The wind stilled.
Then, steel screamed.
Lysara launched forward, sword light in her grip, dancing with intent. Her frame moved like a wisp, lean and coiled in motion. The swordsman charged as well, thunder in every step as his boots struck the earth like falling hammers, his sword a slab of iron drawn from the depths of war.
They collided.
Metal rang, sparks kissed the sun, and dust curled around their feet like smoke. The first clash was more than a single blow; it was a sequence, her slender blade glancing off his wide sweep, parrying and sliding like water across stone. His sword, heavy and deliberate, met hers repeatedly until the rhythm of their battle found breath.
It was neither muscle versus finesse nor brute strength opposing agility; it was force confronting art.
The swordsman moved like a storm with power and precision alike. He twisted his core, hips, and shoulders behind every blow, his blade hurled like a wave anchored in mastery. He used his full weight, elbows drawn in, knees bent, maximizing both range and velocity. He was no mindless brute; he was a tactician inside a fortress of iron.
Lysara's sword moved like a ribbon caught in a tempest. Each strike began as a whisper and grew sharper with intent. She slid under his arcs, stepped through the spaces between his strikes, and turned pivots into slashes while parries transformed into counterattacks.
Gasps echoed across the colosseum, followed by cheers.
The crowd rose as one, astonished.
They had never witnessed a fight like this.
Steel clashed with steel again and again in a rhythm too fast for the eye to follow. Each movement lifted dust into the air, golden particles swirling around them like fireflies. The arena floor grew hazy, filled with fine sand disturbed by footwork too perfect to be anything but intentional.
He roared, deep and primal, each cry adding momentum to his assault. His armor clanked with every motion, his body a furnace of movement and pressure. He used his size to press her back, to corner her, to break her stance with kicks, shoulder rushes, and weight-bearing lunges. He threw everything into every swing.
She deflected without flinching.
She fought with precision instead of sheer power. Her strength had never been in brute force; it lay in angles, timing, and awareness. She ended battles quickly because she had to. She did not have the luxury of endurance.
A single mistake would allow his strength to crush her.
She needed a moment.
One opening.
Then she saw it.
At the curve of his neck, where helmet met chestplate, there was a space no wider than a coin. A spot most swordsmen couldn't even dream of targeting, much less striking mid-battle.
Not now, she thought.
His blade crashed downward, and she spun away, her body sliding across the sand like it had known the terrain forever. The wind lifted her hair as her feet remained in constant motion. He came low with a cleaving swing aimed to gut.
She stepped to the right quickly.
She countered, her blade flicking up toward his neck.
Inches too high.
Her sword sliced the air swiftly and surely, yet the tip scraped only the edge of his shoulderplate before glancing off into nothing. She ducked beneath his retaliatory swing, sand spraying as she twisted to his side. Without wasting a breath, she struck again.
Inches too low.
The impact sent a tremor through her arm, a dull vibration humming from her wrist to her shoulder. The blow lacked precision and force.
Then, her sword rang against his helmet. The impact jarred them both. It didn't pierce the metal, but it tilted his head slightly.
A helmet might block a blade, but it doesn't prevent the skull inside from rattling.
He staggered half a step, a shift barely perceptible.
She had already retreated, ready once more.
Now, she thought.
She surged forward, the breeze made blade. He roared again, louder and stronger, his weapon descending in a screaming arc of steel aimed at her chest.
He knew. He fought back with every ounce of strength he had left.
Two blades. Two targets. One fleeting moment.
Her sword lanced forward guided by instinct. The dust lifted in a sudden storm as their feet shifted, legs pivoting with impossible force. Sand swallowed their steps.
SLASH.
A single sound of the end.
They passed each other.
Then came stillness.
Backs turned. Sand settling. A reversal of stance and time.
The crowd held their breath.
The blow had been too fast to witness. The outcome hung suspended like a mystery in the air.
She stood there, leather-armored and exposed in ways no knight would ever dare. He remained encased head-to-toe in steel. Her chances had always been slim.
To win, her blade needed to thread a needle, while his required only a single hit anywhere on her body.
Which steel had found the mark?
Neither moved.
Then, Lysara turned.
Her blade pointed downward, her stance calm. Her eyes, cold and glasslike, blinked once.
She remained still.
Harmless.
The swordsman did not move.
His sword sagged.
He muttered, hoarse and fading, "It's cold..."
A single drop of red slid from his neck, then more followed.
A breath later, his head fell.
It didn't tumble. It dropped, as if it had accepted its fate.
A clean strike, delivered without hesitation, without noise, without glory.
Only death.
The crowd did not react at first.
Then came the roar, delayed, deafening, and wild.
A tide of voices surged, some calling her name, others simply screaming in disbelief.
Lysara walked. The wind tugged gently at her cloak.
The match had ended.
Victory had been claimed.
A hush followed in her wake, as though the colosseum itself exhaled.
A cold breeze passed through the arena.
It traced her skin, soft as memory, and curled across the blood-warmed sand.
She was a breeze.
A cold one.