shouted.

“I will free you soon, child,” Lusya said. She turned her attention to Kadel, her head tilted and brow furrowed slightly. “This is your single warning to release her.”

He shook his head and clicked his tongue, like he was scolding a child. “I can’t do that. I’ll need to take this child from you. I wonder how she’ll feel when she finds out her caretaker is a demon.”

“W-what?” Ariya sputtered. “Lusya’s not a demon! She even protected a town from one!”

Kadel raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. Although fights between demons are far from unheard of, I’m not sure I’ve heard of such an incident before.” He turned his attention to Lusya. “Be glad I’ve spared your life, if you are capable of such sentiment. Enjoy the time you have before I rally an extermination force more fit for your strength.”

“That will not happen,” Lusya said. “I will take the child back. But I am curious what you intend to do with her.”

She was not sure what had driven her to ask. Her natural curiosity had brought about the question, but she was usually better at restraining it in such situations.

Kadel pursed his lips, then shrugged. “I guess it does no harm to tell you. There is nothing you can do, and I will acknowledge and respect that she seems have a genuine fondness for you.” He sighed as if the answer pained him and frowned at Ariya, though not with sorrow. Lusya believed that was pity. “She will be treated the same as any other human who has spent prolonged time among demons: her Malice and corruption levels will be assessed, and a decision will be made based on the results. Given how well she gets along with you, I suspect her corruption will be intolerably high and she will be executed, unfortunate as that may be.”

Corruption. What nonsense. While Malice could be measured to some degree, corruption was a nebulous assessment of a mortal’s affinity for or sympathy toward demons. Perhaps there was a way to measure such things, but Lusya doubted the Sacred Knights’ methods were particularly rigorous or empirical in that regard.

“E-Executed?” Ariya exclaimed. She let out a piercing squeal and thrashed against her bonds with renewed strength, but the result did not change in the slightest. “That means, like, killed, right? Lusya, save me!”

Kadel chuckled and gave a gentle shake of his head. “I really will be impressed if a demon tries to ‘save’ a human. You’re better off getting as far from here as you can.”

“I still have use for that child,” Lusya said. “I gave her mother my word I would protect the child so long as that was so.”

Kadel’s brief show of humor crumbled into a scowl. “If she believed the word of a demon, then she was a foolish woman.”

“Don’t talk about Mama that way,” Ariya said. The vines appeared to tighten around her, some of the thorns pricking her. She winced and fell silent, wide, wet eyes darting from Lusya to Kadel.

“Keep quiet,” he said. “Your input is meaningless outside your assessment.”

Perhaps Kadel had a point. Ariya’s mother had not known that Lusya was a demon and Lusya did not know if she gave the impression of being trustworthy. She struggled to understand how mortals saw her at all at times. Even so, many mortals could not be trusted to hold to their oaths. And—though high-rank demons could sometimes rise above such impulses—demons were beings inclined toward treachery and deception.

It would have been wise to flee. A battle with Kadel was risky, and attempting to rescue Ariya may well have ruined her. There were not many like the child, but Lusya had considered other candidates and she was sure she could find another. Maybe Ariya would even survive this assessment.

Yet Father, the twenty-first Demon King, had always tried to impress upon Lusya the importance of keeping one’s word. He had gone beyond practical concerns like keeping the trust of allies. For him, it had been a matter of principle. It was not a sentiment she understood. A promise was just words, a statement of intent like any other.

And yet, it was a sentiment that had rung true from the start. It was something she had latched onto and felt, deep within her soul. One of the few strong feelings she could recall and one that still persisted within her. Maybe at one time she had remembered why that was, but those memories had long since become vague fragments at best.

Even so, her feelings remained. This wasn’t about her duty, about saving herself the trouble of starting over, or even about keeping Ariya pure and useful. It was about protecting Ariya and one simple conviction: a promise unfulfilled was a terrible thing.

We’ll see each other again, Lusya. I promise.

“I am sworn to keep that child safe, and I will uphold that promise. You will not harm Ariya again,” Lusya said. She didn’t give him any chance to reply. She rushed forward, hand held out. “Miudofay.”

The sword materialized in her hand as she closed the distance. Kadel braced himself, preparing to defend. But he was not Lusya’s target. She swung the sword at his weapon, sending out a wave of flames to burn away the vines at their base, well away from Ariya.

Miudofay’s fire pierced through the mass, reducing all it touched to ash. As Lusya had hoped, the now detached vines lost their prior properties. They began to fall, loosening their grip on Ariya. Lusya whirled to catch the child as she fell and place her gently on the ground.

“Stay put,” Lusya commanded.

She twirled, continuing off her existing momentum, and threw a vicious kick square into Kadel’s chest that launched him backward as he tried to lunge at her. He sailed near a hundred feet through the air. Lusya was not idle.

She chased after him as he flew. He began to right himself and create footholds to slow himself, but before he could even touch the ground, she slashed Miudofay and sent a wave of flame at him. With no other options, he jumped off his footholds higher into the air. She had known, of course, that he could do nothing else. There was little doubt he enhanced his durability like she did and if he could air jump, he could make barriers. But while his defenses might have been up to the task of lessening their effects, the likelihood that they were strong enough to fend off Miudofay’s violet flames was low.

So, she flowed into a spinning strike that sent those flames upward, toward her opponent. He again jumped off air, to the side, but he had to know this was getting him nowhere. An airborne target that could dodge in any direction was hard to hit, to be sure. But he also had little means of striking at her and he could not stay up there indefinitely. When he hit his limits on air jumps and fell, it would be trivial to kill him, assuming he didn’t slip up and get hit before that.

He lashed his ruined Blade, and the vines regrew, their burnt stems falling away as fresh tendrils burst out. They stretched into the trees, wrapped around a branch, and pulled Kadel toward it. She sent out a wave of flames, but he swung from the branch rather than drop down, flinging himself deeper into the forest. The flames incinerated the trunks of a line of trees, including the one he had used, bringing their remains crashing to the ground in a series of cracks and bangs. But he had evaded the fire.

Lusya hesitated for a few seconds. That maneuver had made it clear that the forest was a battlefield that favored him, so she did not want to follow him. However, she doubted he would emerge unless it was for some underhanded attack or an attempt to seize Ariya again.

He was still in sight for now, and she could track him even if he went deeper to hide among the trees and growth of the woods. Still, there were plenty of schemes he could use if she lost sight of him. He could retreat out of her detection radius, then return for an ambush. There was no way for him to truly attack her by surprise. His first attempt had failed and now she was on guard and more confident in her ability to recognize his presence. Even so, he could have returned from his flight refreshed and with more of an understanding of his opponent’s prowess.

Or he could have fled and attempt to gather that force he had mentioned. If multiple Knights of his strength came looking for her, she would be in danger. If someone stronger participated, the odds were against her. And if a Paladin chose to join, she would be a dead woman walking. She may have been able to run, but that would only get her so far in the face of active pursuit. He could not be allowed to escape.

She ran into the forest after him. Before he could hide or take cover, she closed the distance for a strike, but he jumped back, flung his vines to wrap around a tree trunk, and swung himself around to come at her from behind with a powerful flying kick. Lusya whirled and sent out a wave of flame, forcing him to unfurl the vines early, flinging himself away to avoid the fire rather than connecting his blow.

Many of his vines got caught and burned away in the process, but they regrew as he landed. Whether that was because of the lesser damage, or they could always do that, and he had been too surprised to regenerate them right away before, Lusya was not sure. Until she had more information, she would assume it was the latter to be safe.

“Using the Demon King’s Blade,” he said with obvious confusion as he resumed his stance. “What are you?”

“I am his daughter,” Lusya said. He was going to die here, so there was no harm in satisfying his bewilderment.

“Then…No, that’s impossible.”

She did wonder what he was thinking, but the time for curiosity had passed. She rushed toward him, but he leaped into the air and pulled himself behind her with his vines. When she turned, he was lashing his whip, the vines flying toward her. She jumped out of the way of the main mass, but a few vines split off and grabbed her by the ankle. They slammed her down and dragged her along the ground, over rocks and roots.

Another set of vines closed in, angling for the arm holding her sword. Did he mean to tear her limb-from-limb? She slashed Miudofay to send out a wave of fire and burn away the vines before they could seize her, then again to sever those holding her leg. More were closing in, but momentum flung her out of their reach and into a tree, shattering much of the bottom portion of the trunk.

She pushed herself to stand. She had a few minor scratches and plenty of aches, but no significant wounds. Still, that would have gone badly if he had managed to get a second set of vines on her. Another mass of vines flew overhead and latched onto the weakened tree behind her, then yanked forward. Lusya dashed away from the falling tree, but Kadel was already moving to intercept.

He ran forward, swung himself off a tree as if to get behind her, then jumped off air to move to the side instead. She flung flames at him to force him to cut off his attack, but another air jump and vine swing allowed him to dodge with ease. He landed near another tree and ran behind it. He moved around her, weaving around and behind trees for cover.

As she had thought, the battlefield favored him too much. The trees afforded him so many options, his movements were difficult to read, and he could use them as weapons as well. Not very effective ones as of yet, but if he got more cunning with them or the battle stretched on enough to wear out her stamina until her enhancements started to fail, it could be a problem.

In that case, she would have to rectify the issue. She had wanted to avoid leaving too much obvious fallout from the battle, but it seemed that would not be an option. Discretion would be of no use if she lost. She slashed Miudofay to send out a horizontal wave of the strongest flame she could muster, as wide, high, and far-reaching as she could make it. Perhaps fearing he would not be able to get out of the way in time, Kadel jumped dozens of feet into the air to clear the flames before they rushed through where he had been.

Of course, he had never been their target and the flames served their purpose. In a fan-shape, widening from a dozen feet to several dozen by the end, reaching over two hundred feet in front of her, a swath of trees had been reduced to ash, along with anything else that had happened to be in that area, leaving a field of soot and charred soil in their place.

Before he could react, she repeated her attack, burning the forest to either side of her initial path. It seemed she had eliminated all the trees in range of his vines, because he allowed himself to fall to the ground.

She moved to intercept him and slashed at him, but he jumped off the air at the last second to redirect himself and avoid the strike. That was the obvious thing to do, and he moved to his left as she had predicted. The edge of the scorched earth was a little closer in that direction than behind him, and they were close enough to the road that her maneuver had left no trees to his right to use, a clear view to the path in their place. She followed the momentum of her slash into a jumping roundhouse kick that hit him square in the chest, angled down to drive him into the ground, where he hit hard on his back. She jumped off the air to get a different attack angle and slashed her Blade.

To his credit, he still managed to dive out of the way of the wave of fire she sent down at him and get to his feet before she landed. Before he could fully recover his bearings, she charged forward and thrust at his head, blade alight with flames. He moved to the side at the last moment. Miudofay severed and incinerated the upper half of his ear and burned much of the surrounding hair and skin.

He screamed in agony and lashed at her in a blind rage. She retreated and destroyed the vines that tried to follow. He glared at her, teeth bared in an almost bestial snarl. Then he took off running at full speed. But not at her. He was trying to move around her. To move back toward Ariya.

She ran to intercept him. But, rather than stop to address the threat, he adjusted his course, trying to avoid her. That was futile, she was more than fast enough to catch up to him anyway. Even so, he did not stop. He lashed his vines at her as they entered an undamaged section of the forest, but they were in such close quarters that she wreathed Miudofay in flame and cut the tendrils off at the base. With his weapon disabled for the moment, she kicked him in the stomach, launching him through the air and countless branches that reached out as if in a futile attempt to slow his flight, out of their part of the woods and across the road where he slammed into a tree with enough force to scrape the bark off the tree and shatter most of the trunk.

She followed after him and raised Miudofay overhead to strike down at him as the tree started to lurch forward. He held his weapon forward and the vines regrew and splayed out into a makeshift shield. He dived to the right just as she struck, slicing through his shield like paper and sending out a wave of fire that tore through the land behind him, reducing another swath of forest to an ash-laden wasteland.

But his gambit had paid off. He was alive, writhing on the ground and wailing in pain ten feet down the road. The remaining vines had reassembled into their whip-like mass and the damaged ones soon regrew. Kadel was alive, but not unharmed. Lusya had felt the blade cut into his flesh, though only just. Even so, it had been enough. The flames had taken the entirety of his left arm. Only the smallest hint of a charred, blackened stump jutted from his shoulder. Much of his shirt and cloak had been destroyed as well, leaving him clad in tattered white rags, and the left side of his face and body were covered in severe burns.

In a way, he was fortunate. If the nature of Miudofay’s power did not lead to cauterized wounds, he would be bleeding out as he squirmed in the dirt. And were it not for the abnormal speed with which heat fell off outside the flames themselves, he would have been little more than a charred husk, if not outright ash. Although, looking at him now, clutching at his ruined limb with tears streaming down his face, teeth clenched in an attempt to stifle his own cries, he may have been better served letting himself be burned away.

Still, with him in such a state, it was a good opportunity to take stock of the situation. She looked back down the road. As she had thought, the few seconds of that last exchange had taken them within twenty feet of Ariya, despite the fight beforehand moving them hundreds of feet in the opposite direction. Given the speeds Lusya and Kadel had moved at, that was not surprising. The shaking child looked from Lusya to the Knight and back again with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

Lusya was loathe to kill Kadel in front of Ariya. Weak as her grasp on mortality may have been, Ariya was sure to be affected by that much. But in her current state, Lusya was not sure how receptive to orders Ariya would be. Having to goad her into closing her eyes may have given Kadel time to recover or escape. It was also possible he had standing orders for his subordinates to come for him if enough time elapsed. They were not a threat to Lusya, but then she would have had to kill them in front of Ariya too.

“My wisdom is peerless, my judgment absolute,” Kadel said, his voice strained, as he forced himself up to one knee. It took but a fraction of a second for Lusya to realize what he was doing. She surged forward, but that brief time had been enough for him to rally the strength to leap away from her strike while he continued his invocation. “All ought to be bound by my will, Envili Uvgra!”

His whip vanished, and in its place, vines sprouted forth from the ground in a wide circle around them. They stretched toward the heavens then curled inward, forming a dome to cut them off from the outside world. The vines were packed thick, allowing only hints of the sun’s light to peek through the gaps. Or rather, an unnatural facsimile of the sun’s light. The angle was wrong, as though the sun were higher in the sky than it actually was, and the light was just a touch too yellow, the rays too well-defined. They were still not enough to light the dome. To compensate, luminescent flowers bloomed forth to light the area with their own soft, golden glow. The vines’ master still needed to see, it seemed.

The flowers had taken a second or so to open up, but otherwise the process had been near instant. The captain stood a few dozen feet away from her, just off the center of the dome. It would have formed centered on him, but his dodge might have carried him out a bit. He was still clutching at his destroyed arm and even the unburnt sections of his face were stained from tears, but he seemed to have stopped crying for the moment. Regardless, the battle had just become many times more difficult. It seemed Lusya had underestimated Captain Kadel.