The room reacted instantly.
"What—"
"She's stepping in?"
"Isn't she—"
The murmurs didn't finish forming before recognition took hold.
Erika.
Not just the name—the title that followed it.
Someone on the benches leaned forward, voice dropping instinctively.
"The Feather of Discord…"
Titles were not given lightly.
Some came from the guild—earned through record, reliability, and the quiet consensus of veterans who had seen enough to judge. Others were stamped by the state, formal and ceremonial, bound to rank and service. A rare few were acknowledged by the church, spoken from pulpits and written into doctrine as proof of divine favor or sanctioned violence.
All of them meant one thing.
Recognition.
Erika's had not come from ceremony.
It had come from disruption.
The Feather of Discord was what the guild called her after her techniques became impossible to ignore—after too many bouts ended the same way. Aura refined to a razor's intent. Thrusts that did not batter or overwhelm, but pierced. Not flesh first, but certainty.
Her blade slipped through layered protection spells like breath through cloth. Reinforced armor failed not because it was weak, but because her aura did not contest it—it passed through, seeking seams no shield was meant to guard.
Where others broke defenses, Erika invalidated them.
Where she fought, assumptions died.
Even the ones who had tried to pretend this was routine couldn't manage it anymore.
Erika walked into the sand with the calm of a woman entering her own home. She stopped ten paces from Sawyer and drew her rapier.
Not a training blade.
A real one.
A ripple moved through the benches—tight, uneasy.
The steel sang softly as it left the scabbard—high and clean.
Erika held it loosely in one hand, point angled down, as if it weighed nothing.
Someone tried, uncertain now, "Erika—?"
She didn't look back. Her voice carried anyway.
"The volunteer bout is concluded."
She turned her gaze to the benches, sweeping them with a commander's indifference—the look she wore when her title earned its name.
"I am the assigned examiner."
The hall went still in the way a room does when it realizes it has been speaking out of turn.
Even above them, on the highest tier, Sawyer saw the guildmaster.
He hadn't been there at the start.
Now he stood in the shadow of a pillar, hands clasped behind his back, watching with a thoughtful, almost amused expression.
Surprised, Sawyer realized.
So even the guildmaster hadn't expected this.
Erika's eyes returned to Sawyer.
"You will face me. Switch your weapon if you please."
Sawyer didn't move.
Erika tilted her head slightly.
"Unless you would like to withdraw."
Sawyer looked at the rapier.
It wasn't a weapon meant for force. It was meant for precision. For patience. For killing a man through the seams of his confidence.
He tightened his grip on the training armingsword.
Against a rapier, it was not ideal.
Short.
Blunt.
Wooden.
Sawyer walked back to the collection of weapons and reached for a longsword about the same length as Erika's rapier.
"Ready." He gave a small nod.
Erika's stance changed.
It was subtle—her weight shifted, her back foot angled, her shoulders aligned. The rapier lifted, point settling not on his chest, but in the space between them where intent lived.
Sawyer felt the entire room lean forward as one.
Erika's gaze flicked over him, quick as a knife.
Tall. Too tall. Arms like levers. He should have fought high, using reach.
But he didn't.
He stayed low, knees bent, hips down, like a man who expected to wrestle the earth itself.
For a man as tall as him, Erika thought, and Sawyer could almost see the thought in the tightening of her eyes, his stance is too low.
It made his reach deceptive. It made his step harder to read. Tall men who fought tall were easy to judge. Their center sat higher. Their weight traveled further before it committed.
Sawyer's didn't.
Erika's mouth tightened, not in annoyance but in focus.
"Begin," she said.
This time, there was no ceremony.
Erika moved first.
A quick advance, rapier point darting toward Sawyer's shoulder—testing, not committing.
Sawyer shifted, blade rising to intercept, but he didn't meet her point. He angled his longsword so her line slid past, then stepped away, not backward but diagonally, changing the angle.
Erika followed without hesitation.
Her footwork was clean, a duelist's glide, each step measured.
Sawyer's was not.
It was irregular.
Step.
Pause.
Drive.
Hop.
Step.
Reset.
It wasn't sloppy. It was deliberate in a way that made it uncanny.
Erika's mind tried to map the pattern and found only broken rhythm.
She flicked her rapier toward his wrist—sharp enough that a slower man would have flinched.
Sawyer didn't flinch.
He shifted his wrist a fraction, let the point kiss air, and his blade rose in a small, tight arc toward her forearm.
Not an attack meant to land.
A question.
Erika answered with steel.
She disengaged, spiraling her point around his blade and thrusting toward his throat in one smooth motion.
Sawyer stepped inside again—too close for the rapier to work cleanly—and Erika had to retreat, snapping her back foot away to regain distance.
A murmur from the benches.
"He keeps closing."
"Doesn't he know what she—"
"He's not afraid."
Erika's lips pressed together.
Not afraid, she agreed internally, but that wasn't the problem.
The problem was that he treated her like range was a choice.
Erika advanced again, this time with a sequence: feint high, thrust low, then a quick cut to the wrist with the rapier's edge—legal in training, painful in reality.
Sawyer read the sequence and did something that made Erika's stomach tighten.
He stopped.
Not stepped.
Not shifted.
He simply halted in place, center settling, and let her momentum carry the feint into emptiness.
Her thrust low came.
Sawyer's blade met it and pushed it off-line.
The cut to the wrist followed—
Sawyer's forearm moved, and Erika's edge scraped his sleeve instead of skin.
Her eyes narrowed. He broke my tempo.
A clean duelist used flow. She expected her opponent to react within that flow—step when she stepped, retreat when she advanced, answer when she asked.
Sawyer answered at odd angles and in odd timing, like a man refusing to dance to the music everyone else heard.
The Song thrummed around them, subtle as breath.
Sawyer remained silent within it.
Erika circled, adjusting. She widened her stance slightly, lowering her own center to match his level. She watched his hips now instead of his blade.
Tall men telegraphed with shoulders. Sawyer didn't. His shoulders stayed relaxed. His hips told the truth.
Erika lunged—full extension this time, rapier point driving toward his chest.
Sawyer stepped back.
Good.
She lunged again, a fraction faster—
Sawyer stepped inside.
Erika had expected retreat again. Her second lunge was built on that expectation.
The distance vanished.
Sawyer's blade was suddenly beside her arm, not blocking but occupying space.
Erika twisted, trying to angle her point into him at close range.
Sawyer's hand moved toward her wrist.
Erika snapped her arm back—barely avoiding a grip—and disengaged, retreating two steps to regain the length her rapier demanded.
Her breath stayed controlled, but her heartbeat kicked hard enough to be annoying.
He is finding where I am strong, she realized, eyes narrowing, and where I am weak.
She had assumed his weakness was distance. That the rapier would keep him out, punish any advance.
But he advanced anyway, and when he didn't, he punished her for expecting him to.
Erika's pride flared, brief and hot. Good.
She used it, honed it, turned it into aggression.
She pressed.
A rapid series of thrusts—not meant to land clean, but meant to force him into predictable blocks. One to the shoulder, one to the hip, one to the throat, all in quick succession.
Sawyer blocked two.
On the third, he didn't.
He shifted his head aside and stepped forward at the same time, making the point glide past his cheek.
Erika saw the opening and almost took it—almost snapped her wrist to cut—
But Sawyer's blade was already lifting toward her forearm.
Erika retreated again, jaw tight.
The benches were quiet now.
Not because they were bored.
Because they were watching something they couldn't quite translate.
Erika's gaze flicked to Sawyer's face.
He didn't smile.
He didn't sneer.
He looked… present. Focused. Like a man working through a problem with no emotion attached.
That irritated her more than any grin would have.
"You're difficult," she said, voice low enough that only he would hear.
Sawyer's eyes stayed on hers.
He didn't answer.
Erika's grip tightened. Fine.
If he wouldn't speak, she would make the fight speak for him.
She shifted her approach.
Instead of pressing forward with rhythm, she broke her own tempo. She paused mid-advance, then lunged. She retreated a single step, then sprang forward. She tried to make him chase her pattern.
For a moment, it worked.
Sawyer hesitated once, half a beat, recalibrating.
Erika saw it, and satisfaction flickered.
Then Sawyer did something infuriating.
He made his tempo worse.
Step-step.
Pause.
Reset.
Hop.
Step.
Cross.
Reset.
Not reacting to hers—discarding it entirely.
Erika's brow furrowed.
It wasn't random. It was… anti-rhythm. Like he had trained himself to fight against expectation. Like he had lived in places where anyone who moved predictably died.
The thought made her chest tighten. Where did you learn this?
She feinted a retreat.
Sawyer didn't chase.
She stepped in sharply.
Sawyer met her with a block and a small step to the side.
She thrust toward his ribs.
He shifted away.
She flicked toward his wrist.
He pulled it back.
The fight continued like that—no single exchange decisive, but each one carving away assumption.
Erika found herself breathing harder.
Not from exertion.
From concentration.
Because fighting Sawyer required her to stay awake in a way most opponents didn't.
She could not rely on the Song's subtle guidance. On the shared instinct that made two fighters unconsciously agree on timing.
Sawyer did not agree.
He was a foreigner in every sense of the word.
A man outside the music.
Erika pressed forward again, determined to force an ending.
She lunged. Sawyer stepped back.
She lunged again, expecting him to step inside this time—
But Sawyer didn't.
He stepped back again, and Erika's second lunge extended too far.
Her weight went forward.
Her heel dug into sand that shifted more than she expected.
A small mistake.
A tiny, stupid mismatch between tempo and footing.
Sawyer's eyes sharpened.
He stepped in—not a rush, not a sprint, but a clean, controlled closure of distance.
Erika tried to recover, pulling her back foot under her, bringing her rapier up to guard.
Sawyer's blade moved.
Not toward her chest.
Not toward her throat.
Toward her wrist.
A single, precise tap—blunt edge against the inside of her weapon hand.
It wasn't forceful.
It was undeniable.
Erika froze.
For the briefest moment, the hall didn't breathe.
Then Erika exhaled and lowered her rapier.
"I surrender," she said clearly.
The words rang out, crisp in the silence.
Sawyer stopped immediately, stepping back, blade lowering.
The room erupted—not into chaos, but into sound. Voices overlapping, stunned.
"She—"
"He—"
"Did you see—"
Erika lifted her hand, and the room quieted again as if it had been ordered.
She turned slowly, looking up at the benches, then at the guildmaster above.
"You saw enough," she said.
The guildmaster's eyes remained thoughtful, but there was a faint curve at the corner of his mouth now—approval, perhaps, or interest.
Erika turned back to Sawyer.
Her gaze held him for a moment longer than necessary.
Then her voice dropped, just for him.
"You didn't try to take my blade," she said.
Sawyer's eyes remained steady.
"You did not draw blood," she continued, and there was something careful in her tone now, as if she was adjusting her understanding mid-sentence.
Sawyer's blade remained lowered.
Erika's jaw tightened, not with anger, but with something like reluctant respect.
She stepped closer, just enough that only those nearest might catch her words.
"This area exists to measure skill," she said, voice controlled. "But it also measures character. Men who can win cleanly rarely choose to. They choose to humiliate. They choose to dominate."
Her eyes flicked to the benches, where Garron sat rigid, staring at the sand as if it had betrayed him.
"You did neither," Erika said. "Why?"
Sawyer's gaze shifted, briefly, to the crowd.
Then back.
His mouth opened slightly—habit, perhaps—and closed again.
Silence.
Erika watched him for another heartbeat.
Then she straightened and raised her voice for the hall.
"Assessment."
She walked a slow circle around Sawyer, not threatening, but letting the room look at him through her.
"Sawyer," she said, using his name like a marker, "demonstrated superior control of spacing and timing. He won against a veteran volunteer by clean throws and positional dominance."
A few murmurs.
Erika kept going.
"He faced the assigned examiner and did not rely on brute force. He sought openings, punished mistakes, and ended the bout without excess."
Her gaze swept the benches.
"He did not escalate when provoked. He did not pursue injury. He did not lose himself in ego."
She paused, and the pause itself became part of the record.
"This guild accepts competence," Erika said. "But it cannot accept recklessness. We do not need another blade that cannot be sheathed."
Her eyes returned to Sawyer.
"You," she said, "are a blade that chooses when to cut."
A low sound ran through the room—approval, reluctant and uneasy.
Erika turned and looked up again to the guildmaster, as if offering the final decision.
The guildmaster's voice came down from above, calm and clear.
"Record it," he said.
The hall stilled.
Then a clerk near the edge of the benches—young, ink-stained fingers—scrambled to write, quill scratching so fast it sounded like rain.
Erika exhaled.
She sheathed her rapier with a soft click.
Then she looked at Sawyer one last time, and for a fleeting moment, the irritation returned—not at him, but at the world.
Because accepting him meant inviting the church's attention. It meant putting a name next to an anomaly and hoping doctrine didn't decide to erase it.
Erika's voice softened.
"Congratulations," she said, as if the word tasted strange. "You're indicted."
A few people laughed at that—short, surprised bursts.
Sawyer looked at her, expression unreadable.
Then he nodded once.
Not in gratitude.
In acknowledgment.
Aluna released a breath Sawyer hadn't realized she'd been holding. Agnes leaned back slightly, shoulders loosening, as if she'd been ready to intervene and now didn't have to.
Bran grinned, half-disbelieving.
Faust's eyes stayed on Sawyer like he was watching a spell cast with no mana.
The guildmaster descended the steps at last, moving with the ease of a man who didn't need to hurry because everyone else would.
He stopped at the pit's edge, looking down at Sawyer.
"You move like a man who learned to survive without help," the guildmaster said mildly.
Sawyer didn't answer.
The guildmaster's smile was thin.
His gaze shifted briefly toward Erika.
"You volunteered suddenly," he said.
Erika's expression didn't flicker.
"I did."
"Did you win?" he asked, tone pleasant.
Erika's eyes narrowed.
"No."
The guildmaster's smile grew by a fraction.
"Good. Then the hall will remember today correctly."
His gaze returned to Sawyer.
"You want the guild's name beside yours?" he asked.
Sawyer's grip tightened once on the longsword.
He thought of the church. Of sanctified beasts. Of people kneeling beneath a Song he could not hear. Of being hunted not for crimes, but for what he was.
He looked at Erika, then at the party behind him.
Then back to the guildmaster.
He nodded.
The guildmaster inclined his head.
"Then we'll make you an adventurer."
A quiet hum moved through the room—anticipation, curiosity, a faint thread of fear.
Because now Sawyer wouldn't just be a stranger who could fight.
He would be a stranger the guild had chosen.
And choices, Sawyer had learned, carried consequences.
Erika stepped closer, voice low again, only for him.
"Next time," she said, eyes sharp, "take me seriously."
Sawyer looked at her.
And for the first time, something like humor flickered behind his eyes—brief and strange, like a shadow of a smile that never quite formed.
Then it was gone.
He said nothing.
And the hall, full of Song and steel and certainty, watched the silent man walk out with a new name written into their ledger—wondering what else would fail to make sense around him.
From the abyss to this new world.