The fourth day of the Jubilee did not begin with music, but with the heavy, pressurized silence of the Grand Strategy Chamber. The festival outside was a roar of celebration, but inside these obsidian walls, the world was being dismantled and rebuilt on paper.
Riha sat at the head of the circular table, her chin resting on her hand. Around her sat the heavyweights: Prince Helios of the Sun, Prince Kaelen of the Frost, and her brother, Xaris Vane. Even Prince Viperis of the Snake Islands loomed in the corner like a shadow, his amber eyes tracking every movement.
"The Shadow Rails are a marvel, Empress," Kaelen said, his voice as cool as a winter morning. "But my kingdom's permafrost is shifting. We need your thermal-stabilization tech to keep the tracks from shattering."
"And the Solari Empire requires the EMW-boosters for our high-altitude cities," Helios added, his golden eyes burning with a mix of political greed and personal longing. "We are prepared to offer twenty years of solar-ore in exchange."
Riha listened, her mind moving ten steps ahead of them. She offered solutions that sounded generous but effectively made their kingdoms' infrastructure dependent on the Homeland's maintenance.
Xaris, leaning back in his chair with his boots on the table, watched her with a faint, knowing smirk. She's like a fox, he thought. She gives them the honey, but she's the one who owns the hive. He had seen cosmic conquerors try to negotiate with less wit than this girl who had once been locked in a cage. He loved the way her crimson eyes flickered when she successfully trapped them in a diplomatic corner.
"Enough talk of pipes and ores," Helios suddenly snapped, standing up. The tension of the last four days—the jealousy, the pride, the feeling of being overshadowed by the "Star-Walker"—finally boiled over. "A Sovereign's worth isn't just in her ledgers. It's in her steel. I want a duel."
Kaelen stood as well, his ice-aura chilling the room. "I agree. Diplomacy is a mask. Let us see the truth behind the throne."
Riha didn't blink. She looked at the two princes, then at her brother, who was looking at her with a challenging, silvery gaze.
"One by one is a waste of my afternoon," Riha said, her voice dropping into that terrifying Sovereign chime. "I will fight both of you, Helios and Kaelen, at once. And once you are dealt with... I will face my brother."
The room went deathly silent. Xaris let out a short, sharp laugh of pure delight. "Bold. I accept. Let's see if the Empress is as sharp as her daggers."
The Proving Grounds
The news spread through the palace like wildfire. The "Great Duel" was to take place in the Sky-Arena, a floating platform of reinforced Aetherium suspended above the capital. Thousands of guests crowded the balconies as Riha walked onto the sands, her obsidian staff in hand.
But before the princes could step forward, a heavy clank of armor echoed. Caspian, the Commander of the Steel Legion, stepped onto the sands.
"Master," Caspian said, bowing low. "Before you face the monarchs, allow your shield to test your edge. It has been five years since we truly clashed."
Riha smiled. "Very well, Caspian. Show me what the Steel Legion has learned."
The Warm-up: Riha vs. Caspian
The fight began with a roar. Caspian moved with a brutal, grounded efficiency. He used his signature Red Threads—thin, mana-infused wires that could slice through bone—to create a web of death around the arena.
Riha didn't call on Ignis or the twins' human forms. She used her weapons as tools of pure 100% synchronization. She spun her staff, a blur of violet energy, parrying the threads with a high-pitched ping-ping-ping.
Caspian was at 80% synchronization—a master by any standard—but Riha was a rank above him. She moved like a ghost through his web. When he lunged with his heavy broadsword, Riha stepped into his guard, her staff whistling through the air. She didn't strike to kill; she struck to disable. With a swift, rotating motion, she caught the hilt of his blade and sent it spinning across the sand.
A second later, the tip of her obsidian staff was pressed firmly against Caspian's throat.
"Your threads are tighter, Caspian," Riha whispered. "But you're still thinking like a soldier. Think like a predator."
Caspian breathed out, a smile of respect on his face. "Yes, Master."
The Storm: Riha vs. The Two Princes
As Caspian stepped back, the atmosphere turned white-hot and bone-chillingly cold simultaneously. Helios and Kaelen stepped onto the sands from opposite sides.
"90% synchronization," Xaris noted from the sidelines, his eyes narrowed. "They've been training. This won't be a walk in the park."
Helios roared, his Solari Ring—a circular, serrated blade that burned like a sun—whirling toward Riha. Simultaneously, Kaelen lunged, his Ice Sword creating a trail of jagged frost in his wake.
Riha's eyes flared crimson. She summoned her Chandra-Has, a curved, celestial blade that shimmered with moonlight, to counter Helios's fire. With her other hand, she gripped her twin daggers, which began to glow with a dark, freezing violet light to counter Kaelen.
The fight was a symphony of destruction. Helios's ring moved with a mind of its own, trailing fire that scorched the arena floor. Riha parried it with the Chandra-Has, the metal-on-metal screams echoing through the capital. She was moving so fast she seemed to be in two places at once.
Kaelen tried to freeze her feet to the ground, but Riha used a Sword Dance, a fluid, high-speed movement technique that shattered the ice before it could take hold. She switched her daggers for her Fire Dragon Sword, the blade erupting in a roar of flame that turned Kaelen's frost into steam.
"Is that all?" Riha taunted, her voice echoing over the clash of steel.
Helios lunged for a final, desperate strike, his ring glowing with the intensity of a supernova. Riha didn't retreat. she performed a mid-air twist, catching the center of the Solari Ring with the hook of her staff and redirecting its momentum.
CRACK!
The ring flew out of Helios's hand, embedding itself deep into a reinforced Aether-Tree at the edge of the arena. The force of the redirection sent Helios crashing to his knees. Before he could rise, Riha's Chandra-Has was at his throat.
At the same moment, Kaelen lunged from behind. Without looking, Riha spun her Fire Dragon Sword in a perfect arc. The heat was so intense it shattered Kaelen's ice sword into a thousand shards. She followed through with a kick to his chest and stepped forward, the tip of her flaming blade resting right over his heart.
Both princes were defeated simultaneously. The silence in the arena was absolute. The Sun and the Frost had been eclipsed by the Shadow.
The Final Reckoning
Riha retracted her blades, her chest heaving slightly. She looked at the two defeated men, who were gasping for air, their pride shattered alongside their weapons.
"You've grown strong," Riha said, her voice softening slightly. "But you are still fighting for yourselves. I fight for an empire."
She turned toward the sidelines. Xaris was standing now, his long black coat billowing in the wind. He wasn't smiling anymore. His silver eyes were swirling with a cosmic, terrifying hunger for battle. He stepped onto the sands, and with every footfall, the ground beneath him seemed to ripple like water.
Riha felt a knot of nervousness tighten in her stomach. She had defeated two princes and a commander, but the man walking toward her was a "Star-Walker"—a being who had survived supernovas and fought gods in the dark.
"My turn, little sister," Xaris whispered, his voice a low, dark hum that made the Aetherium floor vibrate.
Riha gripped her staff, her knuckles white. She could feel the Void within her screaming in anticipation and fear. This wasn't a duel for a throne or a gift. This was a duel for the soul.
As Xaris raised his hand and the stars themselves seemed to dim in the sky above, the chapter closed on the precipice of the greatest battle the Homeland had ever seen.