Chapter 294: To Be A Veres Part 2

Callum took a deep breath and stared into Kalliste’s eyes, “Let me show you then, what it means to be a Veres.”

Kalliste raised her arms above her shoulders, and the ground beneath their feet began to shake, “Then let me remind you why Veres I made an alliance with my House.”

Jagged stone spikes ripped through the ground and stabbed at Callum. He danced around the spikes, swerving between several of them, and slicing apart the ones he could not.

“Not yet!” Kalliste yelled. She slammed her hands into the ground and channeled her strongest flora spell. Dozens of thorny vines sprouted from the earth, each as thick as a grown man’s arm, and wrapped around the stone spikes even as the jagged rocks tried to impale Callum. The vines pulled back for a split second and then lashed out like a snake’s bite.

Callum kicked off a stone spike and vaulted into the air. His sword flashed in a rhythmic pattern, a flurry of enchanted steel cutting down the vines with ease. He landed on another stone spike and jumped off, slashing the vines before they reached him.

Kalliste narrowed her eyes, her fiancé wasn’t a swordmaster, but he was somehow managing to evade all her attacks. The Gale Style’s iconic light steps and swift defensive strikes were evident in his movements, but using such moves consistently would exhaust the user quickly. He should have fallen already. He should have been overwhelmed by the dangers all around him. His ribs had been impaled mere minutes earlier, why wasn’t he on the ground crying in agony?

Had it been the small potion he had drunk?

No, this was something more.

His scarlet eyes were clear, focused. A steel resolve shimmering in his every step.

This wasn’t the Callum she knew, the coward who always hid behind his sister, Elise. This wasn’t the outcast who always tried to use words and cheap tricks to conceal his weaknesses. This wasn’t the fiancé she had always disdained, resented for their inevitable binding at birth.

…Had he really changed? Had she been wrong about him…? If he had, then that meant she was…

“No! I refuse to accept it!” she screamed.

Kalliste released her stone and flora spell and flooded her arms with orange mana. By the time Callum noticed the vines withering away it was too late. The giant wave of flame splashed into the garden of dead vines and jagged spikes, engulfing it all in searing heat.

Callum yelled in surprise and tried to dodge, but the flames were too wide. He rolled on the ground and did his best to hide behind the stone spikes.

As the enormous flame spell subsided and the smoke cleared, the crowd gasped and pointed at the red dome standing among the ashes.

“No fucking way,” Kalliste muttered frustratedly.

The ward dome was small, only 3 feet tall and wide. A single large arcane sigil swam over the dome, “Fire.” Callum sat crouched beneath his hastily constructed spell. His clothes were half-charred, patches of his pale skin were blistering red where the flames had reached him, but still, he grinned, a glint of madness in his eyes.

Smiling? He’s fucking smiling!? Kalliste thought incredulously. How had such a simple ward held out against her flame spell!? He should have been grateful that he had survived by sheer luck! He should have been terrified, begging for forgiveness!

“Don’t you get it, you stupid idiot!?” Kalliste screamed and flung a flame bolt into the ward.

The flame splashed off the ward, orange sparks exploding into the air. The small red dome shook, but held.

“You already lost!” Kalliste threw another flame bolt and then another.

She wouldn’t give him the chance to recuperate and escape. Kalliste kept casting more flame bolts, her enormous reserves of mana quickly depleting. Small cracks began to appear over the red dome. Still, the dome held.

“How!?” Kalliste yelled.

No! Kalliste clenched her teeth tight, I am a Lilith, the scion of one of the greatest lineages in the world! I was bred for magic! You’re just the bastard child of some random commoner! So, why…! Why are you still fighting!?

“Just give up, you sorry excuse for a Veres!” Kalliste screeched.

“I’m…” Callum swallowed hard, sweat dripped off his brow, and his arms trembled as he tried his best to keep the cracking dome from completely falling apart. “...I’m not like the others… I don’t have Freya’s confidence. I don’t have Sylvie’s absurd talents. And I don’t have’ Stryg’s unbreaking courage. But I–”

A bolt of lightning surged out of Kalliste’s hand and struck the ward. The dome shattered into red dust on impact and the lightning unraveled into dozens of streaking blue tendrils and rippled over Callum. His muscles seized up as the lightning burned through him and blasted him a dozen paces away.

Kalliste’s tense shoulders relaxed and she exhaled a shaky breath. “...I wasn’t sure I could do it. Thanks for giving me a chance to focus.”

Callum moaned weakly. He laid limp on his side, puffs of smoke rising off his body.

Kalliste chuckled and walked towards him, “It’s funny, isn’t it? You tried to goad me into losing control in order to miscast my storm spells. And yet now that same mouth of yours is why you're lying on the ground half-dead.”

“Get up, Cal!” Stryg yelled from the crowds.

“Don’t give up!” Freya screamed.

“Go for the gut!” Sylvie shouted and pretended to drive a blade into her own stomach.

Kalliste shook her head, “You have some… enthusiastic friends. Even now they still think you can win.” She placed her foot on Callum’s shoulder and rolled him over face-up. “But you know better than that don’t you? We both grew up in the vampire aristocracy, we had to learn quickly, didn’t we? Life is cheap.”

Callum slowly opened his eyes and stared up at her. He opened his mouth, but no words escaped his bloodied lips, only a soft groan.

Kalliste looked down at him and planted her foot over his chest, “I wasn’t going to kill you… Lynn wanted you to live, because she’s kind. But I refuse to live a life I did not choose. Our engagement ends here.”

Callum grimaced and gasped for breath as Kallise leaned her weight over her foot and his chest.

“Y-you’re… r-right…” he wheezed weakly.

Kalliste leaned back some of her weight and looked at him curiously, “What?”

“Y-you’re right… about me,” he mumbled. “I haven’t changed… I still… have my tricks…”

“What are you sa-” Kalliste’s voice jerked to a halt. Callum’s face had grown blurry. The tips of her fingers felt numb.

Callum opened his clenched bloodied right hand and revealed a small broken vial. A few drops of the cyan liquid were still left inside the glass but they quickly evaporated into the air in puffs of grey smoke.

Callum’s left hand shot up, a dagger hidden underneath his sleeve, and stabbed Kalliste. The steel cold blade sank into her soft belly and burrowed itself in her stomach. She gasped a hollow raspy breath, and stumbled backward.

With trembling fingers, Kalliste gripped the handle of the dagger, but her arms had already grown numb. She fell to her knees and tried gasping for breath, but her throat felt tight.

With a painful grimace, Callum sat up and smiled half-heartedly, “Do you feel it? Your lungs failing you? Impaired vision? A numbness in your limbs. Your heartbeat slowing down until it eventually stops.”

“...P-poi..son…?” Kalliste murmured with wide eyes.

“A potent paralysis, though its window of exposure is very small… I had to get you close, close enough where I could touch you… I was hoping I would have gotten a better s-shot…” Callum wheezed and fell back down, his muscles spasming uncontrollably.

You poisoned yourself!? Kalliste realized in alarm.

Blood began pooling down her shirt and her thighs, the blood felt so warm on her cold skin. The dagger in her gut felt like a small scratch, she could hardly feel it. She could barely feel anything anymore. Her vision grew darker and darker…

I can’t lose, she thought hazily. I can’t lose… I can’t…

“KALLISTE LILITH AND CALLUM VERES ARE UNABLE TO CONTINUE. THE DUEL IS OVER! I REPEAT THE DUEL IS OVER!” Jane Stemme yelled in a panicked voice.

“HEALERS, PLEASE HURRY! NEITHER OF THEM IS MOVING!” Mark Stemme screamed.

~~~

Lady Ophelia Thorn paced around her castle’s gallery room. Her feet shuffled back and forth in an endless pattern. It had been several hours since the Heralds’ had called the last duel and yet she still had trouble accepting the outcome.

The duel matchups had been perfect, she had made them perfect. So why did nothing happen as it should have?

The Ebon Aspirant had rejected her offer and decided to align himself with orcs of all people. She could hardly believe it, nonetheless she acted swiftly and made sure to eliminate the threats in today’s duels.

Yet somehow he had emerged victorious. Ophelia didn’t understand. Beatrix had knocked him down, she immobilized him with her clarity magic. So how did she lose? She had just dropped to the ground as if she had been poisoned. But the healers at the infirmary had confirmed to her that they had found no poison in Beatrix’s body.

Nothing made sense. The Ebon Aspirant was as shrouded by mystery as the Ebon Lords of the past.

And then there was the Veres boy. How he had managed to take himself down and Frost Rim’s illustrious Kalliste Lilith was a conundrum in and of itself. Kalliste had underestimated the boy and had paid dearly.

“Idiots! They’re all idiots!” Ophelia screamed into the empty gallery.

“Mother…?” Calex whispered a few paces behind her.

Ophelia spun around, “Calex?” She smiled brightly and ran her hand through her hair, “Darling, I didn’t notice y– How long have you been there?”

“Just a moment, I came to check on you. You weren’t at dinner. Lerdea was worried,” Calex said in a soft voice.

“Ugh, your sister always worries too much. I didn’t go to dinner because I didn’t have an appetite, that’s all.”

“...I see,” he whispered. “Mother, about today’s matches…”

“Don’t worry about today’s duels, they were a simple setback. I thought to eliminate the Ebon Aspirant because I did not want him to become a threat in the future. But he proved more resilient than I imagined. In retrospect that is a good thing.”

“How so?” Calex tilted his head to the side.

“The Aspirant is worth far more alive than dead.”

“But I thought you said he was too dangerous, potentially.”

“Until now,” she smiled coldly. “My spymaster came by an hour ago with his latest report. I have since gained vast amounts of new information regarding the Aspirant… and his family.”

“Stryg has a family?” Calex furrowed his brow.

“Everyone has a family. The only question is, how far are we willing to go for our families?”