The Balinor Chronicles: The Celestial Herd
Chapter Fifty-Three: Confrontation
May he dream treason, and believe that he
Meant to perform it, and confesses, and die,
And no record tell why;
--John Donne
In the next several weeks, several important things happened.
Lorn bore her first and only colt.
Solaris confronted Raiden. Raiden, as I have said before, was a wanderer, and wanderers have always been regarded with suspicion, in all times, in all lands. However, confronting wanderers is always a very dangerous sport, because a true wanderer knows things that you don't and has learned a few tricks of his own.
The said confrontation took the greater part of a day, ranging all over the Celestial section of the Valley, turning from Solaris shouting at Raiden to Raiden shouting at Solaris to both of them shouting at Mulciber to them shouting at each other again. Much was said, much was accused, and much was implied; most of which I have already told to you.
So to summarize a day in a sentence: Raiden fled with Solaris at his back.
To summarize in a chapter:
None could recall who struck first. It might have been Raiden. It might have been Solaris. Perhaps they struck at the same time. But the brief crossing of horns that occurred had ill effects for Raiden. Not even a Sentinel can outfight an Elemental, and Solaris of the Sun had much experience on Raiden of Dark. Raiden was lucky to be able to flee.
At first, many thought the duel would be to the death – and both Unicorns had intended for it to be so. But at one point, their fight ranged near to where Lorn had been standing, panic-stricken, with her newborn teetering at her side. It was in this moment that Raiden chose to live to see his son again, rather than be a martyr for an unknown cause. He turned tail and ran, as hard, as fast, and as long as he could, until Solaris gave up chase and let him join the Twilights.
Two other important things happened in this day.
Before Raiden fully turned to flee, Solaris' horn of solid gold found a piece of its target. It scraped up the side of Raiden's face, opening a large gash that would never heal right. It traced from his lip, straight up to his left eye. In time, the eye would fail and its blue turned to the murky shade of spoiled milk.
The second important thing was that Raiden did not go to the Twilights. He instead fled to the mountains, much as the Lost Lovers had done before him. As the Twilight on the mountain had said, Raiden would have been honored, for he could have stayed, but left. As it was, he chose to stay……. But powerful pawns do not remain pawns for long. Already the Shifter was searching for him.
He would remain in those mountains for a long, long time.