Interlude SS [12.5] Let The Circle Witness

The Circle of The Blood Rite hummed beneath Eira’s boots. She had seen this scene before, many times actually but never did it feel like this. Those times feel like dreams now, buffered by the knowledges she could just reset if she didn’t like how things turned out. Now there were no more resets. Now this was real, now she was playing for keeps.

The runes shimmered with ancestral fire, and the air between her and Ragnar was thick with tension, anticipation, and the weight of ten thousand years of Salstar tradition. That Eira had never felt that weight before, not since her first life thousands of years ago now. She was now more aware of the present, and it weakened her, before she wouldn’t hesitate she her heart wouldn’t quicken. This time however she felt something she hadn’t in a long time. She felt fear.

Eira exhaled slowly. Her eyes shimmered with silver light as she reached inward, tapping the ancient, star-forged well that was her magic. It responded as it alway did the power surged throughout her body as Mana Muscle Saturation took hold. Her aura became visible as faint wisps of starlight leaking from her armor like vapor in the wind. The blade in her hand pulsed, and the edge began to glow with luminous threads of energy, a soft celestial burn.

Across from her, Ragnar’s stance was lazy. His staff rested across his shoulders, lightning flickering along its ends. His jaw was clenched, but his eyes weren't angry… they were pitying. He thought she was disturbed for doing this and he would have to beat her in front of everyone. In this life she had never shown the aptitude to challenge him so he had no idea the being before him now was not the same he had known his entire life. Let him underestimate her.

A single beat passed, then Ulfar raised his hand and dropped it.

“By right of blade and blood, I, Ulfar Salstar, initiate the duel. You may begin.”

Ragnar moved first, instantly Blinking infront of her and lunging in a wide arc with a crack of red electricity. His staff extended, shifting into a plasma-forged glaive mid-swing. It was meant to end the fight with a single strike to her legs. He would cut both of them off at that angle ensuring she couldn’t fight.

She was already gone as the blade scorched a furrow through the stone ground. A Blink and she reappeared behind him, a flash of silver and trailing starlight. Her wand snapped up, and a searing beam of light exploded from it toward his back.

Ragnar jumped in turn, barely dodging the blast, which carved a molten gouge through the stone floor. He looked at her new position and raised his guard. He was no longer going to take her so lightly. 

The problem was Eira knew her body in this life was not hardened to wield the magic she needed to yet. She was soft and her body was sluggish. She may have the knowledge but not the constitution. The battle was far closer than she hoped even after one exchange.

“You’re faster than I remember,” he muttered, spinning as his staff shifted back to polearm form. “I was just going to take one leg, they would have healed it. We could end this before you get seriously hurt.”

“Worry about yourself Ragnar,” Eira replied coldly, “I am not going to hold back and I don’t want to accidentally hurt you too badly.” 

She stepped lightly to the side as constructs of hard light formed around her like petals. Each one was a floating shield that could be converted into a weapon at  a moment’s notice. Her sword still pulsed with that silvery fire as her wand danced in her other hand.

He sighed and darted in again, this time faster. Crimson lightning coiled around his limbs, his speed enhanced with raw electrical force. He struck with a flurry of attacks, and his staff sparked with each arc. Eira met him step for step parrying, blocking, side-stepping. Her hard light shields absorbed the brunt, fracturing with each strike, but reforming just as fast.

Her eyes shimmered under her helm as divination and gave her a split second of precognition. The future unraveling in the back of her mind like ripples on a pond. She saw it mere moment’s before he Blinked left and threw a stake toward her thigh.

She moved preemptively, letting it just graze her armor, then kicked it aside before he could use it as an anchor. She winced as scarlet lighting arched into her but it wasn’t enough to overcome her own aura.

“That won’t work,” she said. “Not against me.”

Ragnar growled. “You think a few tricks make you worthy to be Heir?”

She slammed her wand into the ground, and spikes of radiant light burst upward beneath his feet. He Blinked again, but too late one spike grazed his leg and side, tearing through armor and drawing blood. He hissed, stumbling as his stance broke.

Eira was already moving, sword glowing, her body a blur of speed. She slashed once, twice, then blinked behind him and sent a blinding pulse of light straight into his eyes.

Ragnar staggered, blind, swinging wildly. Eira seized the moment. Her hard light constructs shifted now forming a wheel of orbiting spheres, each crackling with magic.

“You’re not taking this seriously,” she said coldly. “But I am.”

She launched the spheres. They flew like comets, each detonating mid-air with concussive force as Ragnar desperately threw up a wall of electricity. It held, but the impact drove him backward across the circle.

He coughed, his cloak scorched, and for the first time he looked shaken. Then enraged as he caught the eyes of their father on him. Eira knew this would hurt him to not be good enough but she couldn’t afford to not take his place as Hier.

Eira stood tall in the center of the ring, silver star light wreathing her armor, her breath steady. Her wand hovered beside her now, held aloft by light constructs, while her sword crackled with radiant power.

“I don’t want there to be any doubt,” she said, voice rising for all to hear. “I’m not doing this to prove myself to you, brother. I’m doing this to leave Father with no other choice. I will be Hier, I will be the Shield and I will do what none other has done before. I am Eira Salstar, now I hope you take this seriously.”

Ragnar’s staff shifted again, sparks dancing along its length, plasma pooling at the tip. He nodded his head more to himself than to her. He was through treating her like his sister. The way he looked at her now was reserved for enemies. He was cold, like their father, calculating like their father and skilled like someone that would one day wield the lightning of the Higher Planes.

“I see.” Ragnar said his voice was cold. 

His aura finally broke through the restraint he had been showing until that point. Red lightning coiled around him in thick bands that flowed rather than flashed. Total command over the arcane element something few can accomplish but was expected of a Salstar.

She moved like a shooting star trailing light behinder like a comet’s tail. She Blinked mid-air and spun her sword with both hands. Eira slammed her blade down in a cleaving arc of radiant power. The light seared the air as it fell too fast to parry.

Ragnar Blinked, he reappeared to her side, his staff already morphed as lightning coiling down its length like a living serpent. The end formed a crackling spearpoint of plasma magic, and he jabbed forward.

Divination warned her in time. She twisted sideways, just in time to avoid the impalement, but not fast enough to completely dodge the burst of plasma that surged from the tip. It shattered the light construct shields as if they were made of glass and grazed her side, her enchantments absorbing the worst of it, but her breath still hitched at the heat.

Too close.

Her feet hit the ground. Construct shields reformed instantly, orbiting her like stars in a halo, deflecting the follow-up barrage of electric jabs and shattering each time. Her breathing grew heavier as her magic was expended to recreate the broken defence. She could feel that her mana veins and magic core could not keep up. Her current body simply didn’t have the depth of reserves she was used to. She could pull from her lifetimes of technique, but not their endurance.

Damn it. I can’t drag this out.

Her sword blurred, stab, slash, feint. Meanwhile her wand launched a detonating sphere behind him, cutting off his escape path. She followed the explosion with a Blink, aiming to catch him in the confusion. But Ragnar was already there. He hadn’t blinked to avoid it, he’d taken the hit with a coiled lighting shield of his own. 

He had predicted her strike.

Her blade met his staff, charged with a surge of electromagnetism that disrupted the hard light along her sword’s edge. Sparks flew. For a moment, their eyes locked, and she saw her father’s focus and clarity. He was stronger than he should be. This Ragnar was growing at a rate no other had in her past lives.

He spun low, sweeping the staff across her legs with a burst of static.

Eira leapt, but not fast enough. A charged stake, flicked like a dart, grazed her shoulder just before she landed. It tore through her pauldron, dragging an arc of pain across her skin. Blood erupted as the surge tore skin and muscle.

She growled, pivoting mid-step, and loosed a blinding light that exploded in all directions. Ragnar shielded his eyes just in time, but even still he was dazed. She used the moment to recall her wand taking it into her hand to help stabilize her magic. Eira Blinked again, behind him, thrusting her sword toward his spine.

He caught her strike with the rear haft of his staff, then twisted and shoved her backward. His footwork was clean, deliberate. His control over the field was improving every second. 

This is bad, he’s adapting.

Worse, she was tiring. Her body was not yet ready for the strain she was putting herself through. Her chest rose and fell with labored breath. Her armor felt heavier. Her left hand was trembling from the constant pulse of magic she’d been cycling through her wand. He was never this good at this age.

Things were not going her way as she grit her teeth. This broken world was leaving her behind and she would not let it. She would take the reigns as she always had. She was the one that wrote her fate not some Death Deity.

Where did this strength come from?

A part of her hated the answer, this world forced him to grow faster. A part of her was proud. But she smothered it. There was no time for sentiment. This was a war, this would decide her fate.