Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

The buckler changes the fight.

Until that moment, Rhayne could accept the ribbon landing light. A shoulder. A wrist. A thigh. The Battle Ribbon didn’t need to cut deep to win the exchange. It only had to touch, let the passive build, and steal half a step and a little OXI from Mira each time.

The buckler denies that.

Mira advances with the small shield strapped to her left arm, angled in front of her body. When the metallic silk comes from the side, she doesn’t try to catch it. She turns her forearm and takes the ribbon on the metal, letting the contact slide off before Rhayne can coil the edge.

No blood. No flesh. No stolen time.

Rhayne notices on the first exchange. The ribbon strikes the buckler with a thin sound, slides, and returns without finding anything alive. Mira enters in the same instant, spear tip low, aiming at the wounded leg.

Rhayne pulls her knee back and turns on the good leg, but the cut on her thigh charges its tax.

The rotation comes out smaller. The spear point passes flush against the leather and opens the fabric without reaching skin.

Mira doesn’t waste the mistake. She pushes the buckler against the ribbon again, using the metal to shove the Battle Ribbon’s curve away, and chokes up on the spear. The haft comes against Rhayne’s ribs, not as a thrust but as a dry blow to break her balance. Rhayne drops her elbow and takes part of the impact on her arm. The rest enters her body and tears the air from her lungs.

My jaw locks.

Rhayne gives a step back, breathes through her nose, and sends the ribbon low, trying to reach Mira’s lead ankle. Good choice. Take out the base, and the buckler loses its angle.

Mira steps on the ribbon. Not hard enough to pin it for good. Just enough to delay its return.

The spear comes from above.

Rhayne releases her wrist, lets the Battle Ribbon slip out from under the boot, and leans her torso back. The point passes in front of her face, close enough to cut a few loose strands of hair. She answers with a short spin, the ribbon coming back from the right and touching the side of the buckler.

Metal again.

Mira is cleaning the poison out of the fight. The shallow cuts on her body still exist. The marked shoulder. The open thigh. The forearm with red threads. But the passive needs new contact to keep weighing. Without it, the accumulated delay starts to disperse.

And Mira seems to realize it. Her steps grow firmer. The spear starts arriving a little earlier. The buckler begins meeting the ribbon before the metallic silk finds her flesh.

Rhayne is smart enough not to insist on the same path. She shrinks the dance, bringing the Battle Ribbon close to her own body, using smaller curves to try slipping past the buckler. Less beauty. More necessity. The ribbon leaves the hip, climbs the left side, and tries to bite the wrist of the spear hand.

Mira opens the buckler hand. A dagger drops from her inventory into her fingers.

Rhayne sees it and twists her shoulder, expecting a throw. Mira doesn’t throw. She only shows the blade and lets it fall to the ground.

The hesitation lasts less than a blink, but it’s enough. The spear point slips under the ribbon’s guard and opens a cut along the side of Rhayne’s arm. Blood runs to the elbow. Rhayne pulls the arm in, turns the retreat into a spin, and kicks low at Mira’s knee.

Mira takes it with the buckler dropping. The kick strikes the metal. The impact shudders through Rhayne to the hip.

Mira whispers something inaudible to anyone standing back.

Freya lets out a short sound. "Now it starts."

I look at her. "Starts what?"

Freya doesn’t take her eyes off the arena. "Step closer and you’ll see."

Veric, dried blood still on his face, goes still for an instant. Oliver looks at me. Zhang Xi is already moving.

I take two steps toward the circle. On the third, the world lies.

First comes a world that doesn’t exist. Sounds of animals that aren’t there, too green, too forested. And then a shadow runs behind Rhayne. Large, low, shoulders flexing like an animal about to leap. It doesn’t come from an inventory. It doesn’t come from the ground. It’s just there, where a moment ago there was nothing, a black jaguar opening its mouth without sound.

My hand goes to Eventide before I think.

Rhayne reacts too. The ribbon rises to intercept the leap. The jaguar passes through the metallic silk and dissolves the same instant Mira enters from the opposite side.

"Rhayne!"

My voice arrives late.

Mira uses the spear short, right hand driving in with the hip. The point hunts the chest. But it finds only Rhayne’s shoulder, which had just opened its angle to defend the false threat. The metal enters deep enough to tear leather and flesh.

Rhayne lets out a short grunt and spins away, her face tight with pain, but she doesn’t fall.

Freya speaks beside me, too calm. "Amazon Hunting Ground. Forty-five feet."

"Everyone inside sees it?"

"Sees it, hears it, feels it." Freya crosses her arms. "The details you find out by watching."

That’s worse. Of course Freya won’t give away Mira’s trick early. But if the skill chose only Rhayne, it would be too clean a blade. Instead, it’s territory. From what I feel, Mira isn’t aiming at a person. She turns the space around her into a forest that obeys the huntress.

Rhayne tries to stabilize. Wounded leg back, shoulder bleeding, ribbon circling close to her body like a living shield. She’s still fighting. To every real attack from Mira, she answers with a cut of metallic silk. To every illusion, she loses a piece of rhythm.

A snake appears near her ankle. Rhayne pulls her foot back on instinct. Mira’s spear passes where the knee went vulnerable and opens a hole in the thigh. Rhayne answers by trapping the haft with the ribbon for half a second and pulling it outward.

Mira lets the spear go, calls the dagger back with Amazon Recall, and takes it in her left hand while the buckler keeps the ribbon from touching her wrist.

Good. Brutally good. Mira isn’t just hitting Rhayne. She’s making Rhayne spend decisions. Real threat. False threat. Spear. Buckler. Dagger. Animal. Shadow. Floor. Pain. Every right choice arrives late, because the wrong ones look just as real.

Rhayne throws a spinning wheel kick for space, not to land. The good leg rises, forcing Mira to close the buckler high, and the ribbon comes low, trying to touch the hip. Mira takes the kick on the metal, lets the impact turn her arm downward, and uses the motion to slap the buckler against the ribbon before contact.

Another denial.

Rhayne lands badly. The cut leg bends a little too much.

I almost call stop. There’s no clear fatal blow. No blade at the throat. No point at the heart. Just an ugly run of damage too small to end it and too large to ignore.

Mira raises her hand, and the spear Rhayne tore away with the battle ribbon flies back to her grip.

Rhayne breathes deep, and then she sees what I see too.

Two jaguars. One to the left, one behind.

I know neither is real. But both look real enough. Inside that radius, there’s no telling when the lie is only image and when it comes with magic teeth.

Rhayne makes the only choice that still makes sense. She throws her body back into a back handspring, pulling the wounded leg in too late to hide the pain. The Battle Ribbon follows the arc of the motion and cuts the air in front of her, keeping Mira from advancing with her.

She lands outside the spear’s reach.

For half a second, it looks like relief.

Then Mira stows the spear. A bow appears in her hand. The arrow is already nocked when Rhayne lifts her eyes.

And I understand the mistake.

Rhayne didn’t escape the killing ground. She stepped into the line of fire.

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