Chapter 65: Just a C-Rank?

Chapter 65: Just a C-Rank?

The duel pairings went up an hour after the rankings.

Silas scrolled until he found his name.

First round. Rooke, Silas (Bronze, Late Rank One) versus Halden, Oskar (Gold, Late Rank One). Declared Talent: Tempered Edge, B-Rank.

He looked up the name. Oskar Halden had finished thirty-first. His Talent, according to the brief public note, reinforced the weapon he held.

Silas opened the note again. Reinforcement wasn’t the same as anchoring a weapon in place, but he doubted Oskar would let him wrench a blade backed by a B-Rank Talent aside cheaply. Renn’s advice about working with contact might be useful tomorrow.

He put the communicator away and went to find something to eat.

Mara had been very clear about that.

By the next morning, the duel rings had been set up in the east arena, closest to the academy’s main gate.

Silas could see the gate from the waiting bench. It stood open at the far end of the lawn, a broad arch of pale stone, and through it the public approach ran out toward the city. Visitors had been coming in all morning. The approach itself was crowded with them, and with the stalls that had sprung up along its edges to feed them: awnings, carts, smoke from cooking fires, a painted sign advertising flatbread in three languages.

Somewhere out there, Maelin would be eating two of them.

"Rooke. Halden. Ring Two."

Silas stood up.

Oskar Halden was a head shorter than him and considerably broader, with close-cropped red hair and the steady, patient stance of someone who had been taught to fight by people who expected him to be good at it. He carried a practice longsword, padded and blue-tagged like Silas’s own.

When the official signaled ready, Oskar’s blade began to glow.

A dull, even sheen settled over the padded surface, following every shift of Oskar’s wrists. Silas tightened his grip, remembering the public note: a mana sheath that strengthened the weapon against blows and other applied force.

"Two clean touches," the official said. "Yield or stop on my call. Begin."

Oskar came forward.

Silas tested him immediately. He reached with Remote Grasp for the longsword’s tip and pressed sideways, the same nudge that had carried Alden’s blade off its line.

The tip barely shifted.

The reinforced tip resisted the sideways pressure, and Oskar’s wrists corrected the tiny movement almost at once. Silas could force more mana into the push, but Oskar was already closing the distance. He cut, hard and straight, and Silas turned it with his bracer and felt the impact go all the way up to his shoulder. The second cut came before he had recovered from the first, and the third found his chest panel.

"Point to Halden."

Silas walked back to his mark, breathing through his nose.

I’m not paying that much to move it an inch.

Oskar rested the longsword against his shoulder while the official checked the touch. He could still turn it, lift it, bring it down. Reinforcement hadn’t fixed it in place. Silas had tried to change its direction while Oskar had both hands and a firm stance behind it.

He raised his guard and watched those hands.

"Begin."

Oskar came forward again, confident now.

Silas gave ground. He kept his guard up and his weight even and watched. With Split Focus, Silas could follow the sword without losing track of Oskar’s lead foot. There: a small forward shift of weight, just before the cut.

The third time he saw it, Silas eased his guard back and let Oskar reach farther. At the instant the longsword began its descent, he added a brief pull along the swing.

His mana drained faster than it had against Alden. But he was helping the movement Oskar had already started, and that was enough. The cut landed against his angled blade a fraction early, while Oskar was still bringing his rear foot forward. When Silas let the weapons slide, the longsword carried on past the line Oskar wanted.

Silas stepped inside the overextended guard and brought his shortblade back with Returning Edge. The padded edge tapped Oskar’s chest.

"Point to Rooke."

Oskar stepped back. For the first time, he looked at his own sword as if it had surprised him.

The crowd around Ring Two had gotten larger. Silas noticed it the way he noticed the heat of the sun, without looking.

"Begin."

The last exchange was the longest.

Oskar didn’t commit again the same way. He shortened his cuts, kept his weight back, and pressed forward with small, heavy strikes that Silas had to take on his bracers or turn aside with his blade. Each one cost something. Silas’s forearms ached. His reserve dropped steadily.

He waited.

Oskar was keeping his reach short now. Each quick recovery covered the place Silas had struck, and neither the wider opening nor the mistimed step came again.

Silas retreated toward the ring’s edge. He had three paces left when he changed his guard, leaving his shoulder just a little exposed.

Oskar saw it. His next cut came higher.

Silas raised his bracer to meet it and used Remote Grasp at the far end of the blade, beyond their contact. The longer leverage helped, but the reinforced weapon still fought him; he only needed it to tilt far enough to slide down the bracer instead of striking his shoulder.

He stepped toward Oskar as the blade slipped. This close, the longsword had little room to recover. Returning Edge brought Silas’s weapon back from his raised guard and across the chest panel.

The touch sounded almost lost beneath the crowd.

"Stop," the official said. "Point to Rooke. Bout to Rooke, two to one."

Silas stopped. His arms trembled as he lowered his guard, and he was grateful for the moment to catch his breath.

Oskar lowered his sword. The glow faded out of it. He looked at Silas for a long moment, then nodded once, stiffly, the way someone nodded when they didn’t enjoy something but respected it anyway.

"You waited until it was against the bracer," Oskar said.

"I needed the leverage," Silas said.

Oskar looked at the scuff on the adamantite channel, then nodded again.

Around the ring, the watching students were talking.

"—C-Rank, isn’t he? Remote Grasp?" a boy at the rail asked.

His friend leaned over it. "He didn’t overpower it. He didn’t even try after the first one."

"That’s the Rooke who—" someone behind them began.

"I know which Rooke it is," a girl interrupted. "Did you see his footwork?"

Silas picked up his towel and wiped his face, smiling behind it. For once, they were talking about something he had actually done.

He went looking for Maelin.

The arena exit led straight onto the lawn, and the lawn led straight to the main gate. Silas walked through it with his bag over his shoulder, into the noise of the public approach. It was even busier than it had looked from the bench. Visitors in their good coats. Families with children. Stall owners calling out prices. The smell of frying dough and smoke.

He spotted the flatbread sign ahead, maybe forty paces down the approach. By the time he reached it, two families had filled the space in front of the stall. He stepped past them and looked between the tables under the next awning.

Then the air tore.