Act VI, The Storm CitadelChapter 48
Chapter 48: Give Me Back My Freedom
The Storm Citadel, burning.
A burning hall, a tilting floor, and a duel that neither side means to lose.
The throne hall was on fire. Smoke poured up between the ribs, and the floor leaned under Selena’s boots.
Obsidia stood on the slope as if it were level.
“Purification is not the end, it is where everything begins.”
They came together again. Selena’s blade met the silver-pink weapon, and sparks flew across the burning hall.
“I don’t care about that! Give me back my freedom!”
She struck, and struck again.
“Sorry, but I won’t let you have your way, Obsidia.”
They broke apart. For one breath they stood face to face across the fire. Her maker’s hair was gold, like her own. They smiled the same way.
“We’re fated to destroy each other, so why were we made so alike?”
Obsidia did not answer.
Selena went in low. Her blade caught Obsidia across the cheek.
The shell split. No blood came.
Obsidia touched the cut. For the first time that day, the calm went out of her face.
Her weapon came round faster than Selena could follow. It went through her and threw her into the wall. Plates cracked against her back.
Selena had walked out of every fight of her life without a scratch. This one had gone right through her.
She got her feet under her. Obsidia came on now and gave no more ground. The weapon fired, bolt after bolt, and Selena ran through them along the tilting wall. Then she turned and charged straight in.
Blade met weapon, face to face. Obsidia held it. The weapon fired once more, point-blank.
Selena flew backward through a gap between two ribs and out of the Citadel.
She fell. Wind tore at her. The burning hull shrank above her.
Out of the smoke, Obsidia came after her, flying.
“You do not understand the true power of ‘Destruction’...”
Someone had once set her down asleep in the mud and gone back up into the clouds. Nobody was setting her down today. Selena caught herself on a bolt of her own lightning and hung there.
“Destruction and faith share the same origin.”
Every suit at the Academy was built from Enders, Selena thought. She isn’t wrong.
Then Obsidia called up her own Ender mecha suit. It closed over her: silver and gold plates, a tall crowned head. Behind her, wings of energy opened, purple and yellow, as wide as the storm. It was the strongest thing Selena had ever seen.
“You cannot save humanity.”
Selena had never said she would.
“Every story needs an ending.”
Obsidia held out one clawed hand.
“Come back, my puppet.”
“Sorry, ma’am, but I still prefer life at the academy!”
The violet in Obsidia’s eyes burned brighter than it had all day.
Rain ran down Selena’s face, and the Citadel burned above her in the storm. The first thing she remembered was rain like this, and mud, and a woman’s arms, and a fruit drop in a twist of paper. Down there were the bell tower, her classroom, and a graduation she still meant to have. Selena charged.