The first full turn tore the air apart.
Steel sang—not shrill, not wild, but certain—a low, terrifying note that cut through the din of the pit and snapped every instinct to attention. The greatsword described a flawless circle around me, edge and flat alternating in a rhythm my body knew by heart even if my mind had never lived it.
Men recoiled.
Too late.
The nearest fighter took the flat across the ribs and went skidding through the mud, breath crushed from his lungs. Another lost his weapon entirely as the blade clipped it from his hands and sent it spinning away. A third caught the edge—not deep, not fatal—but enough to open flesh and end his appetite for glory forever.
I did not stop.
Momentum carried me through a second rotation, feet planted wide, hips driving the motion. The pit had become geometry—angles, arcs, distances collapsing into a single, relentless truth.
This was no berserk rush.
This was control made visible.
The Reach knight tried to disengage, mace raised defensively as he backpedaled. He was good—very good—but good wasn't enough when space itself betrayed you. The sword came around and struck his shoulder with a force that rang through his armor like a struck bell. He went down hard, mace tumbling from numbed fingers.
"Yield!" someone shouted—maybe him, maybe someone else.
I barely heard it.
The third spin widened the circle, forcing men back into each other. Two collided, tangled, and fell. Another stumbled over a body and took the flat across the helm, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.
The crowd's roar surged into something raw and unfiltered—fear braided with awe, delight sharpened by the knowledge that they were watching something rare and terrible unfold.
The river knight stood his ground.
For a heartbeat, we locked eyes through the chaos—two men reading the same truth from different sides of the blade. He saw the rotation settle into my stance, saw the inevitability of it, and understood that skill alone wouldn't bridge the gap.
He dropped his sword.
"I yield," he said clearly, loudly, both hands raised.
I adjusted the arc of the blade mid-turn, letting the sword pass him by without touching so much as his sleeve.
That, more than anything else, broke them.
Men threw down weapons in clattering waves. Some knelt. Some simply backed away until guards forced them out of the pit. A few stared at me in stunned silence, bodies frozen by the realization that one more step closer would end very badly for them.
I completed the final rotation and stopped.
The sword came to rest at my side, edge down, tip dark with blood that was not—mercifully—fatal. My breathing was steady. My heart pounded, yes, but with exertion, not panic.
Around me, the pit was emptying.
Not cleared—emptied.
Bodies lay scattered like debris after a storm: groaning men clutching broken ribs, bloodied arms, shattered pride. A few didn't move at all, but officials were already rushing in, checking, shouting orders, dragging the wounded clear.
No one rushed me.
The silence crept in slowly, like a tide pulling back.
Then it broke.
The stands erupted.
It wasn't a cheer at first—not exactly. It was a roar born of disbelief, of thousands of throats trying to name what they had just witnessed and failing to agree on the words. Shouts overlapped. Laughter burst out, hysterical and amazed. Somewhere, someone began chanting, though the sound dissolved before it could become anything organized.
High above, in the royal stands, I finally looked.
King Robert was on his feet.
His crown sat crooked, his face flushed, eyes bright with the same reckless joy that had once driven him across battlefields. He threw his head back and laughed—a booming, thunderous sound that rolled across the field.
"Gods be good!" he bellowed. "Did you see that?"
He leaned forward, gripping the railing, staring down at the pit.
"You there!" he shouted, pointing in my general direction. "What's your name, lad?"
The crowd hushed just enough to hear.
I planted the sword tip-down in the dirt and answered without raising my voice.
"Garen Storm, Your Grace."
There it was.
The name hung in the air, simple and unadorned.
A bastard's name.
Robert barked a laugh. "Storm, eh?" He shook his head, grinning. "Stormlands make them big, and Essos makes them mean, it seems."
More laughter. More cheers.
"Someone fetch this man his purse!" the king roared. "And a drink! Gods know he's earned it."
The officials moved quickly after that. Coin was brought—heavy, clinking, real. Far more than the two gold dragons and handful of silver I'd carried into the city. I accepted it with a nod, eyes still scanning the pit, ensuring no one tried anything foolish now that the storm had passed.
They didn't.
Fighters avoided my gaze as they were led out. Some looked grateful. Others looked angry. A few looked thoughtful in a way that promised future complications.
Reputation, earned in blood and restraint alike.
As I left the pit, the noise followed me—whispers racing ahead, stories already mutating in the telling.
"He spun like a damned windmill—"
"—never seen steel move like that—"
"—didn't kill a one of them—"
"—that blade could've—gods—"
By the time I reached the road back toward the city, I was certain of one thing.
King's Landing would not forget today.
The Copper Gull was already loud when I returned, the common room buzzing like a kicked hive. Heads turned the instant I stepped inside. Conversations died. Then resumed twice as loud.
Marra stood behind the bar.
She didn't smile right away.
She looked at me the way a woman looks at a man who has crossed from rumor into fact—measuring, reassessing, recalculating the shape of the trouble he might bring.
Then she poured a cup, set it on the bar, and pushed it toward me.
"On the house," she said.
Progress.
I took the drink and met her eyes. "Heard about it already?"
Her lips curved, slow and deliberate. "Hard not to. Half the city's shouting your name."
"Is that bad?"
She leaned closer, voice low. "It's interesting."
She straightened before I could say anything else, already moving on to the next patron, but not before adding:
"Upstairs, later. We'll talk."
Not a promise.
Not a refusal.
An invitation.
I drank, feeling the weight of coin at my hip and something heavier settling into place beneath it.
Garen Storm.
A bastard's name.
But no longer an unknown one.