Chapter 705: A Name Duel

The Court of the Second Name was a round arena of black glass hung over the Bright Dark. Above its center, in pale letters tall as doorways, two names floated for the whole court to read.

Hajin looked up at his own name floating in the glass and decided it looked pretty good.

Under the floor the unborn stars turned slowly, as if the arena rested on a sleeping tide.

"You are not required to do this," Vella said at his shoulder, her voice low, "I can make the court forget the challenge in about three polite insults."

"Auntie Ring, he asked so nicely," he said, rolling his neck, "plus I like his swords."

"You are betting your name over a set of swords."

"Over the coat too, it's a great coat."

"The glass reads names, not bodies," Aria whispered inside his head, "if the letters above you fade, the duel is lost, so please keep them attached."

"Got it, head stays on," he muttered back.

"The odds say nine seconds," a nobleman called from the gallery, "and the House of Wrens pays triple for eight."

A board of floating numbers beside the rail flickered, shuffling names and sums with a sound like dry leaves.

"Nine seconds until what, exactly?" he asked, turning toward Cessy at the rail.

"Until your name fades from the glass, you idiot," she hissed, "a faded name is a lost duel."

Nobles in funeral silk passed coin along the rows, wagering with the solemn faces of mourners at a graveside. He bought a candied skull from a vendor, slid one hand into his pocket, then tipped his head back.

'Nine seconds, huh, I've lost bigger bets than that and walked away smiling.'

The skull had a spun-sugar crown and a tiny chocolate tongue, which he saved for last.

Sir Haruvane Roke strode to the center of the glass, drawing three swords with a flourish for every blade. The gallery sighed at each unsheathing, like a crowd that bought front-row tickets to hear precisely this one speech.

"These are Dusk, Midnight and Dawn," Roke declared, fanning them like a peacock's tail, "forged for my ancestor the day the first cradle was carved."

"Each carries a vow sworn at a deathbed, three have tasted a traitor's blood, none has ever known shame," Roke continued, sweeping a blade toward the gallery, "this is where you applaud."

He crunched the candy, "They're really pretty, especially the black one with the little gold stripe."

"My bloodline stretches back through nineteen generations of unbroken honor, beginning with the Founding Knight who—"

"Is this the twenty-minute part?"

"It is the twelve-minute part, you barbarian, you will honor it—"

A cough of laughter escaped the gallery before a hundred handkerchiefs quickly muffled it into silence. Roke's jaw tightened as his polished smile thinned, then he slid into a perfectly practiced stance.

"Begin," wheezed Chamberlain Dusk, "and may your names be mourned."

Roke crossed the glass in one long stride, bringing his three blades up in bright, sweeping, silver arcs. Triple Dawn tore the air like silk, leaving three thin lines of gold hanging there in the dark.

Hajin kept his left hand in his pocket, stepped into the first arc and met it with a bare palm.

"Dusk," Roke breathed, but the rest of the sentence never came.

The blade snapped at the hilt with a crack that rang across the arena, its tip spinning away. Roke stared at the stump in his fist as if his own arm just insulted him in public.

"That was an heirloom, you barbarian," he shouted.

"Then you should've bought a better one," came the easy answer, "want to go again?"

Roke answered with Midnight, a flat black blade that swallowed the light, sweeping low toward Hajin's ankles. He hopped the cut easily with all the grace of a boy crossing puddles, hand still pocketed.

"Stand still, you insufferable goat," Roke snarled, whipping Dawn upward in a rising slash, "a gentleman accepts his wound."

"A gentleman can come and get it," Hajin said, ducking the slash with a grin.

Roke backed off three paces, flinging away the stump to lift Midnight and Dawn in a crossed guard. His gaze turned cold as he began to circle slowly, all the peacock gone out of his shoulders.

'He quit showing off, so now he's about to try something dirty.'

Above the arena the two names glowed in the glass, Roke's steady and bright, Hajin's edged in faint gold. A chill crawled across his tongue, a pulling sensation like a thread hooked from the roof of his mouth.

"Name-Stealing Feint," Roke whispered, his blade tip drifting an inch from those lips, "give me the first syllable, surface-crawler."

The letters above Hajin's head flickered, the first one wavering like a candle in a draft.

"Hey, that's cheating," he mumbled, his jaw working as if something sour sat on his tongue.

"It is taking the first syllable," Aria said sharply, her cyan text locking rigid, "the first letter above you will go dark before the rest."

"Do you hear how quiet your name becomes?" Roke asked, savoring each word like wine.

"Surrender it... and I will make the rest painless," he added softly.

He planted his feet, filled his lungs, then let the thread pull taut across his throat like a bowstring. Then he threw the name back with everything he owned, a shout that rolled over the arena like thunder.

"HAJIN!"

The word hit Roke like a battering ram, ripping the swords from his grip and lifting him off his feet. He flew backward across the glass, smashing straight through three pillars, then six more in a rolling thunder of crystal.

Nine pillars lay in ruins before the gallery, dust and glittering splinters raining over the front row.

Already the arena floor was knitting itself shut, smooth as a pond closing over a stone.

Roke lay crumpled against the last pillar, staring up at the drowned ships, his name flickering like a wick.

"He shouted his own name," a noble whispered in the front row, "and the glass believed him."

"Nobody has ever thrown one back before," murmured another, clutching her fan like a rosary.

Hajin crossed the arena in a lazy stroll, setting one foot gently on the knight's chest. The tiers were so quiet that his sole creaking on Roke's coat sounded like a door.

"Bow," he said.

"I will do no such thing," Roke gasped, "I am a knight of the Cradle Order, I—"

"Lower than anybody here has ever bowed, then I give you a hand up," he said, leaning a little more weight onto the foot, "think of it as etiquette practice."

Roke's face went through four colors, then he dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the glass. It was the deepest bow in the Court's history, the nobles gasping aloud to see it happen at last.

Hajin held out a hand, grinning, "Good bow, man... you really sold it."

"You drew a hand from your pocket for one cut," Roke said hoarsely, brushing glass from his coat, "what does it take to make you use both?"

"Somebody worth it, buddy, maybe next time."

"Your name is brighter than mine now," Roke muttered, staring up at the letters, "I have never seen that happen to anyone."

"Is that bad?"

"It is... unusual," Roke admitted, glancing nervously toward the upper gallery.

Roke stared at the offered palm for a long moment, then took it and let himself be hauled upright. The court erupted, the laughter rolling down from the gallery in a warm wave that had clearly changed sides.

[CringeSlayer91: NINE PILLARS.]

[DarkBlade: He bowed the whole knight into the floor, I am screaming.]

[ashley(mod): He used his own name as a weapon. I have nothing to add.]

[LurkerNoMore: Eight seconds of nobody betting on him and then THIS.]

Hajin squinted at nothing at all, entirely unsure what any of those words meant.

The glass above them shimmered, Roke's name steadying as Hajin's rose higher in a crown of gold. The odds board in the gallery flipped and flipped again, nobles frantically scrambling to cover their losses.

"That was almost fun," he said, wiping his palm on his coat, "who's next?"

He bit the ear off his candied skull and chewed, judging the sweetness with the face of a tired critic.

Up in the stands a paper bag waved wildly over a pair of bobbing ears, "That was the best thing I have ever seen!"

He waved back with the candy stick, "Save me a bite of whatever is in that bag, Bun."

In the stands the seating arrangements degenerated into open war between three furious women.

Juna planted her tail across three seats, "I'm sitting next to him, I'm the one who punches things with him."

"I brought snacks, which is better than punching," Loccy said, clutching a paper bag to her chest, "so the seat should be mine."

"Darling, neither of you understands how a gallery works," Cessy said, fanning herself with a velvet program, "the best seat is always the one where he can watch you being fabulous."

The three of them lunged for the empty bench beside the rail, elbows locking in a furious scramble. Didi swept past in a swish of white skirts, hopping onto the railing with her ankles neatly crossed.

She looked down at them with her chin high and a faint, dangerous smile.

"Anyone is welcome to try moving me," she said.

Not one of the three women dared to try moving her an inch.

"She's sitting on a railing over a bottomless void to win an argument... I hate that it works."

"Tch, show-off," Juna muttered, ears flat, then dropped onto the bench anyway.

Loccy split a sweet from her bag and pressed half into her hand, "Peace offering, it has a cherry inside."

"Fine, but I still get to punch things with him."

Nyra sat at the bench's far end between Ferra and Eirwen, glaive across her knees, watching the nobles flatly.

"They are betting on him like he is livestock," she said.

"Then we make them lose every coin they own," Ferra said, cracking her knuckles, "slowly."

Vella settled neatly beside her, "I will sit wherever the exits are, somebody in this family has to be sensible."

"Nine pillars from a single shout is not in any of the texts, which is fascinating."

"I shall happily arrange a bride-price for whichever house loses the most," Eirwen added, "as compensation for their hospitality."

Hajin caught Didi's eye across the whole arena and lifted two fingers in a slow, lazy salute. She looked away at once, turning her face up toward the ocean overhead, both ears burning pink.

'She looked away fast, which in Didi language means I did something right.'

The silence stretched until a sound broke it from somewhere high above the tiers.

Then a slow, deliberate applause began near the upper tiers, one pair of hands, unhurried, patient and unmistakably warm. The court fell silent row by row as a man in a plain white coat came down the stair.

'White coat, gentle smile, and every noble in this room just stopped breathing.'

He walked like a man strolling through his own garden, a pale-wood crook resting loosely in one relaxed hand. Every noble lowered their gaze while Chamberlain Dusk sank into a bow so deep he nearly folded in half.

"Nicely done, son of my oldest friend," the man said, his baritone as soft and kind as a grandfather's at a wedding.

'Eat before you meet him, Pell said, and all I got was a candy skull.'

Up close he looked perhaps forty, in a plain white coat with a small tea stain on one cuff. He carried no weapon but the crook, yet every blade in the arena seemed to lean away from him.

"His heartbeat is perfectly steady," Aria whispered, "it is the calmest I have ever heard on anyone."

He stopped at the edge of the glass, Hajin's golden name shining in his silver-gold eyes, one hand extended.

"Come and meet your family, Hajin."