Surrendered soldiers sat in the stands instead of spectators.
Forty-two soldiers Marchesa had spared.
Thirty wounded men Cassian had freed from the Betrayal Knight.
Seven survivors from the white-flag village.
All had come of their own will.
Not one cheered for either fighter.
They were not waiting for a winner.
They were waiting to see who broke the terms first.
Ria carved two sentences into the stone at the center of the arena.
`If Cassian Crow kills one of Marchesa's subordinates outside the terms, his neck belongs to Marchesa.`
`If Marchesa Bell abandons one surrendered person, her army belongs to Cassian Crow.`
Her left arm was bound to her chest. She carved with her right alone.
Each completed letter jarred the crushed bone.
She did not misspell a word.
Hassan placed the ancient relic fragment between the two sentences.
"Use no more than four judgment stances."
Cassian asked,
"What happens on the fifth?"
"Your words become law, but your body becomes the evidence."
"It already is."
"Living evidence dies when it is refuted."
Marchesa drew her sword.
She wore no helmet.
Her black hair was tied at the nape. Her armor remained broken from Aaron's white-flag village.
The nail in her heart showed between hundreds of white surrender terms.
Cassian bound his right arm to his body.
The dislocated shoulder and crushed arm could not hold a sword.
Only two fingers remained usable on his aged left hand.
He lifted his sword with them.
"When do we begin?" Marchesa asked.
Ria stepped away from the stone.
"You already have."
Marchesa's sword pierced Cassian's chest first.
One black scale stopped its point.
`The surrendered man was returned alive.`
The only armor Cassian possessed.
Marchesa struck the scale born from her own terms three times.
The same place.
The same angle.
She did not strike it a fourth time.
She drove the pommel under Cassian's chin.
His sight shook.
The body expecting to protect the scale reacted late.
Marchesa's blade turned toward the alignment seam around his neck.
Cassian opened the first judgment stance.
"If I can bear it,"
the black seam opened like a mouth.
Marchesa's sword entered his neck.
He did not dodge.
He bit down on the blade with flesh and bone.
"I can decide."
Cassian twisted his neck.
Black threads inside the seam wrapped around the blade.
At the price of opening half his neck, he took Marchesa's sword.
The first judgment stood.
The one who bore the cost gained the right to decide.
Cassian threw her sword out of the arena.
Marchesa came in barehanded.
Her fist struck his open neck.
His head snapped sideways.
Even without a sword, she did not widen the distance.
She caught Cassian's left wrist and pulled it over her shoulder.
Their bodies overturned.
Cassian's back struck stone.
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Marchesa's knee pressed into his chest.
The black scale touched her armor.
They pulled together like pieces broken from the same body.
"How does it feel to lie there wearing my terms?"
"Heavy."
"It is the weight of the people I kept alive."
"Not the ones you burned."
Cassian's palm moved over the breast of her armor.
It was not a caress.
He was looking for a broken sentence.
The winter stores at Verdan.
He put a finger into the gap between blackened scales.
Marchesa pressed down harder.
One rib folded inward.
Their breath broke before each other's lips.
Close enough that whoever withdrew first exposed a throat.
Neither withdrew.
Cassian pulled an armor strap.
Marchesa opened the alignment seam at his neck with her fingers.
Both put a hand into the other's weakest opening.
"You could cut it," Marchesa said.
"I have no blade."
"Your hand has always been a blade."
"Then don't let go."
Her fingers stopped inside his neck.
Cassian did not break them.
Instead, he snapped the armor strap.
One side of Marchesa's breastplate opened.
The white nail in her heart was exposed.
The second judgment stance began.
Marchesa said,
"Surrender terms are kept."
The forty-two in the stands inhaled at once.
They were the soldiers she had spared.
Their memories entered her armor.
White scales bit Cassian's hand.
His nails came free.
The flesh of his aged fingers peeled from bone.
Still, he did not withdraw his hand.
He drew the Oath Severing line across one scale.
It would not cut.
It was a condition she had truly kept.
"So a sentence without error cannot be cut."
"Even you learn sometimes."
Marchesa withdrew her hand from his neck.
With her bloodied hand, she caught Cassian's left hand.
She pulled it from the armor.
Her second judgment stood.
A condition kept could not be severed.
Cassian rose.
Half the flesh had been stripped from his left index finger.
He could no longer hold a sword.
He caught the fallen armor strap in his teeth.
He moved inside Marchesa's waist.
He looped the strap behind her neck.
She struck his temple with her elbow.
Once.
Twice.
On the third strike, blood ran from Cassian's ear.
He did not release the strap.
He threw his body backward.
Marchesa fell with him.
Her back landed on his chest.
Armor struck scale.
Black sentences moved between their flesh.
Hot.
A heat that outlasted blood.
Marchesa turned her head.
Her lips brushed Cassian's cheek.
It was not a kiss.
She was measuring the distance to bite his throat.
Cassian counted her breaths as well.
The intervals between the beats of the nail.
It slowed most just before the third.
At that moment, he pulled the strap.
Marchesa's breath stopped.
Cassian released the strap from his teeth.
He wrapped his left arm around her neck.
The third judgment stance.
"If I can bear it,"
Marchesa drove the back of her head into his nose.
The already broken bone sank inward again.
Cassian did not loosen his arm.
"I decide."
He bit through the cloth binding his right shoulder.
The crushed arm hung as if falling from his body.
He hooked it across Marchesa's waist.
He used the useless limb as a chain.
His shoulder ground inside the flesh.
He bore all the pain in his own body.
The judgment stood.
Marchesa's body turned.
Cassian mounted her.
He held his palm over the nail in her chest.
The Oath Severing line shone white.
One stroke would cut a surrender term binding Marchesa to her army.
Her armor would weaken.
At the same time, her reason for keeping that condition would blur.
Cassian did not draw the line.
Marchesa asked,
"Mercy?"
"If you forget your terms, your army becomes useless."
"Ugly to the end."
"Beauty is your job."
Marchesa raised a knee.
She kicked Cassian off her back.
They separated.
This time, a sword flew from the stands.
One of the forty-two.
A scout who had once surrendered to Marchesa threw his own sword.
He was loyal to neither of them.
He threw it because the duel had to end before he could go home.
Cassian and Marchesa reached at once.
Cassian's left hand failed to catch it.
Marchesa seized the hilt first.
She swung.
Cassian raised his right arm to block.
The bones were already shattered.
The sword passed halfway through his forearm.
Only black threads inside kept it from falling away.
Cassian trapped the blade in his arm.
With his left hand, he struck Marchesa's wrist.
Her hand released it, but the blade remained stuck.
Cassian pulled the sword from his own arm with his mouth.
Blood and bone fragments ran along its spine.
He bit down on the hilt.
Marchesa opened the fourth judgment stance.
"Surrender terms are kept."
At that moment, a wounded soldier collapsed at the edge of the stands.
One of the men freed from the Betrayal Knight.
His wound had opened again.
Marchesa did not look at Cassian.
She looked at the fallen surrendered soldier.
Abandon him, and she lost her army.
Approach him, and she exposed her neck.
She did not hesitate.
She turned her back on Cassian.
She walked toward the wounded man.
Adel ran first, but Marchesa did not stop.
She pressed the wound with her own hand.
"Do you consent to treatment?" Adel asked.
The soldier nodded.
Adel placed her hand over Marchesa's.
Her fourth judgment stood.
The surrendered came before the duel.
Cassian did not cut her open back.
The soldier was not Marchesa's subordinate, but killing him now would fall outside the duel's terms.
It was a victory too cheap to surrender his neck for.
Instead, he turned the sword in his mouth.
He cut his right arm off completely.
Only a few black threads remained, suspending it.
The eight sins inside the severed limb screamed.
Cassian wound those screams around the sword.
He threw it as Marchesa turned.
The blade grazed her cheek.
The tie around her hair snapped.
Black hair spilled over her armor.
Cassian caught the hanging right arm with his left hand and tore it free.
He swung his own arm like a club.
Marchesa caught it by the wrist.
The dead hand's fingers closed around her throat.
Cassian pulled the black threads.
The severed arm tightened as if alive.
Marchesa did not pull it away.
She used it to drag Cassian closer.
Their foreheads collided.
Blood from nose and brow mingled.
Marchesa held Cassian's severed arm.
Cassian's left hand held her opened armor strap.
One pull from either would expose a throat.
Hassan counted their breaths.
The four judgment stances were over.
There would be no more declarations.
Only bodies remained.
Marchesa threw away Cassian's severed arm.
She struck his neck with the edge of her hand.
Cassian pulled the armor strap.
Her breastplate fell away completely.
Both reached for the sword on the ground.
This time, Cassian reached it first.
He did not grip it with his fingers.
He drove the hilt into the Oath Severing line in his left palm.
He fixed it there by tearing the flesh.
Marchesa caught his wrist and turned its direction.
The blade pointed at her throat.
She did not evade it. She moved closer.
She hooked her fingers into the alignment seam around Cassian's neck.
Blade and fingers.
They were within beheading distance of each other.
Marchesa exhaled.
"Pull now and you win."
"Your hand is already inside."
"Shall we see who dies first?"
"That isn't interesting."
"I'm curious."
Her fingers opened his seam half an inch.
Cassian's sword pressed into the skin of her throat.
Two lines of blood ran at the same speed.
Then the border bell rang.
Once.
A request to surrender.
Twice.
Commander absent.
Three times.
Village occupied.
Thoma ran into the arena.
Blood sprayed from his ruined vocal cords.
"The northern border village has fallen."
Marchesa's fingers stopped.
"To whom?"
Thoma opened a bloodstained register.
All six hundred one residents had been moved beneath the same heading.
`Surrendered to Marchesa Bell.`
If she continued the duel here, she abandoned the surrendered.
Her army would become Cassian's.
It seemed Cassian could end the problem by killing the occupiers.
Thoma opened the next page.
The occupiers' register.
One hundred eighty of Marchesa's northern soldiers.
They had disappeared from the fortress left empty to guard the arena.
White Crusade letters filled their eyes and mouths.
Their bodies belonged to Marchesa's subordinates.
Their orders belonged to the residue.
If Cassian killed them outside the terms, his neck would belong to Marchesa.
The two still held each other's throats.
Before either could win, both conditions of defeat were complete.