Chapter 197: My Core Is My Heart
>>Ariston
The courtyard stank of iron and wet stone. My lungs burned, my grip ached, but I wasn’t slowing down, Rael was.
I could see it in his steps. The sure-footed precision he had at the start was slipping, his blade just a fraction slower to rise, his parries a fraction weaker. Every clash now drove him a step further back.
I kept pressing.
The sharp clang of our swords rang through the empty air. My strikes came heavier now, more deliberate, hammer blows meant to break him down. He blocked the first. The second. The third. But each deflection cost him.
He tried to hook his sword low again, but I saw it coming, knocked his blade away, and brought my own down in a brutal arc. He barely caught it with his cross-guard, the force sending him staggering to his knees.
He looked up at me, rainwater and sweat streaking down his face.
"If you win this," he panted, "you’ll never have your answer."
I didn’t reply.
The world narrowed to the sound of my heartbeat and the black edge of my sword.
I advanced, my blade slicing through the mist in a silver arc. He scrambled back, parried once more, but I twisted the hilt and slammed my pommel into his jaw. The crack of bone was sharp, satisfying. He reeled.
I didn’t stop.
A slash to the side, hit.
Another to the shoulder, hit.
Black blood splattered across the stones, thick and reeking of something not human.
He gasped, his knees buckling. I followed him down, one last strike sending his sword flying from his grip. It clattered across the wet courtyard and spun to a stop against the far wall.
Rael fell forward, his palms slapping the stone. The dark liquid poured from him in ugly streams, curling into the puddles at our feet.
I stepped forward, placing my boot on his chest, and lowered my blade until its tip pressed against the hollow of his throat. My face was still, my pulse steady. There was nothing to say.
His gaze met mine, and I saw the flicker of something almost like amusement.
"This," he breathed, "is a cruel end."
I said nothing. My sword didn’t waver.
Rael’s lips curled into a faint, mocking smirk. As if this was all some elaborate joke only he understood. He shut his eyes, the smirk lingering. "I’ll tell you one final thing," he murmured, voice low and deliberate.
Slowly, he lifted one bloodstained hand and pressed it over his chest.
"My core," he said, "is right where my heart is... so you can tear through it... and burn it."
His words hung in the damp air, mingling with the soft drip of blood onto the stones.
And I just stared down at him, my sword still at his throat, feeling no triumph.
Only the cold.
"You look like you’re about to cry," he murmured, voice hoarse but taunting. "What are you, still that little kid who couldn’t face anyone? Or are you about to cry because you want some sort of explanation? To make you feel better about me leaving?"
My jaw tightened.
"Or maybe..." he tilted his head, his smirk returning despite the black blood smeared across his teeth, "...you wanted me to say I was proud of you. That I missed you. That somewhere deep down, I-"
"Shut up," I warned.
"loved you?" His laugh was low and broken, but sharp enough to cut. "Oh, I think I hit a nerve."
Something inside me snapped. My patience which was alreasy thin as the sword’s edge was now gone.
In one sharp, deliberate motion, I drove the blade forward.
There was resistance at first, flesh, bone, but then the point broke through, piercing straight into his chest. His breath hitched, and a shudder ran through him. The sound of steel parting flesh was swallowed by the rain.
Black blood welled around the wound, running down his ribs in thick rivulets. His smirk faltered, but didn’t vanish entirely.
"Well..." he rasped, forcing the words through the pain, "...you finally did it."
I didn’t move. I stared at the open wound, at the black pulsating core.
At the very proof that Rael had left his humanity behind
The air had shifted again, cold, heavy, and the first drops of rain began to fall, pattering against my shoulders and hissing where they hit his black blood.
Our eyes locked.
My red to his red.
A mirror I never asked for.
"Why?" I finally asked, voice low but cutting. "Why did you hold back while fighting me?" I clenched my fist. I knew he was doing it on purpose but I didn’t question it then and took him down.
But why?
Rael’s lips twitched in something that was almost a smirk. "I didn’t."
I felt my jaw clench. His answer just confirmed my suspicion. He did it on purpose.
The drizzle thickened.
"You’re lying." I took a step closer, my shadow falling over him. "Why?" Just why would he want to lose?
He didn’t answer. His eyes stayed on mine, steady but unreadable.
The silence pressed in, mixing with the rain.
"WHY?!" I roared.
It startled him, just a flicker, but I saw it. His fingers curled against the wet stone, his body trembling faintly from blood loss, but he still didn’t speak.
Then, slowly, he tilted his head up at me.
"I thought you didn’t want answers anymore."
I narrowed my eyes, but didn’t move the blade. The rain slid down the steel in thin rivulets.
"Just speak," I said, "You want to die so badly, why not just speak?"
"You know why I never took you to our village?" he asked at last.
My voice was a low growl. "...Why?"
His gaze drifted, almost as if he was looking past me. "Because some bat-shit crazy bandits killed so many people in a hate raid that the survivors had to run off." He sighed, breath ragged. "The reason you were born and had to live among ’normal-eyed’ people was because many of us fled... and had to live in hiding."
The rain was louder now, tapping against the puddles around us.
What...?
Where did this come from all of the sudden?
And did he witness that slaughter himself?
"Wait..." I frowned, my chest tightening. "Was that your reason? Did you want more power... so you could save us?"
"Look..." He coughed, a wet, ugly sound, and black blood trickled down his chin. "I realized too late my method was wrong."
"What are you saying?"
"The black milk forces you to go insane for power... You keep wanting more and more until there’s nothing left of you. And the moment I realized that..." He paused, looking almost... tired. "...I knew I couldn’t involve you in that. So..."
I didn’t like where this was going. I didn’t want his answer anymore. I didn’t want to know why I was abandoned anymore.
But
His lips curled into something that was both a smile and an apology, but it was drenched in blood and sadness. "That’s why I left."
For a moment, the rain didn’t matter. The battle noise in the distance didn’t matter. My grip on the sword didn’t matter.
I just felt my heart shatter.
