The next thing I knew, hot metal slid against my throat, and my head jerked back. “If I were Rodric,” Cion said, his breath warm against my neck, “you’d be dead.”

I groaned when he released me. I could barely make out his shape as I rubbed my eyes. I blinked a few times to try to clear the grit away.

“Did you have to do that?” Rodric had thrown sand in my eyes before, and for some reason, I thought Cion would be different.

“I want you to win,” he said. “Thinking Rodric will fight fair is like thinking the shifting hills will stop moving. They won’t. He knows all our moves. So you must be better than him, faster than him. You need to prepare for whatever he throws at you, and right now, you rely on your sight too much.”

I would’ve rolled my eyes if it wouldn’t have ground the grains further against my pupils. “At the shifting hills, it was all about sight, all about anticipating.”

He nodded. “Yes, and you’ve mastered that. Now you need to master fighting when you can’t see where the attack is coming from.”

I scowled, but I’m not sure the look had the full effect I wanted, because tears rolled out of the corners of my burning eyes. “A blindfold would have worked just as well,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice.

“I needed you to experience it first, so you knew how quickly you could be brought down without your sight,” he replied. “And”—he took out a strip of cloth—“now that you’re aware of that, we can use the blindfold.”

I didn’t protest as he tied it over my eyes. When his fingers were done knotting it behind my head, his hands rested on my shoulders. Then he pushed me forward.

I spun back to where he’d been standing.

A piece of metal thumped against my back. I whirled around, swinging my sword out. Another blow ripped the blade from my hand, followed by the flat edge of a sword against my calves.

I dropped to the ground, swinging my arms out widely, searching for any hint of my sword.

“I’ve already stabbed you at least ten times by now,” Cion’s voice called from my side. I slid a leg around hoping to connect with some part of his body. Nothing. He laughed.

I stood up and dove toward the sound. I landed on more sand. Metal tapped against my shoulder.

“Eleven,” he said.

I moved to rip the cloth off, but one of the points of Cion’s blade poked into the back of my hand, stopping it.

“You’re not trying hard enough,” he said.

“How can I stop you if I can’t see you?”

“Learn to hear the sand. Start by standing still,” he said. “The sand has a language all its own.” The words wrapped around me. He walked in circles around me. Close enough to touch if I reached out my hand. “Listen.”