Chapter 7: The Melee Begins - Part 2
The hour crawled by like a wounded animal.
I sat on the bench, forearms throbbing, thigh sending jolts of pain with every shift of weight. Around me, the other nineteen survivors dealt with their own damage. One man had his shoulder reset by the maester, screaming through clenched teeth. Another vomited blood into the mud.
Ser Derren hadn't moved from his spot across the rest area. Still watching me. His sword lay across his knees, and his eyes never wavered.
He's planning. Figuring out how to counter what he saw.
I needed to be faster. More unpredictable. The Soru had surprised him once. It wouldn't work twice unless I combined it with something else.
I flexed my fingers, testing the Tekkai. The cramps had faded during the rest period, muscles recovering faster than they should. Adaptive resistance at work. Not just for fire and poison—apparently it applied to physical strain too.
Good. I'd need every advantage.
The tourney master appeared, voice cutting through the noise. "Round Two! Smaller arena! Ten advance to finals!"
We stood. Limped. Shuffled toward the arena entrance.
The crowd's roar intensified as we emerged. The arena had been reduced—rope barriers cutting the fighting space in half. Tighter quarters. Less room to maneuver.
Perfect for ambushes. Terrible for Soru.
I dropped my weight to forty kilograms as we entered, moving light on my feet. The mud sucked at my boots less when I weighed almost nothing.
Derren entered from the opposite side. Our eyes met across the arena.
The horn blew.
The other fighters scattered, seeking easy targets or forming temporary alliances. I ignored them all and moved toward Derren.
He did the same.
We met in the center of the arena, circling. His sword was ready, point tracking my movement. Professional stance. Years of training evident in every controlled step.
"What are you?" he asked quietly, voice pitched for my ears only.
"Just a bastard."
"Liars go to the Seven Hells."
He feinted left. I didn't bite. He smiled—testing me.
Then he exploded forward, blade coming in a horizontal slash aimed at my ribs.
I triggered Soru.
The world compressed. Ten kicks in an instant, ground exploding beneath my feet. I shot three meters to the right, appearing at Derren's flank.
The crowd gasped. Thousands of voices rising in confusion and excitement.
Derren whipped around, eyes wide. "What in the Seven Hells—?"
I didn't answer. Closed distance normally, sword raised.
He recovered fast. Brought his blade up, met mine. The clang of blunted steel rang out.
We traded strikes. Three. Four. Five. He was better trained, more experienced. Each parry was precise, each counter perfectly timed.
But I was faster.
I used Soru again. This time backward, creating distance. He pursued, not giving me time to breathe.
Smart. If he kept pressure on me, I couldn't use the burst movement effectively in this tight space.
He swung for my head. I ducked, felt the blade pass overhead. Countered with an upward slash.
He blocked. Kicked at my injured thigh.
Pain exploded. I staggered, weight shifting wrong. He pressed the advantage, blade coming down in an overhead chop.
I hardened my left shoulder with Tekkai.
The sword hit. The impact jarred through my entire body, but the blade bounced off like it had struck iron. Derren's eyes widened further.
I shifted my weight. All of it. Eight hundred kilograms in an instant.
The mud beneath my feet compressed. My next step left a crater.
Derren saw it coming. Raised his shield.
I swung my sword down with all the force that extra weight could provide.
The impact sounded like a tree splitting. His shield—solid oak reinforced with iron—splintered down the middle. The force drove Derren to one knee, arm buckling under the strain.
He gasped, face twisted in pain. Probably fractured something.
The crowd was screaming now. I couldn't make out words, just noise.
I could finish this. Another weighted strike to his helm. Crush his skull through the metal.
Instead, I dropped my weight back to normal, placed my sword point at his throat.
"Yield."
He stared up at me, breathing hard, sweat pouring down his face. His shield arm hung at an odd angle. Broken, probably.
"Yield," he said.
I stepped back, offered my hand.
He took it. I hauled him to his feet, careful of the injured arm. Around us, other fights continued. Someone screamed as they took a sword to the knee.
Derren looked at me for a long moment. "You're not natural."
"No."
"Good luck, White. You'll need it."
He limped toward the exit, cradling his arm.
The tourney master's voice boomed: "White the Bastard advances!"
I turned, scanned for my next opponent.
The rest of Round Two was chaos.
A knight in polished steel came at me with an axe. I used Kami-e to flow around his strikes, then countered with a Shigan thrust to his floating ribs. He went down gasping.
Another—a sellsword with a mace—tried to flank me. I caught the movement, used Soru to reposition, appeared behind him. Weighted strike to his spine. Not enough to break it, but enough to put him in the mud.
The crowd's noise became a constant roar. I stopped hearing individual voices. Just a wall of sound washing over everything.
The horn blew.
I stood in the center of the arena, chest heaving, mud splattered across my armor and face. Around me: groaning fighters being dragged to the sidelines.
Seven of us remained.
The tourney master raised his arms. "Our finalists! Round Three begins in two hours!"
The crowd erupted.
I stumbled toward the exit, legs shaking from exhaustion. The weight shifts, the Tekkai, the Soru—all of it was draining me faster than normal exertion. My body wasn't conditioned enough yet.
Two hours. I need to recover.
But first, I needed to see the stands.
I looked up, scanning the nobility's section. There—the royal box. King Viserys, looking old and tired even from this distance. Beside him, a young woman with silver-gold hair. Princess Rhaenyra. She was leaning forward, clearly interested in what she'd just witnessed.
Others too. An older man with a calculating expression—Otto Hightower, probably. A wealthy-looking noble who might've been Corlys Velaryon.
And there, sitting apart from the main box, almost hidden behind a pillar...
A girl. Maybe sixteen, seventeen. Silver-white hair catching the sunlight. She wasn't watching the arena. She was staring at something on the railing in front of her.
I couldn't see what. Too far away.
But something in my chest tightened. Recognition without understanding.
Helaena.
I didn't know how I knew. Just... did. The way she sat, separate from everyone else. The way she focused on something tiny and insignificant while chaos raged below.
As if sensing my gaze, she looked up.
Our eyes met across the distance. A heartbeat. Two.
Then someone shoved me from behind—another fighter heading for the rest area—and I lost sight of her in the crowd.
I let myself be carried along, but my mind stayed locked on that moment.
She saw me. She looked right at me.
No idea why that mattered. But it did.
Two hours until the final round. Seven fighters. Winner takes all.
I had work to do.
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