# Chapter 107: The Absolute Limit
Silas leaned into the headbutt instead of away from it.
He didn't fight the pull of Zerav's collar-tie. He accelerated into it, and at the last instant tucked his chin to his chest and turned his head by a fraction of an inch.
*CLACK!*
Zerav's forehead didn't break Silas's face. It glanced off the bone of his left shoulder instead, hard enough to rattle his spine. But the deflection pulled Zerav's own weight forward, and for one split second his chin was wide open.
Silas took it.
His right hand came around in a short, tight hook aimed at the point of Zerav's jaw.
Zerav's instincts screamed. He let go of the collar-tie and swung his free fist across in a short, brutal hook of his own, aimed at Silas's temple.
The two blows flew at each other in the same heartbeat.
*BOOM!*
A shockwave of compressed air burst between them and blew the loose sand outward in a ring around their boots.
Then everything stopped.
Neither fist had landed.
Silas's knuckles, already bloodied, hung a hair's width from Zerav's jaw. The wind of the punch stirred the stubble on his face. Zerav's bruised fist rested just as close to Silas's temple, near enough that Silas could feel the heat coming off it.
They stood locked in the frame, and neither of them moved.
It wasn't luck. Both of them knew it. Each had seen the other's blow coming a full beat before it launched, and both had understood in the same instant that if they let them land, the ring would have two bodies in it instead of one winner.
So both had stopped.
Silas's crimson eyes held perfectly calm. Zerav's grin stretched wider, wild and delighted, as if this were the best thing that had happened to him all year.
Five seconds passed. The whole courtyard had stopped breathing. Up on the observation balcony, Caspian gripped the stone rail, and Elisa leaned over it beside him with her hand pressed to her mouth. At the ropes, Lyra stood motionless, her crimson eyes fixed on the two of them.
Instructor Edward took three full seconds to remember the whistle in his hand.
*FWWWWWWWIIIIT!*
The shriek cut through the silence like a blade.
"Halt!" Edward's gravelly voice cracked. "The bout is concluded!"
The spell broke.
Zerav lowered his fist slowly, looked at his own bruised knuckles, then threw his head back and laughed. It rolled off the stone archways, big and warm and completely unashamed.
"Ah, damn it!" He wiped dust and sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and spat a little blood into the sand. "I haven't had a proper workout in weeks. My shoulders are going to be stiff tomorrow."
Silas lowered his hand. His breathing was even. His posture loosened back into its usual quiet slouch, and the crimson light in his eyes dimmed, flickering down to embers.
He said nothing. He crossed the ring, bent, and picked his torn hood out of the sand. He shook the grit from it, and without any ceremony drew it back over his head, hiding his hair, his face, and his eyes in shadow.
Across the ring, Zerav was already walking to the border where his scythe had landed. He scooped it up and slung it over his shoulder as casually as if he hadn't just tried to cave in a man's skull a few seconds earlier.
"We should do this more often," he said, grinning, rolling his neck until it popped. "Beats the history lectures."
Silas didn't answer, but he didn't walk away either. The two of them left Ring Seven side by side, and the crowd scrambled backward to clear a wide path.
The whispers started as soon as they passed.
"Did you see that?"
"No arrays. No spells. Bare hands, and he matched him hit for hit."
"Are those two even human?"
By the ropes, Lyra watched Silas's hooded shape draw level with her. She opened her mouth to speak. Something about the cold weight still clinging to him closed her throat, and the words never came.
Silas didn't turn his head. He walked on toward the main archway, as indifferent to the awe and fear he'd left behind as he'd been to the rest of the afternoon.
Lyra let out a slow breath, and a faint, thoughtful smile touched her lips.
*So that's what he looks like when he's not holding back,* she thought. *Or close to it.*
Up in the balcony, Elisa let out a long, shaky breath of her own. "That was incredible," she whispered. "They could have killed each other. Why did they stop?"
"Because they could both see it," Caspian said quietly, and his eyes were still on the figures disappearing through the arch. "Neither of them wanted to lose. And neither of them wanted to end it that way."
Down in the empty ring, Edward stood alone among the churned sand and the long drag marks left by their boots. He looked at the ledger in his hand.
He didn't write a score. He didn't write a winner or a loser.
He drew a single thick line through the entry for Ring Seven and closed the book, shaking his head slowly.
The sun slid lower behind the stone walls, and the grounds began to darken.