It Ends in Fire

by Andrew Shvarts

  “We’re not going for fourth,” I say, and they all turn to me. A horn outside blasts. Ten minutes until the match begins. I’ll have to talk fast. “We’re playing to win.”

  “I don’t think that’s mathematically possible,” Fyl responds.

  “I mean, it’s not mathematically impossible, just practically,” Desmond unhelpfully clarifies.

  “What are you talking about, Alayne?” Tish asks.

  I fold my arms across my chest and try to put on my most confident smile. “I’m the team captain, aren’t I? Well, I have a plan.”

  I tell them my plan, and I watch the looks of shock and disbelief pass across their faces. I’d debated telling them earlier but decided against it. Part of that was to remove any risk of it leaking to the other teams. But more important, I need to put them on the spot, to let the pressure of the ticking clock push them to doing something rash. If I give them any time to think this through, at least one of them will back out. And I need them all in.

  When I’m done talking, Desmond is staring at me, mouth agape in horror. “No. Absolutely not. That has to be against the rules.”

  “It’s not. I made sure of it. There’s nothing about this. And you know the main principle of Balitesta. Everything’s that’s not forbidden is permitted.”

  “But what if you’re wrong?” Fyl asks. “We could get in huge trouble.”

  “If I’m wrong, I’ll take all the blame. You can say I forced you to do it.” She’s not buying it, and neither is Desmond. “Come on, Fyl. If I’m right, we can actually win this. We can prove everyone wrong. We can show them how great we are.” The horn outside blows, three minutes until the start. “Think of how proud your parents will be.”

  “That’s a low blow, Alayne,” Fyl says, but I can see it wearing her down. She bites her lip so hard I think she’s going to hurt herself, and then finally shakes her head in resignation. “Okay. Fine. Let’s do this.”

  “Hells yeah!” Zigmund shouts, though his accent make it Hulls ja. “This is how I like to play!”

  “I’m in, too,” Tish says. “It’s a good plan. We should see it through.”

  We all turn to look at Desmond, who’s the palest I’ve ever seen anyone. “What you’re talking about… if we pull it off… we’d be making enemies of the Order of Vanguard. Of Marius Madison. You see why that’s a problem for me, right? Or have you forgotten that my father is a senator in Grandmaster Madison’s party? Your parents might be proud… but mine will be livid.”

  I’d worried Desmond would be the hardest to win over, so I play the last card in my hand. “Do you remember what you told me when we talked, Desmond? About how your father didn’t agree with Madison, but he was too timid to stand up for himself?” I see the words hit him like a slap, see his jaw work as he takes it in. “Do you want to be your father’s son? Or do you want to be the man Brenna raised?”

  Desmond gazes down, and when he looks back up, his eyes are narrowed with determination. “Fine. All right. But when we’re all expelled, I’m blaming you.”

  “That’s my boy,” I say, grinning, and just in time as the last horn blows. “All right. In positions.”

  There’s a cheer from outside as the game kicks off. The other teams must have started rushing the center, because I can hear thunderous bursts and crackling ice, can feel the ground shake underfoot. But our first step involves hunkering down. I nod to Tish, our best Wizard, to kick off the plan, and they take a deep breath before turning to the doors and raising their Loci. “Cover your eyes,” I tell the others.

  I stay in the Real, so I don’t actually see them carve the Glyph. I just see them raise their hands one second, and the next there’s a deafening blast of hot white light that shudders the fort and blows the door clean off its hinges. My ears are ringing hard, but I can still hear the crowd laugh, because what’s funnier than the Nethros blowing themselves up before they even leave the fort? Behind me, the others scramble to get alongside the walls, Desmond clutching the side of his head in pain. I pat Tish’s shoulder, and they give me a little shrug. “Sorry if that was too much.”

  “It was perfect,” I say. Outside, a horn blows, signifying we’re one minute into the match. And not a moment too soon, because I can hear footsteps thundering toward us from outside, the heavy clank of plate armor. The referee. This is it. The point of no going back. I look at the others, one at a time, and they all nod, even Desmond. We’re in.

  The referee lumbers into the room, a bulky woman, her face hidden under the polished helm. “What happened in here?” she bellows. “Is everyone all right?” She stops in the center of the room, looking at all of us standing, unhurt. “What is this?”

  I kick her as hard as I can in the back of the legs. With a startled yelp she drops to her knees, and then Zigmund slides in, wrapping a thick bicep around her neck, just under her helmet, and choking, hard. She lets out a muted gurgle, flailing, her feet kicking and thrashing. Fyl and Tish stare in horror, and Desmond can’t even watch, his hands over his eyes. She swings up, batting a gauntlet at Zigmund’s head, and I have to jerk her arm down to keep her from hitting him. “Just go to sleep,” I hiss at her. “Knock out. Make this easy.”

  “Oh, Gods, we’re so dead,” Fyl says, as the referee gives one last judder and slips into unconsciousness, her head limp on her shoulder. Zigmund lowers her, panting, and I rush forward. The horn outside blows. Seven minutes left.

  The rules on this are very clear. No magic of any kind can be cast at a referee. But they don’t say anything about a good old-fashioned choke hold.

  I slide forward, pulling off the referee’s helm. It’s heavier than I’d thought, bulky and cold. Tish and Fyl get to work pulling off her chestplate, but the damn thing’s complicated, a mess of latches and buckles that takes forever to undo. By the time they’ve gotten it off her and onto me, we’re down to five minutes, and I’d counted on at least six. We don’t have time for the boots or the leg plate, so I’m just going to have to hope no one looks closely in the chaos.

  “All right,” I tell the others. “Time to get out there. Remember, go as flashy as possible. Make a lot of noise, cause a lot of confusion, draw all the attention your way.” They look absolutely terrified, except for Zigmund, who looks thrilled. “Time to prove everyone wrong.”

  With that we rush out, through the doorway, onto the field. The others bolt a hard left for the center of the arena, but I break off them, sprinting along the diameter. My heart starts to thunder, my palms clammy, my eyes blinking away the sweat streaking down my forehead in this tight, stupid helmet. It’s loud out here, a cacophony of shrieking crowd and explosive combat. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the center of the arena, where crags of earth shoot up like giant nails, lattices of light race like whips; a student flies fifteen feet into the air and comes crashing down. I hope my Nethros are okay, but right now, I can’t think about them. My concern is up ahead.

  It’s a fort, the same build as ours, but with the flag of the Order of Vanguard flying overhead, a rippling gold banner with a white stag. There’s a husky figure standing by the door, one of the teammates left behind to guard the place. It’s a common tactic for teams in the lead, to prevent others from ambushing them on their return from the center. I’d counted on it.

  The figure looks my way as I approach, and I wince as I see the face under the leather helmet, recognize that mossy beard and those reddish sunken eyes. Dean Veyle. Of course. My face is fully covered, but just to be sure, I put on the deepest, gruffest voice I can. “Out of the way. We need to inspect your fort!”

  Dean gawks at me, genuinely startled, but there’s no flicker of recognition. His face is flushed, sweat-streaked. I’m counting on him being too flustered to question it, and it looks like I’m right. “Uh, sure, all right.” He steps aside. “Go ahead.”

  I shove past him, and I’m in, actually in the Vanguard fort. I stomp forward, right up to their chest, and this right here is the most dangerous part of all, the moment in which
the plan either works or blows up in my face. I turn back to Dean and growl, “I’m going to need you to open this.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Some of the Nethros reported that your team is cheating. That you’ve smuggled in contraband items and are storing them in your chest to avoid detection. I need to make sure.”

  “Those little shits said what?” Dean yells. “This is ridiculous! This is an outrage!”

  It absolutely is, but I need to keep stringing him along, so I lay on the pressure. “Do I need to report you for denying a referee’s order? Just open the damn chest so we can get this over with!”

  “Gods, what a mess. This school has completely gone to shit,” Dean grumbles, but I can see the panic dancing in his eyes, the urgency with which he wants to get back to the game. “Fine. Here. Let’s get this over with.”

  He presses a hand on the plate at the chest’s lid. It crackles, pulses, and then with a whoosh of air, springs open. There they are inside, bright and beautiful, a rainbow of perfect tears. Ten godsdamned gems. “Satisfied?” he says.

  “I’ll need to check the chest out, look for anything hidden,” I reply. “You can get back to the game.”

  “Fine, whatever,” he grumbles, and turns to go back to the door. His back is turned to me, and I grab the gems, as many as I can, and shove them into the bag at my hip. Dean takes one step, two steps, three steps, four, and he’s almost at the door when he freezes mid-stride, and I can see the second when he realizes he’s being played.

  We both draw our Loci, but I’m fumbling with the bag so he’s faster. By the time I hit the Null, he’s already started carving his Glyph, forcing me onto the defensive. The gray howls around us, louder and wilder than usual, turbulent from the chaos of the battle outside. Across the fort, Dean glares at me with a vicious scowl, his curved steel blade stabbing hard into the skin of the world. He’s carved a backward L, which means he’s going to be making a square. Earth Base. And since he’s not making a shield or building a wall, the only option left is an orb. A hard ball of packed dirt, formed out of nothing, hurtling my way.

  If I had more time to think, I’d come up with a clever counter-Glyph. But he’s already almost done with his base before I even raise my first knife so I just need to go with my gut and do something fast and simple. I slash four notches for a Wind Base and by the time I’m done, Dean is already onto his second form, a hard clod of earth the size of my head twisting into existence in front of him. I can’t block it with wind, but maybe I can push it out of the way, so I slash a circle for push around my Glyph and not a moment too soon because Dean has finished and his earth ball is on the move, hurtling my way like a cannonball.

  I jerk back into the Real to see my gust of wind rush out. I’d hoped to knock the ball back at him, but I carved sloppy and slow, so instead it hits the sphere from below, a jet of air rushing up from the floor like a geyser. The earthen ball hurtles upward and shatters explosively against the ceiling, showering a rain of clods onto us. Dean throws up a hand, blocking himself. I turn around and sprint, grabbing the ladder to the roof and leaping up it in three bounds. Behind me, Dean howls in impotent fury but it doesn’t matter because I’m already out of his range. Dean’s a better Wizard than I am, but I’m a whole lot faster.

  I leap onto the roof of the Vanguard fort, back outside in the hot sun. A horn blows loudly. Two minutes left. As Dean scrambles below me, I sprint forward, bounding across the roof’s hexagonal stone tiles to the parapet at the edge. I can see my fort from here, just a sprint away, and I know what I have to do. The fort’s only a story tall. I can leap down, take the fall, and make it to our chest before the round ends. It’s tight but doable. Tight but d—

  I hear the crackle of magic from below me and then something wraps around my ankle, something sharp and tight. A vine, covered in thorns, growing up from the roof like a grasping hand. I lurch forward and slam face-first onto the hard stone. My chin splits, my vision flashes red, and my Loci spin out of my hands, skittering out of reach.

  “You little bitch,” Dean growls, hoisting himself up through the opening in the roof, Loci in hand. I jerk forward, trying to scramble up, but the vine is holding me in place, a thick green rope bursting out of the hard stone, tethering me like an anchor. That’s an advanced Glyph, and he cast it up through the floor; if it weren’t for the situation, I’d actually be impressed. Dean stands up tall, pacing toward me, a shadow blocking out the sun. “You really thought you could pull a fast one on me? You thought you could make a fool out of me?”

  “I already have,” I spit back, jerking as hard as I can with my leg. The vine strains, just a little, its roots in the tile starting to tear. “Everyone’s going to know how you let me pluck the gems right out of your chest.”

  “Like hell!” he screams, spraying spittle, his cheeks burning. His eyes are wide and crazed, and then they flash a hard black, dotted with a starscape of light. I slip into the Null instinctively with him, even though I can’t cast without my Loci. As the world howls gray around us, he flashes me a sadistic grin and raises his Loci to carve. A long slash at forty-five degrees, bisected in the middle, glowing a hot raging orange.

  My heart leaps into my throat. Fire Base. It’s forbidden in the rules of the game, but Dean’s clearly decided he doesn’t care.

  He’s not trying to win.

  He’s trying to kill me.

  Then, as he starts to carve the second form, a lance or an orb or a cutting whip, he steps forward. His foot presses down on the wide round tile at the roof’s center, and as he does, something happens. It starts to vibrate, to pulse, to glow a gentle white. It starts to rise.

  Third-Degree Delayed Elemental Infusion.

  Now it’s my turn to grin.

  CHAPTER 21

  Then

  I am seventeen when I rig the First Challenge.

  Finding the arena is easy enough. There’s a massive map of the island in the library, and it’s clearly labeled. So two weeks before the challenge is played, I sneak down there in the middle of the night, when everyone on the campus is asleep, creeping through the island’s underbrush. There’s a tall wooden fence blocking it, nothing I can’t scale, and no one, no one guarding it. It’s like it didn’t even occur to them that someone would try this, which makes me either a lunatic or a visionary.

  Being on the field makes it easy to test my plan. I sprint back and forth between the forts, timing myself, verifying that it’s doable. I practice scrambling up the ladders, leaping off the roof to hit the ground with a roll. I run through every scenario I can think of, modeling them out, rushing around and practicing my dashes and jumps and recoveries. I come here every night for two weeks, training until I know the route by heart.

  And then, just to be safe, the night before the challenge I hunker down on the roof of the Vanguard fort and carve that Elemental Infusion Glyph into a few of the round tiles. It won’t do much, just make the tile rise a little, but it might throw off anyone pursuing me long enough for me to escape. I carve so shallowly that the magic should last, at most, twelve hours, before fading away.

  It’s cheating, of course. Actively against the rules. But like Pavel always said… that’s what magic is.

  CHAPTER 22

  Now

  The tile under Dean’s foot buckles, jerking back hard. In the foggy slow motion of the Null, I see him stumble, see his mouth open in surprise, see him fall back. That’s all I’d wanted, all I’d hoped for. But Dean is in the middle of carving a Fire Glyph, and as he falls back his Loci jerks down, cleaving the Glyph clean in half. It pulses and throbs, flames licking out, the world around it quivering and writhing. The Null roars with the churn of gathering thunder.

  A miscast. A fire miscast.

  Oh, shit.

  I snap back into the Real and throw my hands up over my face. I don’t see the explosion, but I hear it, a scorching blast that makes the fort shake, that sets both my ears ringing, that washes over me in a wave of singeing heat. When I open
my eyes, the spot where Dean was standing is a sunken crater, the stone scorched black. Dozens of little fires burn on the edges of the parapets. As for Dean, he’s gone, hurled over the roof. He lies on the grass below, his body a bubbling, burned ruin, twitching and rasping, flesh charred black.

  This is going to have consequences.

  The one-minute horn blows, and I snap out of my trance as the rest of the world comes back in a rush. The crowd is shrieking. Referees are scrambling. People are shouting from the center of the arena, probably the other Vanguard as they realize what’s going on. I don’t have time to think about Dean. I have to move.

  I rip as hard as I can on the vine, tearing it off, and scramble to my feet. The bag with the gems is still at my hip, full and jangling. In one fluid motion I scoop up my Loci and hurl myself over the parapet. My roll isn’t as good as I practiced, but it’s not bad, and soon I’m up on my feet, streaking back to our fort. The howls of the other Vanguard grow louder and louder, the crowd utterly thunderous. The ground vanishes beneath my feet. My thoughts melt away. The world is a blur. In this moment, I’m barely a person. I’m a creature of pure adrenaline, a thundering heart, a will to win made flesh. All I know is the bag of gems at my hips and the Nethro fort, standing tall and proud, drawing ever closer.

  A lance of wind streaks past me, slamming into the arena’s barrier with a resounding boom. A pillar of earth erupts right behind me, hurling fragments of dirt like shrapnel. Footsteps pound after me, loud and furious and gaining. I’m not thinking about them, though. I’m thinking about that horn that’s going to sound any second now, the horn that ends the match. If I don’t make it back in time, then all of this was for nothing. I can’t lose. Not when I’m so close.

  The door to our fort flies open, and there’s Fyl, her face smudged with dirt and maybe blood, her black hair frizzled and wild. “Alayne!” she screams, and I grab the bag of gems off my belt and throw it and it hurtles through the air and she leans out far and just barely catches it and she’s running into the fort to get it into the chest and this is all just in time because someone grabs me from behind, a pair of muscular arms wrapping around my waist, and tackles me hard onto the grass.