Path of the Extra

They froze and went pale all at once. Celestina let out a trembling breath, her grip loosening by a fraction.

”You... can you... sense that?” she asked tentatively.

”Sense? No... I cannot... I simply thought it was... obvious, though...” Azriel’s tempo of speech had grown slower with each word, as though drawn from somewhere very nearly depleted.

”Obvious?”

He had deduced it. Just like that. Was it truly that obvious? Celestina could feel that time was being tampered with, sense it on some instinctive level she could not fully articulate even to herself, and yet Azriel had simply reasoned his way to the same conclusion while standing at the very edge of death.

”It really is not... so far-fetched... with everything I have... been dealing with... so far.”

A breath left Lioren audibly.

”Thirty seconds remaining, and somehow we have arrived at the subject of time travel.”

”Your reaction... and the others not denying it... tells me I am right.”

Lumine and Yelena moved toward Azriel quickly. Yelena, with Jasmine still secured to her back, turned and addressed Lioren directly.

”There is no way you would actually kill him, is there? Simply because you owe him a debt?”

”Killing him benefits everyone present far more than allowing him to continue living. It is straightforward logic,” Lioren replied, his gaze never once leaving the tunnel.

”How... how can you be so utterly cold?”

”Having my emotions suppressed does make it considerably easier,” Lioren said.

”Your emotions? But... suppressed does not mean they are gone entirely, does it?”

”Let it go, Yelena,” Azriel said suddenly.

”No point... talking to... that bastard.”

”Azriel...” Yelena pressed her lips together, and what came through in her voice this time was something closer to genuine pleading. ”If he truly intends to go through with this, please just use your favor. Only the first one, even. We will find a way to manage the second afterward, but-”

”No.”

”Azriel!” Lumine shouted.

And then, without any warning at all, something shifted. Azriel’s head dropped, and the sound of his breathing changed, growing fainter in increments they all caught at precisely the same moment, and the fear that seized every heart in response was immediate and wordless.

”Just stay still. I will try to heal you... whatever I am able to manage...” Celestina murmured, already moving toward him, but Lioren’s voice cut cleanly through whatever she had been about to do.

”Time’s up.”

”...!”

Lioren turned at once, severing eye contact with the void creature that had been standing motionless at the far end of the darkness swallowing the tunnel’s exit.

The wind rose and howled as though it had been waiting for this precise moment, carrying in it something that almost resembled excitement at what was about to unfold. Lioren’s right fist was already raised, and the punch he threw traveled at a speed that edged so close to impossible that none of them could fully register it before it had already happened.

Celestina moved on instinct alone. She seized Azriel by the arm and with her free hand recalled her sword in the same motion, swinging it directly into the path of Lioren’s strike while simultaneously hurling Azriel clear. He rolled toward Lumine with a groan, and Lumine caught him. The deflection was razor-thin. Lioren’s fist grazed past the flat of her blade by the narrowest possible margin. Celestina did not pause. In the very next breath she sprang backward and dropped into a low crouch, planting herself squarely between Lioren and the two of them.

Yelena drew her bow and pulled the string taut, her aim locked on Lioren without wavering. Lumine narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth, one knee pressed to the ground as he bore Azriel’s weight with one arm and held his sword ready in the other.

”You... you really were about to kill him!” Lumine said, his voice loud and unsteady with disbelief.

”Are you slow in the head, blonde? I said I would, did I not?”

”W-why are you bringing my hair color into this? And for that matter, I actually need to have a word with you!” Lumine jabbed a finger in Lioren’s direction before becoming aware of how worked up he was getting and how poorly it reflected on him. He reined it in, let out a measured breath, and lowered his finger with deliberate composure. ”...I know what you and Prince Caleus were planning.”

Lioren tilted his head. Every other pair of eyes in the space turned toward the two of them.

’The void creature still has not come. Lioren must still be using his [unique skill] quietly to hold it at bay,’ Azriel thought.

”I know the two of you planned to use the rest of us as pawns, to sacrifice us in exchange for leverage with the kings of the surrounding kingdoms,” Lumine added gravely. Yelena’s face tightened beside him, unsettled by the subtle shift she felt taking shape in the air.

”So?”

”So?” Lumine blinked, thrown for a moment before pushing through it. ”Do you not see how wrong that is? You are sacrific-”

”I was just now on the verge of ending the life of my only friend because I judged it to be the most logical course of action. What precisely makes you believe I have any concern for your appeals on behalf of strangers? If their deaths serve a logical purpose for me and for those who are genuinely valuable to society, if it means getting us out of this scenario, then it is equally the logical choice.”

”Ah...”

For a moment, no one could draw a full breath. Lioren had not even invoked his Aura, and yet the sheer weight behind his words pressed down on all of them, seizing the air itself. The way he stood behind his convictions, unwavering and without apology, carried an authority all its own.

Lumine was on the verge of losing his composure entirely, but he caught himself, and quickly, surprising even himself at how fast he managed to pull back. Anger and immaturity would accomplish nothing here, and making an enemy of Lioren was the precise opposite of what he needed, particularly when losing the system would result in Lumine’s death with absolute certainty.

”Once I am out of this Colosseum I will carry out my original plan exactly as intended. Whether you agree with it is entirely irrelevant to me. But since there is a small and non-trivial possibility that you might escape before me and warn the others, it appears I will have to silence you. Permanently.”

”...!”

”Oh no,” Yelena breathed, reacting to Lioren’s words while keeping her eyes moving between him and the tunnel, waiting for the void creature to stir. It had not, which was strange to her.

”Celestina,” Azriel said quietly, ”cut his head off. Quickly. Trust me.”

She turned halfway toward him, blinking in genuine confusion.

”H-huh? You want me to do what?”

Somehow, impossibly, this man managed a laugh.

”He will not... harm you... he is far too... scared... for that.”

”Why on earth would he be scared of me?”

Azriel smiled. His teeth were perfect and smeared with his own blood, and the overall effect was far more demonic than reassuring, leaving most of them bewildered. Lioren was the only exception.

”Actually, while we are on the subject... go ahead, Lioren. Kill me. See what happens... once you get out of here and she finds... out that I died at your hands as well. As you already know, she and I have not yet had our reunion... not since I came back after two years... Hehe. You kill me, and you are as good as dead yourself. And if you choose not to kill me, I will make absolutely certain to tell her just how much of a... bully you have been.”

Azriel laughed again before dissolving, as was routine by this point, into a prolonged bout of coughing that brought up more blood. Celestina turned and caught him before he went down, a faint white glow emanating from her palms as they made contact, and Azriel felt a soothing warmth wash through him immediately, enveloping him like something soft and total.

’That feels good... it makes me want to sleep, dammit...’

Lumine and Yelena kept their attention divided across Lioren, Azriel, and the tunnel, doing their best to keep their mounting panic contained between themselves.

Had the air grown colder? Was the wind pressing harder against them than before?

Yes.

Yes. On both counts.

”Um... Azriel... who exactly is this woman you two are referring to?”

Even Celestina was at a loss, and she was holding herself back admirably, but the curiosity was becoming physically difficult to suppress. These two princes, who by all appearances and reputation had nothing to do with each other, were secretly something resembling friends, and they were now referencing some woman whose mere mention might actually give Azriel leverage over Lioren. And Azriel still had a reunion with her waiting after two years apart?

”Just... a certain someone... who is very... very close... to both of us.”

Celestina’s eyes nearly lit up on the spot. She wanted to know so desperately, and the circumstances were the only thing in the universe preventing her from asking everything at once.

Could it be a lover? Some kind of entanglement between the two of them?

The exact same thought, it seemed, passed through Yelena’s and Lumine’s minds at the very same instant.

”...Fine.”

Lioren said it simply, and three pairs of eyes went wide, three mouths falling half open in collective stunned silence.

A love triangle!

It had to be!

Lioren had actually backed down. What in the world was unfolding between these two, and what manner of extraordinary woman could produce that result?

”Ah... one more thing,” Azriel said suddenly, stealing the breath from every one of them as a dark and quiet chuckle escaped him.

”Listen to Lumine. Drop the plan. And tell Caleus to back off.”

”...Fine.”

He backed down again!

Their expressions held, frozen in the same state of stupefied disbelief, none of them quite able to move past it.

”A-Azriel...” Celestina leaned her head closer, dropping her voice to a rapid whisper, her breath grazing his right ear while one hand remained on his shoulder and the other pressed lightly against his chest, her light affinity working quietly to ease his pain. ”Who is this woman? Please, you have to tell me..!”

She... could not hold it in a single moment longer.

Azriel smiled, and it was the most infuriatingly mysterious smile she had ever seen on a person, particularly one currently covered in his own blood. They were all on the very edge of their patience, practically rising onto their toes with the need to know who this woman was, what she was to both of them, and by what extraordinary means she had such a hold over Lioren that even he, the prince without expression, without sentiment, without apparent regard for anything living, had just come within a breath of visibly sulking.

”She is...”