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He raised another iron platform beneath Lynn, just as fast as before but the size of a small house by itself. She and her shadow went flying, and Hector followed up again, too. Giant blocks in midair, ping ponging her back and forth. The shadow struggled and flailed, trying to grab on to each block, but they were too large to catch.

He heard Lynn scream in frustration, which was almost enough to make Hector stop, until he saw her shadow flex and focus into a dozen different blades.

Still toppling through the air, Lynn started slicing the through the blocks of iron instead of trying to catch them. The irons slabs parted around her, allowing her to right herself again amid a storm of swirling purple blades.

Lynn was taking angry breaths. "That. Was. Extremely annoying, Hector."

"Good job breaking through," he offered her.

She scowled. "Don't condescend to me."

Hector tilted his head. "I wasn't."

She steadied her breath, then reeled her shadow in as she walked closer. "Hector... I don't understand. I've been training like mad since you've been gone. I've sparred with Harper Norez dozens of times now. I'm sure he was taking it easy on me, but I'm far stronger than I was before we went to Sair. But you... you're able to just toy with me like that..."

Ah.

Suddenly, Hector felt a little bad. He hadn't really considered things from her perspective. And he should've. Agh.

Too self-absorbed, as usual. Shit. What an idiot, he was. And he still didn't even know what to say to her.

"How did you improve this much?" asked Lynn. "No offense, but I'm confident that I could've whooped your ass before."

In spite of the previous tension, Hector couldn't help chortling at her bluntness. "Yeah, you probably could've..."

"Right? So what the hell changed so much?"

He wondered how to explain. "Well, uh... lots of things, I guess."