'Stop trying to match him,' Valenna continued, her voice sharpening. 'You are not him. You never will be. Use what you are.'

Marcus launched another textbook attack, blade moving through the precise sequence that had been drilled into noble sons for generations.

Soren recognized it from Kaelor's training, the Emerald Path, a Karvath specialty designed to force opponents into increasingly disadvantageous positions.

Instead of attempting to counter with equally formal technique, Soren dropped his shoulder and pivoted awkwardly, deliberately breaking form. His blade came up in a choppy, inelegant movement that no swordmaster would ever teach.

Marcus's perfect rhythm faltered for just a heartbeat as he encountered a response outside his extensive training. His blade missed its mark by inches, cutting air where Soren should have been according to proper form.

The crowd's murmur shifted, notes of surprise entering the collective voice. This wasn't how tournament combat was supposed to proceed. This wasn't the elegant dance of traditional swordplay.

Soren pressed the advantage, abandoning everything Kaelor had taught him about noble forms. Instead, he moved with the sharp, unpredictable rhythm of back-alley fights where survival mattered more than style.

His footwork became deliberately erratic, his strikes coming from odd angles that violated every principle of formal swordplay.

Marcus adjusted, but his movements grew less fluid as he was forced to improvise beyond his training. The perfect machine of his technique began to show small hesitations, tiny gaps between what he expected and what he encountered.

"What are you doing?" Marcus hissed during a brief blade-lock, genuine confusion crossing his handsome features. "This isn't proper combat."

Soren didn't waste breath on response. He disengaged and slashed low, a street fighter's move targeting the knee rather than the more honorable chest or shoulder.

Marcus barely blocked in time, his expression hardening as he recognized the deliberate transgression of tournament etiquette.

The fight grew messier, uglier. Sand kicked up around their boots as Soren abandoned the clean footwork of formal training for the scrambling, off-balance movements of someone fighting for their life rather than points.

His blade no longer traced elegant arcs through the air but moved in jagged, unpredictable patterns.

Marcus was forced to respond in kind, stepping outside the perfect forms that had defined his training. His face flushed with growing frustration as techniques that had served him through countless tournaments proved increasingly inadequate against Soren's chaotic approach.

Between exchanges, as they circled each other in the ring's center, Marcus spoke again, not with Aric's blind hatred, but with the cold superiority of someone defending an established order.

"You shame the tournament with your gutter tricks," he said, voice pitched to carry no further than Soren's ears. "Nobility must remain untainted by such methods."

The words carried more than personal insult, they echoed House Karvath's fundamental ideology. Tradition. Order. Preservation of the old ways against the corruption of innovation.

Soren recognized it for what it was: not just a duel of blades but of worldviews. The established hierarchy against the disruptive outsider. Form against function. Rules against survival.

Marcus reset his stance and launched into his most impressive sequence yet, a flawless disarm technique that moved through eight precise positions with machine-like efficiency. His blade became a silver blur as it sought the perfect angle to twist Soren's weapon from his grip.

For a heartbeat, it nearly succeeded. Soren felt his sword almost leave his hand, his wrist bending painfully against the leverage of Marcus's perfect technique.

The shard against his chest pulsed with sudden urgency. 'Lower,' Valenna commanded, her voice sharp as breaking ice. 'Uglier. Sharper. He expects honor, show him survival instead.'

Instead of resisting the disarm directly, Soren rolled with the momentum, dropping to one knee in a movement no swordmaster would ever teach. The unexpected change in elevation disrupted Marcus's perfect sequence, leaving him overextended for a crucial moment.

Soren's counterstrike came from below, blade slashing toward the unprotected area where Marcus's thigh armor met his hip, a target considered dishonorable in tournament combat, where above-the-waist strikes were the gentlemanly norm.

The crowd gasped collectively as Marcus barely twisted away, the blade missing his leg by a finger's width. The near violation of tournament etiquette sent a shock wave through the noble galleries. Whispers erupted, scandalized and thrilled in equal measure.

"Disgraceful!"

"No better than a common brawler!"

"This is what happens when we allow street rats in our tournaments!"

But beneath the outrage, Soren caught something else, a current of excitement from the common folk pressed against the outer barriers.

They watched with growing enthusiasm as formal combat gave way to something more primal, more honest.

Marcus's perfect composure finally cracked. His next attacks came faster, harder, tinged with the frustration of someone whose lifelong training suddenly proved inadequate.

His timing faltered as he attempted to anticipate Soren's unpredictable rhythm, his blade sometimes arriving a heartbeat too early or too late.

"You cannot win this way," Marcus insisted between exchanges, genuine conviction in his voice. "This isn't how it's done."

Soren's ears rang with the crowd's jeers. The frustration in Marcus's voice tugged at something in his memory, Kaelor's lessons on the training yard, months ago.

"Proper knights rely on patterns," the Swordmaster had growled. "When patterns fail, they falter. Bait. Deflect. Counter. Three steps that kill the perfect knight."

The words crystallized in Soren's mind with sudden clarity. He retreated two steps, deliberately opening his guard on the right side, a weakness Marcus had exploited twice already.

The bait.

Marcus's eyes narrowed, recognizing the opportunity. His blade lashed out with textbook precision, targeting the gap in Soren's defense. The knight's weight shifted forward, commitment absolute as he drove toward what appeared to be a guaranteed hit.

The deflect.

Soren pivoted, not meeting the force directly but redirecting it with a rough circular parry that no swordmaster would ever teach. Marcus's perfect strike slid past him, the momentum carrying the knight slightly off-balance.

The counter.

Without hesitation, Soren drove forward. His blade moved not in the elegant arc of tournament combat but in the brutal, direct thrust of someone who had learned fighting as survival rather than sport.

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