Prince Relastin stood, his feet planted firmly atop the wall of the Lower Ring. He had taken a moment to pause his inspection of the rebuilding that had begun in earnest since the demons had escaped the Abyss and ravaged the city. The scars were still all too evident. And the fact that such an unprecedented event had befallen his prized city vexed him.

In the dimmest light between two of the torches blazing in the night along the wall, he turned and stared out across the desert at the shadow-like Black Rohs prowling the darkness. Dressed and ready for battle in armor, his sword rested confidently undrawn on his hip.

"I was beginning to think you wouldn't have the courage to show, dear Sister. Did you think I didn't know your little secret?"

"I've decided this game of ours has gone on long enough." The princess, in her Sava Warrioress silks and armor, replied not only with words, but by drawing her swords.

Yet the prince didn't seem alarmed enough to even so much as even cast a glance in her direction. "The only one playing a game around here is you." His hands clasped behind his back, his pontification on the situation continued. "You are a traitor to the Throne of Ison, and the High Throne of Imeron. And it does disappoint me that I must carry out your sentence. You could have been a great ally to me. I would have had a use for you. But it seems you've cast your lot in with your sister and your ancestors."

"My ancestors are the rightful rulers of Imeron. Of Ieron."

"Were," he corrected her. "Were the rightful rulers of Imeron. Ieron is dead. No more. No matter what thoughts Mother might have fed into that brain of yours. Times changed long ago. And they changed for the better."

"Ieron will rise again."

"You seriously want us to go back to the way things were?" The prince spat the words. "A new King or Queen every five or so years? Never having any stability and constant warfare between the cities? Demons escaping the Abyss because we were far too interested in fighting each other, rather than them?"

"You can attempt to rewrite history all you want, Brother. Yet, the fact remains, with Ieron strong and the Sava Warrioresses and Savan Devotees patrolling the Barren Sands, this was a glorious land."

"Agree to disagree, Sister." The prince twisted to face his younger sibling. And he did so with all the authority of a man who felt his own victory was assured. So much so, that he still did not move to draw his weapon. "You've already lost."

He placed two fingers to his lips and whistled like a thunderclap in the night. From far off, a company of his most trusted warriors stormed down along the wall walk from far off, weapons at the ready. Each of them wore red urks, denoting their linage as fine warriors from at least one generation prior.

The princess tensed while the prince pondered a speck of sand under his thumbnail, flicking it free.

"Don't worry," he said. "You and I will face each other. They are not here to protect me from you. I don't need such." He motioned, and the soldiers produced the heads of ten men, all wrapped in the dressings of a Savan Devotee.

Each was discarded before her, rolling haphazardly and without clear direction. Including the head of one she clearly recognized by the eyes, even if she couldn't see the rest of the face. It was that of Sakhar Bul.

Admittedly surprised, the princess forced herself to show no outward signs of such emotions.

"Your allies," the prince mocked her. "I'd have included Prince Zar's head as well, but like a coward, he hides in the east and behind own walls. And, for now, beyond my grasp. But fear not. Soon, I have his as well."

The princess girded herself. "Enough talk. Let us finish this."

"Why are you so eager to die, Sister?"

"Why are you so utterly and blindly confident you will win?"

"Because, unlike you, I know the rules of battle. And one of those rules is to never take the field and fight an opponent unless you are certain you will win. I already know how this will end. You might be able to best any of these other men here." He waved to those who would witness what was about to come. "Perhaps even all of them combined. They are my finest. But me?" He shook his head. "You will not survive me. "

"Are you going to order them to attack me anyway? Force me to expend energy slaying them so that I'll be weakened when we fight?"

"I could have you fight them and weaken you, yes. But I am Prince Relastin, Son of King Arban, who is Son of King Xorvis. And I am Prince of Ison, heir to the High Throne of Imeron."

The prince motioned for his men to back off. The wordless gesture told them to give him and his sister a wide birth. The night's silence was only broken by the crackling of flames and a distant scream from a woman somewhere in the Lower Ring. And so it remained for long moments with each combatant ready, but neither acting.

"What's the matter, Brother?" the princess goaded as the wait dragged on. "Don't want to make the first move."

"I am merely studying your stance, Sister," he replied. "It appears to be Kouva Style? Form three?"

The princess was slightly shocked that he knew so much. And that must have seeped out in her expression, by how the prince replied to her unspoken words.

"Yes, I am well versed in the Sava Warrioress's and their combat techniques. Although I did not realize until only recently the origins of such. Something our Father said just before your wedding to my Karo Shar. So I did a little unraveling of history on my own, and realized some of the things I was taught as a child were not as they seemed." The smile that was on the prince's face grew wide. "You see, I was also taught those techniques. But Father warned me never to display them and let others know. He said there would be a time when the reason for this would be made clear. Today, I realize, is that day."

The prince positioned himself in a stance that was versatile. One from which he could either attack or defend from. But he also sacrificed the full effectiveness of either choice in order to gain the chance to achieve the advantage both.

Realizing the position she was placed in, Lyla decided to strike first and attempt to seize superiority over his disadvantage. She fluttered like a lightning bolt at her brother—her attacking strokes not as haphazard as they appeared. But none found their mark. Each was successfully blocked as the the prince weathered the storm, and then launched his own.

A volley of steel rang in the night atop the wall of the Lower Ring. The echoing sound was eerie as the two combatants sought to find a weakness in the other. Neither could.

They simply danced a dance. A dance where a slight mistake meant death. Two warriors, from different eras, fighting in the present day.

Lyla twirled out of the way of a potentially fatal blow from her brother. It missed gouging open her throat by less than an inch. Still, even the wake of his sword's steel felt as though it could cut her skin.

She came back at him with ferocity. Her twin swords sliced and stabbed. But, while they came close at times, they also failed to cause even so much as a scratch.

"Tell me, Brother," Lyla said as the war between them continued to boil over. "Courage? Rage? Perhaps both flow within you?"

The prince laughed a haunting and amused chuckle. "I do not need such to fight you and win. I am twice the warrior you will ever be."

"Only twice?" Steel struck steel as blocks were levied. "Why not ten, or a hundred times? Considering you were trained by Father and his finest men? And I had to hide in the shadows? Sneaking practice when I could?"

"Your hubris will be your downfall," the prince chided, still with neither making any headway against the other.

"My hubris, Brother? Mine? I am not the one who proclaimed victory before the first blow between us was struck. I know there is always a chance of being defeated. And that," she ducked a swipe from his blade, "you never count on your opening assessment of any encounter."

"Ah yes, the mantra of Jula, Mother of the Sava Warrioresses. The first Sava Grand Warrioress." More blows barely missed on both sides of the battle. "The very philosophy, the very hesitation and doubt, that led to their order's downfall."

And in that moment, with that admonition, the prince increased his attacks. The princess blocked three, but the fourth grazed her arm and sliced open her silks. It was only a scratch as far as she was concerned, but it drew blood.

In reply, she upped her own response. It took a few strikes sacrificed to make her brother act as she wanted him to, but then one clanged off his breastplate and opened a fresh silvery scar of steel. The next, after he was stunned by the previous strike getting through, caught him, just barely, across his cheek.

Again, it wasn't much, but it did serve as a point for the combat to cease for a moment. He stepped back and touched the wound, checking the blood on his fingers.

The princess allowed him a moment to ponder what had just happened.

"I knew it," she said. "The prince does bleed."

"As do you," he replied, making sure she remembered the wound on her arm.

"But you're twice the warrior I am," she egged him on.

And in the heartbeat that ensued, she realized that was a mistake. In his hand, she heard the faint snap of a vial of Rage. Her brother drew it up and started inhaling the red vapors. She tried to get to him before he could complete the task, understanding that if he'd held her at bay so easily without it, her task of killing him now would become eminently harder afterwards.

She didn't succeed in halting his action, her brother dodging both her initial two strikes were mere dodges and weaves. Then, the vapors fully inside him, he blocked her twin downward strokes and held their blades in check easily.

Lyla could see his eyes flood with the power he'd just consumed. Bolstered by the essence, he unleashed a horror ten times worse than the Abyss upon his sister.

Lyla tried to defend herself, and at times she succeeded, but not enough. Three breaths later, she was on her back, disarmed, and her silken armor in tatters. Pain seared through her, like the sons over Imeron were inside her. Wounds all over her body bled. Some were deeper and more painful than others, but none were immediately life threatening.

Whether or not her brother had meant to only injure her or by her own skill she had prevented her death was in question in Lyla's mind.

Her brother stood over her victorious and his blade inches from her throat. "As I told you, Sister. I am Prince of Ison, heir to the High Throne of Imeron. I was before our battle. And I remain so now."

Trying to grasp the situation, and where her plans had gone awry, she could find only one option to save herself. One chance.

Lyla blurted out, "Per the Decrees, I request the right to withdraw from the battlefield."

"We are not upon The Barrens," Prince Relastin sneered, but not without a hint of amusement. "And you are not a prince. I know that you know what I did to our brother, Prince Kolad. Or should I say, former brother? Why would I treat you, a mere woman, any better or different?"

"Because, you know that if you kill me, my husband will seek to avenge me."

The prince's sword, retreated slightly.

And that caused Lyla to smile. "The Decrees would demand it. And you don't want to face the luck within him. You fear that luck, as much as you seek to benefit from it."

"I don't fear him," the prince boasted pressing his sword forward again and stopping any inclination his sister might have had to rise up.

"Yet you hesitate." Her observation was correct. "Kill me, and you will test the strength of his luck."

Fearing his men were seeing him as weak, he could sense the doubt within them even as he did not look to them. His sword arm strengthened and his sword menaced his sister further, forcing her to retreat half a crawl to avoid its cutting edge.

"I'll cast you over the wall," he swore. "Let the Black Rohs deal with you."

"Banishment? If so, by the Decrees, it is customary that I would receive one request."

"You try my patience, Sister."

"Give me my swords," she said, cockily. "I can survive forever in the desert with them."

"That sounds like a challenge," the prince replied. "I'll grant your request. But I can't risk having you coming back. Or surviving in The Barrens." He grabbed his sister by the wrist of her one hand. And as she reached to pry him away, he lopped off her other hand with his sword.

It took a second, but she screamed once the shock was beyond fresh.

Prince Relastin released her, and as she clutched for the stump where her other hand had been, he took her other as well in the same manner. Her screams intensified and wailed in the night.

"You should have been more thorough in your request, Sister." Her brother sheathed his sword, and wrapped his hand into her hair. Then he dragged her to the desert side of the wall. "You'll have your weapons. But not the ability to use them."

Lifting her up, kicking and screaming, he dangled her over the side. Her thunderous protests continued, even as he dropped her over the side.

As her cries fell, he retrieved her swords, returned to the wall, and discarded them as he had her.

Then he address his men. "Let it not be said that I did not abide by her request." Then he added, "Extinguish the torches. Provide her nowhere to hide."

"But sir? What of the Lower Ring?" one of his soldiers dared to speak.

The prince shrugged. "Torches along the Lower Ring go out all the time. Besides, I'm sure once my Karo Shar hears of the Black Rohs entering the Lower Ring he will once again rally troops to help him fend them off. Even though it is against my orders. You will assist him. And keep him occupied until morning. By then it will be too late for the princess, and he will not be able to save her."