A scarred, bearded man the size of a grizzly bear approached the training area with a rumbling ugh to accompany his toothy grin. Rufel was no typical Passguard, even among the mercenaries that made up the majority of their ranks—where many looked for an easy paycheck and little else, Rufel found enjoyment in running his sword through his enemies and watching the life vanish from their eyes. As he entered the circle, he snatched a battered sword and buckler from a trainee, his acquired weapons looking more like children’s toys in his gargantuan hands.

  “Already on the captain’s bad side, little dy?” Rufel said, pnting himself at the center of the training ring. An uneasy Janine took a few cautious steps backward toward the border of the training circle, just shy of crossing it—doing so would disqualify duelists in other contests throughout training. “Been a while since he gave me the chance to break some bones, ever since st year’s little... accident.”

  Janine’s eyes widened as she turned to the captain. “Sir, you can’t be serious!” By then, other Passguards started to gather around the circle, where the veteran guardians who were around before Galen’s arrival voiced their protests of the evaluation, only to be drowned out by the mercenaries cheering for Rufel to teach Janine the consequences of disobedience under Galen’s command.

  The captain seemed unmoved by Janine’s apparent fear. “Begin.”

  Before Janine could find her stance, Rufel pounced at her, sweeping his sword toward Janine’s ribcage. With little time to respond, she met Rufel’s chipped, dented steel with her own, but her awkward position left her off-bance, giving Rufel an opening to sm his buckler into Janine’s side. She tumbled backward into the mud, yelping in pain as she struck the ground. Rufel could have ended the match with that one blow had he chosen to knock Janine out of the ring, but he had instead forced her back toward the center—the mercenary seemed dead-set on drawing this ‘duel’ out.

  “C’mon, recruit,” Rufel said between bouts of his guttural ugh. “You better not be done already. The drunks at the Alehorse st longer on their feet! They’d stand a better chance against a Py’riel than you.”

  Janine got to one knee, grasping at me to make sure I was still around her neck. I knew Janine was better than one volley might lead a casual observer to believe—but it seemed like even at the moment, she didn’t believe it either, gncing toward the edge of the ring and contempting an early exit.

  Just rex, Janine. Rex and focus. Warren taught you how to fight against opponents like him.

  With a deep breath, Janine stood up again, closing her eyes for a moment to re-center herself before taking a proper fighting stance. This time, she readied herself for Rufel’s next attack. It almost felt like my words cut through the tension and fear and brushed it all aside, as if she’d actually heard me.

  When Rufel made his next approach and lunged at Janine, she read his motions and sidestepped the attack, sweeping her bde upward to aim at Rufel’s center. Her sword cshed with Rufel’s buckler instead, but her aggressive counter paid off, as the stocky mercenary took a step back.

  “That’s more like it,” Rufel said, grinning. “I’ll make you a deal though. That neckce is probably worth a few gold, yeah? Hand it over and I walk away, right now. Otherwise you’ll be lucky if you can walk at all when we’re done.”

  Janine grit her teeth, putting Rufel on the defensive with a wild swing of her sword toward the mercenary’s head. “Viridian stays with me!” I bristled at Rufel’s threat. He deserved to be humbled, knocked into the mud, staring up at us from his back.

  The trainees cheered as Janine managed to gain ground in the training circle as the two exchanged blows. For a man who regurly extracted blood with bdes as his profession, Rufel relied so much more on his brute strength than any sembnce of proper technique that Janine could capitalize on his little mistakes to avoid direct hits. I could feel energy inside me welling up from the excitement of the match, especially as Janine managed to keep pace with the mercenary. I’d absorbed every lesson Warren shared with Janine as well, so I knew all the ways Janine should step to counter Rufel’s momentum, or which strikes would force Rufel to respond with weaker attacks.

  What surprised me about Janine’s sudden effectiveness in the ring wasn’t her technique, she’d done these routines a thousand times with Warren’s guidance. It was the speed at which she made her decisions. Her motions came fractions of a second after I’d spotted them, mirroring what I thought was her best course of action every time. She’d never been so quick against Warren in training...

  The connection I’d felt with Janine back when she first put me on seemed stronger now. In the face of this new danger, I seemed to be lending more than just moral support through our bond—I was augmenting her instincts with my enhanced perception of our surroundings. Maybe... these decisions weren’t solely her own anymore, as our shared knowledge of Warren’s training helped Janine move like a seasoned fighter.

  Rufel growled in frustration as his sword spent most of its time slicing at air. He’d managed gncing blows, causing more injury filing his buckler at Janine than anything else—Warren’s lessons hadn’t covered counters against desperate thrashing yet. Despite a bloody nose and some scratches on her arm and face, Janine persisted. When Rufel miscalcuted a downward swing and his bde dug deep into the mud instead of his opponent, Janine took the golden opportunity to extend her bde forward, bringing its tip within an inch of Rufel’s sternum. The mercenary let go of his sword and stumbled back, crossing beyond the boundary of the training ring as the home-grown Passguards and recruits cheered Janine on.

  With a confident smirk, Janine turned toward Galen, wiping her bloody nose with her glove and resting her sword on her shoulder. “I guess it was a fair fight, huh? Warren’s been teaching me for years, you know. So I won, right? I can keep wearing my neckce now?”

  “Who says you’ve won?” The savage energy stormed in Galen’s eyes as he stared down Janine. “I never said this evaluation had any conditions for victory.”

  Janine’s face morphed into a confused expression as she tried to understand what else the captain wanted from her. Over the roar of the crowd, she didn’t hear Rufel return to his feet. He was just beyond her peripheral vision, taking step after menacing step toward her. Rufel’s grin had faded as well, the angry mercenary discarding any illusion of a fair fight as he stole another weapon from the crowd, swinging it with ferocity at Janine’s unguarded back.

  Behind you! I felt my magic boil inside me as I knew Janine couldn’t defend against Rufel on her own in time.

  A burst of green energy flowed out of me, swirling around Janine’s head and arms as my warning reached her at the st moment. Before Janine even realized what she was doing, her arms lifted her sword from her shoulder and braced her bde behind herself, ready for the impact against an attack she never saw coming.

  The next moments passed in a blur. Janine parried Rufel’s sword from behind, absorbing most of Rufel’s cruel ambush that would have likely severed her spine. The force of the impact still overwhelmed Janine’s own strength in such an awkward position, as her sword dug into her shoulder bde, cutting down to the bone and causing her to cry out in pain. From Janine’s side, Rufel reached a hand toward her neck, either to strangle her or steal me for himself—maybe both. She pulled the sword from her shoulder and struck Rufel square in the nose with its pommel with as much strength as she could muster. He stumbled backwards, yelling obscenities before he threw himself at Janine once more.

  “I’ll tear you to shreds!”

  The training grounds devolved into chaos, as Passguards pulled the humiliated and bloodied mercenary away from Janine. Warren and the others rushed to her side to treat her wounds. It’s good the other Passguards stepped in, I’m not sure I could have prevented Warren from making good on his promise. I’d need more time to understand this new depth to my connection with Janine to aid her properly, anyway.

  Even Captain Galen seemed on edge in the aftermath of the scuffle, his sword half-drawn from its sheath. One might have assumed he would have stepped in to stop Rufel from doing any further harm to one of his recruits, but Galen’s eyes had been tracking me the whole time, a hint of fear behind them. What was he so worried about? He stood frozen in pce, rain plinking off his armor, watching me as my bright glow died down to its usual intensity the further the other Passguards dragged Rufel away through the mud.

  “Enough for today,” Galen said, sheathing his sword as he turned toward the citadel’s doors. “Get cleaned up, evaluations continue tomorrow.”