The Fierce Farewell Before the Centaur Festival
A bitter north wind scraped across the ground in the late hours of the night, and a soft lamplight glowed within Ashtien's quarters.
"You've a talent for startling people, I see."
Ashtien, receiving an unexpected guest, sipped her tea and slid a glance across the table.
"What business brings you at this hour of the night?"
"Haha. It wasn't intentional. I never thought I'd be delayed this long."
Even arriving unannounced, the woman was received with a Khan's hospitality.
"Ahh. That's warm."
"Good grief."
By any measure, she was no ordinary visitor. The sword at her hip was the problem: she had come into the Khan's presence without so much as disarming. Unless some privilege set her apart, such a thing could never have been allowed.
"So. What brings you, Muran?"
She was the woman called the Imperial Sword Saint—Arantor Muran.
"I hardly think you came of your own accord. Mother's orders?"
Ashtien regarded her with a look that was less than pleased. The question was blunt, and in another light it came close to a rebuke.
"That's rather harsh, for your most devoted vassal."
Muran was clan head of Arantor, and Arantor was a house of the Wilderness. In name and in fact, she could be counted among Ashtien's vassals. Aruk, heir of Arantor, served Ashtien with true loyalty.
"Devoted vassal? You're not even mine."
As clan head of Arantor, perhaps. As the Sword Saint, Muran was not Ashtien's at all. She was the Great Khan's dearest friend, and the blade the Great Khan favored. It was fairer to call her the Great Khan's woman than Ashtien's.
"It wasn't an order. Call it my curiosity meeting the Great Khan's concern."
Muran did not deny a word of it.
"Concern? Please."
Ashtien narrowed her eyes as if the very idea offended her.
"How could we not be curious?"
That, Muran said with a crooked grin, was surely the heart of everyone who had ever admired Ashtien.
"The Great Khan was quite curious herself."
Ashtien pressed her brows together. For her, even the sigh that followed was a rare thing.
"Curiosity would be the least of it. Listen, Muran."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"What's with the honorifics? They don't suit you. Speak freely."
"Alright, then."
She shed the formality as easily as an ill-fitting coat.
"You of all people should know. Well? She's against it, isn't she?"
"Of course she is. You know your mother's temperament. Stubborn as a post."
She tossed the slight off as if the ruler of the steppe were anyone at all.
"She is, isn't she. For old friends, you and Mother are remarkably different."
"I'm picky about people myself, you know."
"If you'd seen my fiancé, you'd have given your blessing then and there."
"Hmm. That remarkable? I've heard a thing or two."
Ashtien let out a short laugh.
"That remarkable. I never imagined I would come to care for someone like this. A man, no less."
Muran's eyes went round.
"My. Is this the same young lady who lived on the pleasure of her own brilliance? The Ashtien who needed no one in the world?"
"...Was I that bad?"
She frowned, then nodded, conceding the point.
"I was, back then. Now someone else is carrying the weight off my heart, and that's how I live."
"That someone being your fiancé?"
Muran made a great fuss of it, declaring that in the time they'd been apart Ashtien had turned disgustingly sweet.
"Go on, then. Brag about your boyfriend a little."
"There's not a single thing lacking in the boy."
"I hear he handles a blade rather well?"
Ashtien looked thoroughly weary of her.
"Honestly. Still nothing in that head but swords."
"And he was an Imperial gladiator, I hear."
Ashtien's expression hardened. She had not told Muran of Vesta's origins—nor the Great Khan.
"Mother told you?"
Muran waved it off, as if Ashtien were making a fuss over the obvious.
"Don't look at me like that. You knew an investigation would follow."
"...I did."
"Hearing he's a gladiator only made me more curious about the kid."
"Why, because he's a gladiator?"
"Did I never mention? When I was wandering the Empire, I tried everything I could to fight the gladiators in the capital."
She was called the Imperial Sword Saint because, in her youth, she had roamed the length of the Empire and cut down its most renowned swordsmen with her own hands.
"I gave up because I couldn't find a way into the arena."
Even now it rankled. Muran clicked her tongue.
"If you're that curious, come watch tomorrow's match."
"What match? Don't tell me—the Centaur Festival? Your fiancé is competing?"
"Competing? He's already on an eight-win streak."
Muran's eyes lit. Once or twice might have been luck. Eight victories in a row were not.
"Hmm. A human boy, eight straight against centaurs. Well. He'd better be that good."
"He's your fiancé, after all. Not just anyone."
"You'll be even more surprised when you hear who he's facing next."
"Eight wins—they wouldn't throw riffraff at him. Someone I'd know?"
"Your disciple's older brother."
"Who? Wait a moment."
Sword Saint or not, she was not one to take many disciples. Among the swordsmen she counted as her own, only one had a centaur for an older brother.
"Bia's brother?"
It was Muran who had taught Bia the sword. Their friendship ran deep enough that she knew the house well.
"The one they call Radiance?"
Ashtien inclined her head.
"In the South, that man is Gold."
"This is getting interesting."
Even a Sword Saint had no business treating an opponent of that caliber as a greenhorn.
Muran's eyes went wide, and then she laughed in a great, thoroughly delighted voice.
"I haven't seen his skill yet, but the nerve alone tells me he's no ordinary human. Good. I like him already."
The smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth felt cold and hard as a lump of iron.
"I'll be sure to watch that match."
"Bia. Watching you is making me nervous."
She could hardly keep still. Vesta, unable to look on any longer, tried to settle her.
"I-is that so?"
Bia, who had been circling him round and round, came to herself with a start.
"You're not a little too tense?"
Vesta sat with his usual composure, no different from any other day. The sight of it left Bia sheepish; she cleared her throat.
"I was the only one making a scene, wasn't I."
"Well. You're not the only one..."
The people of the tribe had gathered to see Vesta off to a match more important than any before it.
Without Ashtien, so not quite everyone.
Ashtien was waiting for him in the stands. He found himself remembering the last words she had left him.
She had blessed him as she always did.
That, he had not expected.
A promise hard to keep.
Both of them knew the danger that would follow. Vesta had chosen to take it on, and Ashtien would not turn her eyes from an ominous future.
In truth, Vesta did not know with what heart Ashtien sat in the stands and cheered for him. A gladiator had to survive the moment in front of him. There was no room left to think of the one waiting in the seats.
To love a gladiator, the heart had to be strong.
That was how Ashtien loved a gladiator.
"Lord Vesta. It's time."
"Yes."
At Ahor's word, Vesta rose from his seat.
Every gaze in the tribe gathered on him.
"I'm the one going out there. Why is everyone so stiff?"
He knew why well enough. Unlike the matches before, this opponent was no ordinary opponent. Set the odds and Vesta's would have punched through the floor and buried themselves in the cellar.
"If you're thinking of putting money down, put it on me. I'll make you rich."
"You mean that, Lord Vesta?"
"Of course."
"I figured you'd say that, so I already put down every last coin I've got. You lose and we're in real trouble. I mean it."
Uushun piled on top of the joke without missing a beat.
"What am I supposed to say to that."
The joke landed, at least. The air lightened by a good deal.
"Go carefully."
"Lord Vesta. Fortune in battle."
Ahor and Bia saw him off last of all.
It was time to fight.
His opponent was coming, far off and drawing nearer.
"...Radiance, was it."
He could see why they called him that.
Under the glare of Apollo—Sol—beating down upon the frostbound earth, a man sheathed in dazzling radiance looked down at Vesta.
"This one won't be easy."
It was as if a second sun had risen.
He knew in his bones that the fight ahead would be anything but simple.