CLANK.
The sound of steel eting steel echoed sharp and clean through the atrium—like a bell ringing at the edge of a battlefield long past.
Jesse’s blade slid against Lucavion’s, her weight low, precise. The clash didn’t push him back, but it didn’t need to.
It started the conversation.
Her body moved on instinct—familiar steps refined over years, mories turned muscle, rage shaped into rhythm. And for a mont, even with the crowd watching, with Thalor’s gaze coiled like a snake at the edge of the marble ring—
It felt like theirs.
Their spar.
Their world.
And sowhere beneath that strike, beneath the steel and stance, the mory of her family stirred.
The Burns family.
Earls. Once proud. Once significant. A lesser banner under a greater sun.
Until they backed the wrong prince.
The wrong heir.
A mistake that didn’t just cost them political standing—it cost them their future. And when the Empire needed to send a delegation across the sea to Arcanis, the answer had been easy.
Send the Burns.
That was how she ended up here.
A scapegoat turned symbol.
A minor noble girl with no lineage worth reciting and too many battlefield scars to count.
They thought it was a punishnt—being sent across the border to the Arcanis Empire, embedded in a delicate political envoy as little more than a placeholder.
But Jesse?
She saw the truth of it the mont she stepped aboard that ship.
’It’s a chance.’
A chance to breathe air not heavy with her family’s sha.
A chance to beco sothing more.
And when she arrived, she carried not just her sword—but her foundation.
The Burns family had their pride, even if their na had wilted under bad alliances. They were Earls once—still were, technically. Still clung to traditions, to their private schools of sword and mana like they were clinging to relevance itself.
And they had one thing worth clinging to:
The Reaping Form.
A blade art inherited from the founder of the family. Wide arcs, precise steps, tight rotations built to cut down more than one opponent at a ti.
Graceful—but rciless. Elegant—but efficient. It is it was described, but Jesse found these words simply pointless.
Jesse knew every inch of it.
But it hadn’t been enough.
Not on the battlefield.
Not with how she fought.
So she took what the family gave her, and she added what only one person had ever given freely.
Lucavion’s teachings.
His instincts. His irregular footwork, the way he cut angles into the fight where none should’ve existed. His sense for timing—not refined, but tuned, like a blade listening to itself.
She wove both together.
And when she’d returned—scarred and far more dangerous than any of them expected—they’d let her duel her brother Linston for the right to be sent to Arcanis.
Linston had the pedigree. The bearing. The perfect form.
But he didn’t have her fire.
Didn’t have the voice of steel echoing in his head every ti his stance slipped.
He didn’t have Lucavion’s ghosts.
And that’s why he lost.
Not in sha.
But in confusion. And anger.
—CLANG!—
The second clash was harder—Jesse’s blade skidding off Lucavion’s estoc, her stance tight, coiled. She slid back two steps, boots scraping the marble.
’He hasn’t lost a step.’
Lucavion advanced—not fast, not aggressive. Just present. Forward. Like gravity had decided on a direction, and he was it. His estoc carved a smooth crescent through the air—asured, minimal—testing.
Jesse read it instantly.
Her shoulders pivoted, sliding into a low Reaping Form sidestep. Her blade dipped beneath his strike and swept upward—
—SHRRNK!—
Lucavion rotated. A half-turn into a parry, his estoc diverting her blade just past his hip.
’Still reads like a book.’
But that wasn’t all of it. She pivoted again, pulling her back foot into a tighter stance, the family form dissolving mid-motion into sothing ssier—his old rhythm. She dropped low and swept her blade diagonally—
—CLANK!—
Lucavion blocked it, but not cleanly. The recoil nudged his arm an inch wider than he liked.
His eyes flicked—not in shock, but interest.
’He recognized it.’
She could see that.
The recognition.
’Can you hear my sword?’
She wanted to ask.
Yet she didn’t.
She didn’t speak now.
—CLANG!—
Their blades t again, and again, and again.
Steel whispered, scread, sang—each strike between them a conversation Jesse could feel in her bones. Not words. Not even breath.
Just weight. Motion. Intent.
Lucavion never spoke in fights.
He let his blade speak for him.
And Jesse... she had always listened.
—SHRRRING!—
His estoc slid along the flat of her blade, riding the angle until he spun away with effortless grace, using the drag to reposition, to bait. Jesse followed—half a step too slow—and imdiately felt the trap closing.
But she rembered this.
’He likes to test spacing that way. First draw is never ant to land—it’s ant to read.’
She adjusted. Shifted her footwork against what her instincts scread, and in doing so—escaped his circle.
Lucavion’s blade hissed through the empty air where her wrist would’ve been.
He didn’t blink.
Didn’t falter.
He just turned.
His foot slid diagonally—counter-reaping—a movent he’d taught her. Taught her to punish straight-lined fencers. To cut their rhythm mid-rotation.
She knew what ca next.
She pivoted—mirroring him.
Their swords t.
—CLAAANK!—
Jesse gritted her teeth, their hilts locking for a breathless mont. He was stronger. Always had been. But that didn’t an he pushed.
Lucavion never wasted effort.
Even now, the pressure was exact. Not overwhelming—just enough.
’You’re still asuring . You bastard.’
Her body spun away, tight arc, Reaping Form 4—the low shoulder cut. Her blade whispered across the space—
But Lucavion stepped into it.
—CLANG!—
A shallow parry.
Barely a turn of his wrist, but it redirected her cut—tilted it off her axis by just a hair.
Enough to break form.
Enough to leave her vulnerable.
She leapt back.
Two steps.
Then three.
Her lungs burned.
Her grip tightened.
Lucavion remained exactly where he was.
Not chasing.
Not pressing.
Watching.
’You never chased unless you had to. Still the sa.’
But he wasn’t just the sa.
His footwork...
That had changed.
There was a tightness now. A surgical stillness in the way he moved. Less flourish. Less show. He was quieter—deadlier.
And Jesse felt it.
Not just the sharpness.
The evolution.
He’d fixed it. Now his movents didn’t look like Lucavion.
He approached again.
Not fast.
asured.
And then—
—SWOOSH!—
His estoc darted forward—not a thrust. A bait.
Jesse didn’t take it.
She ducked low, her shoulder rolling inward, blade slicing diagonally up from hip to shoulder in a hybrid arc. It wasn’t textbook. Not family style. Not his.
—SHHHRINK!—
He caught it.
Barely.
That smile in his eyes—it still remained.
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