Chapter 718: Sunlight in a Bucket

Vella’s cup cracked in her fist, scattering tea across the gallery rail without her noticing a single drop. Down on the glass, Hajin stood bleeding from five cuts, grinning at the old man who made them.

"Show me the Divine Eye, boy," Aske repeated, wrenching his last sword out of the glass, "I want to see if it blinks."

"It never blinks, old man, so try not to either."

’He’s laughing with blood running down his shin, the idiot, I can’t breathe.’

Vella raised her palm over the rail, golden light spilling from her fingers in a slow warm tide. The Sunrise Mend rolled down onto the arena like honey, sealing the cuts along Hajin’s thigh and ribs.

"If he dies out there I’m going to kill him myself," she said, her voice barely steady.

Juna growled beside her, ears flat against her skull, "Then you will have to wait in line."

"The line starts behind me, I have been standing in it since the second cut," Loccy said solemnly.

Aske struck before the light finished, four blades blurring together into a storm of green, red, brown and frost. Hajin stood still in the middle of it, his right eye flaring white as the Divine Eye opened fully.

[Divine Eye]

[Tell found: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter]

[Reading all four]

"Only the frost blade means it, the other three are—" Aria cried in his head.

"I see them, Aria, I see every last one."

Aske rolled Winter low across the glass, a pale chill racing outward to unbirth the floor beneath Hajin’s heels. A round patch of nothing opened under his boot, a blank place where no floor was ever truly born.

"Damn it, he deleted the floor!" he yelped, hopping onto solid glass.

"Cheater, you old cheater!" Juna roared from the gallery.

Four pale threads hung in the air around him, each one a heartbeat ahead of its steel. He wove between them like a boy walking through falling rain, somehow never touching a single drop.

"Impossible," Aske breathed, as for the first time his wheel of swords began to stutter.

Hajin whipped the Chain out in a gold blur, "Eclipse Lash!"

The gold links bit down on Winter and Spring, dragging both blades wide across the old man’s chest. Hajin stepped into the gap, the Chain snapping stiff in his fist as it shrank into a spear.

Blood ran from both his eyes in thin gold tracks, glittering down his cheeks like tears made of sunrise.

"Your eyes are bleeding, that is enough, you have to stop now," Aria begged, her text shaking.

"One more cut, Aria, that’s all I need."

"Crescent Ruin!"

The Lance flashed forward in one arc, curving through his guard as if the air waited for it. It stopped a hair’s breadth from Aske’s throat, trembling there, humming with all the force it still carried.

[ashley(mod): HE STOPPED. HE STOPPED A HAIR AWAY. I AM SCREAMING.]

[GrandmaViewer: Oh honey, his poor eyes, somebody get that boy a cloth.]

[CringeSlayer91: WHO CUT THE ONIONS]

"Yield," he rasped, holding the spear perfectly steady.

The glass rang once, then every blade in the old man’s hands went silent with a final shiver. Aske stared along the shaft of gold, his jaw working as if tasting something he once knew well.

"Four centuries of swordplay, and still I never saw the end of my own sword," he whispered.

"You’ve seen it now, old man, how does it look?"

Slowly the Grandmaster lowered himself onto both knees, his back straight as it was four centuries ago. He laid Spring across his lap, then the other three, bowing his white head over them all.

"I yield, boy, you carry more sun than any bucket should hold," he said.

Sir Haruvane Roke whooped from the rail with both fists in the air, "That’s my surface-crawler, did you see that, he cut the Grandmaster!"

Somebody shushed him, then somebody else cheered, until the whole upper gallery rippled with scattered, startled clapping. Ibaran sipped his tea, silver-gold eyes warm and unreadable, as if the loss had mildly amused him.

Ibaran lifted his cup from the dais, "Rise, Valoren, a Grandmaster kneels once and is forgiven."

"I would rather stay down here, Majesty, the floor is the most honest thing in this room," Aske replied.

"The Courtesy of Blades goes to the household of Silverwood," the masked chancellor announced, reading it off a card with great reluctance.

Juna shoved Vella toward the stairs, "Go before he faints on the court’s floor, we will hold the railing for you."

Vella was already moving, hurrying down the gallery steps with her skirts bunched in one fist, ignoring the stares. She reached the arena floor as Hajin finally let the Chain unwind and sat down hard on the glass.

"Vella, did you see the Lance, did you see that last cut?" he asked, gold still dripping off his chin.

"I saw every second of it, you absolute fool."

Gold tears kept welling from his eyes, each drop a thread of the Divine Eye’s price on the glass. Vella pressed her palm over his lids, warming the Sunrise Mend until the bleeding slowed and finally stopped completely.

"It’s only tears, they stop once the eye closes, mostly," he said, squinting up at her.

"Mostly is not a medical term, you fool," she said, her thumb wiping his cheek.

She knelt beside him, pulling a strip of clean cloth from her sleeve to wrap his chain-burned knuckles. Her fingers shook slightly, although she kept her voice light, like a teacher showing a child a knot.

"You scared me, Hajin, you scared me terribly, I am not a woman who scares."

"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you."

"Yes, you did, you meant to be wonderful in front of everyone, the worst part is you were," she said, tying the knot.

’My hands are shaking, I shouldn’t let him see... I’m going to let him see anyway.’

She lifted his bandaged hand and kissed his knuckles one by one, slowly, feeling his breath catch in his chest. Hajin went red from his collar to his ears, staring at her as if she were handing him a star.

"I think... I may have overdone the eyes," he mumbled, then caught her gaze and blurted, "Pretty, I mean you’re, it was, you’re really pretty."

"Idiot," Vella whispered, smiling with bright wet eyes, "rest your head here."

"I have recorded this entire exchange for medical purposes," Aria announced in his head.

"Delete it right now."

"Request denied, it is already filed under precious."

He lay back on the glass, his head in her lap, gold tears tracking down his cheeks. Above them the court’s lamps glowed soft, so for a short while nobody asked anything of anybody.

Then Ibaran’s cup clinked against its saucer, his warm baritone drifting down from the dais.

"Lovely, truly lovely, I have not been so moved in a century," he said, "tonight, the Courtesy of Names."

Hajin sat up out of her lap, wiping his eyes, "Already, when nobody has even brought us a snack?"

"Lucan, dear, you will face Lady Zarvine," Ibaran went on, as gently as a man offering sugar.

In the lowest gallery a woman in a grey gown rose, her rapier sheathed at her hip. She looked tired as a clerk at closing time, very patient as a stone in a river.

"Oh, I do apologize in advance, Lord Lucan," Zarvine said, in a bored and perfectly lovely voice, "it is nothing personal."

Across the arena, Lucan’s polite smile turned to stone, his gloved hands closing slowly into fists.