CHAPTER 28: THE THIRD BEAD

The following morning, the camp was unusually quiet. Caius woke before sunrise and found the clearing already occupied by warriors. They stood along the edge of the open ground, watching him with expressions devoid of the mild curiosity they had shown on previous days. Word of the story told around the campfire had spread through the tribe like wildfire.

This was no longer a simple test of passage. The third duel would be a fight to the death.

Caius rose and checked the straps of his scaled leather garb before securing Nightdancer across his back. Sereth stood a short distance away, calmly observing the gathering crowd. At the center of the clearing stood the tribe chief. Beside him was Rokan, flanked by several older warriors who had witnessed the previous duel. Beyond them, more tribesmen had formed a tight perimeter. This was only one of many scattered tribes throughout the northern forest, yet the memory of Cullum Macrae had clearly reached far beyond the men who had fought him twenty years ago.

The chief raised his hand. The warriors parted. A man stepped out from among them, and Caius immediately noticed the stark difference. The warrior was older than his previous opponents, his body thoroughly mapped by decades of combat. Scars crossed his arms and shoulders, and several pale lines traced across his weathered face. His hair was streaked with gray, but his movements held no trace of age or hesitation. He walked with the quiet, deadly confidence of someone who had spent his entire life courting violence.

Rokan watched him approach in silence. The warrior stopped several paces from Caius, his eyes like chipped flint. "I will fight the boy."

Caius studied him. The warrior did not look like someone who had come simply to test a newcomer. There was something intensely personal in his posture, a cold weight that hung in the air. Sereth seemed to notice it as well, shifting his weight with narrowed eyes.

The chief looked between them. "This is the third death duel," his voice carried clearly across the silent clearing. "The first warrior challenged by the child was defeated but spared. The second was also defeated and lived."

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He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. "Today, there will be no mercy demanded from either side."

Caius tightened his grip around the hilt of his unnamed short sword. The warrior across from him slowly drew his weapon, the steel hissing against leather. Caius met his gaze. "Why do you want to fight me?"

The older warrior's expression remained carved in stone. "Because your father killed my father."

Caius became still, the morning air suddenly feeling thin. The warrior continued, his voice dangerously low. "My father was one of the men who stood in Cullum Macrae's path when he tried to escape this forest."

Caius remembered Rokan's story from the previous night. The warriors had blocked his father's path out of fear, bound by a fragile truce with the dark elves. They had refused to let him pass. And Cullum had simply carved his way through them.

"Your father killed many warriors that day," the man said, restrained fury bleeding through his words. "My father was one of them."

Caius looked at the warrior's scars. He could understand the hatred, burning and unyielding across two decades. But he would not accept the burden of guilt. "My father was trying to protect my mother."

The warrior's jaw tightened until the bone jutted white. "And my father was trying to protect his people."

Neither moved. The chief watched them carefully. Caius slowly drew his second blade. Nightdancer remained sheathed across his back, while the unnamed dark elf blade Sereth had given him rested steady in his right hand. He lowered his body into a low, defensive stance, muscles coiling like spring steel.

Across the clearing, the seasoned warrior raised his weapon, the tip steady as a plumb line. The surrounding tribesmen held their breath. In the sudden hush, Caius could hear the rhythmic thrum of his own pulse.

He activated his Inner Sight.

The world dissolved into shifting shades of light and shadow. The warrior's body became a complex map of movement and raw energy. Caius saw the man's mana core glowing fiercely within his chest, stronger and denser than anything he had encountered before. Mana circulated through his limbs with terrifying, practiced control, flooding into his shoulders, arms, and legs.

This was not a young contender testing his limits. This was a veteran who had sculpted his flesh and breath into a weapon through years of continuous bloodshed.

Caius understood the reality instantly. The third duel would be a brutal test of survival.

The warrior shifted his footing, grinding gravel beneath his boot. Caius adjusted his guard in response. For several heartbeats, the world froze. Then the warrior lunged forward. Caius's eyes narrowed as the first blow rushed toward him. The third death duel had begun.