Steel rang against steel. The training yard bustled with paladins drilling in formation, their shields flashing as instructors barked orders. Talia's blade darted through the air, sparring against a guard captain twice her size. She pressed him hard, eager to prove her worth and prove the Diviner wrong. She was slowly getting the hang of controlling her light, until a single word cut through the clamor.
"Sloppy."
The Diviner stood just beyond the ring, staff in hand, her blind eyes turned unerringly toward her. Talia froze, teeth gritted.
"What did you just—?"
"You're leaving your right side wide open," the Diviner said, calm as ever. "Any assassin would gut you there."
The captain hesitated, unsure whether to continue. Talia waved him off with a sharp gesture, stalking toward the Diviner. As a noble born she was already on equal rank with the captain, whether she liked it or not.
"I don't need a lecture from someone who doesn't even fight with a sword."
The Diviner tilted her head. "And yet I saw it."
Murmurs rippled among the trainees, eyes flicking between the two women. The rivalry was no secret anymore, soldiers lived for such drama. A rivalry between the famed elementalist and a paladin. Being paladins themselves of course they rooted for their fellow class. But the Diviner had a reputation. Talia leaned in, her voice a hiss meant for the Diviner alone.
"Do you enjoy making me look weak in front of them?"
The Diviner's lips curved faintly. "No. I enjoy making you better."
That stung worse than a blade. Before Talia could answer, the alarm bell tolled from the watchtower.
Shouts echoed "Raiders on the western road!"
Weapons clattered as soldiers rushed to their posts. Without missing a beat, the Diviner turned, staff tapping against the stones as she moved toward the gate. Over her shoulder, she called softly.
"Looks like our decree is calling on us. Try to keep up, Paladin."
Talia's blood boiled, her hands clenched at her sides… but her feet followed.
The squad rode hard along the packed dirt road, the glow of Tan'thalon fading behind them. Lanterns swayed from saddles, casting fractured shadows as dust rose in their wake. The night air was sharp with desert chill, and the distant thunder of drums carried faintly from the horizon. Talia's gauntlets clenched tight around the reins. Every hoofbeat, though metallic in nature, seemed to echo the words still burning in her ears—sloppy.
She was lucky enough to still have the magitech horse, which she urged forward until she was level with the Diviner, who sat perfectly upright on her mount, though she didn't ride a horse. No reins. No saddle. Her hands rested loosely in her lap, staff across her knees, as though she needed nothing to guide the beast. One quick look made Talia recognise the beast as the wolf she fought the desert colossus with. Now more clearly under the lantern light she could see crystalline shards in its mottled slate-gray and desert-brown fur. When it turned its massive head, she stared straight into its eyes. Amber colored with a faint hue, like molten stone beneath the surface. The Diviner only moved along with its movements.
Talia glared. "How do you even…?"
The Diviner turned her head slightly, the faintest smile tugging at her lips.
"Stonefang listens better when you don't try to control him. A little trust goes further than steel in the mouth."
"Easy for you to say," Talia muttered. "You don't have to keep anyone alive but yourself."
The Diviner's smile faded. She shifted, blind eyes finding Talia with unnerving precision. "That's where you're wrong. Every time I fight, I feel the weight of others on me. Their lives. Their hopes. Their mistakes. It's louder than you think."
Talia looked away, jaw tight. She wanted to snap back—wanted to tear through the calm in that voice—but the words tangled in her throat. They rode in silence for a few beats. Only the creak of saddles and the distant howl of desert wind filled the air.
Finally, the Diviner said softly, "You're still scowling."
Talia snapped her gaze back, heat rushing to her cheeks. "I am not."
The Diviner's smile returned, faint and infuriating. "Lies."
The guards ahead shouted for a halt, raising a fist. Dust plumed as the column slowed. Ahead, the road dipped into a ravine where faint torchlight flickered between jagged stones.
"Looks like trouble," the captain that Talia was sparring against earlier muttered.
The Diviner leaned forward slightly, her hand brushing the earth. Her expression stilled. "More than trouble."
Talia's hand went to her sword. She felt her heart quicken, but whether it was from the looming fight—or the woman beside her—she couldn't say.
The ravine walls loomed high, jagged silhouettes under the lantern glow. The guards spread into formation, shields raised, but the enemy struck first. A hail of crude bolts whistled down from the cliffs. One soldier toppled from his horse with a strangled cry. Shouts erupted as raiders surged from the shadows, their chain-weapons clattering, blades flashing in the firelight. Talia leapt down from her saddle, shield up, sword bared. The first chain whirred toward her head—she batted it aside with a spark of holy light, the metal hissing where it struck her gauntlet.
"Hold the line!" she shouted, voice sharp and commanding.
But the Diviner was already moving, motioning for Stonefang to take care of the archers, staff sweeping arcs through the air. With each gesture, the stones around them rippled like water, jagged edges jutting up to deflect arrows. She pivoted, staff slamming into the ground, and a wave of dust surged outward, staggering a group of raiders mid-charge. Talia stole a glance—just in time to see an enemy closing on the Diviner's blind side.
"Behind you!"
Talia lunged, blade flashing. She intercepted the strike, metal screaming as her sword locked against the raider's axe. With a twist, she shoved him back. The Diviner didn't flinch. Instead, her hand brushed the ground, her head tilting as if listening.
"I knew."
Irritation flared in Talia's chest.
"Then maybe act on it faster!"
The Diviner smirked faintly, even as her staff cracked against another attacker's skull. "You're welcome."
They moved together then—clashing, covering, snapping at each other between blows. Talia's shield drove enemies into the Diviner's reach, where her staff and elemental surges finished them. The Diviner's earthen barriers turned arrows aside, giving Talia room to charge without fear of her flank. At some point—it was impossible to mark when—their rhythm stopped being forced. It flowed. Paladin and elementalist, defiance and precision, steel and stone in harmony. When the last raider fell and the echoes faded into the desert wind, Talia stood with her chest heaving, blood slick on her sword. The last distant screams dying out as the last of the archers met his clawed end. The guards regrouped, tending to the wounded, murmuring in awe at the sight of the two women standing side by side. Talia glanced at the Diviner, words catching in her throat. For once, there was no smirk waiting—only a calm, unreadable quiet. And for a heartbeat, Talia hated how much she needed it.
The campfires burned low along the ravine floor, their smoke curling lazily into the night sky. The guards, bruised but alive, had fallen into weary silence—murmured prayers, the clatter of armor being unbuckled, the soft hiss of poultices being applied.
Talia sat apart, perched on a slab of stone where the firelight didn't quite reach. She had cleaned her blade twice already, though it hardly needed it. Her fingers worried over the hilt, restless, unable to let go. She hated how her chest still thrummed with the rhythm of the fight. Not the usual rush of battle, but something sharper, more dangerous. A memory of moving in perfect step with her.
The Diviner.
Talia ground her teeth and pressed her gauntleted palm against her thigh until it hurt. She'd seen the way the soldiers had looked—awed, whispering. Paladin and elementalist, back to back like some tale out of a bard's song. But it hadn't been perfect. She had covered for the Diviner more than once. She had caught her blind side—blind side. Talia swallowed, her brow furrowing. The thought nagged, insistent. The way the woman fought, never turning toward the threats that came from behind, yet somehow always meeting them. The way her gaze never really… landed. Talia exhaled sharply, shoving the thought away. Rival, she reminded herself. Arrogant, smug, impossible rival. Not someone to be admired. Not someone to think about now, when the bruises still burned on her body.
Still… she caught herself staring across camp once, toward where the Diviner sat with the officers. Her staff rested across her lap, her blind eyes closed, her hand brushing the dirt beside her as if listening to something deeper. Her horse, that was actually a wolf, laid a little beside the horses. Stonefang knew he could guard them, but he was still a predator, so he kept his distance so as to not spook them.
Talia tore her gaze away, scowling into the night. She pushed her sword back into its scabbard and leaned back on the stone she was perched upon, placing her hands behind her so she would not topple over, eyes fixed on the stars wheeling above. Anything to stop her mind from circling back to that infuriating, calm smile. She would not give it more space than it deserved. She would not.
And yet, as the camp quieted into sleep and the desert wind whispered through the ravine, Talia found herself wide awake—stirred by a presence she could neither name nor banish.
When the wind had shifted colder, Talia drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders, sitting in the half-shadow where the campfires barely reached. Her eyes had grown heavy, though sleep refused her. Her thoughts circled like restless wolves around wounded prey. A faint scuff of stone made her stiffen. She reached for her sword—only to stop when a familiar figure stepped into the glow.
The Diviner.
Her staff was absent, left behind with the officers. Without it, she seemed… smaller somehow. Less a weapon, more a woman.
"You're restless," the Diviner said softly.
Not a question—an observation, spoken with the calm assurance of someone who had listened to her unease from afar. Talia straightened, defensive.
"I'm fine."
A faint, knowing smile touched the Diviner's lips.
"You've been staring at the stars for over an hour. Fine isn't the word I'd choose."
Talia bit down on a retort, heat rising in her cheeks. She wanted to comment on the fact that it was clouded at the moment, but decided against it.
"And you've been watching me?"
"Not watching."
The Diviner's head tilted slightly, blind eyes catching the flicker of firelight in a way that felt unsettlingly direct.
"Listening. You carry… noise."
She lowered herself to sit on the stone beside Talia, close but not intruding. For a long moment, only the desert wind spoke. Then, quietly, the Diviner spoke.
"I don't… understand this," she admitted.
Her hands folded loosely in her lap, fingers tightening and loosening as though betraying nerves.
"The way I look for you, even when I shouldn't. The way your presence… unsettles me."
Talia's breath caught. She turned sharply toward her, searching the calm, unreadable lines of the Diviner's face.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because," the Diviner said slowly, as if testing the words, "I was never taught what to do with feelings like these. My parents raised me to lead. To command. To know. Not to…" She trailed off, lips pressing into a thin line. "…not to feel."
The admission hung between them, startlingly bare. Talia shifted, suddenly aware of how close they sat, the warmth of her rival's shoulder almost brushing her own. Her throat tightened, part of her wanting to snap back, to armor herself in defiance. Yet another part—a quieter, dangerous part—longed to lean in.
Instead, she said gruffly, "You don't even know what it is you're feeling."
The Diviner's head turned toward her, the faintest crease in her brow.
"Perhaps. But when I stood with you today, blade and stone together… it felt like clarity. Like the first thing in years that made sense. Like it mattered."
Talia swallowed hard, unable to muster an answer. The Diviner's hand brushed the stone between them, then withdrew, as if the gesture itself had been too much.
"I don't expect you to answer, Talia. I only… wanted you to know. Know that I never had a friend, until I met you."
She rose smoothly, her cloak whispering against the rocks, and turned away—leaving Talia staring after her, heart hammering, her carefully built walls beginning to crack.
Talia had barely settled back onto her cot, trying to smother the echo of the Diviner's words in her chest, when the sharp blast of a war-horn split the night. She shot upright. Outside, shouts rose in the camp, orders snapped like whips. Steel rang as soldiers rushed to arm themselves.
"Western road—skirmish party spotted!" a runner cried, dashing past her tent.
Cursing under her breath, Talia buckled on her armor. Of course. The enemy hadn't waited for dawn. She shoved her way into the fray of movement, only to nearly collide with the very woman she had just walked away from. The Diviner stood at the center of the chaos, her staff now in hand, its runes pulsing faintly with gathered light. Though blind, she turned her head toward Talia at once, as though she'd felt her presence even amidst the noise. Their gazes—one sightless, one storming—locked.
"Talia," the Diviner said evenly, though beneath the calm there was an edge, a lingering echo of their rooftop exchange. "You're with me."
It wasn't a suggestion. Talia bristled, half a heartbeat from refusing—yet a messenger shouted over them:
"The council ordered a joint command! Paladin and Diviner both at the front!"
The words dropped like chains. The Diviner's lips curved in the barest shadow of a smile, more steel than warmth.
"Seems the gods like forcing our hands."
Talia grit her teeth, torn between anger and the dangerous heat curling low in her chest. Still, she tightened her grip on her blade and moved to the Diviner's side. The camp surged around them, soldiers forming ranks. And in the middle of it all, two women bound by rivalry, unspoken confessions, and now—by duty. Together, whether Talia liked it or not.
The night swallowed them whole as the vanguard spilled onto the western road, torches cutting ragged lines through the dark. Sand hissed beneath boots and hooves, and paws, the desert wind carrying the acrid stench of oil and steel. Ahead, enemy shadows surged from the dunes—mercenaries and raiders. A warband too large for mere harassment.
"Shields forward!" One of the female captains barked, voice cutting across the clamor.
The paladins snapped into formation, iron discipline clashing against the wild cries of the desert host. Their shields started to glow, illuminating the surroundings.
Beside Talia, the Diviner planted her staff into the sand. A ripple pulsed outward, unseen but felt in the bones, like the city's own heart beating. She tilted her head, listening—not to the noise of men, but to something deeper.
"Twelve coming from the ridge," she murmured, soft but certain.
Talia blinked. The ridge was cloaked in shadow; even a hawk-eyed scout would struggle to see that far. But she raised her sword anyway.
"Archers! Loose at the ridge!"
A volley of arrows hissed upward. The air split with screams as half-hidden silhouettes tumbled down the slope. Talia turned sharply toward the Diviner, a growl on her tongue.
"How—"
But she had no time. The enemy slammed into the shield wall with a thunderous crash, steel sparking and sand exploding underfoot. Talia met the charge head-on, blade flashing, her voice a rallying cry. Yet through the crush she was aware—always aware—of the Diviner just behind her, her staff weaving patterns of light that cut swathes through the attackers. Light trailed the flow of her staff, and jagged spikes of stone obeyed her will, cutting through the attackers. Blades swung toward the elementalist, only to meet Talia's shield. Spells arced toward the paladin, only to shatter against walls of earth and stone the Diviner conjured. They were moving in rhythm again, whether she wanted it or not.
"Behind you!" Talia barked, wheeling to catch a raider's axe before it could cleave the Diviner's skull. The Diviner didn't flinch. Her staff spun, the ground bucking upward in a jagged spike that impaled the attacker. Double so, as Talia drove her blade through him at the same time.
She exhaled slowly, then said, almost amused: "I heard him before you did."
Talia scowled, shoving the corpse off her blade.
"Then why let him get that close?"
"Because you were there," the Diviner answered simply—too simply, as if it cost her nothing to admit.
The words lodged in Talia's chest, distracting her just long enough that a whip of chain caught her pauldron and yanked her sideways. She snarled, struggling to rise—only for the Diviner's hand to catch her wrist, pulling her up with surprising strength.
"I thought paladins were unshakable," the Diviner teased, though her breath was ragged.
"Shut up and fight," Talia snapped, but there was no bite in it.
The battle raged, brutal and bloody, until the last of the raiders broke and fled into the dunes. Silence fell in jagged waves. The wounded groaned. The dying whispered prayers. The living raised their swords in ragged triumph. Talia stood at the center of it all, her chest heaving, her armor dented and smeared with sand. She became aware, suddenly, of the Diviner still gripping her wrist. Their hands, bloodied and dusted with grit, were locked together as if neither had thought to let go. The Diviner's blind eyes turned toward her, unreadable, yet charged with something unspoken. Talia pulled free first, too fast, wiping her blade clean with jerky movements.
"Don't think this means anything," she muttered.
But the words felt hollow, even to her own ears.