I could not fight him with the sword. It had no effect on him.
I had to work him out in hand to hand combat. That was the only way. If he was limiting himself to fair fighting, if he wasn't using reinforcement offensively, then my body was my best weapon.
He dashed toward me again, fist extended. This time I did not try to counter with weapons I didn't have. I positioned my hands in a cross, left forearm vertical, right forearm horizontal, creating a brace, and took the punch.
His strike was hard. Even without reinforcement, he was strong. The impact traveled up my arms, into my shoulders, rattled my teeth. But I held.
As he withdrew his fist, my leg stormed upward toward his chin. The motion came from my hips, from the explosive power in my thighs, from millions of repetitions.
BAM.
It hit perfectly. His head snapped back, neck bending at an ugly angle. He stumbled backward, feet tangling, arms flailing for balance.
He said nothing. His eyes sharpened. The stumble became a reset. He rolled his jaw, worked it side to side, tested that it still functioned. Then he came at me again.
We both dashed forward, meeting in the center with barrages of punches. His fists hammered at my guard. Mine hammered at his. The sounds were wet and sharp, flesh on flesh, bone on bone. I threw a wide attack at his right side, deliberately leaving an opening for him to kick my stomach. It was a trap. I wanted him to commit to that kick, wanted him to think he'd found a weakness.
But I stopped mid-motion, pulled the punch before it fully extended, and struck with my left leg instead, hitting his torso. My foot sank into his side, felt ribs flex under the impact. He still managed to land a small hit on my stomach, his fist grazing across the same spot the others had targeted. The pain was immediate, deep, nauseating.
Suddenly he opened his hands and moved at lightning speed, catching me off guard. His palms struck my chest, my shoulders, my arms, not punches, but something else. His hands flowed like water, breaking my rhythm, disrupting my balance. I defended as best I could, but he pushed me back across the yard until I hit the wall with a small thud. The impact drove the air from my lungs. He had struck me with open hands the entire way.
What was that? Something like what a monk would do? I'd read about techniques like that in the hidden library, styles that used palms instead of fists, that redirected force instead of meeting it. But reading and facing were different things.
This might be troublesome.
I took a sharp breath of oxygen, filling my starving lungs, and lunged forward. I could not give him time to use that move again. Could not let him set the pace. I dashed my fist toward his face. He did the same. The barrages of punches resumed, faster now, more desperate.
I was getting pushed backward. Step by step, he drove me across the yard. His technique was cleaner than mine, he'd had formal training, probably since childhood. My training was different. But formal training had advantages. It built habits. Instincts.
I lifted my right leg into the air towards the wall, a feint, something to make him hesitate. As I neared the wall behind me,I could feel it approaching, could sense the change in air pressure, I took one of his punches directly on the shoulder. The pain was sharp, immediate, but I used it. I used the force of his strike to fuel my retreat.
Then, using both legs, I pushed off the wall and accelerated toward him, fist ready. The wall launch gave me momentum I couldn't generate on flat ground.
I landed a strong hit to his cheek. My knuckles split against his bone, but I felt his head snap sideways. He hit me in the stomach.
The same spot. Again.
This time something inside me gave way. Not completely, but a warning. A signal that I couldn't take many more of those.
I moved, trying to punch his stomach. He defended by rushing his hand against my strike, palm open, deflecting the force. Then he tried to hit me with his left leg, the same move I had used earlier. The kick was good, technically sound, but his stances were clumsy. Easy to read. He telegraphed everything.
I immediately counterattacked, my leg sweeping his single leg out from under him. His balance vanished. He fell toward the ground but doubled down, planting both hands on the earth and attacking me with his leg from below. A technique similar to what I had used in the jail, using the ground as a platform, turning a fall into an attack.
Again, the attack targeted my stomach. He was obsessed with that spot. Had he been trained to target it? Did he know something I didn't?
I moved low and crossed my hands, forearms forming an X. His leg hit my defense hard enough to bruise bone.
Without giving him time to recover, I grabbed his legs, both of them, wrapping my arms around his calves—and swung him in a wide arc. Two hundred seventy degrees. I used his own momentum, added my strength, whipped him through the air like a club.
BANG.
I slammed him into the house wall. The impact shook the entire structure. Rock splintered where his body hit.
I retreated. I gave him a moment to recover. Not out of mercy, out of calculation. A cornered animal fights hardest. I needed him disoriented, needed him thinking I was giving him a chance.
But in that time, I formed a plan. My eyes scanned the yard, cataloguing everything. The house behind me. The wall to my left. The open space to my right. And ahead, at one vertex of the rectangular yard, a tree on the verge of falling.
I noticed it during training. Its roots were shallow, the ground eroded around its base. A strong wind would bring it down. A stronger push definitely would.
If it fell, it would follow the diagonal of the rectangle and hit him directly. The angle was perfect. The distance was right.
I struck the tree hard, driving my shoulder into the trunk. Once. Twice. On the third strike, I felt something give, roots tearing, wood fibers snapping.
He spilled blood from his mouth. Wiped it with the back of his hand. Looked at the red smeared across his skin.
"I have always thought I was the best in hand to hand combat in RR," he said. His voice was different now, thinner, more human. The arrogance had drained out of it. "But to be overwhelmed by an opponent six years younger than me… it's embarrassing." He paused, spat blood onto the grass. "The director was right about you."
He stood, ready to continue. His body language had changed. He was more cautious now, more respectful. But also more determined.
I initiated the plan.
I hit the tree again, a full-body strike, every ounce of force I could generate. The trunk groaned. Leaned. Then fell, accelerating as it went, crashing toward him in a diagonal line across the yard.
It fell toward him fast. Too fast for him to think, too fast to dodge. The crown of branches filled his vision, blocked his escape.
He defended against the massive trunk with Aether hardening. His arms came up, skin turning to stone, muscles locking. The tree hit him with tremendous force, enough to kill an ordinary man, and stopped. He held it. Branches dug into his shoulders, his chest, but he held.
That gave me my chance.
I planted my legs in an athlete stance and moved at my fastest speed ever.
His right hand was still braced against the tree, palm flat against the bark, arm rigid. He raised his left to defend, but I grazed past it, let his hand slide off my shoulder, and struck the lowest end of his sternum.
Not his chest. Not his stomach. The lowest end of the sternum, where the bone meets cartilage, where the solar plexus lies beneath. My fist drove upward at an angle, transferring every joule of energy from my sprint, my rotation, my extension.
The energy transferred. I felt it travel through my arm, through my fist, into his body. His diaphragm spasmed. His lungs seized. His Aether hardening flickered, you can't maintain reinforcement when you can't breathe.
He hit the wall hard and crumpled to the ground. His body folded, knees first, then torso, then head. He lay there, gasping, unable to draw air.
Was he not using Aether? Had he wanted a fair fight so badly that he'd let me beat him? The question flickered through my mind and died. It didn't matter.
A glass of purple liquid flew toward me, thrown from somewhere, from someone I hadn't sensed. The vial spun through the air, catching moonlight, trailing vapor.
I retreated backward, gasping for air myself. My lungs burned. My arms hung like lead. I took a huge breath of oxygen, the deepest I could manage, and ran into the house.
He followed. I heard him rise, heard his footsteps pounding after me. When I risked a glance back, he was already healing. His color was returning. His breathing was evening out.
Tch. Damn it.
"Good thing I had this healing potion he gave me," he said. His voice was stronger now, almost fully recovered. The arrogance was creeping back.
He put on a mask. A simple cloth thing, pulled up over his nose and mouth.
I didn't pick it up. I held my breath instead. Seven to eight minutes of consciousness left. Maybe. If I didn't exert myself. If I didn't panic.
"You totally defeated me in this fight," he admitted. He was walking toward me now, calm, unhurried. The mask muffled his voice but didn't hide it. "But I need to fulfill my mission. You can't escape now."
I lunged toward the kitchen. My fingers found the knife block, six blades of varying sizes. I grabbed them by the handful and threw them at him like darts. The first two he batted aside with his forearm. The third he caught. The fourth and fifth clattered against his Aether-hardened skin and fell.
He deflected them all. Didn't even slow down.
Shit.
I inhaled a bit of air by reflex. The gas, whatever was in that mask, whatever he'd released, hit my lungs like fire. My vision swam. My consciousness began to fade at the edges.
"No doubt," he said. His voice seemed to come from far away. "You were the strongest raw physical combatant I've ever faced. But you don't have any Aether. That's why you lost."
No.
Not again.
Why?
My evasion plan was perfect. I had counted every variable. My father , the kingdom , the escape. How? How was my decision wrong?
I regret it.
I regret it.
I regret it.
I regret it.
I should have chosen the house. At least I would have been in shackles. But not captured like this.
SHIT!
I sprawled onto the floor, consciousness warring against the darkness. My limbs wouldn't respond. My eyes wouldn't focus. The last thing in my mind was Cinder, his face, his confusion, his reluctant loyalty. I'd left him. I wish I would have listened to him…