Page 121 of The Poet Empress
Above the arena, the sky glared red.
At first, I was worried for Terren. I had never seen Maro fight before, but from the first strike he made, I had known immediately that he was competent. More than competent. He made it seem easy, the way he darted under the canopy like wind, cloudstaff barely a glimmer under Heaven’s red light.Balance. Concentration. Detachment.
But it soon became apparent that it was not even close. Not when his opponent was the Winter Dragon, who had commanded armies and ended wars. The more time went on, the more obvious the differences in their ability became. Each of Terren’s parries were effortless. Perfunctory. He had not moved from where he stood—or struck back—even once.
Maro noticed, too.
He stopped his flurry of assaults and landed on the grass, lowering his staff. “Are you afraid? Are you so much of a coward that you would simply stand there, refusing to fight me?”
Terren lowered his floating shield of swords, but said nothing.
“Or perhaps you are so arrogant you think you can win without striking.”
Now there was something new in Terren’s black eyes. Pity.
Maro seemed to catch it as well. He nodded to himself, as if making a decision. Then he turned and walked away.
Maybe he was going to do the sensible thing. Leave the arena the same way he had come in, get to safety on the other side of the barrier, preserve himself. Even if he missed the one opportunity to kill his brother—the one time the Aricine Ward would ever come down—it didn’t matter. He could still go back to the West Palace, to his wife and his allies, and live a long life as a prince if not an emperor. He had enough supporters that he could absolve himself of his treason, enough influence to still maintain significant control in court.
And even if his brother ruled with iron swords and bloodied the nation with war, it wasstillbetter for Maro to live. Surely he could see that. If he lived, he could at least be Terren’s opposition, could at least check his cruel whims with political plays of his own. And even if Terren did manage to break the nation, Maro’s own economic power could at least help bandage its wounds.
Maro, do you see?I thought, holding my breath.Or are you still caged by love of your own?
Ever since he was young, he had known one truth above all: that his veins were Tensha’s flowing rivers, his beating heart its capital, his flesh its mountains and fertile valleys.
What would you give to prevent the country from being ruled by tyranny? By blades?
I would… I would give everything.
Twenty paces away, Maro stopped. Then, without warning, he spun around and slammed his cloudstaff onto the ground.
The earth cracked. Not just cracked,split—within the span of a heartbeat a canyon had formed, as deep and wide as the height of two men,starting from Maro’s staff and spanning all the way to the edge of the arena.
Terren didn’t even have time to react. His eyes widened a sliver right as the ground beneath his feet fell away, and the next moment, the chasm had swallowed him whole.
Maro wasted no time. Brilliant red magic poured from his body into the staff, from the staff into the earth, forcing the canyon to close like the jaws of a dragon. Chrysanthemum flowers bloomed in yellow bouquets on its walls, beautiful even through the salt and broken earth.
But the canyon could not close completely.
As the little fish hovered above Terren, I could see, through its eyes, as he wielded the flat of his swords to push back the walls. Four and four. His own sigil was agleam, his breathing quickened, his open palms to either side trembling with the effort of holding back solid stone.
Maro was shaking too. He grimaced as he pushed harder, forehead shiny with sweat. A thin trail of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. They struggled for a long time at a stalemate, earth against steel,?/Lu against?/Dao—and then Maro changed his strategy.
First his sigil dimmed and flared again, and then the water came. Erupting out of nowhere, it surged down the canyon like a ravenous beast.
Terren’s eyes flicked to the oncoming torrent, and then his own seal flared just as bright. He raised an open palm. A twisting spiral of swords burst out of the stone floor, forged from nothing, hundreds of blades interlocking as they lifted him out of the canyon. As the newly formed river rushed beneath him, he stood safely above the water on a crest of steel and lilies.
Maro’s expression darkened.
With a poisoned scowl, he sent a bridge hurtling towards Terren—bricks swathed in yellow flowers arcing out across the river—but Terren lowered the crest of his sword-spire to evade it. Maro threw two more bridges over the canyon, three—no, four—but Terren rode his swords like an iron serpent and dodged them all.
“Fight me,” Maro snarled between attacks. “Fight me,damn you!”
Terren glanced down at him and said nothing, only kept evading. There might have been a hint of disappointment in his eyes, or perhaps it was still only pity.
The crowd had become positively feral. I doubted any of them had seen anything so spectacular—two princes battling each other with their sigil magic, in a way that shook earth and Heaven—and their cries of alarm, excitement, and outrage seemed a confirmation. But even so, I was not sure how long the spectacle would last. Terren’s power was no less than remarkable, I knew, but I was less certain whetherMarocould keep up his assault.
The West Palace seemed to share my doubts.
