Chapter 31: Stormbound Duel
The rain hadn't stopped for three days.
The border between the Iron Empire and the western wilds was drenched in thunder and blood, villages abandoned, forests trembling beneath the weight of wrath.
Jean stood at the base of Stormspire Ridge, the last outpost before the eye of the storm. Lightning licked the sky above, and thunder cracked like war drums.
Ahead, where the mountain kissed the heavens, Karen waited.
The Emissary of Thunder had not moved from the summit since word of Jean's approach reached her. She had denied the Iron Empress an audience. Ignored the Sovereignty's envoys.
But Jean?
Karen sent one word in reply:
"Come."
---
Whitney growled low as they ascended. The climb was treacherous—not from terrain, but from aura. Each step pulsed with crackling pressure, Karen's will shaping the very air.
Jean reached the summit by dusk.
The storm parted just enough to reveal a wide plateau carved by lightning. Karen stood at its center, barefoot, her eyes glowing with electric blue light. Raigen circled above, wings spreading bolts across the sky.
No words.
No ceremony.
Karen raised her hand—and summoned a halberd forged of living lightning.
Jean drew Solstice. It shimmered not with radiance, but resolve.
---
They clashed.
Once.
And the sky shattered.
Every strike after was a symphony of fury—thunder exploding with each movement, the storm itself reacting to their battle. Karen was power incarnate, raw and merciless, striking with the force of falling stars.
Jean moved with discipline, precision, and light that never flickered, no matter how loud the storm roared.
But this was not a duel of equals.
This was a trial.
Karen's halberd crashed into Jean's blade again and again, forcing her back, testing her core. "You've fought frost," she growled. "Now fight fury."
Jean bled.
She stumbled.
She nearly fell.
But her flame didn't die.
---
And then—it changed.
Jean's aura shifted.
Light, yes—but mixed with something new. A pulse of golden-white that cracked through the thunder. Her breathing slowed. Her stance widened.
Balance.
Karen's strike came fast—too fast.
But Jean was faster.
Solstice spun upward in a spiral of divine brilliance. Whitney's roar echoed across the plateau as Jean channeled everything into a single counter.
Steel met lightning—
—and split the storm in half.
---
Silence fell.
Raigen screamed and vanished into the clouds. Karen stepped back, lightning bleeding from her wounds.
She looked down at Jean's blade pressed near her heart—and smiled.
"That's what I wanted to see," she whispered.
Jean staggered, gasping.
Karen caught her before she fell.
"I don't bow," the Emissary of Thunder said. "But I stand beside power worth following."
---
Far below the ridge, the Iron Empress watched from a distance, golden spyglass in hand. Her jaw tightened.
"She's collecting the gods," Valeria murmured.
"Or they're choosing her," her aide replied.
Valeria lowered the glass.
"Either way, we must prepare. If Jean survives the next trial, the dragons won't be the only ones who fear her."
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