The lightning around Gareth’s épée grew brighter.
Owen tightened his grip on his longsword while the last of the smoke drifted between them. His arms were still shaking from the previous collision, and the hollow pressure inside his chest had become impossible to ignore. He had put nearly everything he could safely draw from his Armament Core into that final strike.
Across from him, Gareth looked as though he had only just started warming up.
The senior trainer waited until both brothers had reset their footing before raising one hand.
"Continue."
Gareth moved.
Owen had spent twelve years sparring with his brother. He knew the small movements Gareth made before a thrust, the slight change in his lead foot when he intended to close distance and the way his wrist turned when he wanted to draw a defensive reaction before changing lines.
Knowing all of that didn’t help nearly as much as Owen expected.
Gareth crossed the distance before Owen had completely settled his stance.
The narrow point of the épée came straight toward his chest.
Owen brought his longsword across in time.
Steel met steel.
A sharp crack followed.
Lightning jumped from Gareth’s blade into Owen’s.
His fingers clenched involuntarily around the hilt as a painful numbness shot through his palm and up his forearm. By the time Owen pulled his sword away, Gareth had already withdrawn the épée.
Another thrust came toward his shoulder.
Owen caught that one farther from his body, but the brief contact was enough for another current to snap across the blades. His hand jerked again.
Gareth changed his angle immediately.
The épée darted toward Owen’s ribs.
Owen shifted his guard.
The point dropped beneath it.
He twisted away just before it reached him and stumbled one step backward.
Gareth stopped the attack before making contact.
Owen recovered his balance and stared at him.
That was three attacks.
He had barely managed to deal with any of them.
During the first half of the spar, Gareth had stood back and let Owen decide when they exchanged. Owen had mistaken that patience for the pace of the fight.
It hadn’t been.
Gareth had simply been waiting.
"Come on," Gareth said.
Owen exhaled through his nose and raised his sword again.
The copper lines beneath the dark blade were dimmer than before. He reached toward his Armament Core and sent what little energy he could comfortably spare through the connection.
Fire flared along the edge.
It was nothing like the burst he had produced a minute earlier.
Gareth noticed too.
Owen swept the sword across the space between them, forcing a curtain of heat into his brother’s path.
Gareth didn’t stop.
He adjusted his approach by half a step, moved around the hottest part of the flame and attacked from the opposite side.
Owen parried.
Lightning struck his hand again.
He hissed through his teeth and retreated.
His fingers were beginning to feel too slow.
Gareth followed.
The difference between defending against the épée and defending against an ordinary sword became obvious very quickly. There was no broad blade coming toward him that he could comfortably meet and shove aside. Gareth’s point kept slipping toward smaller openings, forcing Owen to move his entire guard for attacks that changed direction before they arrived.
A thrust toward his shoulder became one toward his chest.
Owen deflected it.
Another came low.
He stepped back.
The next attack was already following.
He caught Gareth’s blade near the middle of his longsword and felt the first spark of electricity jump across the contact.
Instead of holding the parry, Owen immediately angled his sword and slid the épée away.
The blades separated almost at once.
The shock that reached his hand was much weaker.
Owen stepped sideways before Gareth could continue and finally regained enough room to breathe.
That worked.
He couldn’t stop the lightning from crossing their weapons, but he could reduce how long they remained in contact.
Gareth’s gaze dropped briefly toward Owen’s sword before returning to his face.
He had noticed.
Owen adjusted his grip, pleased despite the burning in his forearm.
Losing didn’t mean he had to keep making the same mistake.
Gareth came forward again.
Owen watched his shoulder rather than the lightning dancing across the blade.
The épée moved toward his chest.
Owen brought his sword across.
Gareth’s wrist changed.
Owen recognized the disengage a fraction too late.
The point dipped beneath his longsword, emerged on the other side and drove forward as Gareth stepped inside his reach.
Owen tried to pull his weapon back.
Gareth knocked the weakened blade aside with a compact movement.
The épée stopped against Owen’s neck.
The metal was cool.
The electricity crawling along it was not.
Tiny blue-white arcs snapped close enough to Owen’s ear that he could hear each one.
Neither brother moved.
"Match," the senior trainer called. "Gareth."
The lightning vanished.
Gareth lowered his weapon and stepped away.
Owen remained where he was for another moment before slowly dropping his longsword.
His breathing sounded much louder now that the fight had stopped.
That had been quick.
Painfully quick.
He flexed his right hand and felt pins and needles running through his fingers.
When Gareth had been defending, Owen had managed to force him backward. He had even made his brother channel energy through his weapon to stop that final fire attack.
For a few moments, it had felt as though the distance between them might not be as ridiculous as Owen had always assumed.
Now he understood what had actually happened.
Gareth had been letting him attack.
Once his brother decided to control the pace himself, Owen had barely been able to keep up.
Three cultivation ranks separated them, but seeing the words Kindled and Ascendant had never made that difference feel as real as having Gareth’s épée stop against his neck.
Owen looked down at his sword.
The weapon was exceptional.
He wasn’t.
Not yet.
The thought didn’t bother him as much as he expected.
If anything, it gave him something much clearer to aim for.
He opened the system.
[Sword Class — Unlocked]
[Fire-attributed Sword Form — Available]
[Sword Class Mastery: 53%]
Owen blinked.
Fifty-three.
It had been forty-five before the spar.
Eight percent.
His attention returned to Gareth, who was saying something to the senior trainer while dismissing his épée.
Owen had only been fighting for a short time, but he had learned more in those exchanges than he had from repeating comfortable drills all afternoon.
He had learned how his fire announced itself when he channeled too early. He had learned that his weapon could produce far more power than his current core could comfortably sustain. He had changed the timing of his fire to catch Gareth off guard, then changed his defensive angle after discovering how easily the lightning passed through prolonged contact.
Maybe that was what the system cared about.
Not how many times he swung a sword.
What he actually learned while using one.
Owen closed the window.
At this rate, the mastery requirement no longer felt impossibly distant.
The problem was that he could barely feel anything left inside his Armament Core.
A system that offered him ten different weapons wouldn’t matter much if he emptied himself after a few serious exchanges.
Voices rose around the platform.
"I thought he was going to keep Gareth moving."
"He was. Until Gareth actually started attacking."
A younger soldier laughed under his breath. "That was a bit different."
Another man standing beside him shook his head. "He still made an Ascendant reinforce his weapon on his first day. I’d take that result."
Owen stepped toward the edge of the platform.
At least the conversation was better than what he had heard after the Awakening Ceremony.
Edmund rose from his seat.
Owen expected him to simply approach the platform.
Instead, his father began clapping.
The sound carried across the training ground clearly enough that Gareth looked toward him.
A moment later, several soldiers joined in.
Owen glanced at his brother.
Gareth looked far too pleased with himself.
Edmund reached the foot of the platform with an expression Owen rarely saw during training.
"That was worth leaving my study for."
Gareth stepped down first. "I’m glad I could provide the entertainment."
"I wasn’t referring only to you."
Gareth placed a hand over his chest as though wounded.
Owen climbed down more carefully.
The moment his boots reached the ground, the exhaustion he had been ignoring seemed to settle into every part of his body at once.
Edmund looked at him.
"You did well."
"I lost."
"To someone who should beat you."
Owen couldn’t argue with that.
His father looked toward the damaged practice target farther across the grounds and then back at the dark sword in Owen’s hand.
"This morning, we didn’t know if you had a combat armament at all. I think we can safely put that question aside."
Owen smiled.
Edmund turned toward the soldiers gathered around the platform.
"We’ll celebrate tonight."
That got their attention immediately.
"The kitchens will prepare enough for everyone on the grounds," Edmund continued. "Off-duty personnel included. Owen’s awakening deserves something better than the afternoon we expected to have."
A cheer rose before he had completely finished.
Someone farther back shouted something about opening the wine stores.
Another voice answered that they should open the good ones.
Mercer, standing behind Edmund, shook his head.
"You’ve lost control already, my lord."
"For one evening, I’ll survive."
The response produced another wave of laughter.
Owen looked around.
That morning, people in the Awakening Hall had whispered because nothing had appeared in his hand.
Now the soldiers who had watched him grow up were cheering because something finally had.
He didn’t quite know what to do with that much attention, so he settled for smiling and dismissing his sword.
The blade dissolved into a reddish glow.
The effort of maintaining the connection had been small, but even that made the emptiness inside his chest more noticeable.
Owen stepped forward and nearly misjudged the distance to the ground.
Gareth caught his arm.
"Careful."
"I’m fine."
"That’s what you said this morning."
Owen looked at him.
Gareth released him.
"Fine. Fall over if you want."
Owen flexed his numb fingers. "Your lightning is irritating."
"That’s generally the idea."
Before Owen could answer, Edmund gestured toward them.
"Both of you. My study."
Gareth’s expression changed slightly.
"Now?"