The training hall was louder than the day before, and Alex understood why the moment he stepped through the doors.
Every recruit in the room already knew what had happened yesterday.
Word had clearly made its rounds overnight, the whispered, wide-eyed kind of word that traveled through barracks faster than any official announcement ever could, and when he walked in, the drills didn’t just pause.
They stopped completely.
All recruits turned toward him in near-unison, and this time the bows came without any hesitation at all, sharp and immediate, the particular crispness of people who had already decided, collectively, overnight, exactly how seriously they were going to take this.
Theron Blackwell stood at the center, and something in his posture had shifted since yesterday too, less the careful, humoring stiffness of a man indulging a child, more the alert readiness of someone who’d spent all night thinking about what he’d watched and hadn’t fully settled on what to do with the conclusion.
"Your Highness." His bow was deep. "You are back again."
"I said I would be," Alex said. "Regularly."
Theron’s eyes moved past him to Scott, standing near the back of the formation with a thin, healing scar at his neck that he hadn’t quite managed to hide beneath his collar, and something passed between instructor and recruit that Alex read easily enough: permission, and a warning, both delivered in the same glance.
"Scott," Alex said. "Again."
Scott stepped forward.
His jaw was set in a way it hadn’t been yesterday, the humiliation from the first spar clearly having curdled overnight into something he’d decided to actually use.
"Your Highness," he said, and his voice was steadier this time, no stammer, no over-explaining.
Zara handed him the Viper’s Spine without a word, already stepping back to give them room, and the rest of the hall pulled away to the edges in a loose, watching circle.
Theron raised his hand.
"Begin."
Scott moved first this time, not the frozen, mouth-open hesitation from yesterday, but a real opening, mana flooding into his legs in a controlled burst that closed the distance fast, his blade coming in low and angled to force a parry rather than a killing blow.
Alex read it and adjusted, meeting the strike at an angle that redirected more than it blocked, the way Zara had taught him to think about the chain the night before, and the two blades slid off each other with a scrape instead of a crack.
’He learned something from yesterday too,’ Alex thought, resetting his footing.
’He’s not trying to end this fast anymore. He’s trying to make it last long enough that my mana runs out first. Smart. That’s exactly what should have worked yesterday if I hadn’t gotten lucky with the throw.’
They exchanged three quick strikes, testing rhythm rather than committing, Scott’s blade snapping back each time before Alex could find an opening worth taking.
Alex reached for the bond in the half-second gap between the third and fourth exchange.
It was still there.
Faint, steady, sitting quietly in the back of his awareness even in the middle of a live fight, and something about that, the fact that it hadn’t collapsed the moment real stakes entered the picture, settled something in his chest that felt closer to relief than triumph.
Scott pressed forward with a diagonal cut aimed at Alex’s shoulder.
Alex ducked under it, closer to the ground than the strike expected, and drove a fist into Scott’s ribs on the way back up, controlled, not full force, the same restraint he’d shown yesterday even mid-fight.
Scott staggered, sucked in a breath, and didn’t go down.
’He’s built more endurance since yesterday,’ Alex noted, backing off half a step to reset. ’Or he’s just angrier. Either one works in his favor right now.’
They clashed again.
And again.
The fight stretched longer than yesterday’s had, two minutes, then four, the watching recruits going dead silent as the exchange kept going instead of ending in the first thirty seconds the way it had the day before.
Scott’s breathing deepened.
Sweat ran freely down the side of his face.
But his footwork stayed clean, his blade stayed level, and twice he caught Alex with strikes that would have landed cleanly if Alex hadn’t twisted at the last possible instant.
The second one nearly connected.
Steel grazed Alex’s forearm, not deep, but enough to draw a thin line of red, and the hall’s collective breath caught audibly at the sight of it.
Alex didn’t flinch.
’There it is,’ he thought, watching a drop of blood well up along the cut.
’First real hit he’s landed on me. Good. That’s information. He’s adjusting his angle on the third exchange after every reset, narrower each time. If I keep letting the pattern repeat, he’s going to land something worse eventually.’
He changed his footwork on the next exchange, cutting the angle Scott had been exploiting before it could be exploited again, and Scott’s next strike sailed a fraction wide, his balance tipping forward with the missed momentum.
Alex was already moving.
He caught Scott’s wrist mid-swing, twisted the blade free with a motion Zara had drilled into him during weapons practice, and swept Scott’s legs out from under him in the same fluid sequence, the recruit hitting the ground hard enough to force the air from his lungs.
The Viper’s Spine settled against his throat a second later.
Same spot as yesterday.
"Yield," Alex said.
Scott’s chest heaved. His eyes, wide and furious and exhausted all at once, held Alex’s for a long second before the fight finally drained out of them.
"I yield," he said.
Alex pulled the blade back and offered his free hand.
Scott looked at it for a moment, the particular look of a man deciding whether accepting help from someone he’d just lost to felt worse than refusing it, and then took it, letting Alex help pull him back to his feet.
"You lasted longer," Alex said.
"I noticed," Scott said, breathing hard, and there was something almost wry in it now, the bitterness from yesterday softened into something closer to grudging respect.
"Doesn’t feel like much of a consolation prize, Your Highness, if I’m being honest with you."
"It’s not a consolation prize," Alex said.
"It’s information. Keep improving, and you’ll last longer tomorrow too."
Two healers broke from the edge of the hall the moment the fight ended, already moving toward him with that particular brisk urgency healers always had, eyes locked on the thin red line across his forearm.
Alex held up a hand before they reached him.
"I’m fine."
They didn’t stop, not immediately, the older one already reaching for the small satchel of salves at her hip, and Alex could see the argument forming behind her eyes before she’d even opened her mouth.
"Your Highness, it should still be looked at, even a shallow cut can-"
"Will you make me repeat that sentence?" Alex asked, not unkindly, just level, the tone of someone who already knew the answer.
The healer blinked.
Both of them went still.
Whatever protest had been building died somewhere between her throat and her lips, and she lowered the hand still half reaching for her satchel, exchanging a glance with her colleague that said more than words could have. Neither of them moved again.
"Good," Alex said, and turned back to Zara.
Theron watched the exchange with an expression that had settled somewhere between professional satisfaction and the same unsettled awe from yesterday, and said nothing at all as Alex handed the sword back to Zara and turned toward the door.
The cut on his arm had already stopped bleeding by the time they reached the corridor outside.