Abnet's voice echoed in the training room.

"Again."

Lucian shifted uneasily, his right-hand tightening on one sword's hilt and his left on the other. Both blades felt foreign in dual stance.

Abnet sighed, then stepped forward with this own staff held steady.

"A staff relies on both hands. Not one commanding the other. You move like a swordsman—rigid and one-sided."

Lucian wiped sweat from his chin. "So what should I do?"

"Unlearn."

Abnet raised both swords, blades down. "Swordsmanship, especially one-handed, builds precision through the wrist. But a staff is body work. It flows from the shoulders and hips. Your wrists guide, they don't rule."

He lunged. Lucian blocked, barely. Abnet pivoted, both blades spinning in mirrored arcs.

"You see? Reverse grip keeps your elbows in. Same motion a staff demands. Try to match it."

Lucian struck forward. His left hand lagged behind. The counter came fast—metal pressed under his chin.

"Your right-hand leads. Your left hesitates. That's you fighting yourself."

Abnet stepped back. "A staff isn't a sword stretched long. It's two blades that forgot which hand they belonged to. Until both hands think alike, you'll never stop tripping on your own balance."

Lucian tried again. Abnet's strikes blurred, forcing him to shift stance, alternating grip and pivot. Each failed block jolted through his shoulders. Sweat stung his eyes.

"Feel it," Abnet said. "Your body must move as one line. No separate halves."

Lucian exhaled through his teeth. His arms began syncing by reflex instead of thought. The next swing turned the defense into a return strike. Abnet caught it clean but nodded.

"Better."

They circled once more. Lucian's breathing steadied. His focus narrowed to motion and rhythm.

Then the flash ended.

Now—the sound of crackling fire and sand replaced the echo of wooden floors.

Vencian crouched low behind a half-broken wall. Dozens of figures surrounded the ruins, their faces hidden beneath black cloths. Only eyes showed—flat and watchful.

He glanced toward Quenya. Her faint glow pulsed beside him, barely visible in the shadows.

Then he turned his eyes to Reine. She no longer trembled, having already witnessed more horror than anyone should in a single day, yet Vencian could still sense the fear lingering within her. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Stay behind the beam. Don't move unless I tell you."

Her nod was silent.

The bastard sword came into his hands already reversed—heavy enough for both, its machete edge settling against his bracer in one fluid motion. His body remembered what his wrists had learned: this grip felt wrong until the fight demanded it work.

"Ready?"

Quenya's glow brightened slightly. "Always."

The pact bound. Heat ran through his arms. The shed blurred. Smoke drifted through the broken rafters above, curling across the slanted roof. Barrels and tools lay scattered across the ground. Flames pushed at the edges of the structure, throwing unstable orange against the walls.

He opened the illusion. The space warped. Three copies of him fanned across the cramped floor, each one echoing his stance by half a breath. The goons paused. Their heads twitched between the figures.

One attacker charged. His blade cut through air. Another shouted in surprise as his swing hit his ally's shoulder. The man screamed, dropping to his knees.

Vencian kept moving. His illusion loop spread wider. The afterimages chased each other through shifting shadow. Every change of angle caused another misread target.

A man lunged from the side. Vencian let his copy take the hit. The real sword slid through the gap and caught the man in the ribs. He fell backward, gasping.

More entered through the broken door. The confined air thickened with the heat of their breath and the smoke crawling downward.

Vencian moved to deception. His footing adjusted to the packed dirt, blade drawn low. The enemies circled him, but their eyes darted to false movement.

They began stabbing at each other, thinking they had found his flank. One fell clutching his throat. Another shouted his comrade's name before being cut down by a blind swing.

Vencian tracked them through the illusion, counting positions. Keep it balanced. Don't lose track of the real ground.

A crack sounded overhead. The group on the right swung high, cutting through an old rope. A stack of grain sacks collapsed, thudding hard against the planks. The fall jolted a hanging lantern. It struck a beam and burst. Oil splashed across the floor, igniting at once.

The flash forced everyone to blink. The room washed white for half a heartbeat. Smoke billowed instantly, dark and thick. It pooled toward the corner near Reine. The heat shimmer bent the air, breaking the illusion's edges.

Vencian blinked tears from his eyes. He was a meter from her hiding spot. His vision pulsed with ghost images where the mirage fractured.

Hold it together. Keep them misled.

Vencian lost clear line-of-sight. The pattern linking the illusion seams faltered.

His split focus between fighting and patching the distortion. His breath shortened. Each illusion pulse drained color from his view.

Reine stayed small behind her beam, and the attackers stumbled through his net of misdirection.

He was winning this.

One man lunged. Vencian sidestepped, letting his nearest copy absorb the target. The attacker's blade passed through empty air. Vencian's real sword caught him across the back of the knee. The man dropped, yelling.

Another charged from the opposite angle. Vencian shifted right, pulling his illusion with him—except this one moved fast, too fast, cutting at where Vencian had been half a breath ago.

He parried high. Metal shrieked.

Then a second attacker came low, driving straight for his ribs—no hesitation, no glance at the copies, his eyes locked on the real body.

Vencian twisted. The blade grazed his side, tearing fabric. He drove his bastard sword through the man's chest before the shock could settle.

The attacker crumpled, breath rattling wet in his throat. Blood spread dark across the dirt. His eyes stayed on Vencian's face, and his mouth curled—satisfied, almost smug.

"When you spill blood," he gurgled, voice bubbling, "you catch that blood in your hands—your own and the others'."

The light faded from his stare.

Vencian stood there, blade dripping, his mind snagging on those words. How did he know? His illusions were clean. His positioning flawless.

Then he looked down at himself. The blood on his clothes, and skin… they were not on the illusions he created— or rather, he forgot to add them in the heat of the battle.

That pause—that single heartbeat of confusion—cost him.

He turned back toward Reine.

A new figure rose from behind her. The hidden man caught her hair and pressed a knife under her jaw. His eyes were flat, the blade steady.

Vencian froze mid-step. His sword remained raised.

"Move, and she dies," the man said.

Reine whimpered, breath shaking. The knife pressed closer.

Vencian froze mid-step. His sword remained raised.

When? His mind snagged on the question. Then he remembered—the flash, the oil igniting, smoke pouring thick across his vision. That white-out moment when everyone blinked. When his illusions fractured and he'd scrambled to patch them.

The man must have slipped in then.

They stood three meters from the beam now, out in the open. The dragging had happened during those few heartbeats of confusion.

Vencian watched the man's stance. The tremor in his shoulder showed strain. No. I can still save her. Just play it cool. Just one more deception.

"You want it?" Vencian said, fingers moving in his pocket. He pulled them out empty, but between his hands shimmered something gold—the chalice, or what looked like it. "Then come take it."

He crouched slightly and set the illusion on the ground between them. Its false surface caught a faint orange from the firelight, gleaming like real metal.

The man's eyes darted toward it. His grip on Reine loosened, then fell away completely as greed won out. He shoved her backward—she hit the dirt hard, gasping—and moved forward, crouched low, reaching for the chalice.

Vencian's body flickered. The illusion separated cleanly. This time, the most accurate one.

One version of him stepped left, tracing a half-circle along the inner wall. That copy moved slowly, sword held loose, closing toward where Reine had fallen.

The real Vencian slipped right, into the dim cover of the fallen beams. His breathing quieted against the smoke as he tracked the man's focus.

A scraping noise came from Reine's right. One of the wounded attackers had propped himself on an elbow against the wall there. His bloodied hand clutched a short blade.

His eyes tracked the illusion-Vencian circling from the opposite side—from Reine's left, moving closer to where she'd fallen.

He drew breath and hurled the dagger.

Reine pushed herself up on her hands. She saw the blade spinning through smoke—coming from her right, arcing toward what she thought was Vencian approaching from her left.

The dagger hit her side with a dull thud. She gasped, folding forward. Her hands passed through the illusion as she fell, and the false image flickered, then vanished.

The goon froze, staring at the vanished illusion. His hand hovered over empty air where the chalice had been.

Vencian surged from behind. His sword came down in a single swing. The blade tore through the man's chest, dropping him forward onto the dirt.

He turned sharply, finding the half-dead one still gasping on the floor. Vencian drove the tip through the man's throat without pause.

Silence filled the shed. Only crackling fire and dripping oil broke it.

He looked down. Reine lay crumpled where she'd fallen, her side dark with blood.

The illusion was gone. Only blood remained.

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