"You're stronger than I am. All of us, Syr Raye," the young Squire said, his face flushed red with frustration. "I understand the technique. You've drilled it into us since the wee hours of the morning. How are all of us supposed to overcome you?"
Solon watched all four of the squires that he'd taken out to training in the yard that morning. The focus of the day was hand-to-hand combat, something that Solon excelled at when he was the age of these squires. His skill had come from more raw strength and anger than technique. Technique came later when he learned to heed the teachings of his masters a little more. There was much less chaos in their hearts though. The young hopefuls before him had a great deal of potential and would all make fine knights if they would simply get out of their own way. They were all seated in the dirt, exhaustion overtaking them. He could push them physically no longer. The sun rose and burned with them tossing each other about. The whip that was the voice of one Syr Solon Raye cracked through the air in reprimand. They needed to shape up because their lives, their very futures, depended on their efficiency. Perhaps more than just even that...
The Killing Light lowered himself as the great orb in the sky did. A Knight of the Dawn should always follow the cycles of the sun in his day-today life. Earlier Knights of Anathaeum understood the concept well and there were a great many texts on the philosophy. Something that these young ones would have yet to understand. Further, he sat with them to make himself level with them. Nothing was worse than a teacher that looked down upon his students.
"You do not understand the technique young one. For if you did, you would know to get out of your own mind... The battle is one in your conscience before you even raise your fist or reach for your blade. My size, my strength, none of it matters. What matters is the war you fight within yourself. The mastery that you have over yourself. The Knight who does not know how to command himself will be commanded by his enemies. Remember this."
His eyes fell upon a visitor to their circle. Solon offered the new Captain of Dawn a small, yet warm grin before his brown eyes returned to the squires gathered.
"That concludes our lesson for the day. Off to your studies and then bed. We rise at the same time tomorrow to practice footwork. Go!"
Solon watched them leave as a father would watch his children run off to play. He remained seated in the dirt for a little while, the clothes he wore were ragged for the occasion and his feet were bare. He stood when Helena approached and looked her over.
"Congratulations?" She tried to sound mocking, as if she were only just so above it all. A part of her younger self. No, perhaps it was but the desperate want to return to those simpler times. After such change had occurred,. She cleared her throat, and stood tall, as she knew she must, and she closed her eyes and bowed her head to the Pursuant. "Thank you, Syr Raye, I..." she shook her head, unable to believe it herself. Her brow twitched, and her lip quivered as she showed her teeth in rueful smirk. "I cannot say that I deserve it."
She rose, and met Solon's eyes once more. A look like anger in her eyes. Frustration. Fear.
"Why?" she asked, voice hardened like a steel chord, her hands balled into fists at her side. Trembling. "Why did you cast my name forward Solon?!" Pigeons that roosted upon the monastery walls fluttered, and she turned away from him, whispered. "You know it should have been you," Tears stung at her eyes, welled there in the white.
When he was but a squire, all he had ever wanted and envisioned was becoming like one of the great Captains or Masters of this great Order. In his mind, he fought and won many battles on shores that he'd never seen. He'd conquered monsters the likes of which most people couldn't fathom. How strange was it that what he faced in reality was much more terrifying than anything his mind could ever dream up? How strange was it that even when seeing his own father spill the blood of countless others in the name of coin and prestige, he still had a hero's heart. Should he have been the Captain of Dawn? With all the darkness in his heart, was he truly worthy of such a thing? There was too much doubt there. Doubt that he could never and would never allow himself to express to even those closest to him.
What was a leader, nay, a knight that could not face his own fears and doubts? How could he expect to lead souls into the maw of death if he had not conquered all of himself?
There was more light in Helena than he, even while his own was great. And if it wasn't, it would be.
"I have every confidence that the correct decision was made," he said simply
"I see in you the light of knights and warriors long passed, Helena. So does the rest of our Order. My power is great, yes but in you I see the capacity to lead those who take the oath of sword and spell against all things. You embody tenets that I've yet to master. A wise man need not think too greatly on a clear path forward. You are the clear path."
He looked to her and saw the clear path. Yet, she saw nothing before her but a seat left empty by a Knight far greater than herself.
A seat left in grief.
A seat held onto for decade after decade.
Captain Siersemzi of Dawn. The Blue Sun whose light had guided the Sanctum of Dawn for near a century.
Now a mere miner's daughter would take her place. A child born amidst the gravel of the Spine. A temperamental aresling who had nearly died on the very mission that sent the former Captain away in grief. Her stayed trembling as a fist, and her jaw ached from the strain in the muscles that sealed it shut.
Yet, Solon Raye, the Killing Light, saw her as the right choice. She let out a long breath once more.
"I feel unprepared, Solon," she confessed. "Unworthy," she glanced back at the man, who stood so proud and strong with such ease, and she turned her eye away again, looked at the training grounds where they had spent so much time together across all these years.
"None of us came to this place prepared," her eyes could see them at practice. Swords clacked against shields. "Nor did I ever feel, worthy," The knights sworn instructed their practice. Syr Galvanhad encouraged proper form. Syr Dorn knocked them to the ground. Captain Siersemzi, beckoned them to stand. "And we were deemed worthy," she saw the light of the silver flame before her. How it shimmered. How it beckoned her to pass through. With all her sworn kin about her. Fellow squires beside her. "Our oaths, but reminders to remain prepared," she nod her head, and closed her eyes.
"Pick up your sword, Syr Raye," she said with fire in her voice. "That is my first order as your Captain," and she drew her own bade from its sheath. Zenith caught the last light of the day along its edge, its runes gleamed with the trace of sunfire, gold and orange and ageless. She turned to face the Pursuant. "I would test the mettle of one whose council will no doubt guide me in the days to come," she smiled brilliantly, though the light of the old day did fade.
"...you still don't understand. Even as you fight against the shadow of what killed your father, you still don't understand. You are ruled entirely by your emotions, Squire Solon. Your mind must become so quick and your conditioning so perfect that you flee those feelings welling within your chest. to be a Knight of Anathaeum is to free you from the boundaries of the average warrior. The logic of your truth must become the basis for how you wield your blade. If you know the cause of your fight is righteous in your heart, nothing will stop it's keen edge.
Draw your blade, Squire Raye.
Show me the sharpness of your logic."
Solon was very much his father in some ways. In the past before he even knew all of the foul things men could talk about at a table with no one listening, he'd known that his own father never backed down from a challenge while seated anywhere. He saw the old sellsword leave other souls in the street. Crows would sometimes come to pick out their eyes later. Solon understood one thing very early. Those that believed in themselves without fail stood a better chance at surviving in this world than those who didn't. Logic guided the sword of the wise man and emotion only guided a knight to his grave.
Logic was more than just having the ability to understand magic or the ability to work out solutions to needless problems. Logic in this instance would be meant to teach. How did one tell someone great that they were greater when they couldn't see all of the good they'd already done? Solon would not disobey the Captain's order all the same. For a moment, he turned away and picked up his sword and the scabbard that it rested in not too far away.
Helena smile brilliantly and Solon met it with a warm smile of his own. He hoped that the best would come from this.
"Let us see if my council will be worth it to you, Captain. Protect yourself."
Cursebreaker was unsheathed and she sang when she was drawn.
Silence fell between them, as their bodies tensed for the test to come.
For the logic of the sword was one that demanded strength. A foundational truth so many of its twisted branches would trace their way to find. Strength to draw and strength to stand. Against any and all force that would assail you.
Before her was the Killing Light, and in his hand was the famed blade, Cursebreaker. Its keen reputation earned by the hand that directed it.
But Helena would not falter. Her posture tall and alert as her eyes watched him who stood taller still and so doubtless. Her own sword was before her. Its elegant blade still agleam as the light of the day grew ever more faint. Breath drew in from her nose, and came out in its own turn. The smell of dust kicked up from training. The smell of the moss-coated stone, almost wet in her nose.
Her hand held firm the hilt of her weapon, outstretched before her, point aimed down at her opponent, angled almost in invitation.
Before the light and the flame, she would be a stone. Immovable and sure against the heat. Patience. It was a lesson she learned long ago.
"Do you recall that night we had fought against Syr Tanlo?" she said, warm and bright in her tone.
Syr Tanlo was one of the finest swordsmen the Order had ever seen. Once when Solon was a still but a squire and protege of Syr Godfried, he'd watched Syr Tanlo ride forward and fell many a foe all on his own. Solon had been astonished by his skill and bravery. Things that he didn't know he had himself until time moved along. Until the Path of Light had illuminated the way to his true purpose. And now Solon Raye moved with certainty. A certainty in the allies he made and guiding the truth of his sword against his foes. None of it could have happened if he'd never been humbled. When the time came for Solon and Helena to test themselves against Syr Tanlo, he showed them what more they still had to learn.
"Even though he taught us a lesson in steel, no one can deny that you were the star in that fight."
Captain Helena was everything he wished he was. If only she ever knew. He was mighty and learned and powerful in the ways of the Light, but Helena even in her wrath was temperate. Capable of weaving legends just as he was with the tip of her blade and the bark of her command. When Solon stepped forward, he moved like light imitating shadow. Cursebreaker arched downward over Helena's head.
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