Chương 79: Minder
Valeri had walked slowly this morning, allowing herself to rest her mind before she confronted the day with the new information she now has.
Maximilian was looking for the Shadow Walkers. The mere notion of that statement was almost incomprehensible to her. The Shadow Walkers were a living death sentence, arbiters of all that passed through their long shadows.
She didn't know how to feel, she couldn't help but feel the man would have his reasons, but she'd only known him for less than a few hours. She'd spent many times that with the man who called him master, Midday.
She had decided the day before, however, that she'd confront Midday. She'd ask what they were doing, what they were planning, and then make a determination from there.
Despite the slow walking, she arrived at their spot faster than she'd expected—her mind in a daze of thought and warping her perception of time itself. She was once again standing not fifty metres from the cloaked form of Midday, standing quite a few inches shorter than herself, though it gave her no comfort.
"Took your time." Midday's voice rang out across the field of relatively flat ground, though not flat enough that it wouldn't throw off your balance if you weren't being aware.
"Sorry." She said reflexively before cringing at herself, the plan of brining at least some momentum into the conversation had been quashed so easily. Regardless of the weak footing, she quickly continued into the beginning of her interrogation.
"Why are you training me?" Midday, who was getting ready to recite a list of exercises he'd have her perform, frowned at being interrupted.
"Do you not want to be trained?" He asked drolly, making Valeri almost scowl.
"You know that's not what I mean. Why are you training me? What's your goal?" He looked at her from within the mask, the piercing green lacking any golden power at current.
"Because I was ordered to."
"And you don't have any idea what Maximilian is doing right now?" She said quickly, digging into something that she hoped was soft earth. The man's eye went slightly harder, enough to tell Valeri that Midday was distinctly unhappy with that question.
"I know enough of what he is doing. If there is something he truly needs from me in the meantime, then I will be told." Valeri almost grinned, her socialite senses were tingling at the faint taste of some frustration in her trainer's voice.
"And looking for the Shadow Walkers isn't a big enough deal for you to be told?" She said, her words sharper than she'd ever used on the other man. She'd expected some sort of reaction, but when the man's shoulders eased ever so slightly from their tensed position, she was a little flabbergasted.
"Ah, I see." He said casually, bobbing his head from underneath his hood, "You've had someone keep an eye on what Master Max has been up to?" Although it wasn't the complete truth, she nodded regardless. No need to lessen your own power by saying that a subordinate did it regardless of your own orders.
"Then you seem to still have no conception of just who Master Maximilian is, even with you keeping an eye on him." Midday laughed coldly, though Valeri compensated by adding heat to her tone as she lashed back.
"Of course I have no idea! I've barely talked to the man, and yet here I am, being trained by one of his flunkies!" She growled at the man loudly, pulling herself just short of yelling.
"And you think you merit him spending his time on? Again, you seem to be underestimating my master." Midday took off his cloak, folding it precisely. It revealed a sight that Valeri had seen numerous times, and she'd always found herself grudgingly impressed by the man's physique. However, what had always broken up the look was a tattered sword that Midday seemed to always have strapped to his lower back, the decrepit handle peeking from his side for easy grabbing.
"Am I not worth spending time on? I'm the sole heir to the Ephars businesses and fortune and am a blessed of Might. Is that not enough?" Valeri said almost bitterly. Midday didn't snort derisively like she had half expected, instead he tilted his head to the side ever so slightly, his sandy blonde hair swaying as he did so.
"No." He said simply, filling her with even more indignant confusion, "All you are doing is showing how little you understand what my master's goals are. You'll need to be far more impressive to come close to being worth his time."
It wasn't that Midday had taken a harsh tone; it was that the tone was filled with an absolute surety. There was absolutely no doubt in Midday's tone, he spoke with such blatant honesty that it only baffled Valeri more. What could Maximilian's goals be for her to be nothing in the scope of it?
"What, is he trying to rule the worlds or something?" She snorted, failing to keep the slight offense out of her voice. Yet when she looked back to Midday, focusing back on his eyes, she found herself confronted by a terrifying understanding.
"If that is what it takes." Midday intoned heavily, and she could swear that the air vibrated with the words as he said them. Though, she couldn't help but ignore them, her mind coming to a conclusion she'd almost dreaded.
"Oh Gods, you're insane." She murmured, backing away a step almost hesitantly. But Midday stood absolutely still.
"Insane?" Midday said thoughtfully, "Maybe. The goal we seek is so far out of your wheelhouse that you couldn't possibly comprehend its magnitude. Yet my master told me that you were to be trained. To us, you are a piece of the puzzle that will eventually serve in the grander picture." Midday took a step forwards, uncrossing his powerful arms and using his right to reach behind his side and grab onto the hilt of the worn and tattered sword, one that looked like it had been nothing more than a showpiece sword when it was new.
Valeri, fearing that the man was going to legitimately attack her, reached towards her back and leaned the massive claymore out of the straps that bound it to her back. She positioned the blade ahead of her, even though she knew that the gesture was pointless. Midday was capable of overwhelming her even as she threw everything at him, with his bare hands no less.
"You are just one piece in a wider puzzle, and to be anything more than that would require far more dedication than even what you're showing now." Midday's tone was soft, almost as if he were mentally removed from his own physical actions, "Do you want to see what it would take to be more than what you are?"
The question shook Valeri as her eyes glanced across the man's form and to the battered sword he now casually held in his hands as if it were an extension of his body. She adjusted her stance minutely as her mind tried to filter through the patterns of attack he could take, desperately seeking for a method of survival. She didn't answer the question, but it seems that Midday had determined that she'd agreed.
Midday nodded slowly before taking in a large breath, enough to fill his chest to the brim with air, then then slowly let it out as everything changed.
In that moment, Valeri could only believe that her eyes were playing tricks on her. The man before her began to glow with a powerful gold, exactly the same as he had worn on countless occasions during her training, and yet it was so much more powerful now. No, not just powerful…
Divine.
The light bled off of him with an intensity that she could only equate to the sun itself, the rays of light burning with the quiet heat of the midday sun. She gasped as she saw the change to the sword in his hands, from a tattered thing into a warm bronze metal. The metal was burnished by the sun itself, as if it were a piece of the sun's rays that had been broken off and then forged into metal.
Questions that Valeri didn't even know she had were being answered as she watched the man, who may be younger than her, transform into something so far beyond her comprehension.
He was not just named Midday. He was midday.
He shone with midday's light, the heat of its rays against her skin. He shone with the Sun's full power, a reflection of the impossible might that the celestial body wielded.
She was tiny in his presence, any Might that she had at her disposal was nothing against what he represented. Her own blessing was powerful, yet it had been something she'd almost entirely ignored throughout her life. Now, however, she was faced with a being of Divinity, watching the Sun's power course across Midday's skin like rivers of ever-burning gold.
She gasped under the pressure that the power gave off, as if the presence of it was enough to smite the unworthy, the blasphemous.
"Do you understand?" Midday's voice called, clear even through the ruching blood through Valeri's ears and the thundering heartbeat. Valeri nodded rapidly, gasping for air under Midday's power, and in a blink the oppressive power was gone. In its stead, there was the glorious warmth of the comforting sun.
"A Demigod?" She gasped, looking up to Midday's eyes, the irises now a perfect mixture of the sea-green and gold, intermingling to create the most powerful colour she'd ever seen.
Midday laughed warmly, a note of elation in his own voice, "No. Demigods are… different than even this, Valeri. They are more in their essence." The esoteric words meant nothing to Valeri, but her mind made the connection, just as she realised that Midday had intended her to.
"Maximilian." She said simply. He didn't nod, or respond in any way shape or form, but she knew that she was right. Maximilian wasn't just a man, not just any man. She had wondered why she'd been so drawn to him, that she'd even considered that she might have been in love with him, for just a moment within those first days.
She had wondered why she was made so easily smitten within less than a day's worth of conversation. She had wondered why she felt as if he could see to the very core of her being with little more than a glance, stripped bare in front of his mundane looking eyes.
It was because he was no man at all. He was far, far more than that. And now that she understood, she came to a conclusion, one that defied the way she'd seen herself within the world since she was born.
No, she wasn't worth Maximilian's time. She was nothing in the face of him and his goals.
"Valeri." Midday said, his words almost softly consoling her as she came to the devastating reconceptualization of her sense of self, "Once, I was a beggar. Worth nothing, and capable of even less. I was nothing, in the face of him, even back then. Now, he has allowed me to become more." He gestured to himself gently, the action almost regal. She gawked at the words, the severe dichotomy between a beggar and who he was now.
"How?" She asked simply. She could see the slight crinkles at the sides of his eyes underneath the mask, and he then held the sword out in one hand, loosely holding it within his grip.
"I will tell you, if you can survive against a single blow of my sword."
Valeri gulped against the rising fear, a perfect understanding that she couldn't possibly survive against the man's overwhelming power. But even as she understood, she couldn't help but let the words slip out from between her lips, her eyes burning with the determination she'd tried so hard to truly get a grasp of her entire life.
"Do it." She said, her face pulling into a grimace while she waited, she expected the domineering blow to flash out and end her.
When Midday's arm moved, her mind slowed it all down so she could examine his every movement as the bronze blade shone with the Sun's cruellest rays. The sword inched closer and closer, slow in the molasses of her perception. She tried to force her body to react fast enough to block it, yet she moved impossibly slow in comparison.
She realised, after a few heavily warped moments, that she wasn't going to be able to block the blow, or even come close. So instead, she decided to twist her body away from the approaching blade, dropping her own, and offering up an arm to the bronze metal's hungry edge.
The blade drew nearer still, finding it only centimetres away from her arm. She closed her eyes, preparing herself for the scorching pain she was sure she'd experience. Yet it never came, the heat on her skin from the direct rays of sunlight suddenly diminished into something cooler and quieter.
"Lady Ephars, behind me please." An instantly recognisable voice called out, even as an arm shifted her form powerfully away from where she'd been, making her stumble back from where the approaching blade had been.
When she snapped her eyes open, confused by the sudden change in atmosphere, she saw the owner of that familiar voice standing just in front of Midday.
Yeram, her very own attendant, stood there stoically facing the golden man, his entire body cloaked in an undeniable layer of deep shadows. The sabre he held in his hands, a powerfully crafted blade with the flats of the blade covered in runes, leeched shadow like water.
However, before Valeri could even make an exclamation of surprise, Midday's burning aura amplified to a level beyond what he'd shown her. His aura of sunlight was almost impossible to look at without her eyes feeling the searing pain of its brightness.
"Well, I guess we found your little minder." Midday spoke jubilantly, "A Shadow Walker no less. Let's have a good fight, shall we?"
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