Solomon sent Luden and Rosslyn to escort the widow safely back to her home.
He also told them to spread the word among every smallfolk on his land: from this day on, anyone who dared harm or steal from the families of those who had served House Stinkfort would be punished.
He felt tired, but more than that, he felt sharply awake.
He couldn’t afford to stay weak.
His body still limited everything he could do.
In Westeros, strength mattered.
And this world was full of things far worse than ironmen.
He went back inside the tower.
Old Niken was already deep into counting every last sack of grain, coin, and rusted weapon they still possessed.
Solomon picked up one of the better longswords from the pile.
It was still badly rusted, the edge nicked and dull, the grip wrapped in dirty rags.
The thing probably dated back to the first Stinkfort knight.
He carried it outside into the muddy yard that passed for a courtyard.
There were no walls.
Just wet earth, weeds, and the endless reeds beyond.
This isn’t a castle courtyard, he thought.
It’s a damn pigpen.
When I have the coin, the first thing I’m building is a proper wall.
We’re poorer than most farmers back home.
He swung the sword a few times.
It felt heavy, but not as clumsy as he expected.
He took a deep breath of the damp air and began to move.
At first his swings were wide and untrained.
The original Solomon had never learned proper swordplay either.
From the memories, the whole family had fought like brawlers.
Their father’s idea of training had been simple: “Harder!
Swing harder!
Chop like you mean it!
Put your back into it!
Seven hells, did I raise a pack of women?” Solomon could almost hear his brothers’ laughter when Beren had swung too hard and face-planted in the mud.
He and Lorent had howled until their father’s usual roar came.
Except that day the roar never came.
Instead, their father’s mouth had twitched.
Just once.
Then, impossibly, the corner of his lips had lifted into the smallest, briefest smile before disappearing again.
And up on the second-floor window, their mother had stood watching them with that quiet, warm look she always wore when she thought no one was paying attention.
The memory was so clear it hurt.
Solomon stopped swinging.
For a moment he just stood there, breathing hard.
The original Solomon had fought to stay alive after the battle partly because of her.
He had known that if he died too, she would have nothing left.
And when she jumped from the tower anyway, he had followed her into the dark.
Solomon exhaled slowly and raised the sword again.
Something was different.
His movements were smoother than they had any right to be.
The sword no longer felt like a heavy lump of iron.
It moved with him, like an extension of his arm.
Every turn, every step, every shift of weight felt light and precise, almost effortless.
His senses had sharpened too.
He could hear individual frogs croaking in the distant reeds.
He could smell the wet earth, the rot of old leaves, and the faint metallic tang of the river on the wind.
Even the breeze against his face felt distinct, like he could feel every thread of air.
He stopped again, heart beating faster for an entirely different reason.
What the hell is happening to me?
The feeling was strange.
Like his body and mind had become perfectly aligned.
Better than aligned.
Like they were working together at a level he had never experienced before.
Was this from the crossing?
Had the meteor strike and the soul transfer somehow strengthened him?
Or had the two souls fusing inside this body sharpened his mind and, in turn, his body?
In a world with magic and gods, anything was possible.
Movement at the edge of the yard caught his eye.
Luden and Rosslyn had returned.
Both men stood frozen, staring at him with wide, unreadable expressions.
Solomon lowered the sword and waved them over.
They glanced at each other, clearly uneasy, but jogged forward.
“My lord,” they said together, bowing their heads.
“You were watching,” Solomon said.
“Tell me what you saw.” Both men went rigid.
Asking smallfolk to judge their lord’s swordplay was dangerous.
They had no idea what the right answer was supposed to be.
Rosslyn stammered first.
“My lord, we… we don’t know anything about proper sword fighting.” “I didn’t ask if you were masters,” Solomon said calmly.
“I asked what you saw.
Tell me the truth.
If you lie to me…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t need to.
The look in his eyes was enough.
Luden swallowed hard.
After a long, painful silence, he forced the words out.
“My lord… you moved very… elegantly.” Solomon raised an eyebrow.
Luden rushed to explain.
“Like—like you were dancing, my lord.
Very smooth.
Very graceful.” “Like a woman dancing,” Rosslyn added nervously, then immediately looked like he wanted to bite his own tongue off.
Solomon’s expression turned strange.
Luden hurried on.
“But… but there was no threat in it.
No power.
It didn’t look like fighting at all.
Just… pretty.” The two men fell silent, heads down, waiting for punishment.
Solomon didn’t punish them.
He thought about what they had said.
Elegant.
Like dancing.
No power.
Maybe that was exactly why it had felt so strange.
His movements were too clean, too efficient.
There was no wasted strength, no heavy crashing of blades.
Just speed and precision.
In Westeros, men judged a swordsman by how hard he could swing.
Maybe that was an advantage he could use.
“Interesting,” he murmured.
Then he looked at Luden.
“You.
Come here.
Spar with me.” Luden’s eyes went wide.
“My lord—you want me to fight you?” “That’s what I said.” “I can’t, my lord!
What if I hurt you?
I—” “Get over here,” Solomon ordered.
“Now.
I want to see what you can do.” Luden looked helplessly at Rosslyn.
Rosslyn gave him a miserable shrug.
With no choice, Luden took the second sword and stepped forward, holding it like he was afraid it might explode.
“My lord… Luden is coming,” he warned weakly.
“Then come,” Solomon said.
Luden swung.
His attack was exactly what Solomon expected from a farmer who had only ever used a sword in one desperate battle—raw, heavy, and full of holes.
In Solomon’s sharpened vision, the swing looked painfully slow, like it was moving through water.
He stepped aside without thinking.
His body moved on its own.
Light.
Precise.
He circled behind Luden in two smooth steps, then tapped him lightly between the shoulder blades with the flat of his sword hilt.
It wasn’t a hard strike.
But Luden’s balance was already committed forward.
The light push was enough.
His feet tangled and he went down hard, face-first into the mud.
The sword flew from his hand.
Luden lay there for a second, stunned.
Then he pushed himself up, staring at Solomon like he had just watched a ghost.
He had swung with real force.
Solomon had barely moved, and yet somehow ended up behind him and dropped him with a tap.
Solomon was just as surprised as Luden.
He hadn’t planned the movement.
His body had simply known where to go and how much force to use.
It felt like the sword and his arm had become the same thing.
He offered Luden a hand.
Luden didn’t dare take it.
He scrambled up on his own, still staring.
Solomon turned to Rosslyn.
“You too.
Both of you.
Come at me together.” Rosslyn looked like he was about to faint.
“My lord, please—we’ll hurt you—” “I said come at me.” They had no choice.
The two men attacked from opposite sides, swinging their rusty swords with everything they had.
To Solomon, their movements were still painfully slow and obvious.
He slipped between them like water, letting their blades cut empty air.
He never struck back hard.
He just kept moving—sidestep, pivot, glide—until both men were gasping and stumbling.
Less than a minute later, Luden went down again.
Rosslyn followed a few seconds after, dropping to his knees, chest heaving, sword lost in the mud.
Both of them stared up at Solomon with something close to fear mixed with awe.
They had never seen anyone fight like that.
No crashing blows.
No brute strength.
Just one man moving like smoke while they exhausted themselves trying to hit him.
Seven save us, Luden thought.
Lord Solomon must be the greatest swordsman in the Seven Kingdoms.
Solomon stood over them, breathing a little hard—not from the fight, but from how long it had been since he had moved his body properly.
He looked down at his own hands.
The enhancement was real.
Whatever had happened when his soul crossed over hadn’t just given him memories.
It had changed this body.
Made it faster, lighter, more coordinated.
Sharper senses.
Better instincts.
He finally had something that was actually his.
A golden finger in a world that was about to burn.
Solomon smiled for the first time since waking up in this tower.
“Well,” he said quietly.
“That’s useful.”