3
THE LESSON YOU ONLY LEARN ONCE
With impossible slowness, the tip of Bézan Réchambeau’s rapier glides along a perfect, invisible line in the air, leaving behind only the faintest graze on Aline’s neck: a pencil-thin red cut so shallow that not a single drop of blood drips from it. I doubt the wound will even leave a scar. The gleaming black point of his blade moves, now aiming for my chest as Bézan takes the first step towards me, drawn towards me as if the inconceivable arrogance of my challenge were a magnet tugging at his blade.
I wait for him, unmoving, almost disinterested until the very instant his sword is out of reach of my sister. When I lunge, it’s with every ounce of strength and speed my body can produce. From the sole of my back foot, up my calf and along my thigh, through
