steady with no sign of fatigue, and his body was completely uninjured despite the fact that Josef had been sticking him like a pincushion for the last quarter hour.
Will, swordsman, the Heart’s voice boomed in his head. Concentrate. You have to strike him with—
“I know!” Josef shouted, shifting his fingers on the black sword’s hilt. “I’m trying. I’ve never done this before.”
Then you’d better learn quickly, the sword said, its voice sharpening. Because I can’t keep you up much longer.
Josef knew that. Even with the Heart’s strength roaring unchecked through his body, he was nearing his limit. How many times had the Lord of Storms’ blade slipped through his guard? Too many, Josef thought with a wince. He hadn’t pulled that third-arm stunt again, thankfully. Probably because, for all his other faults, the Lord of Storms was a warrior. A warrior would consider such tricks beneath him.
It wasn’t like the Lord of Storms needed cheap gimmicks anyway. He was standing firm on the icy stone, waiting for Josef’s next attack and smiling like he was having the time of his life. Considering how the man was always going on about a fight to make him feel alive, he probably was. Josef sneered. Must be fun to swing a sword around when you were an uncuttable bastard.
Stop thinking that, the Heart snapped. Thoughts like that are why you can’t cut him. Focus your mind, forget what you think you know and strike.
Josef tightened his grip and lunged. He came in low this time, the Heart clutched at his side until the last second. The Lord of Storms grinned wide and ran to meet him. He didn’t bother blocking. Instead, he threw all his weight into a swing that would have taken Josef’s arm off had Josef been a hair slower. But Josef wasn’t just Josef anymore. He was a true swordsman now, with the Heart’s strength and centuries of experience flowing through his veins beside his blood. He shifted at the last second, dodging the Lord of Storms’ glowing blade as he swung the Heart down and around to come up with a stabbing thrust straight through the League Commander’s side.
Josef knew he’d failed again as soon as the strike connected. The Heart went through the larger man’s torso without resistance, leaving Josef to stumble forward, a slave to his own momentum. They’d been at this long enough now that the Lord of Storms didn’t even try to take the opening on Josef’s back. He just lowered his sword and turned around to wait for Josef’s next charge.
“I’ve got a little bet going with myself,” he said as Josef plunged the Heart into the ground and leaned on it, panting so hard his lungs ached. “What do you think? Will I kill you first, or will you faint on me?”
Josef didn’t answer. Even if he’d had the breath to waste, there was no point rising to such obvious bait. Instead, he focused on stilling his shaking muscles and clearing his mind as the Heart commanded. It was a near- impossible task. His body was screaming for rest now, and the countless failures made his thoughts twisted and bitter. Josef wanted to beat the Lord of Storms until the man was a cloud-shaped pulp, but he couldn’t, and the frustration was making him wild.
Stop it, the Heart said. You’re not learning from your mistakes. You’re just swinging like an animal.
“I know.” Josef panted.
No, you don’t, the Heart said. If you knew anything you wouldn’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
Josef had no answer for that, so he focused on pushing himself up for the next charge.
His body stopped moving before he made it to first position.
No, the Heart said. No more. Stop for a moment, Josef Liechten. Stop and think.
Josef slumped against the Heart’s hold. What was there to think about? He couldn’t do this wizard nonsense. He’d lost. The only reason he was still standing was because the Lord of Storms was having too much fun playing with him to end it.
Shut up. The Heart’s voice roared through his mind, drowning out everything else. This is the last blow I’m keeping you up for, swordsman. After this, it’s done. I’m letting you drop. But before that happens, I want you to shut up and think about how best to spend your final strike.
Josef bared his teeth in a snarl and threw his head back. The Heart had locked his legs, but he could still move his upper body, and he used what was left of his strength to look up at the rolling clouds. The Heart was deluding itself. He wasn’t a wizard, wasn’t even a real swordsman, apparently. He was just a man, a man in way over his head. A man who couldn’t save his most important thing.
Josef’s eyes flicked to Nico. She looked so small, pressed back against the ledge. Her coat had wrapped around her completely, hiding her face, but he had the feeling her eyes were open. Shame shot through him. She was watching him fail her. Watching him throw everything he had at the Lord of Storms only to come up short. What a pathetic end this was.
That line of thought made him feel queasy, so Josef tore himself away from Nico and forced his attention back to the sky, the only safe place left to look. The storm stretched out as far as he could see, a swirling vortex above the Lord of Storms. Lightning forked between the black clouds, lighting them up from the inside just as the Lord of Storms had lit his own body with his sword. The clouds’ curling edges reminded him of the wounds he’d laid on the Lord of Storms before they healed. The thunderheads moved quickly in the high wind, the same wind that blew the Lord of Storms’ long hair back without touching Josef’s…
Josef jerked as his mind ground to a halt. Of course. He turned to his opponent. The Lord of Storms was standing as before—feet planted, sword arm raised tirelessly, his smile slipping into an expression of bored disappointment. But Josef saw the body for only a moment before he discarded the image the Lord of Storms projected and looked deeper.
He could see nothing special, nothing he hadn’t noticed before, but the more he looked, memorizing every detail of the Lord of Storms’ pale, unmarred skin, his unflushed cheeks, his sweatless brow, his undamaged coat still perfectly settled on his broad shoulders, the deeper the truth settled into Josef’s bones. Of course. How could he have been so blind?
Nature of your race, the Heart said. Are you ready to take the last swing?
“Yes,” Josef whispered, picturing the strike in his mind.
The Heart’s deep laughter filled him like water. A good blow, the sword said as Josef raised it to his shoulder. I am with you, Josef Liechten.
“And I with you, brother,” Josef whispered.
Across the ledge, the Lord of Storms lifted an eyebrow. “If you’re done talking to yourself, I do actually have business to get on wi—”
Josef attacked before he could finish. He didn’t lunge like the times before, didn’t throw himself at the League Commander. Instead, he planted his feet and swung, sweeping the Heart’s blade down in an enormous arc from the top of his shoulder to just above his foot. His arms ached as he moved, but it didn’t matter that they had no more strength to give. This blow had nothing to do with muscles, and it was not aimed at the Lord of Storms.
Josef swung with everything he had. His mind, his body, his desperation, all of him was focused into this one motion, this single arc of the blade. The blow exploded out of him with a boom that echoed across the mountains, and in the sky overhead, directly in a line from the tip of his sword as it traveled down, the thunderheads split open.
It was as though someone had cut the clouds with a knife. The heavy ceiling of black storms split in two, the storm clouds peeling back to reveal a perfectly straight swath of blue sky running from horizon to horizon directly over Josef’s head.
But Josef himself didn’t see this. He was frozen at the end of the blow, lungs thundering, his muscles straining to keep him upright. The pain and exhaustion were little more than a buzz, however. Insignificant background noise against the single thought that filled Josef’s mind.
From the moment he’d committed to the swing, he’d seen only one thing. The image had filled him, pushing out everything else, every doubt, every pain, until there was room for nothing but the truth. He clung to it even now, unable to do anything except hold on as the final echoes of the blow left his body. He had no thoughts, no knowledge, just that one image held like a candle behind his closed eyes.
It was a memory. Not his own, but one from the Heart of War. The same memory the sword had shown him when it had picked up his dying soul and told him to make a choice: walk out of death a swordsman, or not at all. Even as the last of the overwhelming power left him, Josef clung to the cold, clear vision of the mountain rising
