The bout was over in thirty seconds. She was good, but she telegraphed her attacks and relied too heavily on textbook combinations. I disarmed her with a simple bind-and-thrust that she should have seen coming from miles away.
“Better footwork than last year,” I told her as she retrieved her weapon. “But you’re still thinking too much. Trust your instincts more.”
“M. Wigard.”
A tall sophomore werewolf stepped forward, and I immediately caught the scent of nervous excitement rolling off him. Werewolves could be excellent fencers if they learned to channel their natural aggression, but they often struggled with the precision required.
He lasted forty-five seconds, which was actually impressive. His attacks were powerful and his reflexes were lightning-fast, but he got frustrated when his initial assault didn’t work and started taking wild swings.
“Good aggression,” I told him. “Work on your patience. The blade is a scalpel, not a club.”
One by one, I worked through the roster. Most performed about as expected. They were competent but not exceptional. A few surprised me with significant improvement over the summer. Others clearly hadn’t touched a sword since last season.
“D. Rosewood.”
A senior witch I’d never seen before stepped forward, and something about her stance immediately caught my attention. She moved with the fluid grace of someone who’d been training since childhood, her grip on the sabre both relaxed and ready.
This bout lasted nearly two minutes. She was genuinely skilled, with excellent distance management and a deceptive style that kept me guessing. She even managed to score a touchon my shoulder before I finally caught her with a counterattack to the chest.
“Very impressive,” I said, and I meant it. “Where did you train before coming here?”
“Private tutors,” she replied, pulling off her mask to reveal sharp features and calculating dark eyes. “My family takes fencing seriously.”
Old money witch family, then. They often hired former Olympic coaches or master instructors. It showed.
I continued through the list, making mental notes about team composition and who would work well together. We were nearly at the end when I called the next name.
“A. Quinn.”
A figure stepped forward from the back of the group, and something about his movement made me pause. There was something familiar about the way he carried himself, the confident stride, the natural athletic grace. But his mask was already on, so I couldn’t make out anything else.
He selected a sabre and turned to face me, falling into an en garde position that was textbook perfect. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen him somewhere before.
“Ready?” I asked.
He nodded, and we began.
The first exchange told me everything I needed to know. He wasn’t just good, he wasexceptional. His technique was flawless, his timing impeccable, and his tactical awareness was beyond anything I’d seen from a college student in decades.
But it was more than that. There was something about his style, his rhythm, the way he moved that sent a shot of adrenaline through my body. He was good. Maybe even as good as me. And I hadn’t had a real challenge in decades.
We danced around each other for nearly three minutes, trading attacks and parries in a display that had the otherstudents watching in awed silence. He was pushing me harder than I’d been pushed in years, forcing me to actually work for every point.
He caught me off guard with a beautiful disengage that nearly took my head off, and I had to throw myself backward to avoid the point. The movement was so sudden that my mask shifted slightly, but I managed to adjust it before continuing.
This was getting dangerous. Not physically, I could handle myself in any fight, but emotionally. The way he moved, the precise control, the almost intuitive understanding of distance and timing... it was stirring something in me that had nothing to do with coaching. It was…beautiful.
I pressed my attack, using a complex combination that should have overwhelmed him, but he read it perfectly and countered with a riposte that forced me to give ground. The other students were murmuring now, clearly impressed by what they were witnessing.
“Impressive,” I called out, circling him slowly. “Where did you learn to fence like that?”
He didn’t answer, just reset his stance and waited for my next attack. Smart. Don’t give away information to your opponent.
I came at him with everything I had, drawing on centuries of experience and muscle memory that predated most modern fencing techniques. But somehow, impossibly, he kept up. Every attack I threw at him, he had an answer for. Every trap I set, he avoided with split-second timing.
It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. When was the last time someone had challenged me like this? When was the last time I’d had to actually think during a bout instead of just going through the motions?
He lunged forward with a perfectly timed attack aimed at my chest, and I barely managed to parry it. But the force of hisstrike combined with my desperate defense sent me stumbling backward, and I felt my mask loosen.
