Derry clapped my shoulder at some point and muttered his goodbyes. I barely heard him. He was already thinking about his own practice.

  If Lumi could not step inside that circle, I was done.

  No blade. No runes. No hiding.

  The amphitheatre stretched wide beneath me.

  Stone tiers rose in sweeping arcs, already alive with sparse movement. Spectators shifted along the levels. Assistants moved with purpose at the edges of the arena floor, tightening lines, hauling equipment into place.

  Lumi gave a low hum against my side.

  Off to the side, away from the spectators and the officials, the medical tent stood quiet. Canvas still.

  I drew a steady breath and felt the idea settle into place. Risky. Unproven. But it was something.

  I moved.

  I cut across the lower tiers, slipping past groups setting up for the day. Boots scraped stone. A few heads turned as they recognized me. Whispers followed.

  I kept walking.

  The tent flap shifted in the breeze, sunlight catching along its seam. It hung half open. I stepped inside. It was empty.

  Tables stood in neat rows beside narrow medical beds. Fresh bandages were stacked with care. Bowls of clean water caught the light. Folded cloth waited within reach of each cot.

  Lumi’s hum sharpened slightly.

  “What are you trying to achieve?” he asked.

  “I do not know yet. But I have an idea.”

  I drew Lumi and laid him across one of the empty cots. The covers dipped under his weight.

  I stepped back.

  The runes still thrummed. Faint, but steady.

  Another step.

  The runes’ power thinned.

  I took three more slow paces. The glow in my veins weakened, fading to a distant echo. One more step and the dull pressure vanished entirely.

  The curse surged up my spine like ice water.

  My hair darkened.

  “Six steps,” I muttered.

  I darted back. With each step, the familiar hum returned and the red bled back into my hair. With Lumi fully awake and in control, the change was instant.

  “I can’t lose the runes,” I said quietly. “The enhancements are the least of my worries.”

  Lumi gave a thoughtful hum. “I could alter my form. Something less conspicuous.”

  I considered it.

  A blade could shift its form. It could pass as something common. Something forgettable. But that could still get flagged by the rules.

  I glanced down at Lumi. “Can you become something small?”

  The metal softened beneath my fingers. His shape blurred and settled into a wooden practice sword.

  Same length. Same weight.

  I ran a hand along it and shook my head. “So that’s a no?”

  Lumi gave a low hum.

  At least now I knew.

  I looked toward the arena entrance and pictured the silver rings at the gate. Each entrant stepping through. Each one scanned. Measured. Watched.

  Nothing passed unchecked.

  Whatever I tried would have to survive that. They would not allow anything beyond their oversight.

  “The runes might be enough to hide you,” I said. “But we don’t know how strict they’re going to be.”

  I paused, ran it through my head once more, then shook it off.

  “No. Not worth the risk.”

  Lumi’s hum deepened, thoughtful.

  “And what course do you intend to take?”

  The circular chamber rose in my mind. Bronze doors. Marble floor. The shape of it.

  I let Lumi see it.

  I had felt them.

  The threads had reached for me, thin and pale in the dark, and I had taken hold. They had not felt like stolen skill or borrowed strength. They had settled into me with weight and intention, as if they recognised me.

  As if they had been waiting.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  There was purpose in that connection. It had not scraped against me or sat wrong beneath my skin.

  It fit.

  Like something that had always been mine, even if I had only just found it.

  I knelt beside Lumi and placed one hand on the hilt, the other against the flat of the blade. The metal pressed cold into my palm.

  I closed my eyes.

  The runes flowed through me, steady, while Lumi siphoned the blood curse.

  Nothing else answered.

  I pushed inward, through my own thoughts, and reached for Lumi the way I had reached for the other ancient weapons in that chamber. I searched past memory and trusted my instinct, feeling for the threads that had answered me before.

  But this time, there was nothing. No pull. No response.

  I’m missing something, I thought.

  I exhaled and opened my eyes. I adjusted my grip, ready to try again.

  The tent flap snapped open.

  I spun around.

  Red hair bounced as she stepped into the tent. Up close she was… disarming. Big green eyes. Freckles scattered across her cheeks.

  Heat crept up my neck.

  “So, it was you,” she said.

  “What?”

  She wore trial leathers, fitted and practical. Bracers tight at her wrists. Boots laced high. Her special dagger was concealed at her hip.

  She crossed the space between us and stopped so close I felt her breath against my cheek. Her eyes held mine, steady and unflinching.

  She huffed.

  Leather and something faintly floral clung to her. It threw me off for half a second.

  “I don’t like you.” She drove a finger into my chest with each word.

  “Ah. I’m sorry.”

  Her brows drew together. She looked me over from head to toe, taking in my clothes, my stance, the blade on the cot behind me. Her eyes returned to mine.

  “I guess she was right.” She blew out a sharp breath and folded her arms. “Alright. Sean, was it?”

  “Ah yeah… And you?”

  “Robyn,” she said, almost spitting it. “Listen carefully.”

  She studied my face again.

  “I know you’re not the one who…” She gestured at me. “And I don’t know why you’re using his face. Normally I would knock your block off for wearing Ricky’s face. But right now, we’ve got bigger problems.”

  My brows lifted. “The trial?”

  She stared at me.

  “You’re joking…”

  When I said nothing, she muttered a curse under her breath.

  “Okay. Butcher boy.” The way she said it sounded like she was correcting a slow child. “The pricks running this whole farce have been moving nonstop. Day and night. They’re building toward something.”

  She shook her head. “If Sable knew I was saying this much, she’d skin me.”

  She sighed, frustrated.

  “I’m not telling you because you look like him...”

  “The nobles are planning something,” I quickly added.

  She studied me for a moment.

  “So, you’re not completely useless.”

  “Right. Thanks,” I said, dry. “Anyway. We’ve known for a while they’re planning something big. We just don’t know what.”

  “We?”

  I faltered. She had offered more than I expected, but that did not make her safe. Still, if there was a chance to pull something useful from this, I had to take it.

  “Jerald,” I said.

  “The barracks guy?”

  I nodded.

  She weighed that for a moment. “We guessed as much. He’s been digging. Asking the wrong people the right questions.” Her jaw tightened. “But he’s chasing the wrong trail.”

  “Do the Bediveres have anything to do with it?” I asked.

  She went still at the name.

  Her green eyes lifted to mine and held there.

  For a second, I forgot what I had asked.

  She exhaled softly.

  “Some of our people have been tracking the Bediveres’ movements for months. And quite a few of them have disappeared.”

  “Damn.”

  “And now the higher-ups are rewriting the trial rules.”

  “They’ve changed the next one too,” I said.

  That got her attention.

  I quickly told her about my conversation with Derry. She didn’t interrupt. At first her focus sharpened, weighing each detail. By the time I finished, her expression had darkened.

  “I think they’re onto us,” she said.

  “Your dagger,” I replied.

  Her hand brushed the sheath at her hip. She nodded, then gave me a quick smile.

  “Thanks for that, by the way.”

  Some of the tension eased from my shoulders as the pieces settled into place. The red catalyst had found its way to her, and they had already worked out that it came from me, which meant they had either been watching the shop or watching me.

  One thing was certain. The blacksmith had not acted blindly. He had known exactly where that blade would end up.

  “We’ve been trying to get something like this for years,” she said.

  “You couldn’t just walk in and steal one?”

  She snorted softly. “And have half the city tracking us? Catalysts like that are keyed to specific blessings. They’re marked. Only a formal purchase severs the tracking thread.” Her eyes flicked over me. “Then you show up out of nowhere and buy the entire lot.”

  A low laugh slipped out of her.

  “So, tell me. Butcher boy… How did you manage that?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “I have my ways.”

  “Sable thinks you can change into people whenever you like.” She watched my face carefully. “Without the usual… process.”

  Her hand lifted and dragged lightly across her throat.

  I nodded.

  “Shit. If the higher-ups knew you could do that, they’d have you in irons before you finished blinking.” A smile tugged at her mouth. “So does that mean Ricky is…?”

  I held her gaze and let the question hang.

  “Sorry. I don’t know where he is,” I said. “Or if he’s alright.”

  The words felt hollow as they left my mouth.

  I could not explain the sword. Doing that would in all likelihood only make things worse.

  She gave a small nod, as if that answer was enough.

  “Well. At least our goals line up now.” She clapped my shoulder. “Good luck, Butcher boy.”

  Then she flashed a crooked smile. “I still don’t like you.”

  Her grin betrayed her.

  She turned and pushed through the tent flap, leaving the canvas swaying behind her.

  I let out a long breath.

  She did smell really good, I thought.

  I slapped my own cheek.

  “Focus.”

  I looked down at Lumi.

  He had not said a word.

  “Ready to try again?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I closed my eyes and drew in a slow breath, shutting out even that.

  Instead of reaching outward toward Lumi, I turned inward.

  Past my steady breathing. Past the rush of blood in my ears. I searched for what I had touched in that chamber. The thin thread that had answered me. Something older.

  For a long moment, there was nothing but my pulse.

  Then—

  There.

  A faint ember buried deep.

  Still burning. White.

  I smiled and brushed my fingers against Lumi as I followed that thread within me.

  White strands flared to life in my mind. A heartbeat later, light answered from the blade.

  They connected.

  I felt him.

  A thin line stretched between us.

  The breath left my lungs in a sharp pull. The sensation matched what I had felt with the sword and shield in the chamber.

  Not imagination.

  Memory.

  Fragments surfaced.

  Steel cutting through crimson daggers. Bodies pressing forward in endless waves. Undead collapsing beneath precise, ruthless strikes. Cursed corpses split open.

  The memories were not whole. They came in flashes. Angles of attack. Weight shifts. Timing.

  I held the thread and stood.

  My hand lifted from the blade.

  The connection stayed.

  The images faded as the metal left my palm. The flashes of steel and bone dissolved, but the thread did not break. Lumi remained there in the back of my mind. Steady. Solid.

  I took a step back.

  Nothing shifted.

  I took another.

  Still there.

  Six steps away, the runes burning along Lumi still flared as though my hand rested on the hilt.

  I took more.

  The current held firm.

  Two more.

  Stable.

  Two again.

  The connection trembled on the twelfth step, just for a heartbeat, then steadied.

  One more.

  A thin red tendril slid into my thoughts.

  It pressed in, searching for space, coiling toward the white threads. For an instant it began to overtake them.

  I stepped back.

  The red withdrew.

  The white threads steadied.

  I had found the edge. Twelve steps. Not generous. But enough.