I had thought I understood swordsmanship, or at least the better part of it. That was the uncomfortable conclusion I reached approximately three minutes into Captain Hadl’s demonstration, and it only worsened from there. My swordform was archaic, codified, and relentlessly proper. It had guards for every approach, counters for every overreach, and named responses for situations that, in actual combat, tended to last less than a second before someone died. It was static.

  I had been taught to enter a guard. Hadl inhabited one. There were no wasted lines in his movement, no ornamental flourishes. Every cut was either testing space or removing it.

  The difference was humiliating. And Ceralis was rewarding me for finally seeing the lie I had been trained on.

  The demonstration ended after another minute. Hadl’s final movement resolved, and he lowered his sword.

  “What do you think?” he asked. “Am I to be honored with your own swordform, then?”

  No way. This man could accidentally kill me. I couldn’t even look at his attributes because he was too high-level. I must find a way to nonsense my way out of this.

  I announced, “My swordform is not something one is permitted to witness casually. If you wish to glimpse even a fraction of it, you will labor for that distinction.”

  Hadl studied me again. I could see the calculation behind his eyes, the same one that had weighed bridges under fire and alleyways full of knives. He was not offended. He was curious.

  “Is that so?” he asked carefully.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Your form is passable.”

  His jaw tightened.

  “Barely,” I added, because restraint would have been suspicious. I clasped my hands behind my back and adopted the posture of a man who could afford disappointment. “You are a captain. That rank obliges your blade to do more than end lives. It must instruct—your men, your enemies, and those unfortunate enough to believe they still possess a chance.”

  Veins pulsed at Hadl’s temple. It was the smallest betrayal of emotion I had seen from him all morning, and the fact that I saw it at all told me how much effort it cost him to keep everything else contained.

  When he answer, his voice was level to the point of austerity. “And how,” he asked, “would you propose a man demonstrates such instruction?”

  There it was.

  The opening. Maybe I could even push further and trick him into instructing my form live.

  “You misunderstand,” I said. “I am not proposing. I am commanding.”

  The vein at his temple throbbed again, but he did not interrupt.

  Good. Still alive.

  “You will fight,” I said, “and you will explain. Not afterward. Now. You will articulate intent as you move. You will name errors as they occur. Yours, and mine.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “As you command,” he said.

  I felt power. It was intoxicating. I felt it, in the way a man who had survived sieges and street wars had aligned himself to my cadence without resistance.

  For one shameful second, I drank it. Then the thought completed itself.

  This? This was Saint Merin’s idea of righteousness? Impossible.

  I forced my hands to unclench. The sensation curdled.

  This would be the last time I let myself enjoy it.

  By the time I allowed Hadl to leave, the sun had moved across the practice yard.

  Hadl spoke as he moved, dissecting the intent of the lesser men that I ‘mimicked’ before my body had finished committing to it.

  “No. That cut assumes cooperation.”

  “Your guard is decorative. Strip it.”

  “You are answering the last threat. Fight the next one.”

  Each sentence hurt more than the blows.

  Not only that his teachings had upgraded my knightly swordform, I had even gained three new skills:

  By the time I turned away, I understood with cold, precise certainty that whatever man had entered that yard that morning had not been permitted to leave with Captain Hadl.

  Only I had.

  Before I left, I told Hadl I would test his knowledge and handicap myself by entering his tournament using only the moves he had taught me.

  “Then I will watch,” he said. “And I will learn what you choose to reveal.”

  He turned without further ceremony and left the practice yard at a brisk pace.

  On the way home, I kept saying to myself: Three skills are enough, Henry. You will no longer exploit other people.

  By the time I returned to the inner chambers, dusk had settled over the town, painting it with a stroke of purple.

  Inside, Anabeth sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing at one eye with the heel of her palm, her hair loose and uneven in the way it only ever was when she had slept longer than intended. “Mmm, good morning,” she murmured. “Did you go somewhere, my lord?” The title came out slurred, habitual rather than formal.

  I said nothing.

  Instead, I crossed the room and set my sword against the wall. She blinked again, more awake now, and reached out absently, patting at the covers beside her.

  “…where did I put it,” she muttered.

  Her hand found the satchel at last. She drew it close, frowning, and loosened the clasp. “That’s… odd. I didn’t remember putting it there.”

  She peered inside, then withdrew a book. It was already open.

  Her thumb traced a line of text, then another. She glanced up at me.

  “Did you,” she began, then stopped, as if reconsidering the absurdity of the thought even as it formed. “Did you suddenly develop an interest in bone theology, my lord, and decide to go through my books?”

  I could not detect any accusation in her voice, only confusion with a touch of cautious curiosity.

  I shook my head.

  “… huh,” she said.

  “Well,” she murmured, setting it aside, “then that’s unsettling.”

  She leaned back against the headboard and yawned again, though her eyes stayed on me this time. “Did something follow you home?”

  I met her gaze. For a second, neither of us spoke.

  Her fingers tightened on the satchel strap. She looked down at it once more, then slowly around the room. Then back at me.

  We understood.

  Somebody had snuck into our room.

  I flinched. Hold on. Did they find out about the copied keychain?