Chapter 23—The Steep Hill Called Grenald

It was the fourth day since Raiden had begun sparring with Tadari at the training grounds.

The morning had begun like all the others since the summons: early mist clinging to the training fields, the clang of wood on wood echoing where students drilled under the pale sun. Raiden had grown used to rising with the dawn, his body bruised and stiff from Tadari’s punishing sparring, his mind still replaying Falden’s declaration of the duel. Each day blurred into a cycle of pain, recovery, and more pain. Yet he kept returning, because the alternative was unthinkable.

Randall leaned lazily against the fence as Raiden stretched out his shoulders. “You know, Tad, you’re going to break him before Garid even gets the chance.”

Tadari, already limbering his wrists, barely looked over. “Better me than Garid.” His eyes flicked toward Raiden. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Raiden muttered, picking up the wooden practice sword.

The spar went as usual: Tadari’s precision carving Raiden apart within minutes. By the end, Raiden was panting, his ribs sore from clean strikes. Tadari lowered his weapon with a shake of his head. “Still too slow. Still watching instead of reading.”

It was then another voice cut across the field.

“You’re still letting him push you back the same way he did at the Assembly.”

All three turned.

Grenald Tarin stood by the fence, one hand resting easily on the hilt of his sheathed sword. His dark hair caught the morning light, his amber eyes unreadable. Raiden remembered him immediately—not just because Grenald was notorious among the Adepts, but because he had been there in the Council chamber, seated among the upper-year Exemplar students. Raiden had felt his gaze that day, steady and appraising even when the rest of the hall had turned hostile.

“You were watching then,” Raiden said, breath still ragged.

Grenald stepped closer, the dew on the grass crunching under his boots. “I was. And I’m watching now. You’ve improved since the Assembly, but not enough. Garid will eat you alive if you walk into the duel like this.”

Randall let out a low whistle. “Straight to the gut. And you are—?”

“Grenald Tarin,” Tadari supplied, his tone edged with recognition.

Randall’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. That Tarin.”

Grenald ignored the exchange, his eyes locked on Raiden. “I know what Garid’s trying to imitate. I learned it where it was born. You’ll never understand it by yourself. So I’ll show you—once. Whether you keep up is your problem.”

Raiden’s grip tightened on his practice sword. The weight of the summons, the duel, the humiliation of the Assembly—all of it pressed in. He swallowed hard. “Then show me.”

Grenald unsheathed his sword in a single smooth motion, the steel catching the pale light. It wasn’t ornate—no gilding, no engravings—yet it seemed alive, humming faintly with frost at the edge. Raiden’s grip on his practice sword tightened.

“Come at me,” Grenald said simply.

Raiden darted forward, trying to press before Grenald could settle. He swung with all the strength he could muster, desperate to prove he could at least push the older student back.

The blade never landed.

Grenald turned his wrist, deflecting Raiden’s strike with casual ease, and tapped the flat of his own blade against Raiden’s ribs. Not a cut. Not even a bruise. Just a reminder of how open Raiden had left himself.

“Again.”

Raiden attacked harder, slashing high then low, lunging with all the speed he had honed against Tadari. Grenald flowed around each strike like water slipping past stone. A sidestep here, a half-parry there. When Raiden overextended, a flick of Grenald’s blade corrected him with a stinging slap to the arm or thigh.

Within minutes, Raiden was drenched in sweat, gasping. Grenald hadn’t broken a sweat.

“You’re fighting air,” Grenald said calmly. He spun his sword in a lazy arc, frost trailing the edge. “Garid will cut you apart if you keep chasing him like that. He fights to dominate. You need to learn to survive him first.”

Randall whistled low from the fence. “Raiden, you look like a child against him.”

“Shut up,” Raiden managed, lunging again.

Grenald’s eyes sharpened. This time, when Raiden swung, Grenald countered with a flare of magic. Ice erupted from the ground, jagged shards forming a wall that redirected Raiden’s strike. In the same breath, Grenald’s blade cut past Raiden’s guard and stopped just shy of his throat.

Raiden froze, chest heaving.

“That,” Grenald said, withdrawing his blade, “is what you’ll face if you underestimate a style rooted in magic. Garid’s crude with it. But even crude can kill you.”

The wall of ice melted back into mist, leaving only damp grass.

The spar went on, though Raiden could hardly call it sparring. Grenald demonstrated a dozen techniques Raiden had never imagined. Slashes that extended with sudden ice blades, parries reinforced by conjured shields, leaps balanced by forming a block of frost beneath his feet mid-air. His sword was never just a sword—it was an extension of magic itself.

Every move revealed how shallow Raiden’s understanding was. He had always thought of magic as something separate, something wielded like a tool. Grenald showed him it could be woven seamlessly into each breath, each strike, until the distinction between blade and spell vanished.

By the time Grenald lowered his weapon, Raiden was on his knees, drenched, shaking.

“Stand,” Grenald said.

Raiden forced himself upright. His legs wobbled, but he met Grenald’s gaze.

“You’re not hopeless,” Grenald said. “You watch well. You adapt fast. But right now, you’re fighting like someone who doesn’t know what he is. Decide that first.”

Raiden blinked. “What I am?”

Grenald sheathed his blade. “Garid borrowed Olwen’s form. I mastered it. You need to stop borrowing scraps from others and make something yours. That’s the only way you’ll survive.”

When Grenald left the field, the silence he left behind pressed heavy.

Randall was the first to speak. “Well. That was terrifying.”

Tadari exhaled slowly, eyes still fixed on where Grenald had stood. “Terrifying—and necessary. You saw it, Raiden. That’s what real swordplay looks like when magic and steel are one.”

Raiden wiped the sweat from his brow. His chest still burned, but beneath the exhaustion a strange spark lingered. He had been outclassed, humiliated even, but for the first time since the summons, he felt the shape of the mountain he had to climb.

And somewhere deep inside, a voice answered: climb it.