Nightblade (Darkest night)

The darkness pressing down on the plaza felt heavy, saturated with the metallic reek of fresh blood and the bitter tang of ozone.

A split second later, Morgan pushed forward.

His boots skidded over the slick, rain-dampened marble as he drove his weight behind a brutal, sweeping strike.

The broadsword cleaved through the air, whistling toward her shoulder.

The deadly woman, like a ghostly phantom, twisted aside.

The movement was unnervingly fluid, a testament to what was surely a battle art honed through a myriad oflife-and-deathh battles.

It was a practiced, effortless pivot that left only the whisper of silk brushing against cold iron.

"Seriously..."

Despite his thoughts, Morgan didn’t stall. He followed instantly, letting the momentum of his failed strike roll through his shoulders to launch a violent horizontal slash.

She simply ducked.

The silver arc of his blade shaved a single strand of dark hair from her head, sending it floating into the stagnant air.

With a silent roar, he kicked at her, his movements containing barely contained fury, a strange contrast to the cold,d calculating fire that burned in his eyes.

It was a raw, unrefined blow aimed straight for her ribs. She brought her forearm up, blocking the strike with a dull, heavy thud. The sheer kinetic force of his weight drove her backward, her boots scraping two long, dark tracks through the pale moss growing between the cobblestones.

"Brilliant son of Aldren!!!!"

Her eyes shone with barely restrained glee.

"Show me more!"

Morgan surged forward, refusing to give her space to breathe.

Clashes echoed throughout the deserted plaza like lightning strikes trapped in a canyon.

The sharp clang of steel meeting steel bounced off the surrounding stone pillars, fracturing the silence of the dying city.

Sparks showered over the marble with every violent exchange, briefly illuminating the blood-splattered statues standing guard along the perimeter.

The woman slipped between his attacks like water, her twin short-blades weaving a defensive net that deflected every ounce of his brute strength.

She wasn’t just parrying; she was measuring him. Her dark eyes tracked the subtle shifts in his shoulders, the placement of his feet, the fractional delays in his recovery, constantly searching for an opening.

"How insidious..."

Morgan adjusted his tempo.

He forced his racing heart to slow, suppressing the hot, frantic urge to hack through her defenses. He stopped chasing her.

Instead, he began calculating the geometry of the arena. He shifted his weight, angling his sword to cut off her lateral escape routes, steadily herding her toward the shattered fountain at the center of the plaza.

She was forced to yield two feet of ground to avoid his heavy thrust.

Then another.

Her heel bumped against the lip of the cracked stone basin.

Then—she vanished.

Morgan’s eyes,s tracking her form,m caught only empty air and swirling mist.

He immediately turned, pivoting on his heel with his blade raised in a high guard.

"Nothing!"

A deathly, suffocating chill permeated his chest. His heart skipped a beat, hammering violently against his ribs.

Above.

He threw his head back.

The woman descended from the black sky like a falling raven, the faint moonlight outlining her silhouette against the gloom.

Both her short blades were pointed downward, aimed squarely for his chest with the entire weight of her fall behind them.

"How..."

Morgan crossed his broadsword before him, bracing his rear leg into the stone.

"...is she..."

BOOM!

The impact was seismic. The sheer downward force hit Morgan like a falling boulder, driving his left knee violently into the ground.

"...so damn fast!"

The ancient marble beneath him shattered, spider-webbing outward in a spray of white powder and flying stone fragments.

Pain shot up his spine, but he locked his arms, his teeth grinding as the twin blades bit deep into the crossguard of his sword, mere inches from his collarbone.

"Fuuu...."

Her face was so close he could feel the cold exhale of her breath against his skin.

Their eyes met.

For the first time since the slaughter began, Morgan saw something distinctly human amidst her cold lethargy.

Something resembling wild, feverish excitement burned in her golden irises.

"Oh damn..."

"You’re learning," she murmured, her voice a low, raspy purr that barely carried over the ringing in his ears.

"Shit!"

Morgan gritted his teeth, blood dripping from a cut on his brow into the corner of his eye.

"Fast learner," he spat.

He released the grip of his sword with his left hand.

The woman’s brows furrowed in a brief instant of confusion.

Morgan reached through the tangle of steel and clamped his bare hand around her slender right wrist, his fingers digging into the leather brace until he felt the hard line of bone beneath.

Her golden eyes widened.

He pulled.

Using her own downward momentum against her, Morgan twisted his torso violently, rising from his knee and slamming her whole body over his hip.

"That’s more like it!" He silently roared.

She hit the marble with a sickening crunch that shattered the stone plates beneath her back. The shockwave rattled the air, sending up a cloud of pulverized dust.

Before he could bring his heavy boot down to pin her, she dissolved into a fluid roll, tumbling backward across the broken ground and springing instantly to her feet like a coil released.

"No, you don’t!"

Morgan charged. He didn’t give her time to recover.

She rose, her blades crossing into an X-guard to catch his overhead strike.

Steel screamed against steel.

This time, Morgan didn’t retreat. He slammed his weight against her guard, pressing the attack relentlessly.

"You wanted to see what I can do, right?!"

The woman blocked.

He lunged forward with another brutal swing, his form rippling with shadow.

"I’ll grant your request."

She parried, the ringing metal echoing like church bells through the fog.

A moment later, she dodged, her body bending at impossible angles to avoid the razor-thin margin of his edge.

For the moment, the deadly dance continued at a blistering speed, near impossible to perceive by the ordinary eye.

The cadence of the battle had changed.

The elusive phantom was being pushed back.

With every pass, the clumsy, desperate edge of Morgan’s fighting style was burning away.

His movements grew increasingly familiar, not because he was remembering the martial forms he had been taught as a child, but because something primal, something buried deep inside his blood,d was teaching him.

His body moved with an instinct that felt older than himself, older than the plaza, older than the fallen kingdom whose dust coated his throat.

A low, predatory stance took over his limbs.

A precise, silent step pivoted his body around her guard.

A sudden, sharp feint drew her left blade out of alignment.

Then—Morgan vanished from her field of vision.

The woman’s golden eyes widened in genuine shock, her gaze snapping to the space where he had stood a millisecond before.

A whisper of cold air brushed the back of her neck.

He appeared at her flank. The heavy broadsword rested motionless, its dark steel edge hovering a fraction of an inch from her exposed pulse point.

Absolute silence descended over the ruined plaza. The wind died down; the dust settled into the pooling blood on the ground.

Morgan’s breathing was heavy, ragged gasps blooming into white clouds in the frigid night air. Sweat mixed with rain, stinging his eyes, but his hands remained completely steady around the hilt.

The woman didn’t move. She slowly tilted her head back, looking down the length of the cold steel to meet his gaze. Her golden eyes gleamed with an unsettling, radiant heat.

"Prince Modric..." she whispered.

Her voice sent an icy shiver down his spine.

"...you’re much more interesting than they said."

Morgan frowned, his grip tightening around the leather wrap of his hilt until his knuckles turned white.

"What does that mean?"

The woman’s smile widened, revealing pearly white teeth stained.

"You’ll find out soon enough."

Then she disappeared.

It wasn’t a trick of speed; it was a total erasure. One moment her warmth was radiating against his blade, and the next, his sword sliced through thin air, striking nothing but space.

Morgan’s eyes widened. He spun around, swinging his blade in a wide, defensive circle.

There was nothing.

No footsteps. No rustling fabric. No faint disturbance in the rising mist.

Only the empty, ruined plaza remained.

And around him, scattered across the fractured marble like discarded dolls, lay the bodies of the six elite royal guards.

Their dark armor was pierced, their blood congealing into thick, black pools in the cold drizzle, motionless beneath the pale light.

Morgan slowly lowered his sword, the point dragging uselessly against the stone.

A cold, heavy realization settled deep within his gut, freezing the blood in his veins.

His eyes narrowed.

"That woman..."

She hadn’t been fighting for her life. She hadn’t even been pressed to her limits.

She had been testing him. Seeing what lay sleeping beneath his skin.

And somehow...tha that realization frightened him far more than the blade at his throat ever could.