The fire crackled with a comfortable rhythm, filling the space between Caelum and Rhiessa like a third companion warm, unpredictable, and likely to spark something dangerous if left unattended.
Rhiessa polished her blade with the devotion of a priest at prayer. Caelum watched her with open admiratio not just for her looks (though, yes, her cheekbone symmetry was divine), but for the fluidity of her movements. Every gesture was efficient, purposeful. He could practically hear the echo of a hundred battles in the way she handled her sword.
"I must confess," Caelum said, reclining against his pack with his legs crossed and scrolls sprawled across his lap, "there's a tragic poetry in how you dismember people. It's like... a ballet of brutality."
Rhiessa didn't respond. She just turned the blade in the firelight, checking for imperfections.
"I mean that sincerely," he added, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "There are dancers who would envy your footwork. Perhaps if I survive long enough, I'll commission a painting of you mid-swing. Nude, of course. For artistic emphasis."
She looked up slowly.
"You say another word like that," she said, "and I'll make art out of your bones."
Caelum clutched his chest, mock-wounded. "Ah! A woman who flirts with threats. Be still, my fluttering heart."
Before she could hurl something at him (and she was reaching for a rock), the wind shifted. Cold. Tense. Magic-laced. Caelum's grin dimmed.
He stood and turned toward the darkened treeline. The trees groaned, whispering in a tongue only the mad or well-read understood. Caelum happened to be both.
Out stepped a cloaked figure, tall and regal in posture, their robes etched with shifting runes that shimmered in unnatural light. The air around them smelled like scorched vellum and ancient ink.
"Caelum Verris," they said with venom. "Still desecrating ruins and charming cutthroats?"
"Nyx!" Caelum clapped his hands, delighted. "You look terrible. Have you been sleeping? Eating? Bathing?"
Professor Nyx removed their hood, revealing porcelain skin, eyes like dried blood, and hair braided in obsidian strands. "You stole the Chronicle of Vantheos from me."
Caelum gasped. "I rescued it from your morally bankrupt clutches. It's called academic ethics."
"You replaced half the pages with notes about a woman's thighs."
"Excuse you," he said with dignity. "That woman was a war-queen, and her thighs crushed rebellions."
Nyx raised a hand. Arcane glyphs swirled around their fingers. Lightning coiled in threads of ink and light.
Rhiessa stood beside Caelum now, unsheathing Valebright. "You know this creep?"
"We dueled at the Arcanum Symposium," Caelum explained. "I won. Then they tried to poison me. I wrote a very scathing poem about it."
Nyx's voice echoed with malice. "You'll write nothing after tonight but your epitaph."
Caelum adjusted his sleeves, revealing a gauntlet covered in dials, needles, and gem-like nodes. He twisted one, and the runes flared to life across his palm. "Don't worry, I wrote that too. It's titled 'Here Lies the Only Man to Have Flirted With Death and Survived Twice.'"
The clash began.
Nyx's spell lashed forward like a serpent of pure lightning. Caelum ducked, rolled, and flung a counter glyph into the dirt. The ground exploded upward, a wall of enchanted stone shielding them for a breath. Rhiessa darted out, moving like silver wind—her blade caught Nyx's shoulder, drawing blood and rage.
Caelum, meanwhile, began to lecture mid-fight.
"Nyx," he called from behind the crumbling barrier, "did you really use Third-Circle rune-casting without stabilizing your arcane grid? Honestly, no wonder your aim's off!"
"Die, Verris!"
"I'm too curious to die!"
Nyx screamed, gathering power.
Caelum tossed a small obsidian cube toward them. "Catch."
"What is—?"
The cube unfolded mid-air, blooming like a mechanical flower. It screeched and emitted a pulse that sent Nyx flying back into the trees, unconscious.
Silence.
Rhiessa exhaled slowly and wiped her blade clean.
Caelum straightened his robe, looking smug. "That," he said, "was a modified Echo Bomb from the ruins of Mor'Kaleth. Very illegal. Very effective."
She gave him a long look. "You're insufferable."
"Most scholars are."
"But also... impressive."
He blinked. "Wait. Was that a compliment?"
She sheathed her blade. "Don't push your luck."
"Oh, I'll treasure this moment like a pressed flower in my journal," he sighed dramatically, staring dreamily up at the stars.
And somewhere, deep in the void between stars and forgotten truths, something watched him—drawn to his obsession. To the man who would chase knowledge even into madness.