An hour later, the storm was still at its strongest. Rain poured hard on fast, hitting the rocky ground around the tall mountain, droplets traced form the rockface and the stronger showers of rain splashed against the mountain peak where Lancet and his newest Heroine, Kestrel were standing.

They stood across from each other, seven feet of mountain space separating them. Their eyes were locked on each other, their gear plastered wet against their skin as the rain poured relentlessly.

Lancet took very careful breaths, calming himself so he wouldn’t overthink while preparing himself so he wouldn’t be blindsided. He hadn’t pulled his sword yet and he didn’t know what he was for; maybe he was waiting for her to pull out hers.

"Let’s begin, young Summoner," Kestrel said.

The instant the words left her mouth, the air around the summit changed. Lancet felt a pressure roll outward from her like the first breath of an oncoming hurricane.

She reached back with both hands this time, and when she drew her Dragonblades, the mountain reacted to the power. White-green light spilled along each edge, and the twin snake dragon spectres rose almost at once, coiling out of the steel with a terrible, elegant life of their own.

One serpent arched above her shoulder while the other curled low near her feet, both of them moving with the fluid menace of living things that understood exactly how to kill.

Lancet swallowed.

He had seen one of them before. That had already been enough.

Two was something else entirely.

Kestrel settled into her stance with both swords angled in front of her, her expression no longer calm in the ordinary sense. It had hardened like rocks, and sharpened like blades.

The look in her eyes had changed from instruction to intent, from teacher to Swordsmaster. This was not a lesson anymore. This was what she had promised.

All out.

Lancet reached into his inventory and pulled out the Radiant Guillotine with a draw of slow breath. His heart was beating harder than it should have been, but not with fear this time. With focus.

The mountain wind slid around his body, colder than before, and he felt the residue of the lightning ritual inside him answer, quickening his Grace the moment he let it move.

Lancet wanted to be the one to attack first, but to his surprise, Kestrel was already coming at him.

The right-hand sword came down from a diagonal angle, cutting the air and rain drops as it came for Lancet’s neck. The dragon spectre beside it followed as well, jaws wide open.

Lancet raised the Guillotine and caught the edge, the CLANG! caused an impact that slammed through his arms and into his shoulders.

"Ngh!’

Lancet had to take a step back because of the force. But before he could settle, Kestrel’s other hand swung the second blade from below.

It rose viciously in an upward line meant to catch him under the guard. Lancet twisted, let the cut skim past, and answered with a tight counterstroke that forced Kestrel to shift both blades apart.

The moment he did, he knew he had landed a real response.

It wasn’t enough to cause any kind of threat to her. But it was enough to matter.

Kestrel’s eyes even lit with interest and that let Lancet know that his reaction speed had leveled up massively.

However, it was a bittersweet feeling. The thing with going hard and proving to be a challenge against someone like Kestrel Highcastle was: you only end up making her want to go even harder.

Lancet’s eyes widened when he saw the change in her.

Kestrel flexed her shoulders, then spun the right Dragonsword and angled it close to the other. Her knees loosened into combat readiness, and the competitive edge in her face sharpened into a hunger for a good duel.

’Fuck,’ Lancet thought.

"That was good," Kestrel said, and the words came out almost approving despite itself. "Now, again."

She came at him harder.

The twin dragons whirled around her blades, one snapping at his exposed flank while the other forced him to give ground up the slope. Lancet used the scroll’s lessons without thinking, his body already learning how to adapt.

He held his center still when the pressure of the first strike came in, the force sliding past him instead of into him. Then he broke rhythm, letting the second attack come a fraction late so the line of her blade missed the timing of his step.

He pushed Grace into the Guillotine and cut upward from the lower angle, catching the underside of her left sword and knocking it just enough off-line to open a narrow path.

’An opening! I have an opening!’

He took it without hesitation.

One sharp step in. One clean cut. Then a second.

Kestrel blocked both.

But the fact that he had made her block at all sent a spark through him.

He pressed the advantage immediately, step-linking into a forward advance that turned his sword into the continuation of his movement.

His feet stayed light despite the weight of the weapon. His body no longer felt like it was dragging the blade behind him; the sword was beginning to travel with him, part of the same chain of intent.

Kestrel pivoted, her right blade sweeping across to intercept, and he met it with an angled parry that sent the force off to the side. The left blade came in fast after that, and he ducked under it so narrowly he felt the phantom wind of the dragon-spectre brush the top of his hair.

Then he cut low.

Kestrel jumped the strike, landing with both blades poised, and Lancet had to throw himself into a defensive turn to avoid the two-sword follow-up that came down on him like twin lightning bolts.

Steel rang across the summit again and again.

CLANG! CLANG!! CLANG!!

Lights of gold and green flashed on top of the mountains like fireworks below the heavens.

Lancet’s wielding strength was great, but it was nothing like Kestrel. She could take the reverberations from every collision, but each time Lancet blocked her attacks, it sent shocks into his wrists. He had to hold firm with everything he had, like he was climbing a mountain!

Every parry tested the fine thread of control he had been building for the past four days. And every time he survived a sequence that would have flattened him before the lightning ritual, he felt it.

He was better.

Although he was nowhere near Kestrel’s level, Lancet Leogardt was definitely — finally — a powerful swordsman.

Kestrel began to smile. It was a little frustrating to see someone smile in the middle of a duel. Lancet wasn’t sure if she was mocking him or humored by his effort.

But something told him that it was a proud smile. Kestrel wasn’t the type to mock an opponent.

She was proud of him.

"Oh, there you are," she said, and her tone changed as she said it. "I was wondering when you would stop stumbling and start fighting."

Lancet grunted as he intercepted a cross-cut that nearly stripped the sword from his hand. "I’ve been fighting."

"No," she said, pressing him harder. "You have been learning. There is a difference."

Then she moved into what he could only think of as her competitive mode.

The temperature of the duel changed.

Her blades no longer moved like lesson demonstrations. They moved like verdicts. The white snake dragon spectres swept wider, brighter, their coils snaking through the air with a predatory grace that made the mountain seem smaller around them.

Kestrel’s footwork became sharper, each step landing with the confidence of someone who had already decided where the fight would end. She did not simply attack him now; she cut the space he relied on. Her left blade forced his sword high while the right blade struck low enough to challenge his base, then reversed at the last second to catch his wrist in a brutal, clean line that would have disarmed a lesser swordsman.

Lancet barely twisted out of it.

The edge of the Guillotine scraped stone.

He felt the loss of control like a punch to the chest.

No. Not now.

He pulled Grace through his body in a single clean rush, the Lightning Tempering still humming faintly in his channels, and forced the sword back into line before the follow-up could land.

Kestrel’s eyes flashed when she saw the recovery. He answered with rhythm breaking, cutting his own pace into an ugly pause that forced her to adjust too quickly. The left-hand dragon spectre lunged into the opening, and Lancet met it with a shield-like block and a rising cut that forced Kestrel to retreat a pace.

He used that pace.

He attacked immediately, the Guillotine flashing in a tight sequence of three cuts: low, high, then center.

Kestrel parried the first, slipped the second with a tilt of her shoulder, and turned the third aside with enough strength that the impact shook Lancet’s arms to the bone. But he had not been trying to land a finishing blow. He had been trying to make her move where he wanted her to.

She realized it too late.

He pivoted into the shallow groove of the summit stone, using the slope to pull his own body into a faster line, and brought the Radiant Guillotine around in a clean arc that clipped the edge of her sleeve and forced her to spin back.

For a second, the competitive excitement in Kestrel’s face transformed into delight. She let out a sweet laughter, almost the sound of a mockingbird.

Lancet saw it and laughed as well even while trying not to get cut in half.

She was enjoying this.

Seeing her in the state hit Lancet harder than any of the sword strikes. A dose of determination and excitement hit him, sending energy through his body. Energy that wasn’t even Grace.

Full of adrenaline, Lancet tightened his grip and pushed harder, trying to use the rest of what he had learned. Stillness before movement. Edge-threading. Breath anchoring.

He let Grace settle into the blade without flooding it, then moved with a cleaner, more disciplined line than before. The Guillotine glowed faintly now, a quiet silver pressure running along its edge like contained lightning.

He struck and Kestrel blocked, but the clash no longer sent his balance apart the way it had on the first day. He could feel his body responding faster, better. His footwork no longer collapsed under the pressure of her timing. He could read the rhythm of her attacks well enough to answer.

The duel climbed higher and higher in intensity until the summit stone beneath them seemed to ring with every movement. Kestrel crossed both blades in front of her and drove forward, the twin dragon spectres spiraling around her like hunting beasts, and Lancet met the charge with a burst of Grace through the Guillotine that lit the blade so sharply it seemed to split the air around it.

Their swords collided. Gold and emerald scattered about like a million shooting stars. The impact drove both of them half a step apart. Then Kestrel came in again, faster, and Lancet answered with a block so precise that for one wild moment he felt he had found the center of the fight.

He used that moment to attack.

The Guillotine snapped forward in a clean thrust aimed at her shoulder line.

Kestrel turned it aside with her left blade.

Lancet followed with a low cut to her front foot.

She hopped back.

He pressed with another strike at her centerline, and she crossed both swords to catch it, the dragon spectres roaring against the blade as the force of the block cracked through the mountain air.

Lancet felt his own breath come hard now. The storm had stopped and sweat slid down his neck, mixing with drying drops of rain.

’I can’t believe it,’ he thought. ’I’m fighting a Grandmaster of the Blade and I’m actually giving her a contest!’

Kestrel watched him with a small smile. Her eyes tracked the subtle shifts in his stance, the new confidence in his grip and that elated expression on his face even though he tried to hide his happy grin.

Alright, she thought, loosening her shoulders. Play time’s over.