For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then, deep in my chest, my Sword Heart beat once—slow and heavy, the way it did before a real fight—and across the ring, as if it had heard, Gideon's Axe Heart answered.
I felt it as clearly as I felt my own pulse. Two Hearts, working. Mine drew mana in and pressed it down into astral energy, and the energy ran out along Evolis in a thin silver sheen that made the air above the blade waver like heat over a road. His did the same, but what poured along his axe wasn't clean. It was astral energy with something else threaded through it, dark and oily—miasma, the mark of everything the Savage Communion touched. The two together hung around the axe head like smoke around a fire that wanted to spread.
Gideon's golden eyes went to my blade, and for the first time he looked properly interested. "A Heart, already. At your age." His smile came back. "This might be fun after all."
