NOVEL NEXT Chapter 82: Selfish
The corridor held its breath.
shadow-flames curled from the twin black blades across from her. The air tasted of ash and old stone. Seraphina's own reflections watched from the obsidian walls, thin and pale, waiting to see which one stepped forward.
"You keep testing," she said. "So listen."
Her voice did not shake.
"The world isn't fair."
Silence took the words and pressed them flat. The Shadow paced at measure, eyes level, blades low and ready.
"Us being here isn't fair."
Her right cheek bled along the thin line the Shadow had written. The cold that had nested in her forearm hummed under the skin. She did not hide it.
"Ace saving me wasn't fair either."
The Shadow tilted their head. A small nod that asked her to finish.
"I will be selfish," she said. "I will not care if it offends fate. I will live, and I will smile."
Her grip settled. Not tighter. Truer.
The Shadow's answer came soft and even.
"Say it to yourself."
Live.
Smile.
Heat rose under her skin like a sealed ember finally given air. It started in the wrists where the shadow-flames had nested. It climbed the tendons. It filled her fingers. She burned by choice, immolated.
"Show me," the Shadow said.
Seraphina stepped.
The first spark was small. Thin cracks along her Ashen Skin lit from within, leaking orange like they had on the battlefield, only this time the light obeyed her. Ember-gold traced the edges of both blades and held. No crackling. No roar. A disciplined light that ran along the fullers and sat steady at the tips.
The Shadow moved to meet it.
They opened with the same four-beat chain that had owned the corridor. High, low, high, thrust. Half-beat feint to steal the guard. She read it this time. She let the first cut skim the outside line. She caught the second on her off-hand blade. She crossed in a hard X and held the third at the center.
"Again," the Shadow said.
They pressed faster. The black-violet fire on their blades drew thin lines in the air. Seraphina's flame did not flare. It burned to function. Where their steel met hers, the ember-gold held the cold back and left clean sparks that died the moment they landed.
"Selfish," the Shadow said. "Prove it."
She did not fall back.
Her feet set. Her weight found the narrow line between. Flame gathered at her soles, low and contained, like breath she would not waste. When the Shadow slipped to her right and tried to take the angle, she stepped once and broke the rhythm. Heat popped under her boot. The short burst carried her half a body length inside the cut.
The Shadow adjusted. The blades crossed her face. The scissor waited to shear. She split them with a wedge of heat and metal and drove her left blade through the gap. The edges kissed. The corridor rang and swallowed it.
"Good," the Shadow said. "Do you run now?"
"No."
She moved. Not fast for the sake of speed. Exact. She set a shallow cut across the Shadow's forearm and left a kiss of bright heat that refused to dim. She let their return strike scratch her guard instead of bone. She felt the corridor's breath and took it.
"Not enough," the Shadow said. Their voice stayed plain. "You hold back."
"In this corridor, one wrong blast will bury us," she said.
"Then be precise."
They vanished into the half-beat again. A low feint at the ankle tried to fold her knee. A high cut tried to buckle her crown. She let both mark the air. Her eyes did not chase them. Her hands did not jump at the pause.
Flame answered a thought that was not anger.
Live. Smile. Now.
She stepped into their measure and let the heat under her feet give. The burst snapped like a small drum and carried her through the empty center of their cross. Her off-hand blade rose and pinned one of theirs to the wall. Her right-hand blade cut a straight line across the ribs and left gold that ate the black.
The Shadow's face changed by a hair.
"Better," they said.
They wrenched free and cut low for her hip. She turned her hip and let it shave leather. Her flame held the bite out of flesh. The smell of scorched cloth lifted and thinned.
"World isn't fair," she said. "We make our way anyway."
"Selfish," the Shadow said. "Own it."
"I do."
They met again and wrote blunt truth in steel.
The Shadow came high with the right-hand blade and low with the left. She set her guard and split them. They changed angle and tried to bring both in through the same door. She closed it and opened another and left a small line of heat across a knuckle. It painted their hilt gold for a breath.
The corridor warmed a fraction. Orange-black cinders orbited her boots and thinned the air by habit, but her pulse kept them leashed.
Ember light stuttered across the walls and found thin mirrors of her face. She saw fear in one of them. She saw it go.
"Again," the Shadow said.
They broke into a sprint. The shadow-flames along their blades lengthened. The cold in the air rushed back to meet it. Seraphina set her feet and let both hands work. The hard X caught a vertical chop and refused to bend. She twisted, threw the caught blade away, and cut inside the new line with a point that hissed.
"Now," she said.
The Shadow feinted short to steal her pause. She did not give it. Heat gathered where her blades crossed. It sat there, patient, as if two flints pressed without spark.
She released it on the turn.
A clean, tight ignition cupped by her guard ran into both edges. The next bind rolled the heat into the Shadow's steel. The black-violet along their blades faltered. She heard it. A thin note like glass cooling wrong.
The Shadow's eyes fixed on her hands. They nodded once.
"Finally."
They answered with pressure and skill. Cuts stacked at every height. She met them all. Each parry fed a measured charge back into the metal. Each cross-release delivered it. No waste. No splash. The corridor stayed whole.
Her cheek burned and then steadied. Her forearm woke from the cold. The numb lines the Shadow had seeded thinned under the heat until she could feel her fingers again.
"Smile," the Shadow said.
She did.
It was small and not for them.
They tried to take it.
A double thrust speared for her throat and stomach. She dropped the line with her right-hand blade and lifted the other, pinning the upper spear. Heat bridged her blades at the cross and flashed forward in a straight line.
The thrusts died an inch short.
The Shadow blinked once. The corner of their mouth moved. Her mouth did not.
"Not fair," she said. "Still mine."
They slid back and discarded patience.
The corridor shook with steps as both of them committed. Her flame pulled longer now, white at the center where it licked the steel, gold at the lips where it touched the air. The Shadow's flames deepened and ate at the edges of sight until the black crowded the corners.
They crashed.
The first bind hammered both down to the floor. Sparks skittered and died. The second bind rolled and tried to twist her wrists apart. She let one go a breath and brought it back with a short burst that broke the twist. The third bind locked both blades in a crooked cross and dragged them to the wall.
"Here," she said.
She set both hilts low and close. The heat she had banked through the binds settled between the edges. It felt like a door she could open or not. She opened it just enough.
A contained blast shoved both of the Shadow's blades out of true.
She stepped into the space and cut.
Right to left across the chest. Left to right at the collar. Both lines burned bright and stayed. The Shadow rocked back, then forward, trying to smother the cuts under pressure.
"Meet yourself," they said.
"I am."
They came again. She let the first cut arrive and held it. She let the second arrive and held it. She felt the rhythm that had owned her a chapter ago and counted it under her breath.
One. Two. Three.
She broke it at four.
The burst under her foot sounded like a small clap. Her body shifted the width of a breath. Her blades cut a narrow bloom that opened and shut.
The Shadow's guard split.
Gold wrote across their ribs again and across the forearm that moved to block. The shadow-flames at their edges guttered.
The Shadow's face did not ask for mercy.
"Do it right," they said.
Seraphina crossed her blades and set the tips at their throat.
Heat ran along both edges in a steady line that did not waver. The corridor breathed once. Dust drifted between them and did not fall in the fire.
"Say it," the Shadow said, quiet as ash.
She did not look at the reflections in the wall for it. She did not look for Ace.
"I choose to live," she said. "I choose to smile."
The Shadow's eyes matched hers without a seam. The black-violet along their blades went out.
They let their swords fall.
"Accepted," they said.
They stepped into her and did not collide.
The impact had no sound. The heat did not flare. One body took the other like a shadow folding into light. The corridor held it and then let it go.
Seraphina stood alone with both blades lifted.
Her flames eased from white toward steady gold and then to a low ember that sat at each tip and along each fuller. The air lost its bite. The numb lines in her arm felt like old threads and then like nothing.
She breathed once and tasted clean iron and stone.
Live.
Smile.
The words did not need to be louder than that.
She lowered her blades and looked down the corridor. The obsidian showed a single reflection again. Her expression matched it.
She turned and walked.