I moved to the table of weapons and picked out the familiar training blade Rob had bought me. I set the hilt in my hands and stepped forward, fully aware of the eyes on my back.

  They hadn’t seen me fight with a sword before. Only with a shield, taking hits and barely holding it together.

  This time was different. I was different.

  And the weight of their attention was all too obvious.

  The wooden sword felt heavy at first. Awkward. Then my other hand settled around the hilt of the black blade at my hip. The weight in my grip eased, like a breath let out. My shoulders loosened a fraction.

  I faced Brent.

  Up close, the easy grin didn’t fool me. His expression stayed light, but his eyes were sharp and distant, already measuring. Not cruel. Not angry. Just cold.

  “This one has killed,” the sword whispered in my mind.

  My throat tightened.

  “Jerald wants me to see what you’ve got,” Brent said, voice calm. “So, I’m going to push.”

  I swallowed.

  “Brace yourself.”

  I drew in a slow breath and let it out, feeling for the familiar shift as I nudged the kinetic guidance rune awake. My stance settled without conscious thought. Weight aligned. Balance snapped into place.

  Brent tilted his head. “You ready?”

  I nodded.

  Brent moved.

  The staff cut a wide arc, the air humming as he stepped forward. His eyes never left mine. I took a single step back, instinct screaming. He was fast. Too fast. But the path of the strike was clear.

  The tip rushed in. I angled my sword to meet it.

  At the last instant his strike shifted.

  I felt it before I saw it. My hands adjusted as I flinched, the hilt turning just enough as the staff slammed into the flat of my blade. The impact jarred my arms and knocked my guard aside, and the other end of the staff was already coming around.

  I slid half a step to the side. The blow missed my face by a finger’s width, the rush of air cold against my cheek. I brought my sword up again, barely in time, catching the next strike on its edge.

  It held.

  For a heartbeat, triumph flared.

  Then Brent pushed.

  The parry was not an attack but a hook, dragging my guard open. Another strike followed, heavier, faster, driving straight through the space he had created.

  I moved again. Forward this time. The staff skimmed past instead of hitting square, but the edge still clipped my shoulder. Pain flashed and faded.

  Brent paused.

  Our eyes locked.

  My movements were slight and controlled with no wasted motion.

  “Good,” the sword murmured. “The runes are doing their work.”

  I let out a slow breath, forcing my lungs to obey. The kinetic guidance was there, subtle but undeniable. Without it, I would have gone down on the first exchange.

  Instead, I was still standing. Unable to return blows but holding my ground.

  Brent’s gaze flicked to the sword at my hip, and something clicked in his eyes.

  He grinned and came at me again.

  And again.

  The staff never stopped moving. Each strike flowed into the next, a constant pressure that left no gaps to exploit. I caught what I could, my blade turning just enough to shave the force aside, but never enough to shift the fight. There was no room to think about attacking. Every scrap of focus went into staying upright.

  A thrust stabbed toward my chest. I twisted aside at the last instant, the tip scraping past close enough that I felt the air split. The follow-up came from the side, fast and brutal. I ducked too late. Pain flared along my head, a glancing blow that still rang my skull.

  If that had landed clean, I would have been on the floor.

  Brent stepped back and studied me.

  “Nice work,” he said.

  I managed a thin smile.

  “Your sword work is sloppy,” he continued, unbothered. “Your guard is open. Your footing is terrible.” Then his expression shifted. “But your reactions, your awareness, your judgement under pressure?” He nodded. “Very promising.”

  I breathed out and silently thanked the sword.

  Brent turned his head. “Amelia, you rested up?”

  The other two were perched forward, eyes glued to us. Rob looked impressed. Amelia looked stunned, though she had somehow found time to pull a muffin from a pocket and take a bite.

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  She nodded, cheeks full.

  Brent’s grin widened. “Good. Then we move on.”

  Rob and Amelia exchanged a look.

  “Now that I know where each of you stand,” Brent said, rolling his shoulders, “all three of you come at me.”

  “This time,” he added, “I won’t hold back.”

  My stomach dropped.

  Rob swallowed. Amelia shoved the rest of the muffin in her mouth and swallowed.

  I looked at Brent. “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

  He nodded without hesitation.

  The next fifteen minutes were exactly that. A lesson in pain.

  Brent let all three of us rush him at once. Every time, whatever blessing he carried snapped awake, and he was suddenly among us. One blink he just stood there. The next he was inside our guard letting all hell break loose.

  He always took out Amelia first. A sharp step, a clean strike to the ribs, just enough to drive the air from her lungs before she could speak a word. Then Rob. Rob tried to pin him down, blessing flaring, feet a blur. It didn’t matter. Brent’s staff tapped his good wrist twice in quick succession and the dagger was gone. The blows were precise. Meant to disarm, not cripple. Rob hissed and shook his hand, bruised but intact.

  Then Brent turned to me.

  This time he did not pace himself. His eyes burned with focus, and he moved faster than my runes could track. My blade was knocked free before I could register the strike, and the staff settled against my throat, solid and inescapable.

  “Again,” Brent said. “Reset.”

  We hauled ourselves up and did it again.

  And again.

  Each round ended differently, but the pattern never changed. Amelia down first. Rob second. Me last. Bruises bloomed across skin and muscle. Pride stripped away with every fall. Breathing grew ragged. Limbs heavy. The floor felt harder each time we hit it.

  Then it happened.

  A sharp crack echoed through the hall as Brent struck where Amelia had stepped too far forward, trying to sneak an attack. The staff should have hit her square in the ribs.

  Instead, a flash of light obscured our view as the staff slammed into a floating stone.

  Amelia stood just behind it, eyes glowing faintly, teeth bared in a grin as the rock blocked the impact.

  “Yes!” she shouted, breathless and triumphant.

  The fight stalled.

  Rob stared at her. “You get it?”

  Amelia fumbled into her pocket and came up clutching her soul card. Her hands shook as she looked at it, then at us, breath hitching with something bright and fragile.

  “Finally,” she breathed.

  Brent’s eyes sharpened. “Show me.”

  She nodded. Reaching for the magic. The rock near her boot flickered, vanished, then reappeared midair a heartbeat later, hovering where her fingers pointed.

  Brent let out a low sound. “Temporal displacement?”

  She nodded again, unable to stop smiling.

  “That’s a strong start,” he said, clearly pleased.

  Rob leaned forward with his hands on his knees, still catching his breath. “So, she still has to lug rocks around?”

  “Yes,” Brent said. “Just not as many.” His eyes stayed on Amelia. “Once she’s comfortable, she’ll need fewer in a fight. One or two should do.”

  “And if there aren’t any rocks?” Rob asked.

  “Then she can conjure nearby stone,” Brent replied. “She won’t be strong enough to move them properly yet, but she can still drop them on your head. So be careful.”

  Rob blinked. “How big are we talking?”

  “We’ll find out in the field in a few days,” Brent said.

  Amelia grinned, pride clear on her face.

  “That’s cool,” said Rob.

  Brent turned back to Amelia. “How are you with water?”

  She shrugged, smile fading just a touch. “Needs work.”

  “Let’s focus on that tomorrow,” he said. “And we’ll need energy potions for all three of you.”

  He took us in properly then. Amelia was flushed and shaking. Rob’s shoulders sagged as he tried to catch his breath. Even I felt it, the weight in my limbs and the drag behind my eyes from holding focus too long.

  Brent’s attention settled on Rob. “You’re close,” he said. “I can feel it.”

  Rob nodded, exhaustion pulling at him. “Been close for weeks,” he said, frustrated.

  “Then we push harder tomorrow.”

  Brent said it lightly, almost cheerfully. He didn’t even look winded. No sweat. No strain. Just steady breath and relaxed shoulders, as if the last stretch had been nothing more than a warm-up.

  “For now,” he went on, clapping his hands once, “you three go wash up and cool off. Dinners soon. And we’ve got things to organise.”

  Rob and Amelia didn’t need telling twice. They shuffled off toward the baths, sore and laughing in that loose, exhausted way.

  I stayed where I was.

  My pulse had not slowed. The image of Brent in the fight stayed sharp in my mind. The way he moved. The way he watched me. The calm behind it all. I needed answers.

  “Brent,” I called.

  He glanced back. “What’s up, Red?”

  The nickname landed wrong this time.

  I hesitated. “About that… Red… The medallion.”

  He took in my face properly then. Something in his own expression shifted. Just a fraction.

  “What about it?”

  I swallowed. “I heard what it takes to make a charm like that.”

  “Oh,” he said. “You found out.”

  “I did.”

  He shrugged, easy. “Messy business.”

  My chest tightened, breath catching like I had taken a blow. I searched his face for something. Regret. Hesitation. Anything.

  There was nothing there.

  “Then…” I said, and the word stuck in my throat.

  Brent really looked at me this time. Not the easy grin. Not the careless confidence. His gaze sharpened, reading my face, following the turn my thoughts had taken. He let out a slow breath, and understanding crossed his features.

  “Oh. No. No, Sean.” He lifted both hands, palms out, a little too fast. “You’ve got the wrong idea.”

  Colour crept into his face, real and unguarded. “I wouldn’t. Not like that. Never.”

  I searched his face. “So, you didn’t kill him?”

  “Absolutely not.” His hand stayed raised, as if warding the thought away. “I took the necklace. I didn’t make it. I could never.”

  “Took it from who?”

  “A blood trader.”

  The words landed cold.

  “A what?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck and exhaled. “In the city there are groups that operate beneath everything else. Criminal outfits. Some of them answer to noble houses, even if no one says it out loud.” His eyes flicked to the floor, then back to me. “Blood traders are one of those groups.”

  My stomach tightened.

  “They deal in things people aren’t meant to touch,” he went on. “Dark runes. Slave catalysts. Kill contracts... Jerald wouldn’t want me saying much more than that.”

  “So, you went underground,” I said quietly.

  Brent nodded once. “To get the medallion, yeah.”

  “You took it from the man who did it?”

  He shrugged, but there was no humour in it. “I doubt he was the one who performed the ritual. That kind of work doesn’t come easy. But his organisation was involved.”

  Blood trader.

  The name echoed in my head, dragging old images with it. Flashes from the blade’s memory hovered there.

  “So,” I said, my voice thinner than I liked, “what happened to the blood trader?”

  Brent didn’t answer straight away. The silence stretched. He looked past me, jaw working, as if the memory sat somewhere he would rather not touch.

  “What would you have done,” he said at last, voice low, “if you stood in front of someone who’d traded in children’s lives?” His eyes flicked back to mine. “Not one. Several. He was carrying more than one of those medallions.”

  The room seemed to shrink.

  I didn’t need him to say it out loud. The shape of the answer was already there, ugly and unavoidable.

  I swallowed. “The others. The medallions.”

  “Jerald has them,” Brent said. “Hidden. Locked away. For now.” He hesitated, then added, “Insurance. In case things go sideways for you.”

  “Right,” I murmured. The word felt thin.

  The weight of it settled between us, all the things neither of us wanted to name.

  Then Brent clapped a hand against my back, hard enough to knock the breath from me. The grin was back, easy and practiced, like he’d pulled it out of a pocket.

  “Let’s hope it never comes to that, aye?” he said. “Now go wash up. We’ve got guests to plan for in the morning.”

  He turned away before I could reply, leaving me staring after him with a tight knot in my chest that refused to slip.