The Knight of the Noon stood in the center of the battlement, his armor forged from sun-glass that pulsed with a blinding, rhythmic heat. Every time he breathed, a wave of golden steam escaped his visor, melting the frost for ten feet around him. He carried a claymore made of solidified light, a weapon that looked less like a blade and more like a captured bolt of lightning.
You have broken the gears of a machine, the Knight said, his voice deep and resonant, like the strike of a cathedral bell. But you cannot break the dawn. I am the high noon of the Queen's justice, and you are but a long-forgotten dusk.
Clevatess adjusted his raven-feather mantle, his midnight-black tunic absorbing the golden glare of the Knight's armor. He did not draw a sword. Instead, he simply exhaled, and the air between them turned into a wall of thick, violet mist. The King's zeal was not loud, but it was absolute.
I have seen the dawn come and go a thousand times, Clevatess replied, his violet eyes glowing with a calm intensity. It always ends the same way. The light tires, and the shadow remains.
The Knight lunged, his movements so fast they left a trail of golden afterimages in the air. The claymore swung in a wide arc, a horizontal sunbeam that intended to cleave the world in two. Clevatess didn't jump or dive. He simply stepped into the swing, his hand rising to meet the glowing edge of the blade.
Alicia cried out in warning, but the sound was drowned out by a high-pitched hiss. Clevatess didn't catch the blade with steel; he caught it with a concentrated burst of Absolute Zero at his fingertips. The point where his palm met the light turned into a knot of black ice. The golden claymore didn't cut; it cracked.
The Knight's momentum faltered as the heat of his weapon was sucked into the void of the King's palm. The bite of winter was far sharper than the heat of the noon. Clevatess closed his fist, and the claymore shattered into a thousand dull, gray shards of glass.
Pride is a fragile thing when the temperature drops, Clevatess whispered.
He lunged forward, his shoulder hitting the Knight's breastplate with the force of an avalanche. The golden armor groaned and fractured, the sun-glass turning opaque and cold. The Knight was sent flying backward, crashing through the stone railing of the battlement and falling into the snow-covered valley below.
The sun had reached its peak, and now, it was beginning to fall.