Chapter 1936: Racing For The Finish (Part Two)

Khorijin’s invocation had barely passed her lips when her vision went dark as color drained from the world. For a moment, she couldn’t hear, couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe as a sense of deep, foreboding wrongness overwhelmed her.

Everything felt larger and vaster and so, so much more distant than it should be. The world was cold in a way that had nothing to do with the frost and snow on the ground and...

"No!" Khorijin shouted, shaking her head furiously as she snatched back her power, unwilling to pay the price her sorcery demanded of her.

What kind of world had she just glimpsed, bereft of warmth and joy? What kind of heartless, cruel fate would she suffer for striking Erling down?

"How important is that man?" Khorijin whispered as she wiped cold sweat from her brow. "That killing him would cost so much? Or would it be retribution from the Evergreen Empress for slaying one of her lords?"

She didn’t know. There was no way to know. The Heavens gave up their greater secrets reluctantly. All she knew was that, for the second time in her life, she’d stretched out her hand towards someone whose life would touch untold thousands of others, and in her carelessness, she’d nearly doomed herself.

"Starlight, constellations, paths through the Heavens," she intoned a second time, regathering her scattered power. "Reveal the path my arrow must take to claim victory tonight," she said.

Not once this entire night had she felt that the contest was hopeless. There was a path to victory for her, just as there was a path to victory for him. Perhaps she could not claim his life. He was a lord, after all, and lords were often people of great destiny. But Empress Ashlynn had promised them a fair contest, and if either of them had no hope of winning, then the contest wasn’t fair.

This time, the stars above her dimmed only slightly as an arc appeared in the sky, followed by a trail of glittering stars leading into the Frozen Forest. Then, inexplicably, the starlight shifted, taking on a faint lavender hue before it faded away.

What it meant, she didn’t know. She hadn’t taken up the scholar’s brush to study signs and portents. The most she’d ever asked of the Heavens was to guide her arrows in time of need. But this place, in the Frozen Forest of a Great Witch, was far too strange, and the signs she saw seemed to hint at answers she’d never asked for.

"Now is not the time to wonder why," she muttered, shaking off her spiralling thoughts as she drew the arrow to her cheek and loosed her arrow along the already fading arc of starlight, streaking over the trees before it dropped back into the forest.

The path of starlight leading to the east was fading too, but there was still time, if she hurried. The hunt wasn’t over yet.

-CRACK!-

A large, snow-filled Ice Fruit exploded a dozen paces in front of Erling, and he swore as the world vanished in a cloud of dancing, swirling white flakes.

"Really?" Erling muttered as he dropped low, all but crawling forward through the snow in the hopes of avoiding sharp, low-hanging branches. "Even firing blind into the forest, she can still find me? And hit the fruit?"

There had to be some limit. His chest still ached from pinning the wind for less than a quarter of an hour, and the single cerulean flame he sustained to find his way through the forest cost him a tiny bit more with every step he took.

Milo had made it clear that there was a price to be paid for using sorcery and that it drained the body rapidly the more he relied on it. How much did it drain Khorijin to land a shot like that? And why did she insist on risking so much to claim victory when this didn’t seem like it was even her grudge?

He didn’t know, but he resolved to ask her afterward, if for no reason other than to understand the woman who had pushed him so close to the brink while still hoping that they could become friends.

Erling paused when he emerged from the flurry of snow. With his back pressed against one of the larger, icy trees, he closed his eyes and listened to the forest.

The wind had returned, and a faint, musical tinkling filled the air as the icy branches swayed in the breeze. And then, off to the east, he heard the faint sound of hoofbeats ringing hollow on frozen ground.

"She’s still too fast," he said softly. He let out a short, sharp burst of laughter as he realized that, if she’d taken his offer of a simple race, he’d likely have lost. Already, she was closing the gap between them. The question was whether or not she could continue to do so on the path she’d taken.

"Avoid her?" Erling asked himself. "Or try to stall her?"

He still had a chance. The path ahead of him was tight and narrow, and it would be difficult for her to follow after him. But... If she could take more of those high, arcing shots, then there was no path through the forest that would protect him from her arrows until she ran out of them, and by his count, she still had close to a dozen left.

If he got closer to her, at least he could shoot back, though his chances of hitting anything in this wind were abysmally small.

"Arrghh," he cursed as he took off at the fastest run he could manage, gritting his teeth through the pain in his thigh as he demanded more of his body than he’d ever demanded of it before.

East.

Not due east. He wasn’t foolish enough to turn this back into a duel, giving up his chance of reaching the finish line just for the opportunity to take a shot at her. But if he was lucky, their paths would converge in the last third of the race to exit the forest, and he’d have a chance to slow her down while he made his final push for the finish line.

He just hoped that, when the time came, his aim would be good enough to make a difference...