Barrett wrenched his blade free and smashed it into Gabul’s weapon with a brutal twist, knocking the massive sword wide. Before the warlord could recover, Barrett drove a boot into his chest and sent the towering orc skidding back through the churned earth.

  He straightened slowly, resting the flat of his sword across one shoulder, chest rising and falling.

  “Remember me, you ugly bastard?” Barrett said, his voice low and steady as he stared the monster down.

  Gabul rolled to one knee and rose, towering, tusks slick with blood and spittle. His red eyes burned with dull contempt.

  “Pathetic human,” the orc growled. “You all look the same.”

  Grimm wasn’t back yet.

  Barrett felt the absence like a missing limb. He’d used [Raven Reversal] to quickly get here, and now the bird was still winging its way back from his last position. Until Grimm returned, Barrett was blind to the wider battlefield. No overhead view. No warning.

  He would have to stall, act as if nothing were wrong.

  “Last time we met,” Barrett said, circling slowly, boots crunching against broken stone, “I challenged you to a duel.” His grip tightened. “And I was winning that duel…right up until you ran crying like a little baby.”

  Gabul’s lip curled, tusks flashing. “Fool! You fled like a coward!”

  Barrett’s grin cut sharp and feral. “So…you do remember me!”

  The warlord didn’t answer, but the hatred rolled off him like heat from a forge.

  Then Grimm slipped back into range.

  The world snapped open.

  Barrett saw everything in a single, brutal intake of breath.

  Eidel’s guards lay scattered and broken. Most of the villagers were down or scrambling in terror. Rei lay crumpled in the dirt, unmoving. Zahir was motionless beside her. Granny was running toward them. And Eidel—

  Eidel was still standing.

  Barely.

  Her eyes were hollow, unfocused, like someone who had already made peace with dying.

  Something cold and heavy settled in Barrett’s chest.

  Enough!

  He surged forward.

  Steel howled as Barrett brought his sword down in a flurry of savage arcs, each strike heavy enough to cleave stone. Gabul met them head-on, black armor blooming across his hide at the moment of impact, swallowing the force of each blow just as it had before.

  Nothing got through.

  Gabul answered with even more brutality.

  The warlord came at Barrett like a landslide, swings wide and punishing, each strike carrying the weight of a siege engine. Barrett blocked, boots digging trenches into the earth as the impacts shuddered through his arms and spine. Sparks screamed. The ground cratered where missed blows landed.

  “Guess you’re not underestimating me this time,” Barrett said through clenched teeth, breath ragged.

  Gabul didn’t bother replying.

  He simply moved faster.

  Blows rained down relentlessly. Barrett gave ground, blocking, slipping, redirecting, but the pressure never eased. Then, as Barrett raised his blade to catch another strike, Gabul twisted in close and drove a fist into him with bone-crushing force.

  The world lurched.

  Barrett flew backward, pain detonating across his face. Something cracked, and he hit the ground hard, skidding through dirt and blood.

  Stars burst across his vision as he sucked in a breath that tasted like iron.

  Yeah, he thought dimly.

  That one definitely broke something.

  But he was still breathing.

  And Gabul was still standing.

  Which meant the fight wasn’t over.

  —6 Months Ago—

  One, two—one—one—three—four—six.

  The numbers looped endlessly in Barrett’s head, a metronome ticking behind his eyes. Each count translated cleanly into motion: jab, kick, hook, straight, switch kick. His body obeyed perfectly, snapping through combinations with speed and power.

  To an observer, it probably looked impressive.

  To Baha, it was boring.

  The old man in the faded aloha shirt slid between the strikes like smoke, shoulders loose, feet barely touching the mat. Barrett’s fist cut through empty air. His kick missed by inches. Then—without warning—Baha stepped inside the rhythm and cracked him across the ribs, followed by a sweep that dumped Barrett flat on his back.

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  “So easy,” Baha said mildly, looking down at him. “Too obvious.”

  Barrett lay there blinking up at the lights, sweat stinging his eyes, lungs burning as he tried to pay his oxygen debt. His body felt heavy, brain delayed, like the signal from his brain was arriving a second too late. He tried to answer, but nothing clever came out except an exhausted grunt.

  Baha shook his head and paced the ring, hands clasped behind his back. “You fight like a machine,” he went on. “No flavor. No flow. Just reading off a checklist.”

  He stopped suddenly and looked at Barrett. “Don’t tell me you’re reading numbers off in your head?”

  The words hit harder than the punch.

  Barrett pushed himself up onto an elbow, jaw tight. “I—”

  “Loosen up!” Baha snapped, the calm gone in an instant.

  “I am loose,” Barrett shot back, dragging himself to his feet.

  “No, you’re stiff as hell,” Baha said, waving a dismissive hand. “You’re thinking too much.” He leaned forward, eyes sharp. “Remember what I told you. You’re a tiger.”

  “I’m a tiger,” Barrett repeated, uncertain.

  “Then stop moving like a machine,” Baha barked. “Fake. Move. Threaten ten things at once. I want so much noise in my head that I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

  Barrett frowned. “What are you even talking about?”

  Baha didn’t answer. He just gestured with two fingers.

  “Get up.”

  Barrett straightened fully.

  “Let’s go.”

  Baha moved.

  He bobbed and shifted, weight flowing from foot to foot, shoulders rolling. Left. Right. Forward. Back. It was too fast, too unpredictable. Barrett’s eyes struggled to lock on.

  Then it started.

  A twitch of the shoulder.

  The ghost of a punch.

  The beginning of a kick that never came.

  Every signal Barrett had trained himself to read—every tell, every cue—fired at once and then vanished. His instincts screamed now! and wait! at the same time. His reactions jammed, gears grinding.

  Tony grinned as he danced just out of reach, flickering between intentions.

  It wasn’t all feints. Real strikes slipped in too, but they carried no weight, no intent to finish. They existed only to demand attention. Barrett felt like a defense grid under saturation fire, intercepting harmless projectiles again and again, knowing the true threat would come the moment he missed one.

  Then—buried among the lies—came the truth.

  A real strike slipped through the noise.

  Barrett never saw it.

  The mat rushed up to meet him, the impact rattling his skull. He curled instinctively, arms up, breath hitching. His head buzzed, thoughts scattering like startled birds.

  For the first time since he’d started training, Barrett didn’t want to win.

  He just wanted it to be over.

  His brain couldn’t track it. Couldn’t sort signal from deception. Every instinct he relied on was being drowned under too much information, too many threats.

  And somewhere above him, Baha’s voice cut through his panic.

  “That’s what it feels like,” the old man said. “Now you’re learning.”

  —Present—

  Barrett blinked hard, the world snapping back into focus.

  “Still weak,” Gabul rumbled, stalking toward him.

  Barrett wiped a streak of blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and said nothing. There was no point trading words with a creature like this. He lowered his shoulders, feet settling into familiar alignment, breath slowing despite the chaos roaring around him.

  “Blood Oath,” he murmured.

  “Stage one.”

  Something dark unfurled around him.

  A dense, predatory weight emanated from his domain as it expanded outward. His heart slammed harder. Hotter. Blood surged through his veins.

  He took in the battlefield in a single breath.

  The broken ground. The fallen guards. Rei and Zahir down, bodies still, while Granny knelt among them, hands glowing faintly as she worked past exhaustion, refusing to stop. And beside them, Eidel who stood bloodied and hollow-eyed as she stood watch over the wounded.

  She looked up then.

  Her gaze found Barrett.

  Her last hope.

  His oath caught the sight of it all and consumed it.

  The memory of Lance and Tanya flashed through him, standing their ground, buying time with everything they had so others could escape. He didn’t know if they were alive. He chose to believe they were.

  And then Arthur.

  Too young. Too brave. Cut short before he ever had the chance to find out who he might have become.

  The oath drank it all.

  “You’re going back where you belong,” Barrett growled, lifting his sword.

  “In my memories.”

  He launched forward.

  “Try,” Gabul spat.

  Barrett vanished.

  In the same instant, [Raven’s Reversal] activated, and Grimm snapped into existence in his place, wings flaring as the raven streaked past Gabul’s flank. Momentum betrayed the warlord.

  Barrett reappeared behind him, already mid-swing.

  Steel screamed.

  The blow landed, but not cleanly. Black armor bloomed across Gabul’s back a fraction of a second too fast, swallowing the edge of Barrett’s blade. The strike skidded, carving only a shallow scar before the orc whirled.

  A massive hand clamped for Barrett’s throat.

  Too slow.

  Barrett kicked off Gabul’s chest, twisting away mid-air and landing hard, boots biting into churned earth. He didn’t pause. He didn’t think.

  He charged again.

  This time there was no patience. No discipline. Just motion and fury. Barrett attacked like a man possessed, slashing again and again, burning emotion straight into power as Blood Oath roared inside him.

  Stop brawling, dammit, fight! Baha’s voice echoed in his skull.

  Barrett ignored it.

  He didn’t care about efficiency or form. He accepted the potential for pain and injury, as long as his blade kept moving and hunting for blood. Rage fed the oath. The oath fed the rage.

  He overextended.

  Gabul caught the blade with brutal force, knocked it wide, and drove his armored skull forward.

  The headbutt detonated.

  Stars burst across Barrett’s vision in black and red as his body folded, crashing to the ground. He barely felt himself hit.

  Above him, Gabul raised his massive sword.

  The shadow fell.

  The strike came down—

  —and was intercepted mid-swing by a shrieking impact.

  A hyperspeed lance of azure mana slammed into Gabul’s chest, hitting with such force that the air buckled. The warlord was hurled backward, plowing through dirt and smoke in a violent arc.

  Barrett groaned and forced himself upright.

  Through the settling dust, he saw them.

  Maku stood with one arm extended, mana still crackling around his fingers. Pippy was beside him, small hands glowing faintly, her power woven into the spell.

  Maku waved.

  “Sorry we’re late, big guy,” he called. “Traffic was hell.”

  Barrett huffed out a breath. The oath still burned hot in his veins.

  “He’s mine,” he said, already stepping toward the dust cloud.

  “Are you stupid?!” Maku shouted.

  Barrett stopped.

  “You think we’re dead weight?” Maku snapped, voice raw. “That we’re just here to watch you play hero?”

  Barrett turned.

  Pippy met his eyes. There was resolve there. And hurt. And trust he didn’t deserve if he kept going like this.

  The truth hit harder than Gabul’s headbutt.

  “I’m an idiot,” Barrett said quietly.

  How had he missed it? This wasn’t a story about a lone man standing against the world. He was the one who’d preached teamwork. Who’d built this group. Who’d promised them they mattered.

  And then tried to shoulder it all alone.

  Barrett let out a long, steady breath, forcing the truth to settle.

  No time for shame. No time to guard his pride. He’d screwed up, and he knew exactly how to fix it.

  Barrett lifted his sword, the dark aura still coiled around him, and grinned.

  “Team Donovan!” he roared.

  “Let’s kick some ass.”