Ziggy Malone had trained eleven months to fight atop Jennings Peak, and she still didn't know when the solstice tournament took sign-ups. She sat on the floor of her home, an old blacksmith's forge with soot-black walls, wrapping her knuckles with tape. The tournament happened once a year. Miss the sign-up, and she'd wait another twelve months. Her hands were ready. Her plan was not. She stood five foot three, thick through the shoulders, purple mohawk stiff with sweat. She threw a punch at the iron anvil out of habit and grinned when it stung. Then the grin dropped. "Okay," she said to the empty room. "So I can hit things. Doesn't help if I can't find the door." Nobody advertised the fights. That was the point. The tournament ran underground, and the people who knew kept quiet. Ziggy had asked at every gym in town. She'd gotten shrugs, and once a laugh in her face. Time was gone. The solstice was three days out. She pulled on her jacket and went to the one person she'd been avoiding. Jade Monroe leaned against a weeping willow at the edge of the training yard, tall and lean, short curls loose in the wind. She was peeling an apple with a knife and didn't look up. "Come to beg?" Jade said. Ziggy hated that she needed her. Jade had fought on the Peak twice. She'd also beaten Ziggy in a sparring match last spring and never once let her forget it. "I need the sign-up," Ziggy said. "When and where." Jade cut a slice and ate it slow. "Everyone needs something." She studied Ziggy's taped hands. "You've been busy." "Eleven months. Every day. You know I'm not quitting." Jade pushed off the tree. The willow branches swayed behind her. "Sign-up isn't a place," she said. "It's a person. You find them the night before the solstice. They ask you one question. Answer wrong, you're out." "What's the question?" "They ask who sent you." Jade smiled, sharp. "You say my name." Ziggy's chest went tight. "Why would you help me?" "I'm not." Jade tossed her the apple core. Ziggy caught it. "I want to fight you up there, in front of everyone, and win clean. Can't do that if you never make it past the door." She turned and walked off. "Two nights from now. The tavern with the black dragon painted over the bar. Come alone." Ziggy stood under the swaying branches, apple core in her fist. She had her answer. She also had a debt to the one person who'd already beaten her. The door was open now. What waited on the other side was Jade.

The tavern with the black dragon over the bar was easy to find. The mystery person was not. Ziggy pushed inside at dusk. Two dozen strangers filled the room, and any one of them could be the sign-up. Nobody wore a sign. Nobody looked up. The solstice arrived tomorrow. If she didn't find the right person by nightfall, she'd wait another year. She worked the room. She asked a man cleaning mugs. He shrugged. She asked a woman by the window. Nothing. Her stomach knotted. The sun dropped lower through the dirty glass, and the shadows crawled up the walls. A heavyset boy tugged her sleeve. He came up to her chest. Brown curls, red sneakers, shoes rubbing his heel raw. He looked lost the same way she felt lost. "You're doing it wrong," he said. "Doing what wrong?" Ziggy said. "Looking. You look like you need something. That's how they know you're a stranger." He said it flat, like a fact. "I'm Milo. I'm not supposed to talk to you. I have to find my gate before the sun's down." "What gate?" Milo's mouth shut tight. "Can't say. It's secret." He glanced at the door, then back. "But I know how to spot people who hide. The old man taught me. You watch who watches you." Ziggy stopped moving. She looked, really looked. One person in the corner sat with a drink they weren't drinking. Their eyes tracked her every step. She'd walked past them twice. "That one," Milo said. "See? Been staring since you came in." Ziggy's pulse jumped. "Milo. Thank you." "Whatever. It's stupid you didn't see it." He pulled his sleeve free and turned for the door. "Sun's almost gone. I gotta go." And he slipped out into the fading light, off to a gate she couldn't help him find. Ziggy crossed to the corner. The watcher set down the untouched drink. Up close their face gave away nothing. "You keep circling," they said. "Sit or leave." She sat. Her hands were steady now. Eleven months of training, and it all came down to one word. "Who sent you?" the watcher asked. "Jade Monroe." The watcher studied her a long moment. Then they slid a scrap of paper across the table. A single mark on it, and a time. "Peak. Noon tomorrow. Late means out." They stood and walked into the crowd, gone before she could speak. Ziggy held the paper in her taped fist. She was in. The door had opened, and she'd walked through it. But she'd used Jade's name to do it, and now she owed the one fighter she most wanted to beat. Tomorrow she'd climb Jennings Peak. Somewhere up there, Jade would be waiting to collect.

Ziggy climbed since dawn. The scrap of paper said Peak, noon, and late meant out. But nobody told her what waited there. She had trained eleven months to fight, not to guess. Now the trail forked, and she had no idea which turn led to the qualifying phase. She stopped, sucked thin air, and swore. A dog barked below her. A stocky bulldog trotted up the rocks, a red scarf tied at his neck. Behind him came Milo, the boy from the tavern. His shoes still rubbed his heels raw. He looked worse than yesterday, dust on his face, eyes red. "You," Ziggy said. "You found your gate?" "No." Milo kicked a stone. "Sun went down. It didn't open. Old man was wrong, or I found the wrong spot." He shut his mouth hard. "Doesn't matter. What are you doing up here?" "I have to reach the summit by noon. Some test. I don't know what." She showed him the paper. "I don't even know which way." Milo studied the fork. Then he pointed to the dog. "Jermaine knows. He follows people. There's been feet going up the left path all morning. Grass is stomped down." He crouched and touched the flattened blades. "Right path's clean. Nobody went that way." Ziggy looked. He was right. The left trail showed boot marks, fresh ones, all headed up. "But that doesn't tell you the test," Milo said. "You're still gonna show up dumb." "So teach me. You watch people. What did the ones going up carry?" Milo thought. "Ropes. Chalk bags. One lady had tape on her hands, like yours. And they weren't tired. They saved their legs." He frowned. "It's a climb. Not a fight yet. They're testing who can get to the top the hard way." It clicked. The qualifying phase was the mountain itself. Ziggy taught herself to climb from videos. Her legs stayed strong in thin air. This was the one test she was built for. "You saved me," Ziggy said. "Twice now." Milo shrugged. "Whatever. It was stupid you didn't see the tracks." But his mouth twitched, almost a smile. Ziggy dropped her heavy pack. She kept only chalk, tape, and water. She took the left fork and climbed fast, hands sure on the rock, breath tight but steady. The sun crawled toward noon. Near the summit she passed slower climbers gasping on ledges. Her legs never quit. She pulled over the last lip as the sun stood high. A watcher marked her name on a list. "Made it," they said. "You climb tomorrow. Winner's bracket starts at first light." Ziggy grinned, chest heaving. She had qualified. But then she saw who leaned against the rocks, arms crossed, already rested. Jade Monroe. Tall, sharp-eyed, waiting. "You used my name," Jade said. "Now you're in my bracket. Tomorrow you pay it back the hard way."

The night before the bracket, Ziggy could not sleep. Jade's words stuck in her: pay it back the hard way. Tomorrow they fought. Ziggy had trained eleven months, but she had never seen Jade throw a punch. Walking in blind meant Jade landed the first hit while Ziggy still guessed. So Ziggy left her cot and went to find her rival before the sun beat her to it. She found Jade near a fire ring below the summit camp. Jade sat with her back to a slim tree, its long branches hanging over her like a curtain. She was wrapping her hands with slow, even loops of tape. She did not look up. "You want something," Jade said. Not a question. "I want to know how you fight," Ziggy said. "I'm not going to pretend. You beat me before. I never saw why." Jade tore the tape with her teeth. "Bold. Asking your enemy to hand you the map." "You lent me your name. That's already handed." That landed. Jade's mouth twitched. She stood, all six feet of her, and rolled her shoulders. "Fine. Watch." She threw a jab at the air, fast, then stepped back light on her feet. "I don't brawl. I don't trade with short girls. I keep you at the end of my reach and pick you apart. You come in, I move out." Ziggy watched her feet, not her fists. "You always circle left." Jade froze mid-step. "What?" "Just now. And when you jab, you drop your back hand." Ziggy tapped her own ribs. "You leave this open when you reset." For a long moment Jade said nothing. Then she laughed, short and sharp. "You didn't come to learn my fight. You came to steal it." "Both," Ziggy said. Jade sat back down under the hanging branches. She stared at Ziggy with new eyes, the way you look at a problem you underrated. "You're smarter than I thought. That's worse for me." She jerked her chin toward the camp. "Go sleep. You'll need it. Reach beats brains until brains gets inside. And getting inside on me hurts." Ziggy walked back up the slope. Her chest was tight from the thin air, but her legs felt light. She knew it now. Jade circled left. Jade dropped her hand. Jade wanted distance, so Ziggy had to close it and eat pain to do it. She stopped and looked back once. Jade was still watching her go, hands wrapped, jaw set. Ziggy had traded away her surprise to buy the same from Jade. Now neither of them would land the first hit blind. Tomorrow it came down to who could take the beating in close and keep coming. Ziggy smiled. That was a fight she was built for.

Ziggy knew Jade's fight now. Jade jabbed, circled left, dropped her back hand. But knowing was not the same as answering. Ziggy had never drilled a counter. If Jade's jab snapped out and Ziggy froze, the reach would win and the knowing would be worthless. So before the sun rose, she went looking for someone to hit her. She found two of them at the far edge of camp. A skinny boy sat on a crate, feeding scraps to a husky whose coat ran through every color. Beside him stood a tall woman in a dark suit, watching the trail like she expected trouble to walk up it. "You fight?" Ziggy asked the woman. "No," Dorian said. "I watch. That's a skill too." She looked Ziggy over once. "You're short. You want to get inside. You can't." "Show me why." Dorian stepped forward. She snapped her lead hand out, quick, right at Ziggy's nose. Ziggy flinched and stopped dead. The second jab tapped her cheek. "You froze," Dorian said. "That's how you lose." The boy hopped off the crate. "She stops when you punch," he said. "You have to move first. Not after." He held up his small fists. "Watch." He threw a slow jab at the air, then stepped his whole body sideways. "You don't back up. You go in." Ziggy stared at the seven-year-old. "You a coach now?" "No," Emerson said. "But my grandpa said don't wait for the door. Go through it." Dorian nodded once. "The kid's right. Reach only beats you if you respect it. Slip left, plant, come inside. Do it until it's not thinking." So they drilled. Dorian jabbed. Ziggy flinched, then stopped flinching. She learned to duck her head one inch and step in on the same beat. The husky barked each time she got it right. Dorian threw the left circle. Ziggy cut the angle and cut it off. Her cheek stung. Her lungs burned in the thin air. Her legs stayed strong. An hour in, Dorian snapped the jab hard and dropped her back hand to reset, just like Jade did. Ziggy did not freeze. She slipped, stepped, and drove her fist into the open ribs Dorian left behind. The tall woman grunted and stepped back. "That's it," Dorian said. She rubbed her side. "That's the counter. Don't lose it." Ziggy's chest heaved. She had the answer now, drilled into her arms, not just her head. Jade would jab. Jade would drop her hand. And Ziggy would be inside before the reset finished. But as she caught her breath, a horn sounded from the summit camp. The bracket was posted. Ziggy climbed up to read it and found her name at the top of the first line. Under it, the opponent she would face in one hour was not Jade at all. It was a name she had never heard, and no one in camp would tell her a single thing about how they fought.

The bracket named a stranger, and no one in camp would talk. Ziggy needed to know how her opponent fought before the hour ran out. She found Dorian at the edge of camp, standing outside a weathered shed with sloped shingles. Dorian watched the trail like always, still rubbing the ribs Ziggy had hit that morning. "You watch people," Ziggy said. "You said so. My first fight isn't Jade. It's someone I've never heard of. Help me." Dorian didn't turn her head. "I don't know the name." "But you saw the warm-ups. You see everything." Ziggy stepped in front of her. "One hour. I can't train blind." Dorian looked at her then. "There was a fighter this morning. Tall. Threw a lot of kicks. Southpaw stance." She held up her left hand. "Leads with the wrong side. Most people freeze." "Is that mine?" "I don't know," Dorian said. "That's the honest answer." A sound came from inside the shed. Something scratched at the door. Ziggy pulled it open. A tiny puppy tumbled out, all soft fur and floppy ears, and pawed at her boot. Behind it stood a boy she'd seen near the sign-up. He crouched and scooped the pup up. "That's Dobby," the boy said. "He got out again." He looked at Ziggy. "You're fighting the kicker. I watched her spar. She switches feet when she gets tired. Right foot forward, then she gasses out." Ziggy stared. "You're sure it's her?" "Her name's on the board under yours," the boy said. "I read it. Tall lady. Kicks high. But only for the first minute. After that her hands drop." Dorian nodded slowly. "That fits what I saw. She spends everything early." She turned to Ziggy. "You know what to do with that." Ziggy did. "Cover up. Let her burn out. Then go inside." "Same as this morning," Dorian said. "Slip the reach. Come in low. She can't kick you if you're on her chest." They had twenty minutes. Dorian threw slow kicks and Ziggy learned to fold her arms and take them on the shoulder. She counted in her head. One minute. Two. Then she stepped in fast, past the leg, and drove a fist to Dorian's stomach. The puppy barked. The boy laughed. "Again," Dorian said. "Until it's not thinking." They ran it four more times. Ziggy's shoulders ached from the kicks. Her lungs pulled at the thin air. Her legs held. The horn sounded. First fight, now. Ziggy backed toward the ring. She wasn't blind anymore. Tall. Southpaw. High kicks that died after a minute. A plan lived in her arms. Then a shout rose from the ring. A runner sprinted up. "The kicker pulled out! Twisted an ankle in warm-up!" He checked his paper. "New opponent. Short. Heavy. All grappling. Fight's in two minutes." Ziggy stood frozen. Every counter she'd drilled was for a fighter who wasn't coming.

Two minutes. Ziggy stared at the ring and every drilled counter turned to smoke. She'd trained to fight a tall kicker at range. Now a short, heavy grappler waited to drag her down and pin her where she had no answer. Her legs felt strong. Her plan felt useless. She needed a new one before the horn, and she had no one to ask. A girl trailing a red balloon slipped under the rope and stopped beside her. Ziggy knew her from camp. She barely reached Ziggy's shoulder, wore rainbow socks, and never seemed to stop smiling. The kid had watched every warm-up from the fence, quiet, soaking it all in. "You're scared of the ground," the girl said. Not a question. "I trained for someone else," Ziggy said. "She wants to take me down. I don't know how to stop her." The girl looked at the grappler across the ring, then back. "You can't stop the grab. She's built for it." She let the balloon bob. "So don't fight the grab. Fall with it." "Fall." "My uncle wrestles. Small guys always fight the pull. They get slammed." She mimed grabbing air, then dropped low herself. "You go down first. On purpose. Then you're not caught. You're already there." Ziggy's mind moved fast. If the grappler bulled forward and Ziggy sat instead of stiffening, the woman's own weight would carry past her. "Then what? On the ground she owns me." "Get your legs up between you." The girl lifted her knees like a shield. "Push her off with your feet. Feet are stronger than her arms. You've got climber legs. I've seen you." The horn blew. Ziggy had thirty seconds and one raw idea. The grappler charged the second the ring cleared. She wrapped low and drove, exactly as feared. Ziggy felt the old instinct to plant and resist. She killed it. She sat back hard and dropped. They hit the mat together. The grappler's momentum threw her past Ziggy's hip. For one breath the woman scrambled to climb up her body. Ziggy jammed both knees in and shoved. Her legs held, the same legs that had climbed the peak. The grappler slid back a foot. Space. Ziggy scooted, hooked a heel behind the woman's ankle, and kicked out. The grappler toppled. Ziggy rolled free and stood while her opponent floundered on her back. The crowd noise changed. The grappler pushed up, breathing hard, her one weapon spent. Ziggy stepped in and cracked a straight punch across her jaw. The woman dropped. The referee waved it done. Ziggy won. Her chest heaved in the thin air. She turned to find the girl at the rope, grinning, balloon nodding. Then Ziggy saw the bracket board past her. Next round. One name waited under a winner's slot, already marked. Jade.

The grappler fight had drained her. Ziggy stood at the ring's edge and felt it now—her legs, the strong climber legs that had carried her up the peak, buzzed and heavy. Across the mat, Jade stretched, fresh and loose. Ziggy knew every trick Jade owned. Jabs at range. Circle left. Drop the back hand to reset. But knowing meant nothing if her legs quit halfway through the round. Dorian appeared at the rope. Ziggy had drilled Jade's counters with her for hours—the tall woman who stated hard truths without softening them. "Your legs are gone," Dorian said. Not a comfort. A fact. "You can't chase her all round. You'll fall over first." "So what do I do?" Ziggy asked. "Pick your moment. One good rush inside. Land it. Don't dance." Dorian gripped the rope. "You slip her jab, you go in low, you finish. You get one. Maybe two." A smaller voice cut in. Emerson, the skinny seven-year-old who'd coached her through drills with Dorian, stood at the fence holding a heart-shaped bundle of pink blossoms someone had left tied to the post. He didn't look at the flowers. He looked at Ziggy's shaking knees. "Wait for her to drop her hand," he said. "That's when she thinks she's safe. Hit her then." He said it plainly, then added, "You only need her to be wrong once." Beside him stood Milo, arms crossed, scowling at the ring. "Your legs look stupid," he said. "Don't run. Running's dumb when you're tired." He almost said more, then shut his mouth. The horn blew. Jade came forward, jabbing, circling left, exactly as Ziggy knew she would. Ziggy did not chase. She covered up and let the jabs sting her arms. Her legs screamed to move. She held still. She saved everything. Jade grew bold. She flicked two jabs and dropped her back hand to reset—the tell Ziggy had traded her surprise to learn. Ziggy exploded off her aching legs. One rush. She slipped inside the reach and drove a hook into Jade's ribs, then a straight to the jaw. Jade stumbled. Ziggy's legs nearly buckled under her, but the shot had landed clean. Jade dropped to a knee. The referee started the count. Ziggy stood over her, chest heaving in the thin air, unable to take another step. She didn't need one. Jade could not beat the count. The referee waved it done. Ziggy had won. She had beaten the fighter who'd beaten her before, the one she owed. Jade looked up from the mat, breathing hard, and gave a short nod. Debt paid the hard way, both directions. Then the crowd shifted, and Ziggy saw her. Her mother, near the front, arms folded, watching. The finals were next. One more fight stood between Ziggy and the win—and her mother had a clear view of every second.