Chapter 61: ONE DAY
The morning of the semi-finals arrived cold and grey over the Grand Arena. A light snow had begun to fall during the night, dusting the iron spires with white, and the city of Caldmore woke to a silence that felt heavier than usual. The rest day had come and gone. The quarter-finals were behind them. Four fighters remained, and by the end of the day, two would advance to the championship match.
Dorian Hale’s voice rolled across the stands as the first spectators filed in, their breath misting in the cold air. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the semi-finals of the Grand Trials. Four fighters remain. Our first match is a clash of opposites, the untouchable duelist who hasn’t been defeated in five years, and the shy girl who’s been shattering expectations since Phase One. Pembroke versus Lysandra Li."
The crystal displays flickered. The match appeared. The crowd erupted.
Lysandra stood in the competitors’ tunnel, her new rods crossed on her back. The black steel with gold patterns caught the dim light. The drake-leather grips were warm against her palms. The black gloves with gold spikes fit her hands like a second skin.
The switch was already warming up. She could feel it, the familiar cold settling into her limbs, the way her thoughts sharpened and her breathing slowed. She’d spent the night in her room, staring at the ceiling and thinking about what Florence had told her. Let it happen. Let it guide your hands. Your conscious mind can focus on the tactics, when to throw, when to switch, when to change rhythm. The switch will handle the execution.
She was going to lose today. She knew that. Everyone knew that. Pembroke was untouchable. He’d never been beaten in five years. He was the wall, and walls didn’t fall just because you wanted them to.
But she was determined to make him remember her name.
Dominic stood beside her in the tunnel. Wobbly was on his shoulder, a steady blue glow in the dim light. He just stood there, his presence a quiet anchor, and when she looked at him, he nodded once. The same nod he’d given her in the tunnel before Phase One, when she was just a shy girl with an iron club and no idea what she was capable of.
"You know what to do," he said.
"I know," she said. She walked into the arena.
The crowd’s roar hit her like a physical force. The dark grey of her colors had spread through the stands, a stormcloud woven through the black and gold of the Kane banners. The bedsheet banner was still there, LI THE LION painted in bold, uneven letters, held aloft by two students who’d been cheering for her since the top lane.
More people were wearing her color now, scarves and ribbons and sashes draped over shoulders. She looked at them, at the banner, at the faces in the crowd who were screaming her name.
Pembroke walked into the arena from the opposite tunnel. Two swords at his hips. No armor. His pale eyes were serene, his expression unreadable. He walked to the center of the platform and stopped, his hands loose at his sides, and looked at her the way he’d looked at every opponent for five years. Without curiosity. Without anticipation.
"Lysandra Li," he said. His voice was quiet, but it carried in the silent arena. "You’ve shown impressive capabilities so far, I hope you will not disappoint me."
"I will try," Lysandra said. She drew both rods, the weight familiar and comfortable in her hands. "After all I don’t plan on being an easy target."
"Is that so?"
"You are about to find out yourself."
The match began.
She sprinted at him with both rods in hand, closing the distance in a burst of speed that made the crowd gasp. At the last possible moment, she planted one rod into the stone like a pole vault and launched herself sideways, using the leverage to change direction mid-sprint. Pembroke’s blade came up to meet where she would have been, and found empty air. She was already on his left flank, the second rod swinging in a horizontal arc aimed at his ribs.
He adjusted. His body shifted, the rod passing close enough to stir his sleeve, and his sword came around in a counter that would have caught her across the shoulder. She was already moving again. She’d learned from her own pattern, no pause between decisions, no fraction of a second for him to live in. The switch was flooding her limbs with cold clarity, and she was acting, not thinking, her body flowing from one motion to the next without the hesitation he’d always exploited in his opponents.
She planted the rod again, vaulted again, this time going over his head. She twisted in the air and swung downward, both rods coming at him from above. He sidestepped. The rods cracked the stone where he’d been standing. She landed, rolled, came up with one rod already in motion, a low sweep at his ankles. He stepped over it.
The other rod was already coming at his chest. He parried, the impact ringing through the arena, and she used the recoil to spin into a backhand strike with the first rod. He ducked. She was pushing him, making him move, making him adjust, making him work.
The crowd was on their feet, roaring, as Lysandra drove Pembroke across the platform with a relentless sequence of strikes. She was fighting like a predator testing every angle of its prey, probing for weakness, never letting him settle. The rods moved in patterns that shouldn’t have been possible with weapons that heavy, she’d been born with speed and strength that defied her size, and she was using every ounce of it.
Pembroke’s pale eyes tracked her with an intensity that hadn’t been there at the start. He was still untouchable. But she’d forced him to move more in thirty seconds than most opponents managed in an entire match. His feet had traced a path across the platform, and his breathing had shifted from serene to something more focused.
She threw both rods simultaneously, not at him, but to either side of him, cutting off his lateral movement. He couldn’t sidestep. He had to go forward or back. He went forward, directly into her fists, and her right cross caught him on the shoulder before he could adjust. The gold spikes tore through fabric and drew blood.
The crowd erupted.
Pembroke looked at the wound. Something flickered in his pale eyes. He drew his second sword.
"You’ve been planning this," he said. "The vaults, the flanking, the rods as barriers instead of projectiles. You’ve been holding back."
"I wouldn’t say holding back, all of this is new," Lysandra said. Her voice was cold. "My teacher taught me that the best tactic is the one your opponent hasn’t seen."
"You have an excellent teacher."
He moved. Both swords came at her in a sequence she couldn’t track, and she dodged on instinct, the switch guiding her body through gaps that shouldn’t have existed. One blade passed over her head. The second stopped an inch from her ribs. She twisted, felt the edge graze her shirt, and drove her fist toward his chest.
He caught her wrist with the flat of his blade and redirected her momentum, sending her stumbling past him. She rolled, came up, grabbed one of her discarded rods from the stone, and launched it at him in a desperate overhand throw.
He caught it. His second sword flicked out and plucked the rod from the air like it was stationary. He set it down on the stone beside the others.
"You’re the most creative fighter I’ve faced in years," he said. "But creativity has it’s limits. I don’t."
He came at her. Both swords moving as one, a perfect horizontal arc that she couldn’t dodge, couldn’t block, couldn’t stop. The flat of the blade caught her across the chest and drove her to the stone. The second sword stopped an inch from her throat.
"I yield," she said.
Pembroke sheathed both swords. He looked down at her, at the blood on her knuckles, at the torn sleeve where her spikes had drawn his blood, and his expression was no longer serene.
"You’ll be champion one day," he said. "Just not this year."
Lysandra pushed herself up. The switch was fading, the cold leaving her limbs, she looked at Pembroke and nodded.
"Thank you," she said.
She turned and walked toward the tunnel. The crowd was on their feet, screaming her name. Dominic was waiting in the tunnel. She stopped in front of him, blood dripping from her knuckles.
"You were going crazy out there," Dominic said.
"Thank you, I really gave it my all."
"Seems you accomplished your goal, he definitely will remember you"
"You think? I just thought he was being nice."
"It seemed very genuine, and I agree with him too."
She nodded, her smile spreading wider as a flush of color rose to her cheeks. She turned and walked toward the infirmary, her head still full of the fight and his words, the crowd’s roar fading behind her like distant thunder.
The crystal displays flickered above the arena. The second semi-final match appeared. Dominic Kane versus Victor Harwick. The grudge match. The fight everyone had been waiting for since the bracket was announced. The arena was still roaring as the next fighters prepared to enter the tunnel.