Blake tossed the dagger back into the mist. He tried to throw it like a proper throwing knife, but he’d never tried before, and it ended up flopping limply into the mud. “Whoops…” he muttered, then said, “River, hide—”

  The little Eiknir was already gone. She had a good sense for danger. He clamped his lips shut and listened for Mingel.

  Nothing. She kept herself hidden almost perfectly. The only footsteps he could hear were of a distant howler, and she moved so smoothly that any ripples in the air were entirely undetectable.

  Without Ethbin, there was no way of sensing her.

  “So, you’re training me to kill Heron, right?” he said. “This is how Heron will fight?”

  “The Severed Crown Path allows him to create a copy of himself and attack from any angle he deems advantageous. It is his Shaping technique.”

  Blake turned toward the direction of her voice, but surely, she’d already moved away.

  A dagger whistled toward him from behind. She’d practically teleported behind him. He whirled and swatted the dagger out of the air, knocking it down to the ankle-high swampy water. Another dagger flew toward him, this time racing right between his eyes.

  He triggered the Serpent’s Cloak and bashed the dagger away before it hit his eyes. Using the strength-enhancing side of the technique gave him just enough speed to block in time.

  “Right, then,” he said. “Something tells me you’re still trying to get a bit of anger out of your system.”

  “You think Silverbeard will spare any effort? He wants you dead. He wants your little sect wiped off the map. His father commands it, and he is a loyal son.”

  Blake couldn’t just stand around. Mingel was out there. She was trying to get closer, trying to find an angle to attack from. He had to take the fight right out to her. Surely, she’d underestimate the power of his new Augmentation technique.

  He took a deep breath, reaching out with all his physical senses and…

  There! To his right slightly, a ripple in the water. He sprang off, creating a wave of water and mud behind him, parting the mists.

  The mist ahead thinned, revealing Mingel having leapt into the branch of a tree. Blake triggered a Black Palm and filled his staff with the energy, then swept it sideways through the roots of the mangrove. They shattered on impact, either from raw force or because his lightning broke them.

  As the tree toppled, Mingel sprang off and landed in a crouch. “Where’s your eiknir?” she asked.

  Blake glanced over his shoulder. “No idea. You knew about her?”

  “I would not kill an innocent creature like that.”

  “I assume you’ve seen my lightning.”

  “I do not care. You must do whatever it takes to defeat Silverbeard, dark lightning or not.” Her bruises and black eye had healed, but he noticed a few scrapes on her arm this time. He wasn’t going to ask, but he figured it had something to do with Heron.

  When he glanced forward again, another dagger flew toward his chest. He batted it upward, then refocused on his surroundings.

  For the first time, he actually saw Mingel use her Augmentation technique. Her body seemed to evaporate, along with her equipment and possessions. A breeze whisked through the street, carrying her across to the front eave of a crumbling, mist-shrouded house.

  “I can’t help but notice that you’ve got only…two knives left.” Blake said.

  “And you must’ve used all your mana,” she countered.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Although River wasn’t anywhere to be seen, he called on her healing ability and cleansed the char from his Honour channels. Then he considered his sources of Honour: worth surged from Mingel, though it wasn’t strong. There was no one else nearby to grant it. Her rank hadn’t dawned on him, but whatever she’d been doing, she’d advanced only one stage between their last meeting, and was at Tempering four. Probably close to advancing. Still, Bravery wasn’t working.

  But she had attacked him out of the blue, trying to surprise him.

  That granted him no Honour, no matter how much it frustrated him. She wasn’t being dishonourable out of malice.

  Loyalty, however, created a massive surge. He was ultimately trying to help her. He’d kept his promises to her. Energy rushed through his siphon, filling him with Honour, and allowing him to keep using his abilities.

  He sprang forward, holding his staff out to the side, trying to leap up to the eave where she stood. But she darted to the side. His toes clipped the eave and smashed through like a cannonball, and he crashed through the house’s abandoned second floor. He jumped to his feet, only for the floor to collapse beneath him, leaving him in an abandoned kitchen, standing in waist-high water.

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  “You don’t seem terribly practiced with your new Augmentation,” came Mingel’s voice. “You will need more control to beat Silverbeard.”

  “I have to hide my abilities in public,” he countered. “I can’t just train with them whenever.”

  “Then train them now. Hit me.”

  “Why does everyone always want me to hit them?” Blake grumbled.

  “I am used to it.”

  “Yeah, that’s not a good thing.”

  “Welcome to cultivation. And marriage.”

  He sighed. “Right. I’m pretty sure that’s not how marriage is supposed to work.”

  Again, he reached out with his senses, trying to locate her. It took a while, but he found her outside. He smashed through the wall, then extended his leap with the ‘Cloud Body’ half of his Augmentation. She must not have expected the distance of the leap, nor for him to shift up the technique at the last minute, once again boosting his strength and density. As his staff slammed into the ground, she only barely rolled away.

  “You can do better than that, can’t you?”

  “Taunting people isn’t very nice.”

  “Silverbeard will taunt you.”

  The more he thought about it, though, the more she taunted him, the more Honour flowed. The more he could divert into Augmentation and Smite techniques at the same time. Or he could simply pour into his enhanced muscles and skin for defense and extra speed. He needed his opponents to taunt him.

  “Nevermind,” he said. “Thank you for taunting me.”

  “Hm?”

  Before she could escape, he raced off in her direction again. Certainly, she wasn’t using her Augmentation to keep herself light-footed. That was just her natural state of existence. But she didn’t fade away into the wind and disappear. She rolled to the side, but they were face-to-face.

  “Found you,” he said.

  That didn’t make fighting her any easier. She’d brought a short spatha with her. It was nothing special, but it was about the same length as Heron’s. She drew it and fought him at a close distance.

  “You know how to sword fight?”

  “Surprised?”

  “I don’t know either. It’s nothing against—” He blocked a flurry of blows with the haft of his staff, Augmenting himself. To keep the length of wood from shattering, he began a Smite technique. Black lightning surged around the staff, protecting the wood from damage, even against her direct blows.

  Whatever she’d done to sharpen her blades, it also worked for swords. He wasn’t taking any risks when her Smite technique was to concentrate a blade’s cutting ability.

  “Silverbeard attacks with a relentless barrage to overwhelm his opponents,” she said.

  “You’ve fought him?”

  “I have sparred with him.” She narrowed her eyes. “As is tradition, he had to defeat me in a sparring match to earn the privilege of making a marriage proposal.” Frustration tinged her voice. “Mother told me to lose the fight on purpose.”

  “Would you have won?” Blake ducked under a heavy swipe, then reversed his Augmentation technique and jumped over another slash.

  “...No.”

  Blake twisted to the side, avoiding a sword thrust, then drove it down into the mud with a crack of his staff. He conjured a bolt of black lightning from the ground, aiming at her hand. Pulling back, she whirled back up into a fighting position.

  “How do you still have mana?” she gasped.

  “How are you not exhausted?” Blake countered. He wiped a hand across his forehead, gathering beads of sweat, and flicked them away.

  “I didn’t spend a day and a half running here with an Augmentation technique active,” she said. “I planned in advance.”

  Blake tilted his head. “Okay, perhaps I did that to myself, but I wasn’t actually expecting an answer.”

  She charged forward, pointing her sword up toward his chin. “I expect an answer for your mana supplies, too.”

  “Then you have to beat me. For the, uh, honour of me telling you.” Jumping back, he tried to kick the sword out of her hand, but she pulled away.

  “You would’ve lost your foot.”

  “My bad,” he muttered.

  “Now—” She charged forward, aiming right at his belly, “Just lose!”

  He hung on for nearly ten more minutes before the exhaustion finally caught up with him. He really shouldn’t have run over here before, but hey, it was good practice. But even with his Augmentation techniques, and an unquenchable well of Honour, Mingel eventually overcame him.

  It was only after he’d knocked her sword aside, though, and forced her to switch back to her daggers, which she was far more comfortable and experienced with. He wanted to count it as a victory in his mind, but all it meant was that he needed more training.

  “I concede,” he said when she pointed the dagger up at his throat.

  “Excellent.” She turned away, and he was pretty sure he caught a faint smile, but he couldn’t say for certain. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and sheathed her daggers, then wiped her face on her shoulder. “Now, tell me how you never run out of mana.”

  “Is there a ‘please’ in there somewhere?”

  She threw her arms down in frustration.

  “I mean, I’ve been polite with you, princess.”

  “Princess?”

  “Well—”

  “Princess is a term reserved for the daughters of the king, and you would be wise to adhere to that tradition.”

  “Right. Sorry, princess.” He chuckled, then waited expectantly.

  “Please?”

  “Well…” He tossed an idea around in his mind for a few seconds, then said, “I’ll give you a hint: I’m keeping my siphon open all battle.”

  “Do I get more hints if I beat you again?”

  “You really want to know, huh?”

  “Of course I do.” She crossed her arms. “We take ten minutes. Rest, refill your mana, and then training continues.”

  Blake gave an exaggerated bow. “I expect nothing less, princess.”