The compact adept was shorter than Marroo. It seemed at odds with the blazing spiritual presence his aura projected. His was the dense rock hard aura Marroo had felt descending before the tournament and it weighed on Marroo like a physical presence. He wasn’t much shorter, but it still felt odd to look down in order to meet the adept’s eyes. The man peered at him for a moment then snorted again.

“You’re fast.” The man said when he’d satisfied himself. He had a nasal voice but one so heavily accented Marroo might have thought the sneer in it to be an accident if his lips hadn’t twisted in an unhappy smile. “But you have less breath in you than a pigeon. What’s your secret?”

Marroo blinked and put a hand on the hilt of the dummy sword at his waist. “No secret.” He replied.

“No?” The adept looked around at the rest of the competition. “You don’t look like anyone else here either.” He looked up at Marroo. “Why is that?”

“You don’t look like anyone else here either.” Marroo replied.

The adept snorted and glared up at him again. “I ask, you answer. That spirit ain’t gonna get better if you win huh?” He poked Marroo in the chest. “ Now what’s the matter with you?” He waved a hand at Marroo’s chest. “Why is your spirit all messed up?”

Marroo looked at the board to conceal his uncertainty, then chose the lie and looked back at the little adept. “I was born in the wastes.” He said. “I’ve always been this way.”

“Fast?” The adept asked.

Marroo shook his head. “No not that. That took training.”

The adept nodded as the last match in their corner of the stadium came to an end and the board in front of Marroo flickered to display the new match ups. The adept eyed him while Marroo waited to be dismissed.

“Maybe, the Hierarchs can fix you.” The adept said. “Maybe not.” Marroo felt the man’s spirit sweep over him, then the adept shrugged and turned to go. “Don’t lose.” He said over his shoulder. “Or we never gonna find out.”

Marroo didn’t lose.

There was only one boy in Marroo’s bracket who seemed to know what he was doing with his sword. As other boys were eliminated and moved to other brackets Marroo watched him batter through his opponents one after another with speed and precision that might have even impressed Marroo’s father. There was something fierce in his eyes as he fought, as though he was fighting for something more than just the victory promised to the best. He kicked one of the boys after delivering a blow that would have decapitated him if the swords had been real and the losing boy went sailing out of the ring with a cry of pain to tumble and skid across the floor. The referees did nothing. Just told the boy not to disrespect his opponents.

“Losers get no respect.” The boy snapped, then turned to the quiet congratulations of a pinched looking man in matching school robes. Marroo watched the loser get strapped onto a stretcher and rushed out of the stadium while other bouts carried on as though there hadn’t just been an assault on one of the contestants that shattered his hip.

Marroo’s fourth opponent was clumsy. The boy had an open Sensorium he used to try and pressure Marroo, but he was all speed and no control, making him easy to trip up and toss out of the ring. By the fifth round though, all of the remaining contestants in his bracket were in control of their cultivation, and none of them were stupid.

Marroo’s fifth opponent had clearly watched at least one of Marroo’s rounds and he tried to use the length of the stave he’d brought to the ring to keep Marroo from getting close. Marroo still got past his guard to knock him out of the ring all three times that he needed too and afterwards he watched the angry boy going back and forth in one of the rings with someone who was actually a close match for him, until he projected his breath down the length of his blade and sent the boy hurtling out of the ring. He couldn’t do that many times, not if Marroo had a good read of his cultivation, and not with so little time between matches to recharge.

“You’ll face him soon.” A voice said behind Marroo as he watched the loser of the first exchange push himself up and re-enter the ring.

Marroo didn’t answer as the winner’s master approached him along the spectator’s ring around the floor.

“I think you realize it’s inevitable.”

Marroo looked at the man as he took up a place next to him, then looked back at the ring. The two boys bowed to one another and took up stances. “His name is Singh.” The pinched man said. “Singh Jask. One of the students of my school. We’re the Dune Towers school.” He added when Marroo didn’t say anything, and turned the badge sewn onto his robes so Marroo could see the symbol there if he’d looked.

The boys in front of them clashed in a whirl of rubberized steel that ended after a dozen exchanges and only a few seconds later when Singh spun his sword inside the other boy’s guard and whipped it across his chest. The boy cried out and Singh lashed it across his outstretched leg knocking him to the floor before stepping over him on his way back to his starting position.

“A ferocious spirit.” The man next to Marroo said. “Don’t you think?”

Marroo said nothing. He stood to go as the boy’s took up their position for their last bout.

“I have an offer for you.” The man said.

Marroo stopped and looked over his shoulder at him.

The master of the Dune Towers School wet his lips then ran his fingers over them as he glanced around the stadium. He leaned towards Marroo with a conspiratorial grin. “Winning this tournament would mean a lot for my school.” He told Marroo. “Sponsorships, treaties, more, really, than the prize money they are offering.”

He rubbed his lips while Marroo stared up at him then looked away as swords clashed in the ring in front of them.

“I’ve seen you fight. You’re fast. Fast enough that I’m not sure that he could beat you, so, I’m willing to offer you a deal, on the side, as it were, in secret.”

“I’m not interested.” Marroo said.

“You might lose.” The man replied. He glanced at Marroo. “The prize money is no guarantee, what I’m offering you is. All the prize money, if you agree to lose. Payable to whoever you choose, even you, instead of your school. All you have to do is lose.”

Marroo thought of the prices for apartments he’d looked at shortly after promising Dhret a better life before he shook his head.

He stared at the ring as Singh beat the other boy soundly for the third and final time then turned with a grin to approach the man standing by Marroo’s side.

“I’m waiting.” The man said.

The dark skinned boy looked at Marroo, as though to ask what he was doing there, and Marroo imagined facing him across the ring. He would probably need his sword if he actually tried to beat him, and that couldn’t be said for most of the other contestants.

“Sure.” Marroo said at last. “Why not.” He turned back to the man next to him, but didn’t take the extended hand for the agreement.

The man nodded with a thin smile as he retrieved the offered hand. “Don’t make it obvious.” He said. “Give a convincing effort first, if you can.”

Marroo turned to go to the board to see his rankings. “If you change your mind,” the man called after him, “I’ll make sure you regret it.”

Marroo didn’t face him in the next round. They added in boys who’d risen through the loser’s brackets to face off against undefeated competitors like Marroo in the second to last match, and Marroo found himself facing off against a boy he’d never stopped to watch with his Core and Extremis Meridians opened. The boy was competent. Competent enough to tap Marroo on the chest with one of the two rubberized swords he carried into the first match, but not competent enough to do it again in either of the follow up bouts before Marroo tossed him from the ring.

He didn’t face Singh until the final round.

Singh glared at Marroo as Marroo entered the ring to stand across from him while losers not included in the final fifty matches of the evening milled and filled the stadium with the low roar of echoing conversations. The boy across from him spun his training sword in lazy circles with one hand while he waited for the referee to finish speaking with one of the event officials and glared daggers at Marroo.

Marroo stared back impassively with one hand on his sword hilt while he felt the wisps of poison still trapped in his Core Meridians clawing at the breath he’d sheathed within his flesh.

He felt Singh’s spirit touch him. The touch possessed all the subtlety of a dog’s tongue as he probed for some sign of the cultivation Marroo had hidden in his veil. Marroo kept his face placid as he waited for the touch to withdraw.

“You know you have no chance.” Singh told him. He glanced at the referree then back to Marroo. “You haven’t even opened your core. You can’t hope to keep up.”

Marroo didn’t reply and Sing snorted. He opened his mouth to say more but the referee silenced him with a scowl and a slash of his hand before he commanded them each to bow. They did, and then the other boy flew at Marroo.

Singh opened with a feint to Marroo’s left, quick as lightning, then spun and swept in from the right. Marroo snapped his hand in place to deflect the blow then remembered what he’d been told to do and just let the sword slam into his ribs.

Singh hit with enough force to knock someone else flying, but Marroo just staggered convincingly then deflected the kick the other boy aimed at his groin with a snarl when the cut didn’t knock him down.

“You’re weak.” The other boy told him as they returned to their starting position. He spun his sword and took up a ready position with a sneer. “That makes you worthless.”

Pudgy hands gripped Darro’s shirt as Darro put one finger under Marroo’s chin to lift big silver eyes to his own. “Your brother is dead.” He told Marroo. His voice still grated from the poisons he’d inhaled while he was in the black, as it would for the rest of his life, making it painful for him to speak, despite his cultivation. “He’s gone to sleep, and he isn’t waking up.”

Marroo just looked at him.

“We’ll make you strong.” He promised his son. “Strong enough, that you’ll never ever have to be afraid.”

Behind him, his wife began to wail as Darro’s world was cut in two, into the futures that could be, and the ones he could not allow to be.

And the memories went on.

Marroo looked at the pinched face of the boy’s teacher half hidden among the dozens of other eager faces watching this final match as he remembered the words from another life and tried to remember why he’d come here in the first place, why he’d agreed to throw the round when there wasn’t anything, or anyone, that he needed the money for anyways.

He looked back at the boy as the referee ordered them to bow, and in one long, slow motion, pulled the blade of his practice sword from its sheath to take up a ready stance before offering Singh a small bow.

From start to finish, the next two bouts lasted no more than twenty seconds, and that included at least ten seconds spent repositioning and offering one another the ritual bow. Their last bout was the longest. Singh adjusted quickly to Marroo’s new speed and weapon and the flurry of blows and projections of breath made the stadium rock as they went at it, but the other boy never had a chance. Even without projecting his breath Marroo had no trouble knocking the sword from his hand then poking the other boy in the chest.

He remained expressionless for the whole exchange, but kept his sword at Singh’s chest when he’d won and locked eyes with the other boy before giving it a little shove in emphasis and sliding it back into its sheath.

“Are you happy.” He asked the boy, nearly a man now, sitting at the table down the street from the cramped apartment his son moved into after graduating from his lessons as an adept.

The boy looked down at the table between them and nodded.

“Then that’s all that I want.” He tapped the table with a finger then stood to go. “We’ll do this again.” He promised, then nodded in parting. “Until then.”