The first contact rang across the rooftop like a struck bell.
Damascus steel had its own voice. Kori had never crossed steel with that particular alloy, but she recognized the tone the moment Lay's curved sword met her reinforced knife - a deep, layered harmonic that travelled through both blades, into both arms, and along the bones of her shoulders before either of them had committed to the next motion. The note hung in the air for half a second. Then Lay turned, and the bell-sound dissolved into the long, rising shriek of edge sliding along edge as Lay's blade dragged across the parry, the forward spike at its tip carving a slow diagonal toward Kori's chest without quite committing fully to the strike.
It was a question, not a full attack: Lay was asking what Kori would do.
