The villages burned in a pattern.

  Not random. Never random.

  Rynor saw it from the ridge, the way smoke rose in staggered lines, like someone had planned where hope was allowed to die first. One settlement still standing meant three already erased. Wells fouled. Grain stores split open and left to rot. Bells ringing long after there was no one left to answer them.

  Tharos was not trying to win land.

  They were trying to teach fear its name.

  “Pull back the wounded,” Varrek ordered behind him. His voice was rougher now, blood drying dark along his forearm. “They’re not done.”

  Rynor didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the road cutting through the fields.

  Someone was walking toward them.

  Alone.

  The soldiers noticed first. Spears lowered. Nervous murmurs spread like insects under bark.

  The man wore black armor chased with dull silver. No banner. No entourage. His cloak dragged behind him, heavy, unhurried. Every step was deliberate, heel to dirt, as if the ground itself had agreed to make room.

  Lyra felt it then. That tightening behind the ribs. The sense that something had finally arrived.

  “That’s him,” she said quietly.

  Rynor rolled his shoulders once. His golden hair stirred in the wind, loose and unbound. He pushed it back from his eyes, breathing slow.

  “The Lord Commander,” Varrek said. No awe. No fear. Just acknowledgment. “Tharos finally stopped sending children.”

  The man stopped twenty paces away.

  Silence stretched. Smoke drifted between them. Somewhere far off, a roof collapsed with a sound like a sigh.

  “You’re younger than I expected,” the Lord Commander said. His voice was calm, almost curious. “They made you sound taller.”

  Rynor smiled thinly.

  “They made you sound smarter.”

  Steel left its sheath.

  The sound was clean. Final.

  The Lord Commander’s blade was longer than Rynor’s, heavier, built to break guards instead of slip past them. He settled into his stance like he had all day to be there.

  Rynor moved first.

  Not fast.

  Testing.

  Their blades met with a crack that rang up Rynor’s arms and into his teeth. He stepped back, boots sliding in the dirt, adjusting to the weight, the reach. The Lord Commander followed immediately, pressure relentless, forcing Rynor to give ground inch by inch.

  Good, Rynor thought. Strong. Not clumsy.

  They circled.

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  Wind pulled at cloaks and hair. Rynor’s breath fogged once, twice. The Lord Commander’s eyes never left him.

  “You’ve killed my magicians,” the man said, striking again. “Twenty-three.”

  Rynor parried, twisted, sparks jumping as steel kissed steel.

  “They shouldn’t have stood so close,” he replied.

  The next blow came low. Rynor jumped it, landed, felt the shock travel up his legs. The Lord Commander adjusted instantly, shoulder slamming into Rynor’s chest, knocking the air from him.

  Rynor staggered back three steps.

  Lyra swore under her breath.

  The Lord Commander didn’t press immediately. He watched.

  “Most men fight to prove something,” he said. “You fight like you’re already convinced.”

  Rynor wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with his thumb and grinned, feral now.

  “Most men talk too much.”

  He went in hard.

  This time, faster.

  A flurry. High, low, feint, cut. The Lord Commander blocked the first two, barely turned the third, took the fourth across the shoulder. Armor shrieked. He stepped back once, eyes sharpening.

  There it is.

  The Lord Commander smiled.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “There you are.”

  They collided again.

  Steel sang. Boots tore up dirt. Each impact sent shock through muscle and bone. Rynor ducked a killing stroke by a breath, felt wind tear past his scalp, hair snapping loose again. He answered with a cut that would have ended anyone slower.

  The Lord Commander caught it on his guard.

  Their faces were inches apart.

  “I will break you,” the man said, not unkindly.

  Rynor’s eyes were bright, alive, furious.

  “You can try.”

  The Lord Commander kicked his knee.

  Pain flared. Rynor hissed, stumbled, recovered. He rolled away as the blade came down where his spine had been.

  Around them, the world held its breath.

  Varrek’s hand tightened on his sword. Lyra’s fingers dug into her palm until it hurt.

  Rynor rose slowly, blade steady, chest heaving.

  The Lord Commander tilted his head.

  “You’re bleeding,” he observed.

  Rynor glanced down at the cut along his ribs, felt the warmth there, the pull with each breath.

  He laughed.

  “Good,” he said. “So are you.”

  The wind shifted.

  Smoke thickened.

  And somewhere behind the Lord Commander, the earth trembled as Tharos forces began moving again, confident now that their monster had found Valcaryn’s.

  The duel wasn’t over.

  It had only just decided to become personal.