your end when someone swings a large and sharpened bit of metal at you.
Mia knew Solis had never respected her as an acolyte, as a Blade, as an opponent. With Eclipse beside her, she was fearless. Lithe and muscled, hard as steel, Mia Corvere was every bit the champion who’d won the Venatus Magni. But Solis was taller than her. His reach was longer and his experience deeper, and with his Belt of Eyes, he could see her strikes coming through that swirling rain of embers and smoke. When Mia was still a child, he was murdering hundreds with his bare hands to escape the Philosopher’s Stone. He’d served for years as the greatest swordsman in the Red Church congregation. In every conceivable fashion, he thought himself her better.
“Worthless slip,” he growled, blocking her strike.
He swung hard, almost taking Mia’s head off her shoulders.
“Pathetic child,” he spat, forcing her away.
Mia danced backward, nearly slipping on the bloody floor. She turned aside his blade, lashed out with her own. Dodge. Strike. Parry. Lunge. Her pulse was soon thumping, sweat burning her eyes. Solis’s twin blades cut the air in hypnotic patterns, whistling as they came. A perfect lunge from the Shahiid almost split her rib cage in two. A second strike nearly knocked her longblade from her hand.
“Mia!” Jonnen called from below, stepping forward in fear.
“… BEWARE, MIA…,” Eclipse growled at her feet.
Mia gasped for breath as Solis’s lips curled in a smile.
“You disappoint me, girl,” he said.
As she parried another of his punishing blows, Mia began to realize just how strong her foe truly was. Just how little her rage and her speed counted for in a match like this. The Shahiid’s arms were as thick as her thighs. His hands like dinner plates. The man was made of muscle, half again her height, fully twice her weight; a single blow from him, a single mistake, would be enough to end her.
And so she had to end him first.
Mia slipped aside another of Solis’s strikes, jumped up, and kicked off the stair’s railing. Leaping into the air, she raised her blade in an overhead swing, throwing all her strength and fury behind it. It was an impressive move. A move that might make an audience gasp in wonder. But it was also a novice’s move. A flashy and garish arena move. A move that someone in a hurry might try, in the hopes of ending a bout against a superior opponent. And Solis knew it. Because in the end, his opponent was just a worthless slip. A pathetic child. A girl. And he was simply stronger than her.
Fortunately, the same couldn’t be said of his blades.
Solis’s swords were Liisian steel, you see. The metal had been folded a hundred times, sharpened to an edge keen enough to cut the sunslight. But Mia’s blade had once belonged to Darius Corvere, the man Solis helped kill. Its hilt had been crafted like a crow in flight, the sigil of the familia Solis had helped destroy. And it was made of gravebone, gentlefriend. Sharper than obsidian. Stronger than steel.
And underestimating the blade, and the one wielding it, was Solis’s mistake.
The Shahiid’s lips curled. He raised one sword to ward off Mia’s blow, drew back his second, ready to split her guts. Their weapons met with a shuddering rinnnng. Edge to edge. Razored gravebone against folded Liisian steel. And the gravebone won.
Mia’s sword cleaved through Solis’s, sparks flying as his blade was sheared in two. Her blow found its mark, cutting into the big man’s shoulder, the chest beyond, blood spraying. Solis cried out, his strike gone wide as he staggered.
“Worthless slip,” Mia growled.
Dragging her blade down through his ribs, she tore it free in a slick of bright red gore.
“Pathetic child,” she spat.
Spinning on the spot and opening up his belly.
“Girl,” she smiled.
Solis’s insides spilled out. His blind eyes open wide.
“But I’m still the one who beat you,” Mia said.
She kicked him in the chest, sent him flying backward, skidding through his blood to slam against the wall. Holding in his ruptured guts, Solis tried to rise. He tried to speak. He tried to breathe. But in the end, he failed at all of it. And with a red gurgle, the Revered Father crumpled to the floor.
“Fuck yes!” Butcher bellowed from below, arms in the air. “CRO!”
Mia sank down into a crouch on the blood-slicked stone, one hand out to steady herself. She swallowed hard, trying to catch her breath as she clawed