The Frost and the Flame
The morning mist over the Guardian's Keep had not yet burned away when Jay stepped onto the sparring court, and already the crowd had gathered along its stone edges—apprentices perched on the low walls, palace guards leaning on their spears, a handful of kitchen staff who had abandoned their morning duties for the spectacle. It happened like this every fifth day. It had happened this way for three years.
Jay rolled his shoulders and let the cold gather in his palms, a familiar tingling that ran from his fingertips to his elbows like frost creeping up a windowpane. Across the yard, Black was already grinning, tossing a half-formed blade from hand to hand as though it weighed nothing at all, though Jay knew better. Every sword Black shaped carried the weight of intention behind it, dense with purpose even before it took its final form.
"You look tired," Black called out, his voice carrying easily across the packed earth of the court. "Did the ice queen keep you up all night?"
"There is no ice queen," Jay said, though a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Unlike you, I don't spend my evenings composing ballads to imaginary women."
"They're not imaginary. They're…
