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The knight slams his razor on the ground. Once, twice, till the room is silent.

“Cassius au Bellona, I see you.” Bellerephon stalks around the ring, his razor trailing behind. “You wretched buzzard. You spineless cur. You conspired to kill my grandfather and liege. You sought to kill my cousin in the flower of her life. You betrayed the Compact of Society and aided the Slave King of Mars. You came here in disguise, intent on mischief.” He smiles. “For these insults you shall whimper and bleed.”

Even Romulus’s men are silent and stare down at Cassius. All know how he betrayed the Sovereign, even if they did not claim her as their own. Coincidence bringing Cassius into the Rim beggars belief. So they require little to convince them that Darrow sent him here for some nefarious purpose. Cassius knows this. And so does Dido. Absent her evidence, she uses this to quell the dissent over her coup.

“I came of my own accord,” Cassius says to deaf ears. “I have no affiliation with the Republic.”

Bellerephon laughs. “Liar.”

“Bring evidence if you think me a liar and try me. No? Then you have no evidence, and you resort to bloodfeuds for justice. An absurdity in itself. But what can one expect from Rim rustics? No one ever taught you manners.” He chuckles. “As for the bloodfeud: it I do not dispute.” The Peerless meet the concession with hungry silence. “The blood of children and many more is on my hands. I expect no mercy. I ask only that if I fall, honor my bones and send them to the sun.”

Bellerephon spits boorishly on the ground. “You will have no honor. Your corpse I will feed to my hounds so they might shit Bellona. But your eyes I will put in a jar so they might watch as I feed your brother to the dust.”

Seraphina makes a disgusted sound. Amongst the Olympic Knights and much of the room, the proclamation is met with sharp disapproval. Helios makes a motion to Diomedes, who booms out an affirmation. “You will be so honored in your way, Bellona.” This maddens his cousin and Bellerephon almost flies into the crowd to strike at Diomedes to finish their earlier affair.

I feel Dido’s eyes on me, and I know Cassius was right. Again.

Of course this is all for me. They think I am the weak link. That, to spare Cassius’s life, I will give them what Cassius will not. Fools. They see my slender hands and naked face and believe me weak. Dangerous game, judging a blade by its scabbard. I stay seated, silent, watching as Bellerephon shouts at Chance and gestures to the bit of elm she holds in her hand. “Break the damn stick, girl, before I do it for you.”

Startled, Chance bends the elm, and as it snaps, the duel begins.

The men do not lash into one another, but pace in a circle, measuring. Seldom have the forms of the Core and the Rim met in duels, at least after Revus forbade any Ionians from dueling on Luna. Most of the Rim houses followed his lead.

As is old custom, neither duelist wears armor, though Cassius is allowed an aegis: a small shield generator embedded in a metal vambrace on the back of his left forearm. In his right hand, he carries a coiled razor. They could have given him their unfamiliar, longer hasta, but instead gave him a razor of the Interior.

Bellerephon’s hasta slithers on the ground behind him like an oiled snake, nearly three meters long in whip and two meters in lance. In a scabbard on his left hip he carries the short kitari thrusting sword.

Hardening his razor into its lance form, Bellerephon raises the wicked black blade. Hands above his head, the weapon pointed toward Cassius so that Bellerephon looks like some strange, pale scorpion with its long stinger wagging in the air.

It is the Shadowfall stance of the Rim’s razormasters.

“He’s a shade?” I ask Seraphina. She does not answer. Her eyes devour the scene with excitement.

Cassius observes the alien stance warily. He holds his blade rigid and at his side with one hand in the summer hold of the Willow Way. His aegis he holds tight to his chest, ready to activate the shield. I blink. And by the time my lid pulls back from my pupil, Bellerephon’s blade has spun in his hands, changed to whip form, and now slashes at Cassius’s face.

Cassius bends back. Too slow. The whip slices a chunk of scalp off the front of his forehead. Blood sheets down his face. Bellerephon uses his momentum to spin with his whip forward, lashing it into another strike toward Cassius’s leg. His attack relies on the length of the hasta and his height to send the black blade falling down in a frenzy of incredibly swift blows. It reminds me more of Darrow than Aja or Cassius.

Blinking the blood out of his eyes, Cassius falls back under the onslaught, bending and circling and deflecting as the ground sparks from the metal whip. His own whip is useless against the longer reach of Bellerephon’s, so he uses it in rigid form for defense and relies on his aegis to turn away most blows. Time and again he tries to close the distance, but while Cassius is stronger, Bellerephon is the quicker of the two, more accustomed to the gravity here. He shuffles his feet instead of lifting them. Each time Cassius attempts to close, Bellerephon slides back, calls his razor to rigid form, and nearly spears him through the stomach.

The two men part, their world tiny and furious. Their bodies tell them to flee the metal and break out of the horrible confines of the circle, but their minds tether them together and again they lash out. It has been years since Cassius has faced a man like this. I’m not sure he has ever faced Shadowfall in an actual duel.

Each is a master of their craft, using their litany of tricks hard learned over the years. Each probing, testing, then locking into a furious spate of exchanges, arms a blinding flurry, the whips nothing but blurred movement. Blood sprays across the white marble and into the stands, where it spatters the face of a young child three rows back. I can’t even tell which man is wounded until Cassius stumbles away, a flap of skin and muscle folding over a long laceration all the way to the bone of his left shoulder. Blood pours out. Bellerephon seizes the moment and presses his attack.

“You can stop this,” Dido says past Seraphina. “Give me the code and he lives.”

“He doesn’t need my help.”

Despite my words, I watch in fear as Cassius falls back before Bellerephon and the momentum tips in the Rim knight’s favor. I thought Cassius invincible. Part of a story that could never exist without him in it. They can’t see the grandness of him. They can’t see the warmth, the pain, the regret, the love. All they see is a vessel for their hate. They stare down at him pitilessly, thinking his death their right, even those adversaries who despise Dido’s coup.

In the circle, Cassius can barely see for the blood in his eyes. He has no time to wipe them clean. He’s losing too much from his shoulder and now is pressed against the edge of the circle. His heels scrape the sand. Bellerephon lashes at him, maintaining his distance, but Cassius continues to turn away the whip with his aegis. The metal cracks into the small energy shield and bounces back, sending blue sparks hissing through the air as Cassius activates it milliseconds before each blow lands to prevent the shield from overheating. Smoke already rises from the battery pack.

Bellerephon batters Cassius down, blow after blow, till Cassius is on a knee, the whip raining down on his smoking shield. Bellerephon’s whip arcs in a high overhead strike. Cassius raises his arm yet again to deflect. But then his aegis winks out. The whip slashes down onto Cassius’s raised left arm and coils tight around it. Bellerephon could rip off Cassius’s arm from the elbow down, but he’s caught in the middle of his acrobatics, ex

pecting to meet the aegis again and for the whip to bounce back. He loses half a second.

Now, Cassius attacks. He uses the Snapping Branch gambit.

Springing forward with his thick legs just as he jerks on the whip with his arm, he pulls Bellerephon off balance toward him. With his left hand, Bellerephon desperately brings his kitari up to block Cassius. But Cassius bats the small blade to the side with his razor, and then cuts diagonally at Bellerephon’s right arm, which holds the hasta. His diamond-hard blade cleaves through the bone of the man’s arm like it’s pudding. An open artery sprays a single spurt of blood two meters long. Cassius spins with his momentum, and cuts in the other direction. The metal severs Bellerephon’s remaining arm at the forearm.