"Lesson one," he said. "Your eyes are liars. Trust them at your own risk."
I lunged at him. He wasn't there.
The Maxx I'd attacked dissolved into shimmering nothing, and the real one tapped my shoulder with the flat of his blade.
"Lesson two. I'm always lying."
The training that followed was nothing like footwork and forms. This was chaos given form—Maxx throwing illusion after illusion at me, forcing me to fight through a world that keptshifting. Clones that attacked in perfect sync with the real thing, and I had a split-second each time to guess which sword would actually connect.
I guessed wrong. Often.
My muscles burned. My breath came in ragged gasps. But lurking with the exhaustion, a fierce, unfamiliar heat kindled—satisfaction, maybe. Or just the relief of facing a problem I could hit.
"Better," Maxx admitted, dancing back from a strike that actually grazed his sleeve. "You're starting to feel the difference. The real ones have weight. Presence." He waggled his eyebrows. "I do have a certain… undeniable presence."
"You're undeniably annoying."
"Synonyms, darling."
Serenya sat a few paces from the ring, perched on a fallen column with her ceremonial dagger balanced across her knees. Her braid had come loose, dark strands sticking to her neck. She'd been polishing that blade for the better part of an hour—slow, meditative strokes, her copper eyes tracking the sparring over the top of the steel every few passes.
Everyone assumed she was watching for fun. I knew better. She was cataloguing every fighter's weakness and filing it behind that serene face, the way she'd always done.
Maxx's gaze snagged on her. Again.
I saw the calculation behind his grin. Saw him weigh the moment, decide it was worth the risk.
"Let the priestess bless the blades while the rest of us bleed, huh?" His voice dripped with mocking sweetness. He spun one of his daggers in a lazy arc, then sent it flying with a careless flick. It buried itself with a meatythunkin the apple she'd set aside for later—six inches from her thigh, the steel still quivering.
She didn't even pause her polishing.
Then she spoke.
The words weren't in the common tongue. They weren't in any language I recognized—words that clung to the air like a plucked string.
Her hand drifted to the small mirrored token she kept tucked in her robes. It caught the light—reflected it—and the airshifted.
The dagger in the apple jerked. Then yanked out.
It spun once, twice, then rose like a puppet finding its strings.
And attacked him.
Maxx stumbled back, eyes going wide—shock cracking his perfect little face. He parried on instinct, steel ringing against steel, but the blade kept coming. It danced around his guard, anticipated his movements, forced him to fight himself.
I laughed. It was edged with a tinge of hysteria. Watching Maxx fight his own blade was the first thing that had feltrightall day.
Then it hit me.
She wasn't controlling the steel. She wasrememberingit—every strike Maxx had ever made, reversed and turned against him.
He was fighting his own history. And losing.
Maxx lasted maybe ten seconds before Serenya lowered her hand.
The dagger froze mid-strike. Hung suspended for a heartbeat. Then clattered to the dirt, lifeless again.
His face had gone pale under the perpetual smirk, and when he looked at Serenya, the mockery had drained out of his eyes entirely.
