The Pendragon training hall breathes like something ancient and waiting. Built into the cliffside, its stone bones are older than the estate above, woven through with echo-threaded wards that hum faintly in the silence. The air is cool, touched with the metallic scent of effort and memory.
Weapons line the racks. Most are practice pieces, dull blades, blunted spears, weighted staves, but a few pulse faintly with artificed resonance, their energy quiet, but not asleep. Moonlight spills through high-arched windows, painting silver pools across the worn stone floor where generations of Pendragons have trained, bled, and mastered the art of war.
I stand in the center of the room, alone with the Ashthorn Blade.
The sync still hasn't settled.
It moves when I move, cuts when I guide it, but something in the connection remains frayed. Like a word caught in my throat. Like the blade is holding its breath.
This should not be happening. Not to me. Not with a pseudo-echo.
I have synced with seven different pseudo-echoes during my Academy training. Seven. Each one responded instantly, the connection forming clean and complete. A gauntlet that shifted weight with thought. A pendant that cooled the mind during exertion. A bracer that enhanced reflex speed. All of them, perfect bonds from the first touch.
That's how it works with pseudo-echoes. They're designed that way to be safer, more predictable than true echoes. They don't choose. They accept. That's why they're given as graduation gifts. Reliable. Dependable. A reward without risk.
But the Ashthorn Blade refuses to follow the rule.
I begin again.
Basic drills. Stances drilled into me since I could walk. Footwork aligned to invisible markers on the stone. The blade carves through the air in practiced arcs. Balanced. Clean.
But not right.
Not whole.
I pivot. Strike. Reset. Again. Again. Each motion controlled, each breath held too tightly. I adjust the angle of my wrist by a fraction of a degree. Correct the extension of my arm by a hair's breadth. Perfection is in the details. That's what every instructor has ever told me.
Four hours since I began. Four hours of flawless form. Of textbook perfection. Of everything I was taught to be.
And still, the blade does not speak.
Frustration burns behind my ribs, a hot coal I can't extinguish. I've done everything right. Everything. My technique is beyond reproach. My lineage is impeccable. My dedication, absolute. What more could a blade want? What more could I possibly give?
I stop, just long enough to breathe. The moonlight from the high windows has shifted. It's late. Hours since the council meeting ended. Maybe more.
Sweat cools on my skin despite the exertion. My muscles ache with familiar tension, but it's the ache in my chest that cuts deeper. In two days, we enter a forming echo dungeon. In two days, I'll face whatever lurks in Azmere Pass with a weapon that can't decide if it wants me.
I try again. A series of seven strikes, executed in perfect sequence. Not a single wasted motion. Not a breath out of place. The blade cuts air with precision that should be satisfying.
It isn't.
Because precision isn't the problem.
Then:
"Middle of the night, and here you are."
Lyra.
Her voice carries the lazy confidence of someone who already knows the answer. She crosses the threshold like the hall is hers. And it might as well be. Loose training clothes. Hair tied back. Aegis floating just over her back like a faithful companion. Like all true echoes, it answers her call and vanishes just as easily. It hovers there, bound to her like a silent guardian.
She studies me, arms crossed.
"You've been at it for hours. It's starting to look less like training and more like self-inflicted torment."
I lower the blade, tension curling in my shoulders. "What do you want, Lyra?"
She tilts her head. The Prism Crown is absent tonight, but her eyes hold that same unnatural clarity. As if she can see things others miss. Things I try to hide.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine."
"That sounded convincing."
Something in me frays. The frustration that's been building all night, the doubt that's been growing since the graduation ceremony, the fear of what awaits in Azmere—it all ruptures at once.
"I said I'm fine."
The words are too sharp. Too loud. They echo in the hall, betraying the composure I fight to maintain. My outburst hangs between us, revealing more than I intended.
She stops. Blinks. Her expression shifts from concern to something cooler.
"Noted," she says. "I'll let you get back to sulking."
She turns.
I breathe out. "Wait. I didn't mean that."
She looks back, one brow raised.
"Sorry," I say. The word feels foreign on my tongue. Pendragons apologize through action, not speech. "The blade... it won't sync. Not fully. And I don't know why."
The admission burns like acid. To confess weakness is not the Pendragon way. To admit failure before Lyra, of all people, the one person who has never failed at anything,g is almost unbearable.
She watches me for a moment, then crosses the room and sits on the edge of the nearest bench. There's no surprise in her expression. Just a quiet confirmation, as if a suspicion has been verified.
"I wondered," she says simply.
I follow, resting beside her. "You knew?"
"I suspected." She shrugs.
Lyra sees everything. It's part of what makes her so infuriating. And so essential.
"Everyone saw the glow. They think it bonded. But I could feel it. From the first moment I touched the hilt. Something's off. There's distance. Like it's not sure about me. Like I'm not enough."
She's quiet. Her red eyes flicker in the low light.
"You've synced with pseudo-echoes before."
"Seven," I say. "Every single one, immediate and complete. This shouldn't be happening. Pseudo-echoes don't choose. They connect. That's the whole point."
A faint smile touches her lips. "Maybe this one's different."
"Different how? It's artificed. Controlled. Safe."
"Is it?" She glances at the blade, lying across my knees. "The Academy records say the Ashthorn is stable, yes. But they don't say where it came from. What memories shaped it?"
I hadn't considered that. Most pseudo-echoes are created through complex artificing, memories deliberately shaped and contained. But some... some are derived from true echoes. Fragments carefully separated and stabilized, their power diminished but their essence unchanged.
"You didn't tell anyone."
"What was I supposed to say? That the Pendragon heir can't bond with his blade?"
She leans back, thoughtful. "It's not smart, keeping that to yourself. But I understand."
"You won't say anything?"
"Of course not."
We fall into silence. Her presence eases something in my chest, the way it always has. The irony isn't lost on me that the one person who stands as living proof of my inadequacy is also the one who makes the weight of it easier to bear.
She grins suddenly. "So. You still want to spar, or is your sword too moody tonight?"
I snort, voice laced with sarcasm. "You're worried I'll win. You know, for once."
Of course, I never have. Not against her.
"I'm worried you'll fall flat on your back. Again."
We rise.
The spar begins simply.
I leave the Ashthorn Blade on the bench and take up a practice sword instead. No point compounding my frustration with a weapon that refuses to fully cooperate. Lyra chooses a spear from the rack, not just any spear, but the one she's favored for years, ebony shaft inlaid with silver runes. She doesn't summon Aegis. This is to be a pure contest of skill, no echoes involved.
Lyra Ashveil had never lost a duel. Not once, not at the Academy, not before. She moved like the fight was part of her breath, her steps fluid as flame, her weapon an extension of her will. Watching her fight was like watching something ancient remembering its rhythm. Every motion is deliberate. Every strike is graceful.
But I wasn't a stranger to the dance.
Pendragons were born different. Stronger. Faster. More agile. We grew faster, learned faster. Forged to carry the weight of a bloodline built on legend. I was trained as the heir. Every instructor, every form, every hour of every day had pressed me into the shape of someone who would be ready for any enemy.
We circle each other slowly, testing the air between us. I catalog her stance automatically, noting the slight forward shift of her weight, the subtle angle of her spear. I can predict her opening move; she favors a feint to the right, followed by a low thrust from the left. She's done it a hundred times in a hundred spars.
We clashed.
Spear met blade.
Sure enough, she moves first, she always does, and I follow the script I know by heart. She lunges right, I shift to counter, then immediately pivot as her spear darts left, bringing my sword low in a defensive sweep. Her follow-up spins around my guard exactly as the training manuals say it should, but I adjust according to chapter four, section three of "Advanced Counters Against Pole Arms." I read her motion precisely, redirecting the force with the exact angle specified by Master Tallen's "Principles of Mechanical Advantage."
We circle. Feet gliding over the stone, each step measured to the precise distance taught in year three at the Academy.
My blade meets her shaft with a crack that echoes. The impact travels up my arm, but I absorb it with the perfect tension taught by the sixth form instructor.
Feint. Parry. Advance.
The rhythm settles in. My muscles remember. Every movement is a calculation executed with surgical precision. My mind runs through combinations and counters I've memorized over years of relentless training. Her spear darts like lightning, but I am the storm wall. Holding.
I track her patterns, identifying the seventy-second variation of the Ashveil spear style. It's documented in the fourth volume of "Comprehensive Combat Traditions," a book I've read seven times. I counter with the appropriate response, perfectly timed, perfectly placed.
She stepped into a spin, and I duck under, pivot low, and sweep her foot. The exact counter to the maneuver as detailed in the advanced training curriculum.
She stumbles.
For half a breath, I thought I had her. Satisfaction rises with the reward for perfect execution.
But she laughs, kicks up, and twists into a vault that launches her behind me, a move that exists in no training manual I've ever studied. Her spear butt strikes my side. I wince. Twisted.
Pain lanced. We both break away.
Breathing heavily.
"Textbook perfect," she says, a hint of amusement in her voice. "Exactly as expected."
"That's the point," I respond. "Perfect form wins fights."
"Does it?" She circles again. "Or does it just make you predictable?"
Again.
I charged this time a deliberately aggressive approach drawn from the Viren Military Academy's offensive tactics. She deflects with a move that shouldn't work according to any principle I've studied, yet somehow does. We danced, faster now. The room shrank to blade and breath.
I execute a complex sequence that combines three separate schools of swordplay. Each transition is flawless, each angle mathematically precise.
But Lyra doesn't fight by the book. She moves like water, like wind, like something that never learned there were rules to follow. Her spear becomes an extension not just of her body but of some deeper instinct that predates formal training.
Still, my technical perfection allows me to keep pace. I analyze each of her movements, categorize them, and respond with the optimal counter. It's exhausting mental work, but it's what I was trained to do. What I've always done.
I caught her once, just once—with a lunge that clipped her side. She stepped back, surprised. A flaw in her improvisation met by perfect execution on my part.
Then she smiled.
And disarmed me in three moves that no instructor ever taught, no book ever described.
I hit the floor, panting. Staring up at the ceiling. The practice sword skitters across the stone, coming to rest against the far wall.
She leaned over me, spear resting lazily against her shoulder.
"Still pretty, though," she said, offering a hand.
I took it, her grip warm and solid as she pulled me to my feet.
We sat again on the bench, the exertion having burned away some of the frustration that had been building all night.
She grinned. "You always get this intense when you train alone."
I glanced at her. "Habit."
"Or self-punishment."
She said it lightly, but something in her tone sharpened.
"You're not wrong."
She tilted her head, studying me. Sweat had plastered strands of her hair to her forehead, but she looked no less composed for it. No less certain.
The moonlight caught her eyes. Red and gold and unreadable.
"You're not losing, Juno."
"Then why does it feel like it?"
She didn't answer.
But she didn't look away.
After a moment, she rises. "Get some rest. Dawn comes early, and we have preparations to make before we leave."
I nod, though sleep feels like a distant possibility.
She pauses at the threshold. "The blade will sync when it's ready. When it knows you're not just fighting to win, but fighting for something that matters."
Before I can ask what she means, she's gone, leaving nothing but questions and the faint scent of ember and rain.
I cross to where the Ashthorn Blade waits on the bench. In the moonlight, it looks ordinary. Just metal and craft. But as I reach for it, I feel the faint hum of something more. Something waiting.
"What do you want from me?" I whisper to it.
The blade remains silent.
I return to my chambers, exhaustion dragging at my limbs but my mind still racing. Tomorrow we begin preparations for Azmere Pass. Tomorrow we face whatever waits in the forming dungeon.
And I am not ready.