“D*mned wench! You did that on purpose!” Hallem clutched his bleeding face where Khazmine had struck him with Major Barshaw's bullwhip. Despite being protected with a set of expensive studded leather armor, Hallem's head, neck, and hands were exposed to targeted strikes, which Khazmine had practiced for weeks. The outcast had cracked her borrowed whip expertly, hitting one of the only spots that could do any real damage, enraging Mister Hallem. “Next time, you won’t get a weapon at all, you dirty trash!”

Khazmine merely clicked her tongue at Mister Hallem’s comments, and allowed a smirk to settle on her face as a silent counter went off in her head. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve…

The bleeding warrior managed to stand and grip fiercely at his ironwood sword just as Hallem and the outcast locked eyes through sheets of rain. Khazmine lowered her arms with the palm-sides of her clenched hands still facing Mister Hallem, as if inviting him to swing at her without resistance.

She’s mocking me. Hallem squeezed onto his sword hilt until his knuckles blanched white and charged through the rain for a last hurrah.

Three, two, one…

“What?!” Hallem shielded his eyes from the bright flashes of light around the training circle’s outer ring. Pulses of red blinded him until the warrior came to a full stop in the training circle. The crowd of Solanai soldiers and initiates cheered for the victor, whooping and hollering for the underdog fetch-and-carry. “No!”

Soaking wet and still catching her breath, Khazmine stood just out of striking distance, coiling the blood-stained, muddy whip as the rain fell harder.

You tricked me, you lowlife piece of— Mister Hallem screamed silently in his head at the outcast’s maneuver. She’d kept him distracted long enough to run out the clock, while managing to land a single hit against him. The furious soldier swung his sword back and forth to whisk mud from the blade. Not like this, I won’t lose like this.

Khazmine knew better than to turn her back on such a dubious opponent, so she sidled towards the edge of the training circle while keeping an eye on the Mister Hallem.

“Stop!” Hallem shouted at the departing outcast. “I DEMAND a rematch!”

“Apologies, mister, but I am too tired from the exertion,” Khazmine continued to back away from her opponent and was only a few steps away from crossing over the training circle’s containment band. Once she stepped over, the training circle would register Khazmine as the winner, and Hallem winced at the thought of it. “Perhaps we can try again after I have had some rest and dried off?”

“No, I’ll have my rematch NOW!” Hallem bellowed before cobbling together a suitable sum to stake on the outcome of their match. “I’ll offer ten gold stags for every five minutes we spar!” Hallem shouted, stopping Khazmine from walking out of the training circle. It was an obscenely large sum, which almost certainly came with a caveat or two, but the idea of earning that much money at one time was irresistible.

Whispers and muttering spread out among the gallery at his announcement. No one in the camp was foolish enough to put such an offer on a single spar unless they were some brand of lunatic. The ridiculous bully had challenged Khazmine in front of his peers and would have to honor such a pledge under penalty of maximum demerits or even expulsion from the guild if he reneged.

She was tired, to be sure, but the promise of such a lucrative payout was worth the risk of injury. Ten gold stags could certainly earn little Pavo a fine physician for his cough, and more money meant food, a nice room, clothing, a trip to the bathhouse…

An excited crowd was descending on the sparring arena despite the rain, which included a full bench on the observation deck. It was difficult to discern from that distance, but Khazmine thought she saw the familiar silhouettes of Major Barshaw and possibly Colonel Glazebane himself watching from above. Every member in attendance frothed at the opportunity to witness some poor beggar girl humble the brash Hallem, especially those viewing from on high.

“Same conditions, no time limit,” Khazmine consented and resumed her fighting stance, grounding both feet in place for Hallem’s next gambit. “I’m ready when you are.”

Quin Scurving finalized the altered parameters and backed away from the training circle as another flash of light signaled the start of a new match.

A shiver ran down Khazmine’s body as all hints of light were snuffed out around her in an instant. Mister Hallem’s shroud wasn’t nearly as pervasively-black as Lieutenant Mevralls’s, but it certainly sent tremors through the frightened outcast all the same. This wild darkness blotted out everything, save for the sounds of heavy rainfall and the ragged breathing of a bloodied monster lurking in the shadows. Khazmine bit her lower lip to suppress the fear that ran rampant within her.

Stay calm and FOCUS, Khazmine admonished herself silently as rain pelted her on all sides. That strange, electrical sensation creeped up on the outcast as she put a name to this familiar fear.

Hunted.

Pupils that were already starved for light dilated as ether flooded her tensed body. Khazmine clenched her jaw, allowed her eyelids to close, and channeled her magic into the one trait she had as an advantage. Long, pale-lilac ears pricked up as Khazmine forced herself to ignore the splatter of raindrops smashing into the training circle’s muddy ground. She peeled back the ambient noise, layer by layer, until Mister Hallem’s mucky footsteps remained.

Too close!

Khazmine ducked from a sword slash that sheared the rain overhead in a brutal stroke. Had she not felt the urge to evade, Hallem could have taken her head clean off. Instead, Khazmine dropped to the mud in a squat and used her folded legs to propel backwards and out of Hallem’s immediate strike radius.

He can still find you in darkness, Khazmine realized as her hands splashed into the soupy muck when she landed. How, though? He can’t possibly have an Outsider’s ears. What’s giving me away?

Khazmine wracked her brain for the solution as Mister Hallem skulked just out of reach of her whip. Until she had an answer, it was foolish to risk antagonizing her opponent further, especially since no one would see him tear her in half under cover of darkness once Hallem found her. It would be so easy to explain the outcast’s brutalized carcass as being a “training accident,” and Khazmine could sense murderous intent from Hallem’s deep breathing.

A twinge of remembrance tugged at her mind as Khazmine recalled Hallem’s bloodied face before the shroud enveloped them both. The whip’s strike had sliced into sensitive flesh, but didn’t impair Hallem’s ability to breathe silently from his mouth. If it had, Khazmine would have no hope of finding Hallem in the darkness, so why was he using his nose to broadcast his position by breathing?

Khazmine inhaled deeply before partly dodging another dangerously close strike. Hallem wasn’t nearly as skilled as Major Barshaw in combat but that didn’t matter when he could get the drop on opponents without them having a chance to defend themselves. His swing clipped Khazmine’s free arm and she let out a cry at the force of its impact.

No-no-no, don’t make noise. It’ll only encourage him. Khazmine tucked into a roll and splashed mud all over her training uniform as she summersaulted to get away from Hallem’s wrath. She took another deep breath, this time from her nose, and landed on the answer she’d been searching for. Oh gods, the soap!

Sure enough, the rich, fruity aroma of brambleberry soap lingered on Khazmine’s rain-soaked skin. She’d remembered Lieutenant Mevralls had mentioned that it was designed specifically for the Solanai and recalled how she still smelled sweetly even after being drenched by rain between baths. It was only an errant thought back at the bathhouse weeks ago, so Khazmine didn’t realize how true that idle notion was.

Hallem could snake around the training circle, sniffing the air like a prowling raddilbak, and track Khazmine down easily. It was only a matter of time before he’d catch her, unless…

The coiled bullwhip tapped against her sore arm as Khazmine cradled her injury. A playful smile grew as Khazmine tucked her limbs in, took a deep breath, and rolled right into the muck. It was risky to make so much noise even amid the din of rain, but she saw no other options to rid herself of Hallem’s chief means of tracking her.

And you who call me “filth” get to see an outcast truly live up to the name.

Sopping wet with sticky mud, Khazmine crept low and slinked with her gathered whip at the ready to strike. A heavy splash of angry footsteps trudged through the mud, accompanied by ragged, hateful breaths from her pursuer. This deadly pursuit lasted for untold minutes, until Hallem approached the outcast’s strike radius.

Khazmine slowly rose to prepare for a snap of her whip, when a jolt suddenly filled her chest cavity with foreign energy, stealing a ragged breath from the outcast. It burned like the crackle of an open fire, but Khazmine felt the sensation for what it was—a roving ether spike.

A brief, vivid portrait of her surroundings’ outlines filled her mind as Khazmine sensed Mister Hallem’s location. Her body must have reflexively absorbed one of Lieutenant Mevralls’s spikes and captured a blueprint of everything inside the training circle. She couldn’t know that the lieutenant had lately arrived at the circle and was desperately casting spikes at intervals to ping for Khazmine’s well-being. This was a gift—her only chance at landing a solid hit against Hallem—and Khazmine wasn’t about to squander it.

Mister Hallem circled the arena with muscles twitching as his frustration mounted. He couldn’t be sure what had happened, but Hallem had lost his one advantage when the familiar scent of brambleberries vanished into the heavy rain. He’d long since tired of this game of cat and mouse, and wanted nothing more than to shed his soaked, chaffing armor and slip into a tall tankard of mead to celebrate at the commissary.

Hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and Mister Hallem raised his unencumbered arm on instinct to catch the flayed end of Khazmine’s whip strike. Instead of a thunderous crack, the leather tendril wrapped tightly around his forearm, squeezing it mercilessly. A ripple of fear cascaded over the soldier’s body, but it was quickly washed away when Hallem remembered that it wasn’t Major Barshaw on the other end of the accursed whip.

At last, a stroke of luck! Mister Hallem smiled broadly as a crazed laugh was broadcast throughout this wild darkness. A cold hand traced the outline of the whip, and he began tugging on it with force. He ran an eager tongue over his canine tooth tips as the brutish monster inched the whip closer and closer with each pull.

Panic set in as Khazmine dug her feet into the squishy mud. Even without the mud’s slippery consistency, the outcast had no hopes of prevailing over Mister Hallem’s superior strength as he inched the half-breed towards his fiendish laughter. Pull by pull, he could drag her terrified body close enough to deliver Khazmine’s retribution, and it would all be over. Scrambling and frightened, she couldn’t think of another way out of a sound beating at this b*stard’s hands.

Let go, Khazmine, a voice echoed in her head as her strength ebbed away and fearful tears filled the outcast’s eyes. Her situation was hopeless and Khazmine imagined the horror of being back at the healer’s hovel again or being beaten to death over some soldier’s wounded ego. This wasn’t how she wanted to go down, and Khazmine swallowed hard as the voice repeated, Let go.

And so she did.

Both of Khazmine’s hands trembled as she raised them up with bent, exhausted arms until her thumbs grazed aching shoulders. A deep, painful friction burn scoured over her exposed palms, which she could see immediately once the training circle nullified Hallem’s shroud. The only other thing of interest in her immediate surroundings was Mister Hallem himself, who had toppled over from Khazmine’s unexpected release of the whip and fallen backwards right into the mud.

Khazmine managed a wheezing, soundless laugh at the welcome bonus of seeing her tormentor half-soaked in sticky mud. The outcast shambled forth on shaky legs to offer Mister Hallem help in getting back up, as the crowd cheered wildly for their match. The half-breed towered over Hallem with black hair tamped down from torrents of rain, and icy blue eyes that were weak from crying earlier.

“Well done, sir,” Khazmine congratulated the victor through labored breaths and offered a burned hand to aid Hallem’s ascent.

She looks like a drowned rat, Hallem sneered to himself as his massive hand crushed Khazmine’s injured one in his clutches. He permitted her unwanted help only because it would have appeared unsportsmanlike to refuse, and Hallem could at least crush Khazmine’s insolent hand in the process. The sight of the drenched half-breed flinching in pain made this victory taste all the sweeter.

Mister Hallem had triumphed in their rematch with his superior ether skills and renowned strength, yet the outcast still smiled back at him with defiance in her eyes when her hand wrenched away from his. It took Hallem a moment to realize why…