Vir found himself a nice, dark cellar nearby and exited. He didn’t move. He just sat back and monitored the surroundings with Prana Vision.
Nobody would find him here. Kamna couldn’t search Sawai manors without a warrant, and she certainly didn’t have the warrant on hand to some random aristocrat’s house.
Furthermore, she had no reason to suspect he’d disappeared into a manor. She didn’t know the range limitations of Dance of the Shadow Demon, and so he was safe here.
Vir spent the next several hours sitting quietly. Observing. Waiting. And shivering.
He’d just reaped another soul tonight. He’d taken the life of the one who’d wronged him. Who’d wronged Maiya.
There was no satisfaction in his heart. No sense of warmth or accomplishment. But there was closure. He’d failed to kill Princess Mina. But he’d made an honest attempt on her life. And he had killed the man who murdered Rudvik, Apramor, and Aliscia, sewing chaos as promised. His debt to Riyan was now over.
When dawn finally broke, Kamna and her guards had long since given up and gone home. Vir calmly swapped faces, donned his Sawai clothing and Danced out onto the streets, blending into the traffic as yet another Sawai, just going about their daily business.
Nobody suspected Vir as he slipped through the district gates. Nobody knew what he’d done when he retrieved Neel and Bumpy, checking out of the Sanctum. Having never ridden the beast while in Daha, Mina’s spies knew not that the lame Ash’va belonged to him. As for Neel, Vir simply covered him under a blanket as the bandy rode on Bumpy’s back.
And so, none were the wiser as Vir rode out, deceiving all watchful eyes and leaving Daha behind.
Some time earlier, as Vir was fleeing Mina’s guards, a figure stood ten paces from Mina Hiranya. Tall, broad-shouldered, proud… and surrounded in a pool of blood. Not his own, but in the blood of Mina’s elite knights. A half dozen bodies littered the ground, leaving the princess alone and defenseless.
“Quite a late entry, don’t you think?” Mina said calmly, smiling as she turned to the newcomer. Rather than resembling someone greeting their assassin, she looked as though her dearest friend had just shown up.
“For years, I have awaited this moment,” said Riyan, glaring at his mortal enemy. “For years, I have plotted and calculated. All to create an opening. All so that I can have you alone. To myself.”
“Oho? So you never expected your pawn to succeed, is it? Quite coldhearted of you, don’t you think?”
“The boy exceeded expectations. He granted me this opportunity. And now, Mina Hiranya, you will die.”
Riyan disappeared, slicing across Mina’s body with his talwar.
But instead of a shower of red, Mina stood unharmed.
“Hahaha!” she laughed. “Oh, you poor fool. You honestly think you can harm me?”
“You believe your Artifact makes you invulnerable. Indeed, I believed the same, for a time. But did you really think I’d have come here tonight without a plan?”
The grin on Mina’s face shrank ever so slightly.
The grin on Riyan’s widened. “I will enjoy this.”
91THE BUTCHER AND THE BLIGHT
Thunder cracked as Princess Mina Hiranya’s C Grade Arc spell lanced out, its finger seeking a target that was no longer there.
“Tell me, Riyan. Were you surprised to learn that I’d killed your contact and taken his place?”
Riyan ignored her, Blinking around the princess, evading her magic. Since Water magic was useless against a fast-moving opponent, Mina only had Lightning to work with.
“I suppose you never knew of my skills with deception. You knew I liked to sneak out of the castle, but you’d never seen me do it. If you had, you’d have realized my skills were easily as good as your own. Your mistake got your man killed, Riyan. Yet another useless death for your pointless cause.”
She’d hoped to upset Riyan’s rhythm, giving her an opening. But the man’s relentless determination hadn’t changed after all these years. He continued to attack, unfazed.
Despite her calm outward demeanor, Mina seethed. A mejai’s worst enemy was a skilled Talent wielder, especially one who specialized in mobility. Even her Arc spells missed their mark against such an agile foe, and without her magic, she had only one or two options to threaten him with. When Riyan wasn’t Blinking around, he moved with superhuman speed, augmented by Haste. Against such an opponent, Mina was a sitting duck.
But this was true of every mejai, and so Mina had long ago taken precautions.
Riyan’s talwar slashed across her face, opening a small gash on her cheek, drawing blood. Mina’s mind spun and spun, attempting to decipher her enemy’s secret.
“Even Blade Projection shouldn’t be able to touch me,” she commented calmly. Mina was intimately familiar with all of Riyan’s Talents. The man had been infusing every attack with prana, but she knew from experience that this Talent couldn’t penetrate her Artifact’s defenses.
The pendant she wore under her clothes hailed from the Age of Gods, and not only prevented injury, it healed wounds near-instantly. Already, the line on her cheek clotted and closed. It was the ultimate healing art. One she’d never had to rely on in the past.
Because even with Daha’s limited prana, it had always rendered her invulnerable.
The princess wore it at all times without fail.
“You know, I feel a little bad playing with your agent. You never even told him about my Artifact, did you?”
“Who in their right mind would undertake an assassination mission against an unkillable opponent? I never intended the boy to die. Unlike you, I value those who’ve done right by me.”
Mina could see it all. Vir’s mission was doomed to fail from the start. What it did was hand her to Riyan, where he believed she was vulnerable. And as a bonus, Vir even killed Head Priest Harak, ensuring chaos raged in the capital.
“Curious,” Mina said, appraising Riyan like a lab specimen. “I know not your secret, but that you managed to harm me is intriguing. This has never happened before. Even so, that is all it is—a curiosity. Is this all? They do say that one can die from a thousand cuts, but I fear you’ve miscalculated again, my dear general. What did you hope to accomplish here? Soon, my elite knights will be here, and you’ll die in vain.”
Riyan said nothing as he flitted around her, blurring as his speed left afterimages in Mina’s eyes. Relentlessly, consistently, Mina’s arms, legs, and cheeks took damage.
Again and again, he’d wound her, only for her flesh to mend right back up. Then, for a brief moment, Riyan stopped, attacking Mina not once or twice, but thrice in quick succession. All at the exact same spot. Each strike gouged deeper into Mina’s forearms as she blocked her face, each drawing more and more blood.
General Riyan Savar knew better than most that to stop on a battlefield meant death. A stationary target was an easy target, and Mina capitalized on the opportunity. The instant Riyan’s attacks stopped, she fired a C Grade Arc spell.
At this distance, Riyan wouldn’t evade. He took the attack head-on… and grinned, launching a flurry of follow-up strikes on the hapless princess.
Mina laughed wryly. “Aegis? Now, now, it’s not polite to keep secrets, Riyan. Have you kept it hidden this whole time? Or is this some new ability, perhaps?”
Despite her situation, the princess sounded genuinely happy. Riyan struck the same wound in rapid succession—a feat made possible only by a warrior of Riyan’s caliber. As much as Talents augmented strikes, if the technique and footwork lagged, the results would only go so far. It was why he’d trained Vir so relentlessly in the Kalari arts.