Private The Cost of Leaving

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Eshan - Snowpeak Sanctuary

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

The climb had been exactly as unpleasant as Ace remembered. Eshan's southern ranges had never cared whether someone was a Jedi, a soldier, or something in between. Snow fell in relentless sheets, driven sideways by mountain winds that clawed at every exposed seam in his winter gear. More than once the path had vanished entirely beneath fresh powder, leaving only weathered marker stones and the Force to guide him toward the white marble silhouette emerging from the storm.

Snowpeak Sanctuary.

It stood exactly where memory had left it, silent now. The towering marble structure rose from the mountainside like it had been carved from the peak itself, its sharp lines softened beneath months of untouched snowfall. No lights burned from its windows. No voices echoed from the courtyards. Even the banners that had once marked its entrance were long gone, leaving only empty poles swaying gently in the wind.

Ace paused for a moment at the entrance. He never lived here or truly belonged among its halls the way Everest, Jane, or the other Jedi had. He'd always gravitated toward Odessen's mechanics, quartermasters, pilots and soldiers. Still... he'd been here enough times to know its layout almost by heart.

Enough times to remember where supplies had been stored, and enough to know they hadn't emptied everything. The heavy doors groaned reluctantly as he pushed them open. Stillness greeted him instead of warmth.

The wind slipped inside behind him before the doors rumbled shut, leaving the sanctuary wrapped in an almost sacred silence. Dust drifted lazily through pale shafts of light filtering from the high skylights overhead. Somewhere deeper within the enclave, water dripped rhythmically against stone.

A cheerful electronic trill broke the quiet. Tic scurried past his boots, tiny photoreceptors sweeping across the vast entrance hall before letting out another curious chirp.

"...Yeah." Ace muttered, glancing around the abandoned sanctuary. "Feels different."

He reached up, unclipping the thick winter coat from around his shoulders before laying it neatly across a nearby bench. His right glove followed, then the insulated outer layer beneath, revealing the familiar navy-blue field tunic and weathered leather harness beneath.

His eyes wandered over the entrance hall one last time. Nothing had been disturbed.

"Tic." The little BD unit looked up. "We'll start with storage."

Tic answered with an enthusiastic whistle before darting ahead, already scanning doorways and terminals as Ace followed deeper into the abandoned sanctuary, his boots echoing softly through halls that had once been filled with life.

Varin Mortifer​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber​

The frigid air bit into his marrow causing aches. What normally would cause him to have worse symptoms had been dampened by his armor as it heated up with his internal body heat. It kept most of the cold at bay.

He watched from a distance as Acier had made his way into the marble structure, pushing open the doors and heading inside.

Oftentimes he had sent scouting parties to help track those who did not wish to be found, but this was more personal for him. Acier had seemed like someone who could have understood him. They had done missions together, they had trained together. Varin was one of the first people that had welcomed him into the Sith Covenant, to his knowledge.

He had even shown him a deep secret forging method from his homeworld.

Of course Varin came to find Acier. He had heard he was imprisoned even sent scouts to map the area. Only the prison was too tight for Varin himself to retrieve him. It had frustrated him, so instead he had kept eyes on him.

After some time his scouts had gotten back to him. They had said something that ha disturbed Varin. He simply had to investigate the issue himself. And Bogan forbid if what his scouts said were true.

After Acier had disappeared into the building for some time, Varin made his way down. His senses reaching out to detect others within the area. He stopped at the door, his hand laid gently upon the material. There was history here. Deep history that cut like a blade through muscle and meat.

A connection, perhaps.

He slowly pushed the doors open allowing the quiet and stillness from inside to greet him. A chill ran up his spine, a feeling as if he were not welcome here or that he was simply not supposed to be here. His gaze sharpened into a glare as his visor scanned the walls around him.

When he looked down he noticed unsettled dust. Footprints and smaller scurry marks from a small droid unit. Varin knelt down, studying the prints as his gaze slowly followed where they led.

For some reason he could feel his chest tighten.

Anxiety? For what? And for why?

Varin already knew deep down inside as to why. He just could not admit it, not without confirmation.

Had Acier been compromised?

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Eshan - Snowpeak Sanctuary

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

The sanctuary yielded little at first. Tic moved enthusiastically between abandoned storage rooms, hopping onto forgotten workbenches and opening cabinets that hadn't been touched in months. Every few moments the little BD unit chirped hopefully before discovering another empty shelf or stripped equipment locker.​

​

Ace wasn't faring much better. Most of what had once made Snowpeak an operational Hidden Path outpost had clearly been taken when the Jedi departed Eshan. Even so, he continued his search methodically. Medical cabinets. Communications terminals. Maintenance closets. Anything overlooked could still prove useful to the Vanguard.​

​

His hand brushed absentmindedly across the edge of an old workbench as he paused to study another room. It was impossible not to think of Everest Vale . She had poured herself into this place. Every corridor, every training hall and archive bore traces of the woman who had built something for the cause.​

​

The last he'd heard, she'd disappeared to... somewhere with Tigris Aphra , abandoning both the Jedi and the war in search of something quieter. After that... nothing. No messages. No sightings. Just silence.​

​

He hoped she'd found whatever she'd been looking for.​

​

His thoughts drifted naturally to Jane . She'd always struck him as too young for the life the Hidden Path had asked of her. Bright-eyed. Earnest. Even worse at socializing than he was. Ace hoped she was somewhere safe now, far removed from wars, Sith, and impossible choices. If anyone deserved the chance to simply grow up, it was her.​

​

The thought barely had time to settle before something brushed against his senses. Ace stopped moving. It wasn't a sound or movement within the sanctuary. It was something far more familiar.​

​

It pressed against his awareness with the weight of forged steel, immense power held beneath disciplined restraint. There was heat buried deep within it, not wild or uncontrolled, but banked like a furnace behind thick iron walls. Beneath that strength lurked something older, something that never truly belonged to him alone. Ace had felt it before. Faced it. And he hadn't forgotten.​

​

Varin.​

​

Behind him, Tic let out a questioning chirp. The little droid noticed the subtle change in Ace immediately. His head tilted, one foot shifting against the marble as a quieter whistle escaped him.​

​

Ace looked down at the BD unit. He didn't reach for the lightsaber hanging at his hip nor did his hand drift toward the purple shoto. Not yet.​

​

"Stay close to me, yeah?"​

​

Tic answered with a small, uncertain chirrup. Ace rested a reassuring hand against the little droid's headcasing before lifting his gaze toward the marble corridors leading back toward the sanctuary's entrance. He already knew which direction Varin would come from.​

​

"...'Til I say otherwise."​

​

Varin Mortifer ​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber​

Varin followed the tracks that led through a portion of the temple. Acier was smart and he was extremely attentive, there was no doubt that he knew Varin was here. A stray ray of light from the ceiling casted down above him as he walked through it, his shadow altered from prior events. It no longer reflected his physical form, but the form that laid beneath flesh. The form that pushed the slaughter of Tapani, the form that used to signal loss of control. The very form that also had him imprisoned some time ago.

The horns, the wings. Both silhouetted by rays of light from the sun that cast itself down from the ceiling. A reflection of how far he had come.

The shadow stretched silently into the room that laid open where he had previously heard shuffling. A smaller unit looking through cabinets and crates alongside Acier himself.

Varin stopped just inside the doorway, blocking that exit. Though he did not reach for his weapon.

Not yet…

He needed to know first.

His glowing red visor landed on the small BS unit, before it traveled over to Acier.

For a while he said nothing, did not even move.

“Acier…”

Finally his voice broke the quiet like a snapping tree in an empty field.

Or a rumble of thunder in an otherwise quiet day.

His hand gently ran along the door way, raising up lazily just past his shoulder.

“A home you once knew I take it?”

His hand slowly dropped back to his side.

“The past always calls a person back home, no matter how we felt about it.”

His hands slowly came up to his helm, the locks disengaging and the rebreather gently hissing before he pulled it off, unceremoniously.

“And here I thought you were always a loner, but even those have had packs that they eventually left. Is that right?”

He took a single step inside, indifferent to the crates or empty cabinets around him, indifferent to the stories and memories etched within the walls.

Varin stood now within the room, focused on only one thing.

“What happened?”

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Eshan - Snowpeak Sanctuary

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

Ace's eyes found the shadow before they found the man casting it. For the briefest moment, the image pulled him back to Humbraine. Fire. Smoke. Armor splitting apart beneath impossible heat. The thing that had emerged from Varin had been less a man than a force of nature, and even now its silhouette lingered behind him like an echo that refused to fade.

Whatever had taken hold of Varin that day was still there, but it was still Varin who had come looking for him.

His attention settled fully on the towering Sith as he stepped into the room. It took only a moment for Ace to notice that Varin had positioned himself in the doorway. He hadn't reached for the Black Blade or made any overtly hostile movement, but he had quietly blocked the most obvious exit all the same. Whether intentional or instinctive, the message was clear enough.

When Varin spoke his name, Ace didn't answer. Instead, he watched the larger man's hand drift slowly along the doorway. The movement appeared almost absent minded, but Ace tracked it without blinking. He wasn't about to mistake calmness for harmlessness.

"Not really." His reply came without hesitation, though there was no hostility behind it.

He fell silent again as Varin continued speaking. That part of him hadn't changed. How every conversation somehow became philosophical, or how every observation was wrapped inside some metaphor. A habit of speaking through ideas instead of saying exactly what they meant, and even now, it still annoyed him.

As Varin stepped into the room, Ace answered by taking a single measured step forward himself. The movement wasn't aggressive. It simply shifted his position until Tic stood safely behind him, shielded by his body without a word needing to be spoken.

Varin's final question lingered in the silence between them. Ace held his gaze for several long seconds before reaching across with his right hand to tighten the glove around his left wrist. The leather creaked softly as he pulled it snug over the prosthetic beneath.

"It wasn't who I was. And it damn sure wasn't worth losing sight of who I am just so I could blend in with monsters and psychopaths."

The words left his mouth evenly, but they carried less conviction than they might have once. Even as he spoke them, he knew the truth wasn't quite so simple.

Not everyone in the Covenant had been beyond saving. There were those who carried good in them, but lost, while others had never really been given a choice at all. Part of him still hoped Varin was one of them.

"I couldn't keep making compromises." Ace continued, his voice calm and unwavering. "I couldn't keep gaslighting myself that what we were were doing was for some kind of greater good."

For the first time since Varin had entered the room, Ace's expression hardened ever so slightly.

"Can you?"

Varin Mortifer​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber​

“Greater good?”

He looked back to events like the slaughter of Tapani, the conquest of the core worlds and Humbarine. His face remained neutral, not showing any kind of emotion of what was being played within his head.

“I do not lie to myself if it is for the greater good, Acier. I know there is no such thing as a greater good, just a bigger picture. Expansion, survival of the fittest and conquest. Foundations and ideals that built the Sith who were willing to embrace the harder truths of The force.”

His voice softened after he took a breath.

“Some just can’t handle truths I suppose.”

His gaze remained on Acier, staring into his eyes watching his every move, noting the way he protected his droid. Had it been any other Sith, that may have been futile. One of them could have used the little thing as a lesson against him. But for Varin, examples and lessons befell the guilty.

“I am a monster, Acier. There is no way around that. But I am not a psychopath. I know what it is I do, I know its consequences. But those are second to what the end goal is to be.”

Indeed, he was a monster. Though he had witnessed the Triumvir partake in horrible acts, like Arris shooting an innocent teen first thing after exiting the ship without so much as a blink of hesitation, or when he found Naamino enslaved in a fighting ring against Mercy. He saw himself as something worse.

Someone willing to slaughter many lives, their faces blurred into obscurity, just to reach his goal. He had done it before, and each time the guilt, the pain and the conviction seemed to feel easier.

Yes, Varin was a monster. Acier was correct about that.

“My scouts had informed me that you were imprisoned. My first instinct was to try and break you out, as I know you would have done the same for me. A gut feeling I guess. Instead I had to wait. And when you did not return…”

His fist clenched, the leather of his glove creaking.

“I had come to give you a chance to return to us. To give you the option to come back, unharmed and without punishment. But that same gut feeling…”

His gaze sharpened to a glare.

“Tell me. A straight answer. Have you turned your back on us? Betrayed us?”

The two questions clung to the air, claws dug deep into the tension between them. The air wound up tightly around them so that it felt as if it could snap.

“Did you betray me?”

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Eshan - Snowpeak Sanctuary

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

Ace listened without interrupting, his expression remaining calm even as his thoughts turned over every word Varin spoke. There was no greater good, only a bigger picture. His brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

Was he wrong about him? The philosophy sounded painfully familiar. Survival of the fittest. Expansion. Conquest. He had grown up surrounded by people who practiced the same thing. Tessk. Bonadan's crime lords. Men who sat comfortably at the top while everyone beneath them fought over whatever scraps remained. They called it the natural order. The strong survived because they deserved to. The weak suffered because they were weak.

Ace had believed that once. Not because it was true, but because it was all he'd ever known. It might have been the way the universe worked, but that didn't mean it was the way it had to.

"You're kidding me. All this power you have, and you're fine with just leaving things the way they are?" He held Varin's gaze without flinching. "Just 'cause you're more fit to survive, the people who aren't don't matter? You never stop to think that maybe we could use our power in a way so people don't suffer like we did?"


He fell silent again, allowing Varin to continue. His dark eyes never left the larger man, tracking every subtle movement with quiet focus. When Varin admitted he was a monster, Ace believed him. There was no denial in the words, only acceptance.

Then came the prison and Ace's gaze lowered briefly to Tic. The little BD unit looked back at him, understanding almost immediately. Ace gave the faintest nod, and after a moment's hesitation, Tic let out one quiet chirrup before turning and hurrying from the room. If this conversation became what Ace suspected it would, he didn't want the little droid anywhere near it. Only once Tic had disappeared did Ace look back at Varin.

Have you turned your back on us? Betrayed us? Did you betray me?”

The questions lingered between them. Ace lowered his eyes for a brief moment before meeting Varin's gaze again.

"No." His voice was quiet. "I betrayed the people that mattered."

The words carried no accusation toward Varin. They were simply the truth. The people who had cared about him before the Covenant, the people who had watched him disappear into someone else, were the ones he had truly betrayed.

"I'm not coming back, Varin."

He let the certainty of those words settle between them before speaking again, hand subtly and strategically placed to swiftly grab his lightsaber.

"So how do you want to do this?"

Varin Mortifer ​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber​

Acier’s words had cut him deep about survival, and those weaker than him. He knew what he meant. Varin was to be a King. A King for His people. And he cared for His people. He would do anything to uplift them, to keep them from crumbling. And from what he had seen so far, he was failing. Varin’s gaze turned to the floor as he thought about Acier’s words. The slight movement that dismissed the droid just barely registering to him.

When the droid unit left, Varin felt a small bit of relief. He knew what kind of connections droids carried to their owners. He felt the same for Sinew.

He would not have purposefully harmed the droid. But what Acier did was the safest route.

When Acier answered his question, about only betraying the people that mattered, something deep within his core, his gut and his chest burned. It had hurt, a dull burning pain that pulsed and radiated through his body.

Varin suddenly remembered something Acier had warned him of. And it only hurt that much more when he realised he did not see it.

"Just watch your back. Don't trust unconditionally." His gaze held Varin's a second longer. "Even if you've fought with them."

Acier’s question pulled Varin back to the present, a slow breath leaving him.

“So I did not matter in the end.”

Varin’s gaze pinned on the Jedi in front of him.

“I just hoped it would not have been you to stick a knife in my back. What I wanted to do was bring you back. But that is not happening.”

Varin’s hand reached up, unclasping his maroon cloak from his back. The heavy cloth fell into a pile behind him. His hand now slowly reaching down to the hilt of his Black Blade.

“Instead…”

He spoke quietly as the heavy blackened metal scraped along the sheath as he slowly drew it, almost hesitantly.

“I will do what I need to.”

His free hand dropped to his saber hilt, drawing the weapon but not igniting it.

Not yet…

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Eshan - Snowpeak Sanctuary

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

"That's not--" The words died before they could leave his mouth.

Varin had misunderstood. Ace hadn't meant that Varin didn't matter. If anything, he'd always believed Varin was one of the few people within the Covenant who still carried some semblance of humanity beneath everything the Sith demanded of him. If there was anyone who could have walked away from it all, he'd thought it might have been Varin.

But above all else...

There were people who had cared for him long before the Covenant ever had. People who had stood beside him before he'd buried himself beneath anger, fear and compromise. They were the ones he'd betrayed. That truth didn't diminish what Varin had meant to him. It simply hurt in a different way.

His thoughts ended there as the maroon cloak slipped from Varin's shoulders. Ace's eyes followed every movement that came after. The slow draw of the Black Blade. The second hand settling around the hilt of the crossguard lightsaber. Deliberate, measured, and unhurried.

Ace answered in kind. His own hand settled around the familiar grip at his hip before drawing the blue lightsaber free in one smooth motion. The purple shoto remained where it was. For now.

"What you need to do, huh?" There was no anger in his voice. Only disappointment.

For a brief moment, silence reclaimed the abandoned sanctuary. Then, with the unmistakable snap-hiss of a kyber crystal coming to life, blue light spilled across the marble floor between them.

Ace settled naturally into his stance, the blade angled low at his left side, his posture relaxed despite the tension hanging heavily in the room.

His dark eyes never left Varin's. "I'm not gonna strike first, Varin."

Varin Mortifer ​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber​

Varin did not listen to the words that Acier tried to speak. Action had begun to take over now. And he had gotten the confirmation he needed. The Black Blade held firmly in his hand, the extension of his body that resembled the butcher he always knew he was. What he had been built into.

Varin did not respond. Not that he did not want to, he simply did not have the words.

Kill him, Boy.

Varin’s eyes seemed to dilate just before his body settled into its stance. The hilt of his saber still not ignited, almost as if he refused to ignite it. Refused to let that blade be the one to…

No…Before him stood a traitor. And he had to deal with traitors in the nature his Father had trained him. Betrayal was sentenced to death.

So why could he not move?

His grip only tightened on the saber hilt.

Acier spoke again. He would not strike first. Anger only boiled within him.

“You had already dealt the first strike when you left…”

His voice was quiet, only reaching Acier just over the hum of his blade as the blue color washed over the room.

“I would not give you the liberty to strike first. This is not training.”

Varin dashed forward finally. His movement almost like a blur as he burst forth towards his enemy. Hate filling the very brim of his eyes. Pain that stabbed deeper than any blade had gotten into him.

The Black Blade came across first hard and fast, made to cause Acier to not only forcefully block the blade, but to feel the force and the strength behind it. The strength of his anger, the strength of his fury and the strength of the loss of a potential brother to him.

When the impact came to Acier, Varin spoke once more.

“This is now the real thing.”

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Eshan - Snowpeak Sanctuary

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

The Black Blade came hard and fast, and Ace met it without hesitation. Blue light flashed upward as his lightsaber intercepted the descending strike, the clash of beskar and phrik sending a violent crack through the abandoned sanctuary. The impact drove through both of his arms, metal and flesh alike, but he held. His boots slid several inches across polished marble before finding purchase once more, his shoulders settling naturally behind the bind instead of yielding to it.

Strength had never been where people expected to find it. He'd spent most of his life fighting opponents who outweighed him, from towering Morellians to Epicanthix warriors and Feeorin bruisers who could have snapped an ordinary man in half. Somewhere along the way, he'd learned that leverage, structure, and relentless conditioning mattered just as much as raw size.

So he held.

The bind lasted only a heartbeat before Ace twisted his wrists, redirecting the pressure instead of continuing the contest of strength. Ace twisted his wrists, refusing to remain locked in the bind any longer as he gave himself room to maneuver

Only then did he feel it. In himself. Months ago, he would've answered that opening with relentless aggression. The bind would've become an opportunity to drive forward, to suffocate Varin beneath an avalanche of pressure until something finally gave.

That instinct was still there and he hated how easily he could still picture it. But every time it surfaced, regret met it head on. Shame. The memories of who he'd become. The quiet, constant effort of keeping the dark side buried where it belonged.

His body still remembered the duelist he'd been, only his mind refused to become him again. The realization stung because it was true. He wasn't fighting at his peak. Not anymore.

Ace turned the hilt in his left hand until the lightsaber rested in its familiar reverse Shien grip. His stance was balanced and unhurried, the posture of a counter-striker, one built to absorb an assault before answering it.

"I... I don't want to fight you, Varin."

Varin Mortifer​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber

Acier's defense held the attack at bay, though he did not remain in the clash. The deflection came quick and efficiently, breaking the bind that Varin had started.

Acier could have come back at him, could have tried to driven him back.

But he didn't. Instead he took a defensive stance.

His next words drew a glare from Varin.

He did not wish to fight.

His teeth gritted as heat rolled off his body, the billowing smoking cloud began to spew from his back.

“Why?”

A growl left his throat before he started coming in with a flurry of strikes from the Black Blade, maintaining his one handed grip.

“You had no problems with fighting before! Why stop now?”

His voice carried over to him through the strikes.

He lies to you, boy! Heed not what he says.

Ignati's voice hissed within Varin's head, a slight wince and a twitch within his eye were the only visible signs of a struggle from within.

He left the Covenant. You did not mean anything to him, Varin.

His grip tightened on the hilt of the blade, the wrap that held to the handle creaked under the pressure.

You know what the punishment is for traitors.

Varin did not respond to Ignati. But he heard a dark chuckle escape from him.

Let me do it…

His grip now tightened on the hilt of his saber in response.

Acier Moonbound​

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Eshan - Snowpeak Sanctuary

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

Varin came on relentlessly. Each strike from the Black Blade carried enough force to split stone if left unanswered. Ace met every blow as it came, blue light flashing through the sanctuary as his lightsaber intercepted one strike after another. Sparks scattered across the polished marble while the impacts reverberated through his prosthetic and into his shoulder, each collision forcing him to give ground by inches.

His reverse Shien guard held but not comfortably. Form V had never been about simply weathering a storm. Every instinct the form had drilled into him urged him to answer pressure with greater pressure, to turn each successful defense into a crushing counterattack that seized the initiative before his opponent could recover. Instead, he denied those instincts over and over again, allowing openings to pass without exploiting them. It was unfamiliar and more difficult than he cared to admit.

The final strike crashed down, and rather than meet another contest of strength, Ace pushed off his back foot, springing lightly out of range as the Black Blade swept through the space he'd just vacated. He landed several paces away, his expression touched not by anger, but by something far quieter. Sorrow.

"Because I respect you, Varin." His voice remained steady despite the heavy rhythm of the duel. "Because I know now that brute-forcing your way through a problem doesn't work."

His grip settled more firmly around the hilt.

"Not all the time."

He began to circle at a measured pace, boots whispering across the marble as he carefully watched every movement Varin made. His blade remained low in its reverse grip, his shoulders relaxed despite the tension between them, every step positioning himself for whatever came next rather than searching for an attack of his own.

Varin Mortifer​