Not what is easy.
I exhale slowly. This is not about stepping aside. This is about not breaking the law of the place that just armed him. If I interfere, I may weaken him, which is unacceptable. I will not be the thing that costs him this fight.
I step back. Not too far.
Just enough to give him room.
“I’m still here,” I tell him.
The bond between us tightens, a drawn bowstring.
Rion watches the exchange with an eyebrow lifted.
“How sweet,” he mocks. “Stay close, little mortal. It will make you that much easier to kill.”
Sorren doesn’t fall for the bait. He stands steady, Thornreaper leveled before him, knees bent, weight balanced.
Rion runs his eyes over his nephew and laughs, but it’s just a distraction. Theater. He’s already moving before the sound fades from the air. Without flinching, he strikes.
Chapter nine
Mine
Sorren
Rion moves not with haste but with cold determination. The arc of his blade is deliberate, a low sweep meant to measure my guard. I pivot rather than meeting him head-on, letting the force glance away as Thornreaper hums in my grip, alive and eager. I bring it up just in time for the next strike. Blade screams against blade, dark metal grinding against living bronze.
Uncle does not retreat. He presses forward.
Three strikes in rapid succession, high, mid, low, each one designed to fracture rhythm and force error. I catch the first on the flat of my blade and turn the second with a sharp twist of my wrist. The third slips through, biting into my sleeve and grazing flesh.
A flash of fear down the bond from Nora, but I can’t afford distraction right now. Not when Rion has the amulet in his pocket and a sword in his hands.
Heat blooms along my arm from where he struck me, and blood spills freely, streaking down my arm to drip from my fingers.
Good.
Pain sharpens. He taught me that.
We circle again, boots grinding flowers into pulp. The air fills with sweetness and the copper tang of blood, perfume curdling toward rot. His gaze never wavers.
He lunges.
I give ground deliberately, letting him believe the retreat is instinct rather than intention.
He grins.
I pivot left instead of right, the variation he always despised, the one he called inefficient when he trained me, and Thornreaper arcs upward as I spin back into him. Sparks explode between us as our blades collide, the force rattling through my bones.
A lesser sword would have shattered from that impact.
But Thornreaper holds.
The living veins threaded through its bronze edge flare faintly beneath my grip, lichen and metal fused into something older than either. It absorbs the violence as if it enjoys it.
For the first time, Rion’s expression flickers.
He feels the difference. Understands this is no normal sword. He feints toward my shoulder, drawing my guard high, then twists mid-motion and redirects toward my throat with terrifying speed.
