Chapter Eight
Daiya Ex Machina
The sun had begun to set as Daiya got ready to step off the short green grass and into the fine, almost dust like sand of the arena. The orange light that touched the land was warm, but still a shiver ran down Daiya's spine. The time had finally come, and the excitement running through her blood touched every part of her mind, body, and soul. The time to fight Richard in a proper duel had finally come, and this time nothing would get in the way of them finishing it.
Despite the terrible war ravaging the continent, despite the threat of an ancient and powerful danger hanging over the world, and despite the fact that she was in enemy territory, Daiya couldn't help but focus everything she had on this moment. A part of her, a part that was deep down inside who she was, had been waiting for this moment since she had first met Richard. Back then he had been nothing more than a servant to Lythia, hiding his true identity, but Daiya had felt who he truly was. She didn't know exactly who he was back then, but she had felt it and it had excited her. And now that she knew more, now that she knew exactly who he was and what he was, that excitement was even more intense.
As it stood in that moment May was by and far the strongest mage that Daiya had ever met, but Richard had the potential to leave even her in the dust. He was the ancestor, or possibly even the reincarnation of the strongest mage who had ever lived. He had the same blood in him that the great Master Roku had, and his unique magic and the ability to cast it without the use of incantations made him a force to be reckoned with.
The desire to test herself against a power like that had been bubbling in her. To see where she would stand in comparison to the man she had taken as her husband, the man who would one day be the father of her children.
"I don't think I've ever seen you this excited before. Or is this nervousness?" Sera's voice asked softly from her side, startling Daiya a little. She hadn't heard or seen her old friend come up to her, but that wasn't all that surprising the more she thought of it. She was so focused on the match that she wasn't thinking about much else.
"Honestly?" she asked and Sera nodded, her eyebrows raising a bit. "It's probably both. I've been waiting for this moment since I first met Richard."
"What's there to be nervous about?" Nadia suddenly asked, coming up on Daiya's other side. There was a small bruise beneath her right eye from where she had taken a rock during her duel, but other than that she looked fine. Disgruntled, but fine. She might have won her duel, but something was still annoying her, and she explained that a second later. "I still don't get why there's all this fuss about Lord Proud. How is he even a member of the Elemental Council? It doesn't make sense."
"You're just upset that Lady Proud is paying more attention to him than she is to you. Your precious teacher has a new favourite student and you can't handle it," Sera teased the younger woman. Sera was probably the only person who could actually do that without Nadia getting extremely mad at them for not showing respect.
"The only reason for that is that she is his mother. She has to pretend that he is her favourite!" Nadia tried to dispute, but this only made Daiya laugh at her sister's logic and lack of knowledge. "What? What's so funny? It's the truth, isn't it?"
"Come on, Nadia? Do you really think Aura would do something like that?"
"Then how else do you explain it?" Nadia asked with some heat, but Daiya just sighed and shook her head at her sister.
"Nadia, no matter what anyone says you will not believe it, so I'm not even going to try. But you'll see what Richard is capable of in a few minutes, and then you'll have to decide if you believe your own eyes or not," she said, knowing that even now Nadia wasn't going to listen to her words. Whatever reason she had for disliking Richard and not believing in the power that people said he had, it must have been pretty strong. She was too hard headed for her own good sometimes.
