The binders came back hotter.

  Karael felt it the moment the bracers locked around his forearms. The inner lining warmed against his skin like it remembered him. The metal did not feel heavy until he moved. Then the weight showed itself, not dragging him down, but forcing his wrists and elbows to obey a stricter alignment than his body wanted.

  Marr watched without speaking.

  Karael flexed his fingers. The gauntlets answered with a faint hiss, a thin vent of heat that vanished into the air.

  “They’re not stable,” Karael said.

  Marr shook his head. “They’re honest.”

  Karael frowned. “That’s not reassuring.”

  “It should be,” Marr replied. “A stable tool lets you forget you’re wrong.”

  He gestured toward the floor. “Pressure off.”

  Karael disengaged. The hollow silence returned inside his chest, tense and deliberate. He stepped forward and set his feet.

  Marr did not call another fighter.

  He picked up the spear.

  The shaft moved into his hands like it belonged there, smooth and unhurried, but the room shifted anyway. The non-venters along the wall quieted. Even the ones who had watched Karael get hit all week stopped adjusting their wraps and focused.

  Marr faced Karael and lowered the spear point slightly, not aimed to kill, aimed to teach.

  “You want to fight,” Marr said. “Then you learn distance.”

  Karael’s jaw tightened. “I’ve been learning.”

  Marr’s expression did not change. “You’ve been surviving. Begin.”

  Karael stepped in.

  The spear moved.

  Not fast.

  Correct.

  The tip touched Karael’s chest lightly, exactly where his breath wanted to rise, and the contact froze him for half a beat.

  Marr withdrew it and tapped Karael’s shoulder immediately after.

  Two touches.

  Two openings.

  Karael flinched back, heart pounding.

  “No pressure,” Marr reminded him.

  Karael swallowed and disengaged again, crushing the instinctive surge before it could bloom.

  “Again,” Marr said.

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  Karael attacked more carefully this time. He feinted, shifted his weight, tried to draw the spear away. Marr did not chase. Marr did not overreach.

  He stepped back half a pace.

  The distance Karael thought he had closed stayed open.

  The spear point flicked and tapped Karael’s forearm.

  A clean hit.

  Then the shaft slid across Karael’s wrist and pinned it downward for a heartbeat, not with force, with leverage.

  Karael pulled free and tried to step inside.

  Marr’s spear butt struck the mat near Karael’s foot, stopping him with sound and timing rather than impact.

  “Distance,” Marr said.

  Karael’s chest tightened. “Fine.”

  He moved again, this time trying to rush. If he could close range, the spear would lose its advantage. That was the logic.

  Marr moved once.

  The spear point pressed into Karael’s throat lightly, not enough to bruise, enough to teach.

  Karael froze.

  Marr’s eyes stayed calm. “That’s dead.”

  Karael stepped back slowly.

  The pressure stirred in his chest, offended by helplessness. He crushed it down, breathing through the tightness the way he had been forced to learn.

  “Again,” Marr said.

  The next exchange lasted longer.

  Karael found a rhythm. He kept his guard up. He watched Marr’s hands instead of the spear tip. He stepped to the side instead of forward, trying to change the line.

  Marr let him.

  Then the spear shaft slid and knocked Karael’s guard wide with a small rotation, and the point tapped his ribs twice in the same breath.

  Karael hissed and stumbled back.

  “You see,” Marr said, “why power doesn’t fix this.”

  Karael nodded, jaw clenched.

  Marr lifted the spear slightly. “Now one change.”

  Karael’s stomach tightened.

  “Pressure only at impact,” Marr said. “You will strike the shaft. Not me. The moment you touch, you engage. Then you cut.”

  Karael took a slow breath. “And if I mistime it.”

  Marr’s gaze stayed flat. “Then you break your hand. Or you break your rib. Or you break your control.”

  Karael nodded once.

  Marr moved the spear forward, presenting it like a line Karael had to cross.

  Karael stepped in and threw a short punch at the shaft.

  His fist connected.

  He engaged pressure at impact.

  The binders hissed sharply as heat vented through the seams. The shock traveled up his arm, not into bone this time, into the bracers. The rebound came a heartbeat later, hard but contained.

  Karael cut the pressure.

  He stayed upright.

  Marr’s spear shifted instantly and tapped Karael’s shoulder in response.

  “You hesitated after,” Marr said. “That’s how you die.”

  They repeated it.

  Karael struck the shaft again. Engaged. Cut.

  This time the pressure came a fraction too early. The binders flared hotter. Pain lanced through Karael’s wrist anyway.

  He staggered back, breathing hard.

  The binders hissed longer than before.

  Marr watched the gauntlets instead of Karael’s face. “Feel that.”

  Karael swallowed. “They’re heating.”

  “They’re taking it,” Marr corrected. “And they’re not infinite.”

  Karael reset, arms shaking, and went again.

  Strike.

  Engage.

  Cut.

  The binders hissed and vented, heat rolling off them in thin waves. Karael’s chest burned from the repeated suppression, but he held it.

  Marr adjusted his distance slightly for the first time, stepping back an extra half pace instead of one.

  Karael saw it.

  He didn’t understand why it mattered until Marr spoke.

  “You forced me to move,” Marr said.

  Karael blinked, exhausted. “I hit the spear.”

  “You hit the line,” Marr replied. “That’s different.”

  Karael’s arms trembled harder now. The binders were hot against his skin, heat bleeding through the lining. He could feel the pressure in his chest pushing forward, impatient, demanding more than these tiny windows.

  Marr lowered the spear point. “Stop.”

  Karael froze.

  The silence in the hall was thicker than usual. The non-venters along the wall watched Karael’s gauntlets with quiet attention, as if they could see the heat through the metal.

  Marr stepped closer and tapped the binder casing with his knuckle. The sound was dull, stressed.

  “They’re cracking inside,” Marr said quietly. “Not yet. Soon.”

  Karael swallowed. “Then what.”

  “Then you learn faster,” Marr replied. “Or you stop using them.”

  Karael stared at him. “That’s not a choice.”

  Marr’s eyes held his. “It is in this hall. It won’t be outside it.”

  Karael’s chest tightened at that. Not with pressure. With understanding.

  He looked down at the binders, then back at Marr.

  He had forced Marr to adjust once.

  One small shift.

  One proof.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Not yet.

  But it meant something was changing.

  And he needed to see what broke first.