Chapter 59: Benediction

The arena was packed wall-to-wall for the finals, every seat filled and people standing in the aisles. I’d managed to score us decent spots in the middle section, close enough to see the ring without needing a telescope.

Lily dropped into the seat next to me with a stack of envelopes in her arms that she had to set on her lap like a paper tower.

"What’s all that?" I asked.

"Your fault," Lily said flatly. She picked up the top envelope and showed me the wax seal on it. A beastkin clan emblem I didn’t recognize. "I went down to collect the morning mail and the front desk handed me thirty-one of these. Fourteen are from the Greywild clan, which I didn’t know had fourteen branches. Three of them list a preferred number of children in the first paragraph. One of them contains a ring braided out of somebody’s hair, and I know that because the woman who wrote it also explained in the letter which part of her head it came from."

[Thirty-one! That’s not a bad haul at all!]

"That’s actually really romantic by wildfolk standards," I said.

"Then here’s my problem with wildfolk standards." She pulled an envelope out from the middle of the stack and held it up so I could see the front of it. My name wasn’t on it. Hers was. "Eleven of them are addressed to me! Not to you. To me! Because apparently when a beastkin proposes to a household, the letter goes to whoever the household already belongs to, and every clan on this continent has decided that’s me!!! The woman at the desk called me ’Miss Sakana’s wife’, Kohaku!"

I put a hand over my mouth.

"D-Don’t laugh! It’s not funny!" Lily said, face reddening.

"I’m not laughing."

"You are laughing, and I need you to understand that I spent forty minutes this morning explaining to a very nice old man from the Greywild delegation that I do not have the authority to approve his granddaughter for marriage with you, and he did not believe me, and he left me a gift basket." Lily shoved the whole stack down under her seat with her foot. "There are pears in it... They’re really good pears. That’s the worst part."

"You ate the courtship pears!?"

"I only ate two of them before I read the card." She sat back and folded her arms and stared at the empty ring. "So that’s my morning. I-If you’re gonna seduce half the academy, leave me out of it!"

[That’s not my job, that’s YOUR job!]

The horn sounded, and the arena went quiet.

Serena walked into the ring first. Her white hair caught the light, her red eyes swept the arena once, and then she stood in the center and waited.

Cassian entered from the opposite side. He looked like he’d been training all night. Dark circles under his eyes, jaw set, that ridiculous trench coat buttoned to the throat because God forbid the man’s collarbones ever see sunlight.

[Damn. He actually thinks he can win this.]

I recognized the look. It was the look of a protagonist walking into a boss fight. Determination, grit, and absolutely zero understanding of the level gap because the level gap had never mattered when you had plot armor.

Serena’s mana hadn’t even spiked yet. She was standing there with her hands at her sides, relaxed. Cassian was already burning so hot I could feel it from the stands.

The judges rated their poses and, after that, Prue’s voice rang out across the arena.

"Final match of the Stellaris Royal Academy Duel Festival! Cassian Holloway versus Serena Frostfall! Begin!"

Cassian moved first.

He blurred forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat, and his fist came around in a strike that cracked the air itself.

Serena leaned two inches to the left.

The punch sailed past her ear.

Cassian followed with a combination, three, four, five strikes, each one fast enough that most of the audience couldn’t track them. I could, barely, because I’d spent four days eating those exact combos in training. He was going all out. Every movement was tight and 100% committed, with no wasted motion.

Serena blocked the sixth strike with one palm. The seventh she swatted aside. The eighth she stepped into, getting inside his guard, and her open hand hit his sternum.

Cassian skidded back ten feet. His feet carved lines in the arena floor.

I shook my head.

[The difference is too big.]

He got up, and he charged again, faster this time, his mana flaring around him like black fire.

Serena hit him three times before he finished the approach. A palm to the ribs that folded him, a knee that caught his chin as he doubled, and a flat push that sent him airborne. He hit the ground and rolled twice before catching himself on one knee.

"Stay down," Serena said. She wasn’t even breathing hard.

Cassian spat out some blood and stood up.

[Idiot.]

He launched himself at her again. This time, his mana condensed around his right fist into something dark and heavy. A real technique. One that could hurt.

Serena caught his fist in her hand.

The shockwave blew dust outward in a ring. The arena barrier flickered. Cassian’s face twisted with everything he had, pushing through the catch, trying to force the strike home.

Serena’s fingers closed. I heard something crack. Cassian’s eyes went wide.

She twisted his arm to the side and drove her knee into his stomach so hard he left the ground entirely. His back hit the floor and he didn’t get up this time.

"Match!" Prue’s voice cut through the silence. "Winner, Serena Frostfall! NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL A DUEL!"

The arena erupted, but not into cheers. More like... the collective awe and terror of having witnessed a car crash.

Serena stood over Cassian’s body, and then she turned her head.

She looked across the arena, past the crowd, past the barrier, and straight at me.

I felt my entire body lock up.

[Oh, she remembered.]

She held my gaze for two seconds. Then she turned and walked off the platform without a word.

---

The award ceremony was brief. Prue said some things. The headmaster said some things. Serena stood on the platform with the same expression she wore for everything, which was to say, no expression at all.

Then the Champion’s Benediction was brought out.

It sat in a small crystal case, a fist-sized orb of golden light that pulsed like a heartbeat. Even from the stands, I could feel the divine mana radiating off it. It was warm, and heavy, and old in a way that made my teeth itch.

[Okay. This is it. The moment of truth.]

Serena took the case.

[She could absorb it right now. Just pop it open and take it in. Nothing in the rules says she has to hand it to anyone. It’s hers. She won it.]

I watched her hands.

[If she opens that case, I’m out of options. Lily dies in a few years, and I get to spend the rest of my life knowing I was close enough to save her and didn’t.]

Serena’s thumb rested on the clasp of the case.

She didn’t open it.

She turned, carried the Benediction off the platform, and left the arena floor.

[The plan is still on.]

I exhaled. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped breathing.

"She’s so strong," Lily whispered beside me. Her eyes were still on the empty platform.

[Yeah. She is. And she’s going to save your life. She just doesn’t know it yet.]

But, now, it was time.

"Lily."

"Yeah?"

"Come with me."

---

Serena was waiting for us behind the arena, under the arch where the staff bring the carts through, with the case under one arm.

"Frostfall," Lily said carefully. "Congratulations on your victory."

"Hold out your hands."

Lily blinked.

"I’m sorry?"

"Your hands. Hold them out."

Lily looked at me. I nodded at her. She held out both hands, and Serena opened the case and put the Benediction into them.

"Wait." Lily’s voice went up. "Wait, no. This is yours. You won it, you fought Holloway for it, and I lost in the first round. I lost in the first round, Frostfall, I was eliminated before lunch. Why would you-"

"Because I’ve decided to."

"That’s not a reason!"

"Serena and I worked something out," I said.

Lily turned to me with wide eyes, the divine core sitting in her palms, glowing hard enough that I could see the bones in her fingers.

"You worked something out," she repeated. "With her?"

"Yeah!"

"When?"

"Recently."

She blinked again.

"K-Kohaku!!!"

"It was a whole conversation. It got quite involved. I’d rather not go into it."

Serena’s ears went pink and she looked at the wall.

"Goodness, woman. Absorb the damn thing before I change my mind," Serena muttered.

Lily looked back and forth between us.

Then, she looked down at the thing in her hands, and then she closed her eyes and did it.

The light went into her chest and the arch lit up gold for about three seconds. Lily made a small noise. When it passed, she was still standing, and she was breathing, and she was staring at her own palms like they’d betrayed her.

Serena immediately stomped away. Lily watched her go.

Then the window opened in front of my face.

CANONICAL PLOT POINT FULFILLED

CHAMPION’S BENEDICTION — ACQUIRED BY LILY EVERDAWN

+100 MP

[One hundred. One hundred!] I breathed a sigh of relief. [The Calamity Queen fight is back on the table. She survives it now. I actually did it.]