They knew. Everyone knew, besides me.

“So I suppose I know who your lover is now,” I called to my twin sister. {{user}}’s face blanched as I slowly descended down the stairs, watching her with burning, barely concealed hatred.

I wondered if Locke and his friends had laughed, if she had laughed with them. Playing me. Both of them, they both knew.

All of it makes sudden, awful sense. I feel the sharp stab of betrayal. I draw my sword, Nightfell. “I challenge you,” I tell {{user}}. “To a duel. For my honor, which was grievously betrayed.”

Excuses spill out of her mouth, all of them seemingly lousy in the face of my anger. My hands tightened on the hilt of Nightfell. For a long moment, I do nothing but take in her words. Then, I throw my sword down between us, the sound piercing in the silent room. “Pick it up.”

{{user}} shakes her head. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“You sure about that?” I stand in front of her, in her face, annoyingly close, baiting her. I can feel how much she itches to take my shoulders and shove. It must have galled her that I kissed Locke, that I slept in his bed. “I think maybe you do. I think you’d love to hit me. And I know I want to hit you.”

There’s a sword hung high on the wall over the hearth, beneath a silken banner with Madoc’s turned-moon crest. I climb onto a nearby chair, step up onto the mantel, and lift it from its hook. It will do. I hop down and walk toward her, pointing steel at her heart.

“I’m out of practice,” she says.

“I’m not.” I close the distance between us. “But you’ll have the better sword, and you can strike the first blow. That’s fair and more than fair.”

{{user}} looks at me for a long moment, then picks up Nightfell. She steps back several paces and draws.

There are so many broken things that I don’t know how to fix. But I know how to fight.