Chapter 786 (1/2)

In the week before her match, Helen barely had time to breathe. It all blended together as the group trained day after day. By the evening before her fight with Skarch, Helen believed she had improved more than she had thought was possible.

Yet some part of herself told her it wasn’t enough.

Part of it was the strange conversations that the sicko Darrune would initiate after training sessions, while Randidly was away doing whatever the fuck he did. Part of her wanted to rip Darrune’s skin off his body and roll him across salt, but another part recognized that he was barely helping. Therefore, she left him alive.

It was a generous act, on her part.

But the conversations that he started were strange and awkward and left her feeling vaguely disappointing. Most of them were weird logic problems that he asked with a large amount of backstory. In the end, Darrune would always ask what a true spear user should do in different ethical dilemmas.

Helen didn’t know. It was hard to listen to his stupid ideas. Plus, she was exhausted. She had just spent all fucking day being dragged across the floor like a misbehaving child by Randidly. Questions were not high on her list of priorities. So she just said whatever she felt like. Often, Darrune seemed to be surprised and pleased by her random answers, often leaving with a chuckle and a pleased expression. Which was the most frustrating thing Helen had encountered.

Immediately after he would leave, Helen could release her tight control of the fist-sized flame of black rage in her chest. Obviously, had she not controlled herself, the whole salted Darrune thing would occur in a heartbeat. Part of it was his assistance, but part of her leniency against this bug of a Tellite was respect for Randidly.

For all that this was a trash person worthy of agony, Randidly had brought him. So just for that reason, Helen would let him go. But all of these small, flighty thoughts scattered when the larger truth looming over them all settled down in her psyche.

Tomorrow was the fight.

That thought hung in her head, shading her every emotion, as she stood on the roof of the Hall of Stances and looked out at the cooking fires of the Northern Camp. Strangely, she felt an impulse to visit her mother. That feeling was quickly smothered. Her mother was like a witch; thinking her name summoned her. Better to keep all of those thoughts to a minimum.

“Am I going to win?” Helen whispered to herself. She had seen the raw power that Skarch’s spear possessed. It was overwhelming. That, combined with the extremely solid and impressive basic spear moves that Skarch used, left Helen feeling somewhat pale and insubstantial.

Just the thought caused the black flames of rage to stretch themselves upward in fury. Helen chuckled.

That was the point, wasn’t it? To create this unwillingness in her that would even deny reality in order to get her way. A part of her believed that she should be resentful of Randidly for so forcefully planting this in her chest, but she couldn’t muster up any true rage toward him. That path was sealed when she lost her fight to him.

A different life. A different fate. A different… ending for the two of them.

Not any longer, Helen shook her head slowly.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Helen turned to regard Randidly, who stood on the low wall at the edge of the roof. His gaze was intense as he looked at her.

Helen bared her teeth. “What are you here for? Nervous I will bring shame to you?”

It was strange that Helen had thought her mother would be summoned by her thoughts, and yet it turned out to be Randidly that was brought to her side. But it made its own sort of sense. Since he had returned, Randidly had devoted a lot of time and attention to making sure she was able to win this duel.

She should have known he would come to her in the long night before the match. It would be the last push he would give her. It had better fucking be a hefty sort of push. She had no need of emotional speeches.

Her face softened into something closer to a true smile while Randidly considered his answer. Helen spoke again before he could. “You know, what I could really use was a good lay. I hold a lot of tension in my…”

But Helen began to blush furiously as her tongue and brain argued and debated which word she should use to finish the joke. It’s a good joke! Just make it you dumb bitch, Helen hissed at herself as the silence began to stretch. Oh god, now he probably thinks I was serious… was I serious? Why am I STILL fucking silent?!?!

“...pelvis…” Helen finished in a small voice.

Randidly chuckled, then shook his head. “I’m here to remind you how to win.”

“I remember, just be a better Helen than I am. Be the Helen that was designed to beat Skarch,” Helen said, still somewhat bitter at her awkward comment. Why the fuck had she tried to act playful? She was a spear. Stab stab.

Stab. That’s what she was good at.

Like a pine tree tiredly shaking off snow, Randidly shook his head back and forth. “Well, that’s one way. But no. What I wanted to say was… have fun.”