In the palace guest wing, Kain was not eating.
He had walked the arena twice since yesterday — the sight lines, the footing, the distances between the entry points and the center, the specific geometry of a space he had chosen because he knew it and the man across the arena would not. One day instead of three. He had taken the one day and used every hour of it the only way available to him, which was preparation, because preparation was what you did when the gap was what it was and you had decided that doing nothing was not a version of this that led anywhere.
He thought about Klauss.
Klauss — Champion class, the strongest he had personally known. The man whose name had been circulating through the capital's fighter channels as someone exceptional, the benchmark against which Kain had been quietly measuring his own progress. Dead, in a Battle Royale in Einjaar. At Lexel's hand.
Kain had studied what he could find about Klauss. Had studied what he could find about Lexel. Had arrived at a position: Lexel was strong, but Klauss had been stronger by most measurements, and Klauss had not survived.
Which meant Lexel was not invincible.
Which meant there was a ceiling somewhere.
Which meant the gap, if he was fast enough and smart enough and hit it from the right angle, could be addressed.
He went to the arena.
The palace formal combat arena was a serious space — not a stadium built for spectacle, the functional geometry of a place designed for engagements that required witnessing. Stone seating around a rectangular floor. Sight lines from every position. The specific acoustics of a space that carried sound clearly in all directions so that nothing could be disputed afterward.
The full court filled it.
Every noble. Every advisor. Every significant person in the capital who had received the summons or heard the word and understood that this was not optional — that being present for this was what presence in the capital meant today.
Voss in his position with the professional stillness of someone who had attended significant events and knew how to hold still during them. Dara with the focused attention of someone thinking about the war's geography and what the person in the arena represented for it.
The king and queen in the central position. Aldric with the expression of someone who had been told this was happening and was present because being present was what kings did. Seravine beside him, watching the arena floor with the focused attention she had been watching Lexel with since he walked into her throne room.
The party together in the seating — Anthierin with her hand on her hammer, Flinn with the expression of someone who had noted all available exits and was holding the information in reserve, Halveth watching the arena floor with the cold composure of someone who had been waiting for this since considerably before yesterday.
Mera in her position. Measuring. Her face not measuring at all.
Lulu, visible only to Lexel, stood in the arena itself. Not in the seating. In the space. Because she could, and because she had decided she wanted to be close to this one.
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"You killed Klauss," Kain said. His voice carried in the arena's acoustics — clear, flat, the voice of someone using a fact as a tool. "In Einjaar. The Battle Royale." He looked at Lexel with the focused assessment of someone who had been sitting with this information for two days. "He was one of the strongest Champion class fighters I've known."
He meant: I have studied the strongest person I know. I have studied you. You are less than him. I can do this.
He drew his weapon.
Lexel looked at him.
Then looked at his gauntlets — the Mythril, the [Spectral Touch] tracery in the grain. He looked at them for a moment with the mild interest of someone considering a tool and deciding they didn't need it today.
He removed them.
Set them on the arena floor beside him.
"Gloves off," he said, with the smirk.
He entered a stance.
The arena went quiet.
The stance was wrong. Not incorrectly performed — wrong as in it didn't belong to any framework that the people watching it had ever encountered. He stood straight. Hands behind his back. Weight distributed in a way that made no defensive sense, left him completely open to any angle of attack, that no knight, no warrior, no Champion in the history of Jaar had ever stood in before an engagement.
Seravine looked at the stance from the central position.
She had met Champions. She had met monks of every school and style that Jaar and Aedryn produced. She had seen, in her years in this court, most things that could be seen from a central position in a formal combat arena.
She had not seen this.
"What is that stance?" Lulu said, through the Anti-System, in the tone of something that had records spanning civilizations and was checking them and finding nothing.
"Something my father taught me," Lexel said.
"It's not in any record I have," Lulu said.
"No," Lexel said. "It wouldn't be. This is Three Realms' Special, so watch and learn Lulu."
Voss looked at the stance with the professional attention of someone encountering an unknown and determining what the unknown meant. Is this a bait? He wants Kain to come at him? But really now, barehanded without gauntlets against a class favored by Aether herself? That is as far as stupid goes.
Dara looked at it. Then at Kain. Then back at it. This is... he is so open, I can nocked an arrow or three right at this second, and he wouldn't know it. Is he really a threat to Kain?
Kain looked at it and ran what he knew against it and what he knew produced nothing useful because the stance had no framework to run against. Every style he had ever studied had a counter-framework. This one had nothing to push against because it didn't acknowledge the frameworks that existed.
He attacked anyway. Because waiting was not a version of this that led anywhere.