Meg - Dimachaerus

I glanced at the rings on her middle fingers. “So yesterday…those swords. And don’t do that thing.”
Meg’s eyebrows furrowed. “What thing?”
“That thing where you shut down and refuse to talk. Your face turns to cement.”
She gave me a furious pout. “It does not. I’ve got swords. I fight with them. So what?”
“So it might have been nice to know that earlier, when we were in combat with plague spirits.”
“You said it yourself: those spirits couldn’t be killed.”
“You’re sidestepping.” I knew this because it was a tactic I had mastered centuries ago. “The style you fight in, with two curved blades, is the style of a dimachaerus, a gladiator from the late Roman Empire. Even back then, it was rare—possibly the most difficult fighting style to master, and one of the most deadly.”
Meg shrugged. It was an eloquent shrug, but it did not offer much in the way of explanation.

***

The Hidden Oracle, Chapter 14