Nythir threw up a shield just in time. Sylva’s first strike hit it hard enough to rattle teeth—the next sliced low, followed by a high cut in a perfectly trained rhythm.
“That’s what I should be asking you!” Nythir shouted, struggling to hold the barrier.
Sylva continued his assault, each slash chipping away at his shield. Sylva roared, “Tell me where she is!”
“I don’t know!”
Sylva froze mid-step, ears twitching.
“You believe that,” he growled. “But that doesn’t mean you’re innocent.”
He lunged again.
For a split second—barely long enough to register—Nythir understood. Not the attack. The fear behind it.
Sylva fought like someone protecting something precious, not like someone seeking victory. Every strike was desperate, defensive, fueled by the same terror roaring through Nythir’s veins.
Lucy.
The realization did not soften Nythir’s movements or slow his blade, but it shifted something sharp and dangerous into something colder.
They were not enemies.
They were mirrors.
Nythir dodged, flipping back with impeccable coordination. His feet barely touched the ground before he launched sideways, dagger drawn in the same motion. Quiet. Efficient. Deadly.
Sylva’s blades collided with Nythir’s shield, cracking its surface.
“You expect me to ignore the fact that Estella’s magic—dead queen magic—is on you?” Sylva spat.
“Or that Lucy’s trail vanishes at the exact same spot as the princess’s?”
“That princess is mine to protect,” Nythir shot back, deflecting a slash and countering with a force pulse that shoved Sylva two steps back.
“And I’ve never seen this Lucy person you are so obsessed with.”
Sylva’s jaw clenched.
“You believe everything you’re saying,” he said, voice shaking. “Which means someone’s playing all of us.”
“Then stop trying to kill me!” Nythir shouted.
Sylva attacked harder, blades whirling like a storm. Nythir ducked under a swing, slid beneath Sylva’s arm with surprising fluidity, and slashed upward. Their weapons clashed.
Steel sparks. Magic cracks. Panic echoed in every motion.
The stranger—Basil—shouted something, but neither heard him.
This was not just a fight. It was desperation.
Fear.
Love.
And the belief that the other man held the missing pieces.
Then—Boom!
