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When Alex felt him come at her again, she crouched down to avoid the blade and swept her leg out, using his own trick to hook her limb around him and knock him off his feet. It half worked, and she sensed him stumble to his knees, but herecovered quickly and sprang back up, renewing his fight. She twirled around him, dodging another swipe of his blade, and when she sensed she was behind him, she jumped onto his back, wrapping her legs around his torso and reaching down until she held his weaponed arm. But his strength was too much for her and he effortlessly detached her from his body throwing her over his head and onto the ground.

She hit the mat harder than expected and the fall dazed her, taking away all her ‘listening’ skills. By the time she came back to full awareness, all she knew was that there was a blade flying through the air, straight towards her head.

Alex didn’t have time to move out of the way; all she could do was raise her arm to protect her face and hope that the Meyarin would pull back after he realised he’d hit flesh. But the blinding pain from her wrist being amputated never came. Instead, there was a metallic clang as steel met steel.

Alex’s shock almost caused her to drop the weapon that was now in her grasp and blocking the other blade from slashing through her body. Where had it c

“You’ve been holding out on me,” the Meyarin said, and Alex could hear the anticipation in his voice. “Now we canreallyexperiment.”

Alex didn’t have the chance to tell him to stop. She felt the strength behind his blade ease for a fraction of a second before he lunged towards her again, prompting her to roll out of the way and jump to her feet, raising her weapon in front of her.

It was then that her entire perception of the world changed.

She still couldn’t see anything, but she didn’t need to. Everything else was magnified. She could hear, feel, smell and taste the air around her. Her senses drew together a perfect picture that she couldn’t have seen with her eyes open. She was suddenlyaware, and it made her feel powerful. Invincible. Andwhen the Meyarin sliced his blade towards her, she met his attacks over and over again.

They lunged, they parried, blocked and deflected. They spun, jumped, ducked and twirled. Alex gave as good as she received; never before had she felt so capable with a blade. In the end it was her human weakness that ended their fight, but only when she became so breathless that she could barely draw air into her lungs.

“Enough,” the Meyarin said. “I think we’ve proved my hypothesis correct.”

Alex collapsed to the ground and panted heavily, dropping her weapon to the side. A moment later the Meyarin released her blindfold, and she winced at the painfully bright Myrox barrier surrounding them.

Only when her companion sat beside her did she notice that he was also affected by their workout. His breath wasn’t anywhere near as ragged as hers, but he was definitely drawing in more air than normal.

“Why are you winded?” she asked, continuing to suck in deep breaths. “You’re Meyarin.”

“And you just fought like one,” he told her with a brilliant smile. “That was incredible, Alex.”

“What do you mean?” she asked stupidly. Their fight had seemed like a whirlwind to her, but that was mostly because she’d been blindfolded, right? Her sense of, well, everything had just been distorted… Right?

“My hypothesis,” he said, “do you want to know what it was?”

“Definitely,” she answered without hesitation.

“I wanted to test whether the dormant Meyarin blood in your veins—Aven’s blood—could be utilised.”

Alex felt her slowly calming heartbeat pick up speed again. “What are you saying?”

“Alex, I believe you can choose to access Aven’s Meyarin characteristics because of his blood that resides in you,” he said. “But whether or not you can only do so under duress is yet to be seen. That’s why I blindfolded you—sometimes we rely too heavily on what we see and miss out on opportunities to have faith in what we feel.”

“But you couldn’t see either,” Alex reminded him, her tone thick with accusation at the memory of his risky actions.

“I’ve participated in many similar exercises before,” he assured her. “I wouldn’t have let any harm come to you. There was one potentially dangerous situation you faced, but you surprised me when you drew your own blade to save yourself.” He glanced around the mat and added, “Your weapon sang beautifully. May I see it?”

Alex raised her eyebrows at his wording, before looking down to where she’d dropped her blade. But there was nothing there.

“I… Uh… Um…”

She had no idea how to answer, but fortunately he smiled at her and said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to take it from you. You handled it so well that you’ve earned the right to keep it hidden, if that’s your wish.”

He rose to his feet and offered her his hand. Since every muscle in her body ached, she was grateful for the assistance.

“We’d better return to the others,” he said, pressing the coded rhythm into the mat again to lower the barrier around them. “I’m sure they’ll be curious about what we’ve been doing.”

“What will you tell them?” Alex asked, following as he led the way back to the small group waiting at the other end of the massive training room.

“Just that I wanted to witness your fighting ability for myself, without prying eyes.”

“You don’t want your, uh,companionsto know about your hypothesis?” she asked, not quite sure how to label the other Meyarins, one of whom was the king. “Don’t you trust them?”