Soren watched the recovery frame so many times that night that he could close his eyes and still see the Knight stuttering, the armor caught in a shape it hated.
By morning he had stopped trying to figure out the move and started trying to figure out the man.
The two were not the same problem. He had been treating them like one.
◆◆◆◆
He found Troy in the practice annex before the day's matches, alone, which by itself was strange because Troy used to travel with a half-circle of people who wanted to be seen near him.
The Spectral Knight stood behind him, dismissed to its resting posture.
"You came to scout me?" Troy asked without turning.
"I came to watch you stand there hating your own win."
That got Troy to turn.
Soren had read him a hundred ways in the novel, the rival, the early-arc wall, the threat that the OG protagonist never quite got past.
None of those versions had this face on them. This one looked tired in a way that went past sleep.
