“You’re not even Talented,” Kylar said.

“Lantano Garuwashi needs no magic.”

~Kylar Stern surely does!~

Kylar felt an old familiar shiver, an echo from his past. It was the fear of dying. With Alitaeran broadswords, Kylar could have crushed Garuwashi with the brute strength of his Talent. Against the elegant Ceuran sword, Kylar’s Talent did almost nothing for him. “Let’s get on with it,” Kylar said.

They began again, Garuwashi feeling Kylar out, even giving ground, seeing what Kylar could do. But there was no holding back. Kylar had seen that. Soon Kylar would tire and try something desperate. Garuwashi would be waiting for it—how many desperate men had he seen in sixty-three duels? Surely every man who had survived the first clash of blades had the same sick feeling in his stomach that Kylar had now. There was no room for self-delusion once the blades began singing.

Something changed on Garuwashi’s face. It wasn’t enough to tell Kylar what he was going to do; but it was enough to tell him that Garuwashi thought he knew Kylar’s strengths. Now he would end it.

There was a beat. Kylar waited for Garuwashi to advance, those damn long arms of his unbelievably quick, the stance fluid and sure.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Garuwashi asked, withholding his attack. “The rhythm.”

“Sometimes,” Kylar grunted, his eyes not leaving Garuwashi’s center, where he would see any movement begin. “Once, I heard it as music in truth.”

“Many died that day?” Garuwashi asked.

Kylar shrugged.

“Thirty highlanders, four wytches, and a Khalidoran prince,” Feir said.

Lantano Garuwashi smiled, not surprised at Feir’s knowledge. “Yet today you fight woodenly. You are stiff, slower than usual. Do you know why? That day you faced death no less than you do today.”

Wrong, but I didn’t know that then.

“Today,” Garuwashi continued, “you are afraid. It narrows your vision, tenses your muscles, makes you slow. It will make you dead. Fight to win, Kylar Stern, not to not lose.” It was disconcerting to hear good advice from the man who was about to kill him.

“Here,” Garuwashi said. He lifted Ceur’caelestos and Kylar saw the edges go blunt. “I’ll know when you’re ready.”

Feir leaned up against a tree and whistled quietly.

Garuwashi attacked again and within seconds, the dull sword scraped Kylar’s ribs. A few more seconds passed in furious ringing and the dull blade grazed his forearm, then jabbed his shoulder. But even as the blows rained down on him, Kylar began to remember his master Durzo’s merciless sparring. His fear receded. This was the same, except now Kylar had more endurance, more strength, more speed, and more experience than a year ago. And he’d beaten Durzo. Once. Kylar’s vision cleared and his pulse slowed from its frenzied hammering.

“That’s it!” Garuwashi said. Ceur’caelestos went sharp once more and they began.

Kylar was aware of Feir. The second-echelon Blade Master was seated cross-legged on the ground now, jaw slack. The man was muttering to himself, “Gabel’s Game to Many Waters to Three Mountain Castles—good, good—to Heron’s Hunt to—was that Praavel’s Defense? Goramond’s Dive to—what the hell? I’ve never—Yrmi’s Bout, good gods, some variation on Two Tigers? Harani Bulls to …”

The fight accelerated, but Kylar felt a calm. He was, he realized, smiling. Madness! Yet it was so, and Garuwashi’s thin lips were drawn up in a little smirk of their own. There was beauty here, something precious and rare. Every man wished he could fight. Few could, and only one in a hundred years fought this well. Kylar had never thought to see another master on a par with Durzo Blint, but Lantano Garuwashi might even be better than Durzo, a little faster, his reach a little longer.

Kylar dove behind a sapling a second before Garuwashi sheared it in two. As Garuwashi pushed aside the falling tree, Kylar thought. He only had one thing Lantano Garuwashi didn’t. Well, aside from invisibility.

~Oh, don’t use that! It wouldn’t be fair!~

What Lantano Garuwashi didn’t have was years of fighting against someone better than he was. Kylar was studying Garuwashi’s style in a way Garuwashi had never needed study anyone’s. It was straightforward. Garuwashi basically depended on his superior speed, strength, reach, technique, and flexibility to win. And—there!

Kylar went through half of Lord Umber’s Glut and then modified it, twisting the last parry so Ceur’caelestos missed his cheek by a breath. His own sword gashed Garuwashi’s shoulder—but Garuwashi’s counter was already coming. Kylar threw up an arm and instinctively brought the ka’kari up along the ridge.

White light blazed and threw thousands of sparks, as if Kylar’s arm were an enormous flint and Ceur’caelestos steel. Kylar’s arm burned.

The warriors staggered back and Kylar knew that if Garuwashi had put any more force into that counter, it would have destroyed the ka’kari.

~Please …please don’t ever do that again.~

“Who taught you that?” Garuwashi demanded, his face bright red.

“I …” Kylar stopped, confused. His left arm was throbbing, bleeding where Ceur’caelestos had scraped it.

“He means the combination, Kylar,” Feir said, his eyes wide. “That move’s called Garuwashi’s Turn. No one else is fast enough to do it.”

Kylar fell back into a ready stance, not in fear now, but futility. He’d thrown his best at Garuwashi and barely scratched him. “No one taught me,” he said. “It just seemed right.”

The anger dropped from Lantano Garuwashi’s face in an instant. This was a man, Kylar saw, of sudden passions, unpredictable, intense, dangerous. Garuwashi drew a white handkerchief and reverently wiped Ceur’caelestos clean of Kylar’s blood. He sheathed the Blade of Heaven.

“I will not kill you today, doen-Kylar, peace rest with your blade. In ten years, you will be full in your prime. Let us meet then in Aenu and fight before the royal court. Masters such as we deserve to fight with minstrels and maidens and lesser masters in attendance. Should you win, you may have all that is mine, including the holy blade. Should I win, at least you will have had ten years of life and glory, yes? It will be an event anticipated for a decade and retold for a thousand.”

In ten years Kylar would indeed be in his prime, and what Garuwashi wasn’t saying was that he would be past his own. Garuwashi would then be what, forty-five? Perhaps his speed and Kylar’s would be equal then. He would still have his reach, and both would have a lot more experience, but that was the more precious coin to Kylar. Would the Wolf care if Kylar waited ten years? Hell, if Kylar didn’t get himself killed, he wouldn’t even see the Wolf for …well, probably ten years. Then again, if Kylar died on this sword, he wouldn’t see the Wolf at all.

Grimacing, Kylar said, “You tell me, if I promised you that I was going to get something for you, would you want it now or in ten years?”

“If you try now, you’ll die. In ten years, you’ll have a chance.”

A month ago, Kylar had one goal: to convince his girlfriend Elene that eighteen years as a virgin was quite enough. Then Jarl had been murdered while delivering the news that Logan Gyre was trapped in his own dungeon. Kylar’s loyalties to the living and the dead had given him two new goals that had cost him the first. He’d abandoned Elene as he’d sworn he wouldn’t in order to save Logan and avenge Jarl by killing the Godking. It had cost him an arm, a magical bond to the beautiful disaster named Vi Sovari, and an oath to steal Garuwashi’s blade.

Now all Kylar wanted was to make sure his sacrifices hadn’t been for nothing, and then to go make things right with Elene.

As if to punish him for his faithlessness, he now imagined her saying, “An oath you only keep when it’s convenient isn’t an oath at all.”