For a heartbeat, I forgot to breathe.

  Jet black eyes fixed on me, polished stone set deep in marble. Its face shifted, almost imperceptibly, as it watched.

  Those runes would be great right about now, I thought.

  For a second I thought it would strike. Thick arms bore carved scars, each cut driven deep into the marble as if the stone itself carried memory. The torso was broad, the shoulders set high, every line shaped for combat.

  We stood facing one another, neither willing to look away.

  Somehow, I knew, one wrong move and I was dead.

  Lumi hummed.

  I steadied my breathing, adjusted my footing, and raised my guard. If it made the first move, I would be ready.

  Yet it didn’t.

  The statue only watched. Not idly. It searched into my eyes and traced my posture, then dropped lower. I followed its line of sight. Along the scars of my skin, without the runes they stood out clear as day.

  The statue opened its mouth.

  “Quis ante iudicium adstat?”

  The words echoed across the marble. I had no idea what he meant, but somehow their meaning pressed into me.

  “Who stands before judgment?”

  I flinched as the words became truth in my ears. I adjusted my grip on the spatha, feeling comfort in the blade in my hand.

  “Sean,” I said, forcing myself to straighten.

  My echoing voice sounded small against his, thinner.

  “Sean… Mit—”

  The lie caught in my throat. I felt the weight of it before I finished the name. The jet eyes held on me, unblinking.

  I drew in a steady breath and let it out through my nose.

  “I am Sean, and I have been twice cursed.”

  The words carried clean across the chamber. I did not soften them. I did not hide behind a false name.

  This time the hall did not echo my voice. It swallowed the sound whole.

  A chill crept over my skin. Goosebumps rose along my forearms, and the old scars there prickled as if brushed by unseen fingers.

  I resisted the urge to scratch at them and kept my posture steady, holding myself as still as I could.

  The statue did not look at the weapons in my hands. Its attention stayed on my face, weighing something there before drifting lower. Its gaze focused on the sword at my hip. It passed over the dagger without pause and fixed on Lumi.

  For a moment, Lumi’s presence dimmed. The familiar hum thinned until it vanished entirely.

  In that moment I felt a sudden emptiness.

  Then a sharp pressure gathered behind my ribs.

  Pain threaded through my veins, slow and deliberate, the curse tracing the same paths it had ruled for years. My muscles tightened and my fingers twitched.

  The curse did not fade. It moved determinedly, sliding and coiling beneath my skin like something alive. Agony followed, thick and grinding, as if my blood had begun to harden from within. It cut into my knees, climbed my spine, pressed at my ribs, testing for the slightest break in focus.

  I forced myself not to cry out, and just as my focus began to slip, something else stirred.

  I drew in a sharp breath.

  The statue inclined its head. “Twice cursed. But not yet ready.”

  As the words fell, the pain in my veins faded and Lumi’s presence returned.

  “What did he just do?” I asked.

  Lumi hummed once.

  It took a while before Lumi had the right words.

  “This thing had full control of this place,” he finally said.

  “For what purpose,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Iudicium.”

  The word settled into me. Judgment.

  I exhaled slowly then lifted my chin.

  “So… how am I not ready?” I asked.

  The statue tilted its head.

  “The blood taint smothers your true potential.”

  I let out a deep breath feeling my nerves tingle.

  “Lumi here siphons it,” I said. “I can still fight.”

  Its black eyes shifted to the blade at my hip.

  “It will be difficult,” it said at last.

  A short laugh slipped from me before I could stop it.

  Nothing about my life had been easy. While others trained and laughed with family and friends, I learned how to endure alone. Pain and isolation shaped my childhood. All because of something forced upon me.

  For the longest time I thought the pain was there to break me. To hold me down. But the funny thing was, every time it kicked me down, it made me more determined to get back up.

  “That never stopped me before.”

  Its black eyes held on me, unblinking. The marble face did not shift, yet the weight of that look deepened.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “You wish to be judged?”

  “I do.”

  It searched my face for cracks in my resolve.

  I gave it none.

  “Then so be it.”

  The statue reached over its shoulder and drew out a bronze tube as thick as my forearm. It turned the centre with a sharp twist. Metal snapped outward from both ends. A spear locked into place, long and lean, its edge catching the torchlight in a thin, merciless line.

  It dropped into a stance without sound. Every line of its posture clean and deliberate.

  “To receive judgment, you must find the will within.”

  I shifted back half a step. “The will within? What does that mean?” My pulse filled the silence between us.

  “You will know once you feel it.”

  I tightened my grip on the spatha until the leather bit into my palm and drew the shield closer along my forearm, letting its weight settle against me. Steel in one hand, wood and bronze in the other. Solid. Real. I adjusted the strap and felt the grain beneath the rim, grounding myself in the contact.

  I studied the inscriptions carved into blade and shield. I could not read them, but I felt their presence humming beneath. Like runes, they carried power of their own, but it was a narrow stream compared to a river.

  Still, it would have to be enough.

  I cracked my neck.

  “Okay then… Let’s do this,” I muttered to myself.

  I tapped the flat of the blade against my thigh and stepped forward.

  One step.

  The statue answered.

  With one decisive movement, it closed the distance.

  The spear met my blade in a shriek of steel. He caught it at the perfect angle, bleeding the force from the strike. My sword slid off the shaft and veered wide. In the same motion, he rotated his wrist and knocked my shield high.

  A sharp crack split the air and the spatha tore from my grip. Pain flared through my fingers as he hooked my back leg and sent my heels skidding.

  The floor dropped away and the ceiling lurched overhead. Marble struck my back hard enough to empty my lungs. Before I could draw another breath, the spear slid across my throat and held me there.

  The exchange lasted a second.

  I stared up into its jet-black eyes. It gave a small nod, then withdrew and stepped back into position, spear angled forward, stance balanced and ready.

  Coughing, I rolled to my side and seized the hilt, dragging myself back to my feet.

  “Difficult, is it?” I gave him a tight grin. “No kidding.”

  It didn’t respond.

  My pulse refused to slow. Each breath came thin and sharp.

  Against that towering marble frame, I felt the gap. For too long I had leaned on the strength and speed Lumi granted me. Even sparring with Rob, I let power cover mistakes. Technique always came last.

  Here, there was nothing to hide behind.

  I stared at the statue. Whoever it was had not been built on power alone. Its stance carried refinement. Discipline. The kind earned over centuries of war and drilled into muscle until it became instinct. And now that muscle was stone.

  The sequence replayed in my mind. The deflection. The displacement. The counter. Three movements. Nothing wasted.

  Even with my runes, I wasn’t certain I could have gone any better.

  My legs trembled as I stood. I tightened my grip on the shield until the shaking eased and brought the spatha back into guard.

  The next exchange ended the same way, breath gone, pain flaring.

  The statue reset.

  “Shit,” I muttered. “Maybe he’s right. I’m not ready.”

  Lumi hummed. “This is not a test of strength.”

  The statue inclined its head.

  “Then what is it?” I asked.

  “Judgment,” the statue answered.

  The word echoed across the chamber and did not fade.

  It felt true, but I did not yet understand it.

  Judgment? The idea fell into place. This was why the chamber existed. The sword was the key, and I was its inheritor. It did not feel like coincidence. This place was more than a chamber of judgment. It was a lesson. Not just for the blade, but for something else passed down.

  My gaze drifted across the marble tiers and the white floor, to the place where, in Lumi’s memory, blood had once pooled. I remembered the roar of the crowd. The certainty in their voices. A verdict handed down as righteous when it was anything but. They had let prejudice rule their hearts.

  That was not me.

  I drew a steady breath and lifted the shield.

  “Fine.”

  I stepped in.

  The statue answered.

  The spear slipped past my guard and crashed into my shield. The blow lifted me off my feet and hurled me across the marble. My head struck the far wall.

  A cry tore free before I could stop it.

  Light burst across my vision.

  Anger surged up, hot and sharp. For a heartbeat I almost let it take hold. Then I forced it down. I got back up and reset my position, ignoring the fresh trickle of blood that rolled down my arm.

  “Again,” I called.

  I stepped forward. A heartbeat later I was down, pain flaring, anger rising sharp and ugly in my chest. I forced it back.

  Anger had never won a fight. I had seen what it did to others. I had been crushed beneath it. I had stood across from it. That heat in the chest felt like power.

  It wasn’t.

  After a moment, the statue gave a small, deliberate nod, as though it had seen the shift in me.

  I pushed myself upright. My head rang and my limbs ached, but my vision steadied.

  A faint tug brushed the edge of my mind. A thin flicker of something I had felt before crossed my sight, then vanished.

  I stiffened.

  I knew that sensation. Before, it had drifted through my thoughts like smoke. Here, it felt different. Tangible.

  A sudden rush of hope sparked in my chest.

  The statue looked almost pleased.

  I planted my feet and raised the shield again. This time I didn’t charge. I closed my eyes for a breath and reached inward, searching for that thread. The presence that had always lingered beneath the noise.

  A faint glimmer surfaced in the dark.

  My eyes snapped open.

  The glimmer wasn’t from me.

  I looked down at the sword in my grip. I had felt something there. The same familiar flicker of white. Small, but unmistakable.

  I closed my eyes again, ignoring the statue’s watchful presence, and searched once more. After a few more moments in the darkness of my mind I had found it. But this time it came from the shield.

  The glow was broader. Steadier.

  Then I felt the threads from the sword. I shifted toward both of them, not physically but in thought, brushing my awareness across each. Then I caught the white energy like threads between my fingers.

  Lumi hummed softly.

  He felt it too.

  I kept my eyes closed and let the rest fall away. No anger. No fear. No doubt. Only the threads.

  My breath caught.

  Pale light filled my vision as the old curse answered. It did not lash out in pain or surge with brute force. It connected.

  The weapons carried imprints. Memory. Experience. I sensed them as clearly as my own.

  Every cut. Every thrust. Every impact. Every angle that had turned death aside.

  I remembered them all as if I had delivered every one.

  My wrist adjusted. My balance shifted. My shoulders lowered.

  The statue had not moved. Yet its attention had sharpened.

  It was my turn.

  I stepped forward, shield tight to my body, sword low.

  The statue advanced.

  This time, I answered with the shared instinct of hundreds flowing through me.

  My shield rose on its own, the movement sharp and controlled, as though it had been practiced for centuries.

  The spear drove straight for my centre. I angled the shield a fraction. Bronze shrieked as the spearhead scraped across its rim and glanced away.

  I stepped inside the reach of the shaft and cut for the opening.

  The statue did not rush. It shifted its weight and turned its torso just enough. My blade met empty air.

  This power didn’t make me stronger, nor did it drive the blade faster. It was technique, distilled and threaded through the curse.

  I moved without thinking.

  My shield turned just enough to draw the spear wide. My blade followed the opening, not striking, but claiming space. The angle forced him to adjust.

  The statue retreated for the first time.

  The spear shot for my chest.

  I stepped off the line and caught it on the rim of my shield. Bronze scraped hard across the edge and slid past my shoulder. The impact jarred my arm, but my feet held.

  I smiled. I was still standing.

  It thrust again, lower this time.

  I dipped the shield and turned with it, knocking the shaft aside. The point cut through the space where I’d been a breath earlier. I stepped inside its reach before it could recover.

  The spear reversed. The butt snapped toward my head.

  I dropped my weight and let it pass. My back foot drove me forward.

  I pivoted and brought the spatha across in a tight arc.

  Steel met marble at its thigh.

  The impact rang through my hands.

  The statue froze.

  Silence filled the chamber. Lumi hummed.

  The statue withdrew the spear and rotated it once in its grip. The bronze shaft folded inward with a sharp click and locked into the tube across its spine.

  “You have sensed the will within. Now judgment may begin.”

  “Judgment?” I asked.

  The thin threads dissolved as my concentration broke. A sudden weight slammed into my chest. Not the sharp agony of the blood curse, but something just as painful. I clutched my heart.

  All the memories I had touched rushed back into me.

  Years of them.

  Hurt. Loss. Hope. Anger. Joy.

  All at once.

  My knees hit the marble. My hands followed.

  The emotions crashed through me without restraint. Tears fell whether I willed them or not. My fingers curled into fists.

  A scream tore from my throat. And I finally understood why it was called judgment.