The notice went up before breakfast.

A parchment, thick and heavy, stamped with the red sigil of House Estrix.

By the time Soren and Mira reached the courtyard, half the Academy had already gathered.

Mira's curse broke the tension. "They didn't. They didn't actually—oh for the love of—, read that."

He did.

A formal challenge.

Public.

Irrevocable.

Live steel.

Students whispered around them like circling crows. Some looked excited, others horrified, but all of them kept stealing glances at Soren as if he were already halfway to the arena.

Mira grabbed the edge of the parchment, scanning it twice. "Rivan Estrix? They sent him? That's not a challenge, that's a sanctioned beating."

Soren didn't answer. His face didn't shift at all.

Valenna's voice brushed down his spine. It's a trap dressed as honor. 'Accept only if you intend to destroy the trap.'

Mira hissed, "Please tell me you're not actually considering walking into a duel with the Estrix golden son. They train their heirs since they can walk, Soren."

He spoke quietly. "I'm going."

"Of course you are," she muttered. "Why do I even ask."

The crowd parted as Atrius strode across the courtyard. His eyes hit the parchment first, then Soren, then Mira. He stopped just in front of Soren—too close for a teacher addressing a student, but exactly right for a man who understood the stakes.

"You're not refusing," Atrius said flatly.

"No."

Atrius inhaled once, slow. "Rivan is a ranked duelist. If you go into that arena unprepared, he'll cut you down."

"I know."

"And you still intend to step inside."

"I do."

Atrius held his gaze a long moment, as if trying to read something beneath his expression. Whatever he found there made his jaw tense. "Then make sure when you walk out of that arena, the Houses understand they chose the wrong enemy."

Soren nodded once.

Atrius left without another word.

The courtyard murmured louder now, word spreading like a lit fuse. Rival Houses whispered strategies. Adelphi scribes hurried to record the notice. A few instructors watched with the tightened posture of people who knew this would have consequences.

Mira leaned closer. "Rivan Estrix fights like a viper. Precision, speed, intent to maim. He's not like Tallen—he won't panic, he won't break, and he won't stop until you're on the ground."

"Good," Soren said.

"Oh fantastic," she muttered. "Love that for you."

But her face softened just a fraction. "Just don't die. It'd make my week worse."

Soren turned toward Arena Five.

Students moved aside instinctively.

Some tried to hide their fear.

Some didn't bother.

Arilyn of Hallowmere stood on the stairs, watching him with unreadable calm. When his eyes passed over her, she gave a small, almost respectful nod. Not support. Not pity. Recognition.

He kept walking.

Valenna hummed in his wrist, cold and steady. Do not reveal yourself. 'Do not show your full reach. They want proof—give them performance instead.'

The arena towers came into view, their stone scarred from generations of duels.

Rivan Estrix was already waiting at the entrance, flanked by his House's attendants. He looked exactly as the rumors described him: tall, sharp-featured, impeccably composed, every movement practiced. His sword hung at his hip in a sheath decorated with silver knotwork.

When he saw Soren, he allowed himself a small, controlled smile.

"So the stray shows up."

Mira muttered behind Soren, "Here we go."

Rivan stepped forward by a single measured pace. "I thought you might hide behind your convenient outsider status. I'm relieved. This will be quick."

Soren stopped a few feet away. He didn't posture, didn't touch his blade, didn't give anything Rivan could use.

"You talk a lot," Soren said.

Rivan's eyebrow twitched. "Confidence is often mistaken for arrogance."

"No," Soren replied. "Arrogance is mistaken for confidence."

A few of the students in the back choked down laughs. Rivan ignored them, though the muscle in his jaw tightened.

"Let me be clear," Rivan said quietly. "You've been disrupting House order since you arrived. Today, it ends."

Soren didn't blink. "Then end it."

Rivan's eyes narrowed. "You're not like us, Vale. You're a nobody with a forged name and a borrowed place."

Mira exhaled sharply, ready to explode, but Soren didn't move.

He only said, "If you think my name makes me weaker, you're not ready for this duel."

Rivan hesitated—not visibly, not enough for anyone but Soren to catch, but Valenna whispered along his pulse:

Good. You unsettled him.

Rivan stepped aside, motioning toward the open gate of Arena Five.

"After you," he said, dripping courtesy like venom.

Soren walked past him without a look.

Inside, the arena was circular stone and dust, carved with old ward-lines and duel markings. Instructor Salvek stood at the center, neutral and rigid, one hand on the scroll of terms.

Rivan entered behind him.

The gates slammed shut.

The crowd pressed into the stands above, eager for blood or justice or spectacle—depending which House they belonged to.

Salvek raised his voice.

"Weapons drawn."

Rivan unsheathed his steel with a perfect, fluid motion.

Soren drew his sword—simple, plain, nothing ornate. But the weight of it felt right. Familiar.

Valenna's presence coiled around him in a cool protective embrace. Strike only when he commits. 'Do not give him your rhythm.'

Salvek looked between them.

"Begin."

Rivan moved first.

The duel began like the snap of a bowstring.

Rivan came in low and fast, blade flicking out in a probing cut meant to test distance, not wound pride, and draw first blood all at once. The steel hissed through the air like an angry cat.

Soren didn't retreat. He shifted his weight half a step, angled his sword, and let the strike slide along his guard with a ringing kiss of metal. No flourish, no wasted motion. Just enough deflection.

Rivan's eyes narrowed; he'd expected panic or overcommitment. He got neither.

He circled left, boot scraping dust, then snapped into a textbook Estrix lunge—shoulder dropped, point perfectly aligned with Soren's heart. Fast. Beautiful, even.

The kind of thrust that had ended most Academy duels before the crowd finished settling into their seats.

Soren stepped inside it.

Not away—inside. A half-beat too late for anyone trained in House forms to believe it was intentional. His left hand came up, gauntlet closing around Rivan's wrist just above the guard. Valenna's chill flooded the grip, turning skin to winter iron.

Rivan's thrust died mid-line. His eyes widened a fraction.

Soren pivoted, using Rivan's own momentum to spin him half-around, and drove an elbow into the side of his helmet. The crack echoed off the arena walls like splitting wood.

Rivan staggered, recovered with insulting grace, and ripped his arm free. A thin line of blood showed at his lip where the cheek-guard had bitten.

The crowd noise changed pitch—surprise, not yet delight.

Rivan touched the blood with two fingers, looked at it, then smiled the way a wolf smiles when the deer finally runs.

"Interesting," he said.

He attacked again, and this time there was no testing.

Steel blurred. High, low, high again, feint to the head, real cut to the thigh, reverse into a chest thrust.

A perfect four-beat combination drilled into every Estrix heirs before they could spell their own names.

Soren met it like a wall that happened to have edges.

Parry, slip, parry, step. He gave ground only when it suited him, took it back when it didn't. Every block carried a small, vicious twist that threatened to shear Rivan's blade aside and open his guard. He never took the bait.

Valenna murmured approval along his bones. 'Good. He's faster than you. Don't be faster—be shorter.'

Rivan's breath started to come sharper. A faint sheen of sweat appeared at his hairline. The pattern was wrong; he was spending energy, Soren was borrowing it.

Then Rivan changed tactics.

He dropped his point suddenly, inviting a counterattack to the now-open shoulder. Classic trap. Any cadet would have lunged.

Soren didn't.

Instead he flicked his wrist, a motion so small it looked like a twitch, and Valenna sang. A needle-thin ribbon of black ice lashed out from the guard—not enough to be seen clearly by the stands, just enough to kiss the inside of Rivan's forearm.

The golden son's arm locked mid-motion. His sword wavered.

Soren stepped in, blade rising in a short, brutal arc toward Rivan's throat.

Rivan threw himself backward, desperate, and the tip carved a red line across the front of his gorget instead of punching through it. Blood spotted the dust.

Gasps rippled through the stands. Someone actually shouted.

Rivan landed in a low crouch, eyes wide, chest heaving. For the first time, the composure cracked. Not fear—recognition. Whatever he'd been told about Soren, it hadn't included this.

Soren lowered his sword a finger's breadth. Not mercy. Invitation.

"Still think the name matters?" he asked quietly.

Rivan spat blood. "Shut up and fight."

He exploded forward, blade igniting with pale gold House runes—Estrix battle-magic, sanctioned for formal duels, costly as sin. The sword became a bar of molten light.

The crowd roared approval; this was what they'd come for.

Rivan hammered down in an overhand strike that would have split stone.

Soren met it edge to edge.

The impact drove him to one knee, teeth jarring.

For three heartbeats they strained, locked hilt to hilt, faces inches apart.

Rivan snarled through clenched teeth. "You're nothing."

Soren looked up at him, calm as deep water.

"Then stop shaking," he said.

Rivan's arms trembled; Soren's did not.

The golden light began to gutter, bleeding sparks into the dust. Valenna drank it the way dry sand drinks blood.

Rivan realized it a moment too late.

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