Long, narrow fingers snapped around my ankle, slick and iron-hard.

  Weed-black hair plastered to a pale face. Green teeth pulled into a thin, waiting smile.

  I cursed and slashed, but the blade tore through empty water.

  A second hand locked around my other ankle.

  The stone vanished beneath my feet and I dropped straight into the black pool.

  Icy water punched the air from my lungs. It closed over my head and dragged at my clothes, hauling me far deeper than the crossing had any right to be. I kicked blindly reaching for the stone that was no longer there.

  The blade cut through water but found nothing. My arm slowed with every swing. Pressure closed in on my chest and shoulders, pulling me down, inch by inch.

  Green eyes blinked beneath me.

  Green teeth curved into a slow, waiting smile.

  Then the shape slipped back into the dark.

  I cried out, bubbles tearing from my mouth as I slashed at the blur sliding past my side. For a heartbeat, the water thinned around her and I saw her properly.

  An old, wicked crone.

  Skin drawn tight over sharp bone. Tangled weed-hair streaming around a narrow, grinning face. Green-stained teeth bared in quiet delight.

  The pool folded around her body as if it belonged to her. No wake. No trail. Nothing I could follow.

  This was her pool.

  The weight on my back dragged me down. Doyle’s pack filled and pulled like a live thing, wrenching at my shoulders and tipping me backwards. I twisted in the water, fingers skidding along the strap, and cut through it in one blind slice. The pack tore free and vanished into the dark.

  I did not look back. I kicked and hauled at the water, forcing myself upward.

  She stayed close.

  Not rushing. Watching.

  She did not want a quick end. She wanted me tired and sinking. Her shape slid in beneath me.

  She yanked again.

  Water tore into my mouth and throat. My lungs seized. Cold flooded deep, hard and sudden.

  Then something pushed back.

  A bitter, metallic taste burst across my tongue and the pressure in my chest snapped open. The water tore out of my lungs as if dragged free by unseen hands. She drifted closer, studying me, waiting to watch the moment I should have drowned.

  She was close.

  My dagger was already moving.

  Pale arms lifted, opening to take me.

  I plunged the blade.

  It struck flesh.

  A shriek shuddered through the water, and a surge of intent climbed the dagger and flooded my arm. Not pain. Not fear. Something older and simpler.

  Anticipation.

  Then a sharp, wrenching sense of violation.

  This was her place.

  I did not belong.

  I kicked something hard and drove for the surface. As I rose, I glanced back.

  Green eyes still watched from the dark below.

  The dagger pulsed in my grip.

  Understanding settled without words. Through the dagger, the pool took shape. I felt where her reach gathered and where she always slipped back into the dark.

  She slowed. Her eyes fixed on the blade.

  I knew what she meant to do before she moved.

  She lunged.

  I twisted through the water and cut into the empty space ahead of her, striking where her body was about to pass.

  The blade found her.

  She screamed.

  I struck again.

  The resistance in the water shifted with each hit, sharpening the sense inside me. Her depth. Her line of approach. The narrow point she always returned to before rising.

  I drove the blade into that path a third time and kicked hard for the surface.

  She did not follow.

  She dropped back into the black, wounded and shrinking from me.

  The water closed around her then stilled.

  Only the eyes lingered a moment longer, fixed on me from below.

  I broke the surface and tore in a ragged breath, hauling my chest onto the stones. My boot struck the bottom of the pool and scraped hard across rock. I froze, staring down into the water.

  It was shallow.

  Only a few feet.

  Yet the dark she had dragged me into had felt bottomless.

  My legs shook as I forced myself upright and jumped from stone to stone toward the far bank.

  I turned back and scanned the shallow water. Nothing stirred. No pale limbs. No green eyes. My pack was gone.

  I swallowed and tightened my grip on the dagger. My pulse still hammered in my ears, and the cold clung to my bones. I had come far closer to staying in that pool than I wanted to admit.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  The reeds shifted.

  Two large eyes opened in the reeds, fixed on me without blinking. A thin, hunched back rose and fell with slow, steady breaths. Long ears lifted once above the grass and twitched.

  It did not come closer.

  It remained half-buried in shadow, watching.

  Then a voice drifted after me in the smith’s calm tone.

  “The ale will suffice.”

  A shiver ran through me. It was time to go.

  I pushed into the marsh and left the pool behind, driving toward the twisted tree. The weight of those watching eyes pressed between my shoulders, fading with every step I took.

  Will o’ the wisps stirred at the edge of my vision, pale and patient, threading a softer path through the marsh.

  I ignored them.

  My hands still shook around the dagger, and water dripped from my sleeves, but beneath the cold and the wet, something heavier had settled in my chest.

  Anger.

  I pushed straight through the marsh, fixing my line on the twisted trunk until I had to crane my neck to see its crown. Somewhere in its roots or branches waited the thing that had stolen my shape, taken my sword, and claimed my curse with it.

  If I wanted to pass this test, I had to reclaim more than my sword. I had to take back the one thing that had cut deepest.

  I looked down at the dagger. The answers were close. I had struck the creature in the pool, and the intent I tore from it had already thinned.

  Only then did I understand the limits of the rune the smith had given me.

  It did not grant power.

  It stole understanding.

  That meant all I needed was one clean cut.

  One solid bite of the blade. And I could win.

  Then I would finally understand this test. And perhaps, myself.

  I stopped at the base of the massive tree. Thick roots knotted over one another and pushed up through the ground, slick with damp moss and dark soil.

  Now where are you?

  I searched the shadows between the roots, the hollows beneath the trunk, the broken folds of bark. There was no trace of him.

  Of course there wasn’t.

  The last time I had faced him, he had vanished.

  I tightened my jaw.

  I would not win this by rushing.

  A faint pressure pulled at the back of my senses. The wind rose and tore through the leaves above, loud enough to mask smaller sounds.

  He was here. Somewhere.

  I lifted my gaze.

  High in the canopy, branches bowed and shuddered under sudden weight. Wood groaned and bark scraped as something hauled itself through the crown of the tree.

  I felt a thin, grim smile touch my mouth.

  He was climbing.

  And it seemed the tree was fighting him.

  A sharp grunt split the stillness.

  Branches snapped and scraped above me. Something slammed into the trunk, tore through a lower limb, and crashed into the ground at the base of the tree.

  I did not see him fall, only the ground erupt as something invisible struck it.

  A harsh, broken word burst from him. I could not make out the words. The sound twisted in my ears, wrong in shape and rhythm.

  This was my chance. Maybe my only one. I ran forward and drove the dagger.

  Steel rang against steel.

  The impact jarred up my arm and knocked me off balance. “Shit.”

  Air twisted where his body should have been, and something hard struck my legs. The kick ripped my footing out from under me, and I hit the ground with a dull thud.

  Then his outline snapped into existence.

  I could finally see him. I could see Lumi.

  Light shivered along the blade, the runes stuttering as if they could no longer hold.

  He spat a sharp curse in that broken tongue as he stood over me.

  The same face. The same frame.

  It was uncanny.

  Only this me was covered in thick angry scars. He bared his teeth and spoke again, the sounds forced and wrong in his mouth. Lumi rested in his grip, the runes along its edge dim and uneven.

  His eyes flicked to the sheath at my hip. He pointed once.

  Then he rushed me.

  I rolled back and came up hard on my feet.

  He did not slow. He closed the distance in a blink, moving faster than I could track and hitting with a weight I could not answer.

  Every time I tried to meet his blade, my guard collapsed and the impact drove me back.

  So, I stopped trying to block.

  I kept moving, buying space to dodge instead of standing in front of his strength. I stayed light on my feet, let the edge pass, and slipped out of line at the last instant. I gave him ground and waited for the moment to cut back in.

  That was when it hit me.

  I knew this rhythm.

  My copy fought exactly the way I did.

  Too tight. Too direct. Too eager to force the opening. I stayed half a step ahead of him, but only just. Lumi’s runes brightened in his grip with each breath. He was getting faster.

  I had to end this.

  The old mistake opened in his stance, the same narrow gap I always left when I rushed a finish. I slipped inside his guard and committed.

  He moved with me.

  Not late. Not panicked.

  A feint.

  The flat of the sword crashed into my ribs and ripped the breath from my chest. Pain folded me in half. My hand opened on instinct and the dagger spun from my grip, skidding across the dirt.

  I hit the ground hard. Bitter warmth flooded my mouth.

  The taste of the ale.

  The blow should have shattered something.

  A boot came down on my chest. He tore at my belt and ripped the sheath free with it.

  He said something then. Low. Dangerous. I could not understand the words, only the fury burning in his eyes.

  I forced myself upright.

  He struck again.

  The flat of Lumi drove into my side and crushed me into the dirt.

  He turned from me.

  He fastened the sheath at his hip and turned toward the tree.

  His gaze climbed the trunk, searching the branches for a way up.

  I could not let this false version of me escape. With my face, my sword, and my curse, he could walk straight into Trod cottage, and no one would question him. I saw it in a flash. Doors opening. Trust given. Power used where it should never be used.

  Rob. Amelia. Celeste.

  The dagger lay ahead of me, half buried in crushed grass near the roots.

  As my copy prepared to haul himself up, I moved.

  I snatched the dagger from the ground and dove for his back.

  He twisted aside at the last instant.

  Steel rang as he turned to meet me. Lumi flashed into the corner of my vision. I could not pull away.

  The tip of my dagger scraped across his forearm.

  Just enough.

  I understood.

  His balance, the way his shoulder carried the climb, the tension in the arm he favoured. It all surfaced at once.

  Pain answered from my own side as his return strike slammed into me. I flew backward and struck the ground hard, the back of my head cracking against the earth.

  I coughed, bracing for blood.

  Only bitter ale filled my mouth.

  I forced a breath and pushed onto an elbow.

  My copy snarled and glanced down at the cut on his arm. It was shallow.

  But it mattered.

  I saw it clearly now.

  He did not want to kill me.

  He was trying to leave me here.

  I only knew I could not let him reach the top.

  I dragged myself upright and looked down at my own body. The place where his blade had struck burned, deep and brutal, but the skin was unbroken. No blood. No mark.

  A thin, humourless breath escaped me.

  “The ale will suffice.”

  I tightened my grip on the dagger and went for him again.

  Anger tore across his face. Whatever restraint he had was gone.

  He lunged. But I had already seen it.

  The sword carved through the air with a sharp whistle. I dropped under the swing and stepped inside his reach, already driving my arm forward.

  Still, I was too slow. The pommel cracked into the back of my head.

  My face slammed into the dirt.

  Even with Lumi’s runes dulled, he still moved better than I could. Faster through the turns. Stronger in the clash. Every strike carried less waste, less hesitation. The ale burned in my chest and kept my legs under me when they wanted to fold.

  Pain tore up my side.

  I cut anyway.

  Low. Desperate.

  The dagger caught his shin.

  He shouted and staggered a half step. A curse tore from his mouth.

  This time, I understood.

  The truth landed with the words.

  This was not a creature wearing my face.

  Rage twisted his features as he drove into me. The impact knocked the breath from my chest and smashed us into the dirt.

  His hand clamped around my throat.

  I clawed at his wrist as something inside him answered the contact. A violent pull tore through my neck and into my limbs. The same raw force that once lived in me flared in him, and it burned through my skin and muscle like a living current.

  I screamed.

  I tried to bring the dagger up.

  My arm shook.

  The strike fell short.

  “Stop,” I gasped.

  He did not understand me.

  He threw me down and brought the sword up to my throat.

  Cold steel pressed into my skin.

  An idea surfaced.

  Stupid. Reckless.

  But it was the only choice that made sense.

  I brought the dagger up between us and turned it in my hand.

  I offered him the hilt.

  He froze. The fire in his eyes faltered, slipping into confusion. The pressure at my throat eased a fraction as his focus broke. His gaze shifted from my face to the blade.

  When he reached for it, I turned my wrist.

  The edge opened my palm. Deep.

  The pain snapped clean through my skin and pull came at once.

  I felt it roll up his arm through his fingers. His body jolted as if something had struck him from inside.

  He staggered back a step.

  “What the hell did you do to me?” he asked.

  The words were clear.

  My breath caught.

  “Can you understand me?” I asked.

  He stared at me for a moment, jaw tight, eyes unfocused.

  Then he nodded.