Chapter 526 - 526: I’ll Break Through

When she heard him say he would attack, Dawn's entire body froze.

She gripped her sword tighter and fixed her eyes on him, trying to catch every movement his body made. The shift of a shoulder. The bend of a knee. One misstep, and she would die here.

Silva raised his sword.

He did not rush. He swung it down in a single, simple stroke.

Dawn saw it coming and threw her blade up to block. The two swords met, and a shockwave burst outward from the clash. It was nothing like the first exchange. Her arms buckled, her feet tore out of the stone, and she was thrown backward through the air like a leaf in a storm.

She hit the ground and rolled, then scrambled onto one knee. Her arms were numb up to the shoulders.

'That was just one swing.'

"Get up," Silva said calmly.

She did.

She pushed off the ground and came at him again, faster this time, her feet barely touching the rock. She flipped over his first slash, twisted in the air, and brought her blade down on his neck. He leaned back by an inch and let it pass. She landed, spun, and cut low at his legs. He stepped over it.

She did not stop. She leaped off a boulder, kicked off the wall of the cliff, and attacked from above. She was acrobatic and quick, quicker than she had ever been, and every move was sharp.

It did not matter.

Silva swung once, and the force of it hit her in the middle of her jump. She was knocked sideways and slammed into the cliff.

CRACK!

Rock broke around her. She dropped and coughed, and a thin line of blood ran down her arm where his blade had grazed her.

"Again," he said.

She wiped her mouth and came again.

This time she used her flames. Fire burst from her sword and shot across the ground in a wide arc, and she followed right behind it. Silva cut straight through the fire with a lazy swing. The flames split apart like a curtain, and his blade came out the other side and caught her across the ribs.

She cried out and staggered. A second strike hit her in the stomach with the flat of the sword, and she flew backward and bounced off the stone.

She lay on her back for a second, staring up at the sky.

'I can't even keep up.'

She heard footsteps. Silva was walking toward her, one slow step at a time, his sword hanging loose at his side. He did not look angry. He did not look anything. His eyes were calm, and his face was flat.

That was what made her stomach twist.

'He hasn't even gone all out. He's holding back, and I still can't touch him.'

The thought hit her like a slap.

She had been training for years. She had bled and cried and pushed herself past every limit she thought she had. And here she was, thrown around like a toy by someone who was not even trying to kill her.

Her hands curled into fists.

Heat rose in her chest, and it was not from the flames. It was anger, hot and bright and sharp. Anger at herself, at how weak she was, at all the times she had watched from behind while the others went ahead.

She screamed and sprang to her feet.

"Don't look down on me!"

She charged, and her flames roared higher than before. She slashed at him with everything she had. Left. Right. Overhead. A spinning cut that took the whole length of her body. Silva met each one with a small, easy motion, and every time their blades touched, she felt the gap between them grow wider.

He pushed her back with a swing, and she crashed through a stack of loose rocks. She got up. He cut her across the shoulder, and blood sprayed. She got up. He knocked her sword aside and kicked her in the chest, and she slammed into a boulder hard enough to crack it.

She got up.

"You're still standing," Silva said.

"Of course I am," she spat. Her breath came in ragged pulls, and her vision was blurring at the edges. "You said this was a chance. I'm not going to waste it."

"Then show me."

He stepped forward, and his sword came down.

She blocked, and it nearly broke her wrists. He swung again. Again. His strikes came heavier now, explosive, each one sending a wave of force across the mountain. The rock under her feet shattered. Dust rose around them. She took a cut across the cheek, then another across her thigh, and the pain was sharp and clean.

Still, she kept moving.

She leaped over a slash, rolled under another, bounced off a pillar of stone, and struck from behind. Silva turned and caught her blade with two fingers. She tried to pull it free, and he flicked it away like it was nothing. A backhand swing struck her squarely across the body and threw her down the slope.

She slid on her side, scraping against sharp rock until she stopped against the base of a cliff.

Blood ran into her eye. She tasted dirt and iron.

Her sword lay a few feet away. She dragged herself toward it, one hand at a time, her fingers leaving red marks on the stone. Her whole body shook. Every part of her screamed to stop.

'Not yet.'

She wrapped her hand around the hilt and pulled herself up to her feet. She swayed, nearly fell, and caught herself on the sword.

Silva stood at the top of the slope, looking down at her.

"This is where most people would stop," he said.

Dawn gritted her teeth.

She lifted her blade. Her arms trembled, and the flames around her had shrunk to a few pale sparks. But her eyes were burning, and her grip did not loosen.

Then, slowly, she closed them.

Silva's brows pulled together.

'What is she doing?'

She was standing in the middle of a battlefield with her eyes closed. Her chest rose and fell. Her breath slowed, and the tremor in her hands faded. All the noise of the fight drained away from her face, until she looked almost calm.

It was the stupidest thing she could have done.

And yet he felt something shift in the air.

He narrowed his eyes. He couldn't read it, but he did not like how still she had become. He lifted his sword.

"Alright," he said quietly. "Let's see it."

He swung.

The slash was fast, faster than anything he had thrown so far, a clean arc of power that would have cut through the stone behind her. It came down toward her head.

Her ears twitched.

She moved.

It was so fast that Silva's sword cut through empty air. The wind from the swing tore across the slope and split the rock behind her, but she was no longer there.

He felt her behind him.

He didn't need to turn. He knew she was standing at his back, so close that he could feel the heat of her breath. Her eyes were open now, and they were no longer the eyes of a girl being chased. They were sharp and steady, with a serious glare that cut like a blade.

Her sword was already coming.

"I'll break through!" Dawn screamed.