Chương 49: Made of Stone

Military vehicles crossed a town I almost recognised. One passed close enough that I could see dirt packed between sections of its tracks. Behind it, buildings crowded a narrow street, and shadows moved across the gaps where civilians had been running a moment earlier. I searched for the route I had cleared. The angle was wrong, or the street was different, and the effort carried me into darkness again. She was bent over someone on the ground. Her cape had gathered beneath one knee.

She pulled at it without looking down, freeing enough cloth to cover the person beside her, then stopped with a section of it held between her hands. Her mouth moved. This time I wanted to hear badly enough that I tried leaning closer, and once again there was no body to do it with. The fallen person wore equipment I did not recognise. I could not even establish whether this was the same battle. She kept adjusting the cloth near their shoulder.

Tears fell onto her hands while she worked at a fold that would not stay where she put it. I tried to say something to her. There was no mouth to open. I searched for the movement anyway, for the small pressure behind a word, and produced nothing. Looking harder was the only action I seemed to have left. I strained to hold the scene in place as it darkened. Her sword was already moving when I saw her again. She stood in a valley of rocks, striking into the space beside a narrow outcrop.

I recognised the turn of her wrist and waited for the step that followed. She placed her foot badly, stopped, and returned to the beginning. I had never seen her make that mistake. She tried again. The next attempt carried her too close to the stone. Her sleeve caught against it, and she pulled free with an impatient movement that had nothing elegant about it. Then she set her feet and raised the sword. I wanted the scene to last.

There were things I could have learned from watching her correct herself, things she had never given me time to examine while trying to put a blade through me. The valley vanished during her next swing. Civilians were passing behind her. She held the sword low while looking over her shoulder, urging someone onward with her free hand. The last people in the street were moving too slowly. One turned back. She caught them by the upper arm and pushed them toward the others, then stepped into the space they had left.

An army occupied the far end of the road. I tried to count the vehicles. Shadows passed between them, breaking up the outlines, and she shifted her stance before I could finish. I knew that stance. My own feet should have moved in response, except I still had none. Fire covered the street. I lost the civilians first. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Her cape remained visible for another moment, then I could only follow the sword.

Everything was happening too quickly. I had questions about the person beneath the cloth, about the ceremony, about whether any of those people had reached the end of the road. None of it waited for me. She turned while keeping the sword raised. Her face was wet. Her mouth tightened as she looked past me, and for a moment I expected the weapon to lower. I had seen humans reach that point before. Sometimes they stopped defending themselves while they were still standing. She moved her hand higher on the grip.

I had mistaken the pause. She was watching for something through the fire. Someone might still have been coming down that road; there might have been a space she thought she could reach. I could not see what she saw. She raised her head a little farther and held her position.

'You still think you can do it.' The thought came with an uncomfortable familiarity. I wanted to reach her before the scene changed again. I put everything into the attempt, searching for an arm that had been absent since the darkness began. Everything went white. My hand was extended in front of me. For several moments that occupied all my attention. I could bend the fingers. The camera hung between my other hand and its strap, pulling against a wrist that felt as though I had been carrying it for hours.

I lowered it carefully. She stood a short distance away. Marble plates covered her body. The seams followed the armour she had worn, and fire remained in her eyes, moving within the otherwise still face. I looked down at her hands. They were whole. Her feet rested on the floor. I smiled before I checked whether she was moving.

"Mimir."

"I'm here, lad."

"It took."

"Aye. Give me a moment before ye try anything else." I almost told him I had no intention of doing anything else. Then I looked at the camera, still caught against my wrist, and could not make the claim sound particularly convincing. She remained facing me. I wanted her to speak. I wanted an answer about the road, and the person she had covered, and why she had continued practising alone in that valley. I already knew useful answers. Discipline improved technique. Civilians needed someone to hold the army back.

None of those answers addressed what I had wanted to ask while watching her struggle with the fold in the cape. Across all those runs, I had learned how people behaved well enough to use it. I could provoke them or avoid them. I knew which conversations cost time. I had treated understanding as something I had finished once their actions became predictable. The woman in front of me had spent centuries being predictable with a sword, and I had barely understood anything. I shifted the strap off my wrist.

My fingers were still slow.

"I don't want to do this again," I said. Mimir let the words sit for a moment.

"The mirror?"

"This run." I looked at her while I said it. There were mistakes behind me that a regression could remove, decisions I would have made differently even an hour later. I could already list several. I wanted to continue from here anyway, with the consequences still attached. And I wanted to know what she would say. That seemed a small enough thing to admit until I tried doing it aloud. [Archetype Acquired: The Fallen Paladin Minerva] [Status: Knight] [Possible Evolution Path: Knight, Paladin, Saint]"Minerva," I read.

The name gave me something to call her besides what she had been able to do to me. I lowered the camera the rest of the way and offered my hand, stopping short of touching hers.

"I have questions," I said.

"You can ask yours too." It sounded formal. I had spent enough time with humans to know that much, and still could not decide how to improve it. My hand stayed between us while I waited to see whether she would take it.

"Who put you here?" I asked Her eyes continued to burn observing me without moving an inch. No answear.

"She cannot speak pal... it cannot speak."

"It's an object!" indeed the former dark knight and sword saint had no stone like features, I looked down at the camera. Maybe it was because of that... Then her figure shifted. Her orange eyes burned brightly against the encroaching darkness. White hair fell beneath a silver diadem, and shoulder plates joined armour that extended down to her metal greaves. A faint crack appeared across her skin, except the surface beneath it was marble. I leaned closer.

"Well," Mimir murmured, "she wears stone better than most gods wear gold." I did not bother answering. She stood taller than me, the true Sword Saint, though the system above her referred to her as a knight. I struggled to form the words and made the attempt anyway.

"Minerva…" The name felt unfamiliar in my mouth. I could not decide whether I had pronounced it properly, and she gave me little time to consider it. Her legs shifted. She placed a hand against her upper chest, and I stiffened, briefly convinced that I had overlooked one final attack. Then she lowered herself onto one knee. I stared at her bowed head.

"Someone willing to kneel before you," Mimir said.

"The old temples warned of stranger calamities, lad, but I confess none comes readily to mind." I ignored him and drew on what little mana remained in my reserve, summoning the ashen staff. Its weight settled into my palm while she waited. I had read about this in the fairy-tale section of the human archives. A knight rescued someone, usually a princess, and received an appointment from someone wearing a crown. There had been a speech.

I remembered paying very little attention to it because the knight had already done the work. Now I needed the speech. I raised the staff and rested it against one shoulder, carefully enough that the wood barely touched her armour.

"In recognition of your courage, and the lives you have defended, I name you Minerva, Knight of Noemos." I glanced above her at the system. Whatever was watching could have its name attached to something I had decided for myself. The staff moved to her other shoulder.

"May your sword defend those entrusted to you. May your service be honoured, and your name remembered." That was as much of the princess's speech as I could recall. The rest would have to be mine.

"You have already taught me more than I knew how to ask for," I said.

"I would like the chance to give you something in return." I lowered the staff and smiled. I smiled because, no matter how much I told myself that I knew all of this. I couldn't deny the fact that this run is a blind run... and I didn't want to die... I really can't die.