their stances. All trace of a smile on Marco’s pretty face was gone. Everyone knew what was at stake here. Top of hall. One step closer to becoming a full-fledged Blade. Marcellus nodded to Mia, cool and confident. Like everyone else in the room, he knew this would be a thrashing.
A gong rang in the dark. Marco stepped forward, hewing at the air in brutal, broad strokes, expecting Mia to fall back and dodge. He’d no idea the girl had other plans. Plans formulated with Naev in the hours before every mornmeal. Their blades whistling in the dark as they sparred, back and forth. The aches and pains. The weeks and months of feigning weakness in Solis’s classes, letting herself get cut, stabbed, constantly thrashed by Jessamine, Diamo, Pip, Petrus, all of them. All to build up the illusion of weakness. A viper playing possum. A scabdog, bleeding in the dust.
It was just as Mercurio had said.
Sometimes weakness is a weapon.
If you’re smart enough to use it.
Mia met Marco’s third thrust with her stiletto, twisting it aside and throwing the bigger boy off balance. Marcellus raised his buckler to guard, ready to fend off Mia’s weak riposte as he’d done a hundred times in previous bouts. But with a speed built up in those countless hours with Naev, with a strength she’d kept hidden during those countless beatings under Solis’s pitiless eyes, she whipped her rapier through the air, scoring a deep gash on Marco’s shoulder.
The boy staggered, confused and off-balance. Mia backed away, bouncing on her toes and cutting the air with her bloodied blade.
“Still going to be gentle with me, Marco?” she smiled.
The boy scowled and launched a second attack, blows scything past Mia’s head as she skipped beneath them. The girl faded, twisted, moving like a dancer, and the clash ended with another deep cut, this time on Marco’s swordarm. Blood spattered on the stone. And as Marcellus finally began to realize the depth of the water in the which he swam, Mia lunged forward, strike, strike, feint, strike, dashing his longsword from his grip, and laying her blade to rest above Marco’s thundering heart.
“Yield,” she demanded.
The boy looked at her face. Down to her blade. Chest heaving. Skin drenched.
“… Yield,” he finally spat.
“Point!” cried Solis, as someone cracked the gong.
Mia dropped into a skirtless curtsey, and returned to her place at circle.
The other acolytes murmured among themselves, astonished.
Naev’s veil hid her smile.
Jessamine smiled not at all.
The bouts ran all morning, sweat and blood glistening on the stone. Though Pip found himself near-gutted by Osrik, and Jessamine cut Marco’s throat ear to ear with a lightning-swift strike, Speaker Adonai and Weaver Marielle stepped in quickly to mend any serious injury. No acolyte lost more than a few droplets of their best in the circle.
In defiance of expectations, and beneath Solis’s undisguised scowl, Mia won three of her four remaining bouts. Truth was, thanks to Mercurio, she’d never been a slouch with a blade, but Naev’s secret tutelage had honed her to a finer edge, and the idea that everyone in the room expected her to fail simply drove her harder to rub their collective faces in the dirt. She thrashed Ashlinn in their match-up (with her lead in Mouser’s contest, Ash didn’t seem overly worried, though she did flip the knuckles afterward) and soundly beat Petrus, disarming him with a perfect riposte and burying her stiletto in the bigger boy’s chest.
With preliminary bouts done, the top four acolytes remained on the circle’s edge, while all others retired to the benches around. Both Jessamine and Osrik stood undefeated, placed first and second, respectively. Tric had placed third, losing only to Jess. And in fourth place, despite the stormclouds almost visibly gathering over the Shahiid of Songs’ head, sat our own Mia Corvere.
“Final eliminations will now be fought,” Solis announced. “Choose the matches.”
The Hands at Solis’s side bowed. One proffered the human skull, the second reaching inside to pluck one of the four naming stones therein. Mia watched carefully, eyes narrowed. She felt the shadows nestled inside that hollowed crown. The smooth black rock carved with each contender’s name. Her fingers twitching behind her back.
“Acolyte Osrik…”—a second stone—“… faces Acolyte Tric.”
Mia looked across the circle, met by Jessamine’s cold smile.
“Acolyte Mia faces Acolyte Jessamine.”
Solis nodded, turned to the two boys.
“Acolytes, take your places.”
Mia glanced at Tric, flashed him a smile. The undefeated Osrik prowled into the ring, muscular arms gleaming with sweat. The boys faced each other across the