7

Titania glides over the swamp without brushing against the mud or the thorny spikes. She maneuvers in the air to put her feet forward, landing between the solid wrinkles of the copper giant's tunic. She looks back and glimpses Raudo entering the swamp. The silver armor is still pristine despite the mud, but that doesn't change that the mud slows the man's speed, forcing him to bring his knees up too high to take each step. Despite the inconvenience Raudo continues to approach, and his angry gaze follows the hooded girl.

A new heartbeat rumbles inside Titania. The mud rises and overcomes the height of Raudo, taking an increasingly humanoid form, becoming four amorphous golems of almost three meters that, after achieving a minimum mobility, pounce mute and threatening on the knight.

Raudo's one-handed swipe destroys the first of the golems. The knight bends down and kicks backwards, opening a large hole in the chest of the second golem, which after a few seconds collapses. Raudo spins with his arm outstretched and destroys the remaining enemies. But when he faces Titania again, he finds another handful of golems taking shape and waiting for him.

"How many hearts do you keep in your gut, child?" Raudo's tone is reproachful, as if he were commenting on a taboo.

"I still have two more to go"

"You fool! Do you plan to become a error for this world?!"

Titania ignores the accusation.

The golems lash out again, one after another, drowning Raudo in a growing mountain of mud. The knight fights back, but each time she finishes one off, the girl summons two more golems. Despite the apparent disadvantage, with each new blow Raudo advances another step, closer and closer to taking Titania's life.

Another heartbeat rumbles inside the girl. The hooded teen extends both arms in front, clasps her wrists together, screams, and from her palms gushes an intense stream of colored fire. Reds, greens, blues, oranges, pinks, whites... The incandescent flame strikes Raudo's open palm and hardens the mud around him.

The knight keeps his teeth clenched and the hand steady. Among the rainbow sparks and crusts of mud, Raudo glimpses two ethereal figures flanking Titania. The figure on the right is a tall man with long white hair, rustic robes, and forearms protected by clay cylinders. The figure on the left is a man with a painted face, rattle-tipped hat, and many-colored clothes. Raudo recognizes them both from his life as a mercenary.

"Watch out, Raudo! There is only pain here" warns the potter.

"Free us from this cage of hatred! Nothing burns and hurts more than hatred!" exclaims the jester.

The sparks make Raudo blink, and when he opens his eyes again the figures are gone. Raudo roars, his armor ignites and disappears in a pillar of light. The mud evaporates around him and the shockwave forces Titania to separate her wrists and stop the fire. As soon as the light ceases, Raudo uses all his strength and propels himself forward like a cannonball.

Titania moves to the right. Raudo charges and sinks the copper of the statue, his fist penetrating and breaking through the first layers of the material. The opponents look at each other again. Raudo pulling out a fist, and Titania with an almost invisible thread in her hand.

The hooded girl pulls on the thread, causing a series of disguised threads to fall in the shadows of the statue, threads that cover Raudo and have nearly a hundred apple-sized gray spheres attached to them. Titania is pulled back by the shadows, and her arm performs a second tug on the thread, removing the safeties from the explosives and sprinkling the whisper of fuses.

A battery of explosions rumbles and is heard in every corner of the kingdom. The villagers from the town, and the princess from a balcony of the castle, watch mute as the bombardment causes irreparable damage to Fernard the enlightened. The explosions also weaken the swamp bed. The monarch begins to sink into a growing hole that also drags a considerable portion of the quagmire. A couple of minutes later the statue is engulfed along with his stern countenance and the stone crown.

Silence and dust settle. From the dank stone abyss a metallic hand rises and digs its fingers into the edge. Raudo propels himself up and crawls out on all fours, coughing in search of clearing his lungs. The joints of his cracked armor drip with stagnant water. He plants one knee and makes a thrust with his other leg, pulling himself to his feet. He observes the surroundings with caution and a clenched fist, and finding no trace of his enemy, he assumes that she was swept away by the suction or fell victim to the explosions. Raudo sighs.

"Four or five more years of training on your part, and maybe I would have fallen under your blade too, child" he speaks to the ghost with respect, aware that this battle will also become part of the reliefs in his heart. "Your journey of revenge is over. Now meet your family and rest in peace... You deserve it"

Raudo raises his head towards the full moon to admire the night, when a hooded figure covers the field of vision. Titania lands on Raudo, one foot on each shoulder, and with her curved sword pointing down, she plunges the blade into the slit of the helmet cutting the left eyeball in half. Raudo roars in fury and pain, with one swipe he snaps the sword in two, then catches Titania's ankle, the knight spins three times and throws the hooded girl towards the shore of the swamp.

Titania rolls and bounces on the ground, scraping her limbs and lying on her back, face twitching and eyes closed in an attempt to control the pain and dizziness. She tries to get up but a metal boot connects with her chest and sinks her to the ground. Raudo, still with the chunk of sword stuck in the face, stares at her with his remaining eye.

"Stupid girl, you never understood!" He exclaims and digs his foot in deeper, crunching the girl's ribcage. Titania screams in desperation, strands of blood jump from inside and stain her mouth. "It was no mercy the reason I let you live...! It was an order!"

Titania with one hand tries to scratch Raudo's foot, but the only thing she achieves is to shatter her nails. With the other hand she strikes repeatedly using what is left of the broken sword, until she is left with just the hilt.

The knight makes a final thrust, a clear crack is heard and another stream of blood, thicker and darker, gushes from Titania's mouth. The hooded girl's arms lose their strength and lie flat, the same with her legs. Titania slowly closes her eyes and tilts her head to the side, standing still and paling rapidly.

A hundred paces away from the fight, a crowd of the survivors of the revolution, including peasants, soldiers, and castle workers, has gathered. They watch silently and frightened as Raudo walks away from the defeated girl. Among the inhabitants of the kingdom there are also two foreign faces... Ivy raises the wide brim of her hat and is attentive to the movements of the captain of the guard, while Camui continues without taking his eyes off Titania.

Camui is the first to notice the echoes, like distant replicas of a drum. Raudo is the second, stops walking and after five seconds turns his head to the girl. Ivy is the third to know, and at one point, everyone in the kingdom hears the chimes, or is it the beat of a heart that refuses to stop beating?

Faster and faster, more and more furious, as if threatening to explode. The witch opens her eyes wide after noticing the tremors in Titania's body and sensing what is happening.

"We have to eliminate the girl before she transforms" Ivy announces and takes a step forward with the intention of interfering, but a hand pulls her cloak and stops her. Ivy looks down at her apprentice and gives him a stern face.

"Mistress, let me take care of this. It is my mission, have you already forgotten?" Camui says without backing down from the teacher's angry face.

"Do you still wish to save her from destruction?" Ivy's expression softens, now in her eyes there is a sincere concern for the safety of her apprentice.

Camui shakes her head and says:

"The only one capable of saving her is herself... I can only help by showing a different path"

"But why do you want to rescue her so badly, Camui? You saw how cruel she can be"

The boy lets go of the teacher's robe.

"I know what it's like to lose loved ones... And I know how hard it is to deal with loss alone" Camui says and returns his attention to Raudo and Titania. "But even more important than that, mistress, I know about the importance of getting help when you're in a dark place where it seems impossible to get out"

Ivy closes her eyes and lowers the front brim of her hat, the absence of a response a tacit permission to Camui to act. But as the boy prepares to move forward, Ivy opens her eyes and confronts him.

"Look at me, Camui"

Master and apprentice face each other again.

"I accept your willingness. But I want you to swear one thing... If she gets out of control and transforms into a monster, promise me that you will not hesitate. Promise by your name that you will end her life using everything I taught you, before she develops and becomes a danger to the world"

Camui's countenance becomes serious, as does the timbre of his voice. The boy places a hand over his heart and declares:

"I, Camui the apprentice, swear by all the trees of this land that my hand will not hesitate to kill if necessary"