Three months had passed before I could land so much as a single strike upon him.

  It had been an agonizing trial–one that tested the very limits of my endurance. Yet, rather than succumbing to despair, I found solace in the challenge. It was as though an immense door loomed before me, waiting to be unlatched. And no matter the cost, I would see it opened. Every failure, every bruise, every fall was a lesson carved into my bones.

  But still, I was not fast enough.

  “Your stance is weak,” the bore would say, knocking my blade aside with effortless grace. “Your grip—sloppy. Your footing—laughable.”

  Every critique was delivered with ruthless precision, yet I clung to his words, letting them carve away my weakness. With each dawn, I roused myself before the sun crested the horizon, stretching my weary limbs in preparation for the day’s labor. My stance had once been clumsy, my grasp upon the blade uncertain, but time and discipline had carved away my hesitation. By the fourth month, I had mastered the rudiments of the sword. The blade was no longer a foreign thing in my hands. It was becoming an extension of me. Yet mastery of the fundamentals alone would not grant me victory.

  In the fifth month, the bore crossed his arms and studied me with the sharp gaze of a hawk. He declared that I must fight in the Crimson Crucible. “Combat,” he said, “is the greatest teacher. Without the heat of battle, one’s skill is but a lifeless thing, devoid of purpose. It decrees whether the warriors are forged or broken.”

  “Ah. Of course.” I exhaled.

  Thus, I was cast into the fray, pitted against warriors of skill. Day after day, I crossed blades with those whose strength eclipsed my own. Five duels. Five times I fell to my knees. Five more lessons etched into my skin. I learned from their movements, from the weight behind their strikes, from the sharp sting of steel meeting flesh. My failures became the whetstone upon which my resolve was honed.

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  Each night, I collapsed onto my cot, my muscles screaming, my vision blurred with exhaustion.

  “Any regrets?” the bore asked one evening, standing by my bedside, arms crossed.

  I forced out a breathless chuckle. “None.”

  For nearly a year, Fane withheld himself from my blade, deeming me unworthy to face him again. Not until the eleventh month did he finally consent to a rematch.

  Our blades met under the dying sun, its golden light casting long shadows across the training grounds. He moved like a tempest—impenetrable, unrelenting, swift as lightning and twice as merciless. But I was no longer the person he had bested upon our first clash. My sword arm did not waver, my breath did not falter. Every step, every strike, was executed with precision borne of tireless training. The battlefield rang with the clash of steel, our forms locked in a deadly rhythm of advance and retreat.

  Blades clashed, the air trembling with the force of our battle. My heart pounded, my body singing with adrenaline. I saw it—his feints, his openings, the briefest moments where his guard slipped. I was close. Closer than I had ever been. A single step, a single cut, and I would have had him.

  But in the end, I lost.

  His sword came to rest at my throat, the battle decided in a fraction of a breath. Silence hung between us, broken only by our ragged breathing.

  “Better.” His voice was softer than before, lacking its usual sharp edge. He sheathed his blade. “But not enough.”

  I fell to my knees, my grip trembling around my hilt. Yet I did not feel defeat. Instead, I felt something else entirely.

  I had outgrown my former self.

  I had stood at the precipice of victory, had felt the brush of greatness against my fingertips. And though I had failed, I knew—I knew—that the next time we crossed blades, it would be different.

  I met his gaze, my eyes burning with unyielding determination. For the briefest movement, he flinched, just slightly. Something flickered across his face—gone before I could name it. A hesitation? A crack in his composure? But in an instant, he smoothed his expression, as if it had never happened.

  “I am close,” I said, voice steady, unwavering. “The next time we fight you will taste defeat.”

  A slow, knowing smile ghosted across his lips.

  “I shall wait.”