The pier shuddered again as a wave struck, sending a fine spray through the boards at their feet. The air was salt and iron, heavy enough to choke on. Ira shifted his weight, but the movement did little to steady him. His hand hovered near his blade, though not by choice alone—his fingers cramped as if drawn by an unseen thread. He flexed them hard, fighting the pull, but the whispers only coiled tighter in his skull.
Strike first. Break her throat. Spill her blood across the tide.
The voice was manic and many, a thousand versions of laughter pressed into one jagged sound. Ira's vision flickered; the pier rippled as though it floated atop not water but oil. He shut his eyes, exhaling slow, willing it away. But when he opened them again, Zadie was still there, her gaze unrelenting.
"You hear it now," she said—not a question, but the calm certainty of someone naming a wound already bleeding. "That's why your hand won't leave your weapon."
Rust stiffened, looking between them, confused and unsettled. "Alright, that's enough. What's this it we're talking about? Don't tell me it's the sea whispering in your ear. I know madness when I see it, and you two are—"
"Quiet, Rust." Zadie's command was sharp, slicing through his attempt at levity. She took a measured step closer, eyes locked on Ira. "Something followed you back. I can see it in the way your shoulders twitch, in how your jaw won't unclench. Whatever it is, it isn't letting you go."
The chuckle in Ira's head swelled, a low, guttural rhythm that shook him to the marrow. For an instant, his knees buckled as though the boards beneath him had given way. He caught himself, but too late—Zadie saw.
Her hand drifted toward the hilt of her curved blade. Slow. Deliberate. Not threat but inevitability.
"Tell me what it says," she pressed.
Ira's jaw tightened. The words clawed at his throat, begging release, but he bit them back until they tasted like iron. Zadie didn't deserve the truth—not from him, not after everything. He only met her stare with silence, the kind that cut deeper than any answer.
The whisper laughed in the hollow left between them, feeding on it, thick with satisfaction. His fingers twitched toward his blade, unbidden.
Rust shifted uneasily, voice breaking the tension. "For gods' sake, talk to her, Ira. Don't just—"
"Quiet," Ira snapped, harsher than he intended.
Zadie's expression hardened. "Then your silence is answer enough."
She moved now, drawing her blade in a single fluid motion that sang against its sheath. "If I am your enemy, Ira, then face me. If not—put the cursed thing away and prove you're still your own man."
The object pulsed at his side, warm now, alive against his ribs. His hand moved almost without thought, steel rasping free into the misty air. The sound was final, like a coffin lid closing.
Rust staggered back. "Gods damn it—you two don't need to—"
But neither listened.
The duel had already begun.
The first clash rang sharp against the mist. Zadie struck first, her curved blade whipping low in a cut meant to test his stance. Ira met it with a parry, steel grinding sparks, the force shuddering up his arm. His muscles tightened, trembling with a strength that wasn't entirely his. He pressed forward, countering with a downward slash that would have split her shoulder—had she not spun away, cloak snapping like a shadow in wind.
"You're faster than before," she said, circling. "Not cleaner. Just faster. Like something else is moving your limbs."
Ira gritted his teeth, but she was right. His body lurched with jerks too sharp, too eager, like a puppet yanked on strings. His strikes came quick, relentless, but each cost him a thread of balance, a thread of control.
She doubts you. She'll kill you if you falter. Split her open—now, now, now.
He lunged, blade thrusting in a furious drive. Zadie turned the strike aside with a deft deflection, twisting her wrist to angle his weapon wide, then stepped inside his guard. Her elbow slammed into his ribs—hard, precise. He staggered, breath tearing from his lungs.
Rust cursed under his breath but didn't move closer. His hands hovered, torn between intervention and fear.
"Fight it," Zadie hissed, her blade at the ready. "Or you're already lost."
The burning at his side grew hotter, feverish. His vision doubled, Zadie's face fracturing into two, then three. His arms ached with unnatural strength. He roared and came at her again, strikes raining like a storm—overhead chop, sweeping cut, a thrust aimed for her heart.
Zadie bent low, slipped past his guard, and kicked his leg out from beneath him. He dropped to one knee, splinters biting through his trousers. Her blade hovered near his throat.
"Yield," she demanded.
The whisper laughed—wild, furious, thunderous. Ira's body convulsed. His free hand shot up of its own accord, grabbing the steel edge, blood spilling as he wrenched it aside. Pain cut through the fog, a flash of clarity. But the whisper screamed louder, and his other arm swung his blade in a brutal arc toward her exposed side.
She barely avoided it, cloak ripping as the steel tore fabric. Her eyes flashed with something more than anger—fear, but not for herself. For him.
"Ira!" Rust shouted, voice cracking. "She's not the enemy!"
But the whisper drowned him out. Ira rose, staggering forward with fever boiling under his ribs, his own blood slick on his fingers. His eyes burned like coals. Each breath came ragged, forced.
Zadie steadied herself, blade leveled. Her stance was defensive now, her lips set in grim resolve. "If you can still hear me, fight it. Because if you don't—I'll end you before it takes what's left."
The sea surged, waves smashing against the pier, spray crashing around them as though the tide itself hungered for blood. The duel was no longer theirs alone—it belonged to the whispers, to the thing he carried, to the relentless pull of something far older than either of them.
Steel clashed again, sparks scattering into the mist, as the tide roared to swallow their voices whole.