The fighting on the hill stopped.
Nobody ordered it. My recruits simply lowered their wooden spears, and Ren's veterans lowered theirs, and a hundred soldiers on both sides stepped back and made a ring around the beacon platform, the way crowds do in a village square when two men take their coats off. They knew. Every soldier in this theatre was tied to its commander. If he fell, they went with him.
I drew my sword. Ren settled into his stance.
"Nightingale," he said. "Don't hold back. I'd hate to win because you were being polite."
"I'll try not to be polite."
I came in first.
I swung down at him, flames running along the edge of the blade, my aura burning hot. Ren shifted into a low, coiled stance and threw a single straight punch. His fist was wrapped in gravity, dense and dark, and it met my sword head-on with a sound like a door slamming in a stone hall. The blade stopped. I went back a step.
Not from strength. From weight. His fist had hit like a falling building.
