by Gage Lee
“Yield,” Byron said, his voice rough with anger.
“I yield,” Anna gasped, her eyes wide. “I yield.”
A sigh of relief swept through the crowd when the gathered students realized they wouldn’t see Anna’s head rolling away from her neck. From the way the girl remained motionless on the floor, she was as surprised as we were.
Byron instantly banished his weapon and reached down to help his foe off the ground. When Anna was safely back on her feet, wary eyes fixed on Byron, he bowed low to her. “My elder’s honor is satisfied. Thank you for this opportunity to serve my clan.”
Anna returned the bow, her eyes downcast. “Thank you for your mercy. I retract my slander. It was a foolish thing for me to say.”
That was a refreshing end to the duel. Relieved that no one had died, I stepped forward to congratulate Byron on his win. Before I could say a word, though, Theodosia glided forward and took Byron by the hand.
The annoying upperclassman raised his arm high overhead. “Our winner!” she declared. “Let me be the first to congratulate you on that stunning victory. I must ask: do you wish to press your Right of Primacy?”
“What—” Byron started to ask, but I interjected.
“He does not,” I said and quickly changed the subject. “Congratulations, Byron, that was really something.”
Byron bowed low to me, his eyes gleaming with sparks of excitement he couldn’t suppress. “Thank you, Ja—Elder Warin.”
When he stood again, I put a hand on his shoulder to steer him back into the crowd. I was grateful that he’d won without maiming the girl, but also wary of the eyes watching us. It was time for us to get out of here before anyone got the bright idea to avenge her honor. There were so many ways things could go sideways, I missed the most obvious one until it was almost too late.
Theodosia stepped up to me, and the rest of her cronies from the clan quorum eased in from the edges of the crowd. None of them had summoned their swords or serpents, which was very congenial of them, but the grim set of their jaws and flat stares set my teeth on edge. “What’s the problem?” I asked.
My friends were gathered behind me, and the weight of their attention on my aura was reassuring. But if this turned ugly, the conflict could easily put them on the wrong side of their clans, and that was not what I wanted or they deserved.
“The Right of Primacy is earned by the winner of the duel,” Theodosia announced in a voice pitched loud enough for every one of the curious onlookers to hear. “It is Byron’s decision, and his alone, whether or not he wishes to stake his claim.”
I knew the punk was trying to needle me into doing something stupid. For whatever reason, she thought it was a good idea to challenge an elder in front of a bunch of students.
“Do you understand what you are saying?” I asked, my voice booming thanks to a touch of jinsei. “I am the elder of the Shadow Phoenix clan. You don’t have to like me, but you will respect my position.”
My words echoed through the main hall, stunning the gathered students into silence. The members of the quorum had emerged from the crowd to form a line ahead of Byron and me. Though they hadn’t summoned their fusion blades, every one of them had adopted an aggressive combat stance. They eyed me warily, hands loose by their sides.
“Do not challenge the ancient Right,” Theodosia said. “Not even elders are above the law.”
The air crackled with tension. My serpents itched to be unleashed to protect me, and it took far too much of my willpower to hold them at bay. If these little jerks wanted a fight, I’d remind them of how I’d gotten my reputation.
“Jace,” Clem cautioned. “They’re pushing your buttons. Let it go.”
But as much as I wanted to follow Clem’s advice, my heart wouldn’t let me. I was no longer Jace Warin. I was Elder Warin. If these idiots got away with taunting me like this, I’d be a laughingstock. The attacks on my clan would only increase.
This had to stop.
“Do you presume to tell me I’m not allowed to deny new entries into my clan?” I asked Theodosia, my voice laced with crackling threads of sacred energy. “Because if you think you, or anyone else, can tell me how to run my clan, you’ll have to enforce your opinion with more than words.”
Sweat beaded Theodosia’s brow and stood out above her upper lip. “Elder Warin, if you are defying the power of the ancient Right, then I have no choice but to challenge you. The quorum has spoken, and I am their representative. It is my duty to enforce their will.”
She was two years older than me, but age meant little. Her disciple-level core was no match for my artist level, and we both knew it. But she didn’t have to win the duel to score points against me.
If I refused Theodosia’s challenge, I’d look weak. If I beat the stuffing out of her, then I was a bully elder who’d picked on a defenseless disciple. It was a clever tactic.
But I was quickly catching onto these games.
“Accepted on one condition,” I said. “Dueling you is hardly a challenge for someone of my skill. If the quorum’s representatives wish to duel, then I will face all of you. At the same time.”
The silence was thick with tension as the four seventh-year students weighed my challenge. It took the advantage out of their court and put them on the back foot. If they refused, then they would look weak, because there were four of them against little ol’ me. If they accepted, and still got their clocks cleaned, they’d look like chumps.
I’d backed them into the same corner they’d picked for me, and their sour faces told me they didn’t like the turnabout.
Finally, Theodosia bowed to me. Her fusion blade appeared in her hands as she stood upright. “Very well, Elder Warin. We accept your terms. We will conclude this duel when one side has yielded.”
Smart move on her part. If we’d gone to first blood, that might have ended the same as to the death. At our level we were strong enough to kill one another with a single thrust of a fusion blade.
“Accepted,” I said.
Before the last syllable was out of my mouth, I’d shouldered Byron outside the circle and summoned the Thief’s Shield. My serpents uncoiled from my aura with a rapid-fire series of clicks and snaps, their spiked tips opening like eight angry switchblades. I activated the Vision of the Design technique, searching for the simplest way to defeat my opponents without killing them.
But instead of a clear image of the next few seconds, my technique showed me a blur of possible outcomes that made no sense. Frustrated, I disregarded the Vision. I’d have to rely on my other skills to get me through this.
My opponents used my moment of indecision to spread out around me in a box formation. They took advantage of their numbers to come at me from every corner of the compass and maintained careful separation so I couldn’t see more than one of them at a time. Rather than activate techniques, they used their jinsei to boost their speed and strength and closed on me like the jaws of a triggered bear trap.
Two of the fighters behind me coordinated their attacks to come in at ninety-degree angles from each other. Their speed and wide separation made it impossible for me to block with the fusion blade that had appeared in my hand, and any attempt to dodge away from one attack would force me toward their allies.
Theodosia lunged forward like a striking alligator, all brute force and raw speed. Her fusion blade, the same heavy-bladed polearm that Rachel’s brother had favored, swept toward my face in a vicious arc. I couldn’t see the last member of the quorum’s representatives, but I felt his presence somewhere off to my left and closing fast.
That gave me very few options. My serpents could block the attacks from the rear, and I could definitely swat aside the Disciple’s incoming attack. But that still left the striker on my left, and he could be up to almost anything.
It was time to change the battlefield.
With an explosive shout, I commanded my serpents to slam down into the surrounding floor. Their impact hurled me high into the air, where I could see down
onto the battlefield. In a split second, I found the best course and put it into action.
My fusion blade appeared in my hands as I tumbled back to the hall’s floor, and I spun it so quickly it unleashed a whirlwind around me. The spinning blade smashed through the fusion blades of the attackers who’d been behind me.
Surprised by my leap, those fighters were off balance and overextended, left exposed to my powerful battering attack. Their weapons flew out of their hands and skidded across the floor, forcing the circle of onlookers to gasp and back away.
As I landed, Theodosia’s attack swept through the air above my ducked head, and her momentum sent her stumbling forward. The foe on my left tried to stop, but his feet skidded on the floor, and his chest slammed into my shoulder as his weapon shot past my back.
My serpents lashed out an instant later, knocking both of them to the floor and pinning them in place with razor-sharp blades pressed to their throats. I spun to face the foes behind me, my blade spinning like a helicopter’s rotor. I struck with its haft, knocking their legs into the air and leaving them easy prey for the plunging tips of my serpents. In the blink of an eye, all four of my opponents were on the ground, death inches from their hearts.
“Yield,” I said calmly.
When they didn’t instantly respond, my serpents lashed out and drew beads of blood from their throats.
“We yield, we yield!” Theodosia shouted.
“You deny my right to speak for my clan, but you dare to speak for your peers?” I asked the Disciple with a raised eyebrow. “Seems a little hypocritical. I mean, they should get to decide when they’re done, right? Come on, has the cat got your tongues?”
“Yield, yield,” they gasped as I applied a little more pressure from my serpents’ blades. Juicy beads of red blood leaked from the punctures and dribbled down their throats. “We yield!”
“Good, good,” I said. “Now, what was that business about the Right of Primacy?”
“Elder Warin,” the Disciple gasped, “please, you can’t—”
“I what?” My voice dropped several octaves on the last word, transforming into a chest-rumbling growl backed by a jolt of jinsei powerful enough to knock everyone watching back on their heels. A ring of dust burst from the floor and raced away from me, filling the air with glinting motes. “How dare you tell a clan elder what he can or cannot do? The Right of Primacy is inviolable. You said it yourself. Your fate is in my hands, Disciple. Do you really wish to antagonize me?”
The formal tone of an elder felt weird in my mouth, but these people needed a lesson. I was no longer Jace Warin, black sheep, outlaw, and Eclipse Warrior. I was Elder Warin, the leader of the Shadow Phoenixes and a man to be trifled with only at grave peril to life and limb.
“No, Elder,” the Disciple gasped. “Do you wish to exercise the Right of Primacy?”
For a moment, I considered taking the lot of them into my guild as a lesson to their masters. The trap they’d sprung on me had caught their own cats’ paws. As gratifying as that would have been, though, there was a more powerful message I wanted to send. This whole thing was stupid, dangerous, and a waste of our time and resources.
“I’m not playing your game, girl,” I said. “You’re all free to return to your clans. None of you are worth the time or effort it would take to train you to the level of even the lowliest Shadow Phoenix.”
With that, I retracted my serpents and stormed out of the main hall, my clan falling in behind me.
But even as I left, I knew the real fight had only begun. This ludicrous duel had shown me a bitter truth. I’d been naïve to think I could focus on training my clan and ignore the rest of my problems.
The only way to end all this was to finish the Flame’s quest. That would restore the seers and, hopefully, some common sense to the elders of the other clans.
It would be hard, but I’d run out of options.
I’d do it all, and the gods help anyone who got in my way.
The Fight
AS MUCH IS IT MIGHT’VE felt like it, my clan wasn’t the only one under attack. The Right of Primacy made the champion’s duels I’d witnessed during my first year here look like lazy afternoon sparring lessons in Professor Song’s dojo. While most of the upperclassmen didn’t have to deal with constant challenges, the younger students weren’t so lucky. Not a day went by during the next week when a student wasn’t forced into a new clan. Cruzal was beside herself with worry, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. The chaos that had consumed her school came from the very highest levels of Empyreal society, and not even the headmistress could overrule a quorum of elders.
“We lost another one this morning,” Eric grumbled as we squared off with one another. Professor Song had moved the Advanced Martial Arts class outside to the courtyard. Our breaths frosted in the cool winter air, but the snow had already faded and the chill was invigorating. “This madness has to end.”
My friend and I circled one another in search of openings to exploit. Eric moved with the fluid grace of a trained prizefighter. He shifted his balance from foot to foot and kept moving to my left to keep me off balance. That annoying tactic proved my friend was, by far, the better fighter. The pressure he put on my left side forced me to retreat and prepare my defensive techniques.
“Ah, there it is,” Eric grumbled as my Thief’s Shield sprang to life. “Do you ever think of trying something different?”
“You’re taller than me, you’ve got a longer reach, and you trained with the battle federations,” I said. “I’m not asking you to fight with one arm tied behind your back. Why shouldn’t I use all my skills?”
Eric responded with a quick feint from his left fist, followed by a vicious circle kick from his right foot, with a lunging knife hand as the combination finisher. His powerful shouts exploded across the courtyard with every strike, drawing attention from Song and the other students. The attack was a beautiful demonstration of power and agility, and everyone watched as Eric pushed me so close to the edge of the sparring ring that its perimeter glowed red in warning.
Before he could recover, I counterattacked with a ferocious axe kick that was all jinsei-fueled speed and power. The downward strike missed its target by the narrowest of margins, and my heel smashed a crater into the courtyard’s grassy turf. A spray of dirt and grass flew up into Eric’s face and temporarily blinded him. That seemed like a solid opening for a flurry of punches, so I charged in with fists flying.
“Gotcha!” Eric crowed.
His feigned blindness had tricked me into a trap. He caught my left hand in his right and gave it a sharp twist. The maneuver threw me off balance, giving Eric a wide-open shot. He blasted an extended index knuckle punch straight to my solar plexus.
The Thief’s Shield drained enough power from the strike to keep it from punching straight through my spine, but the punch was still strong enough to drive the air out of my lungs. Though my friend’s sneaky punch left me dazed, I snatched his wrist before he could ready another blow. Strength aspects flowed from his aura into mine, and my hungry shield drained the jinsei from Eric into my core. Empowered by the stolen sacred energy and aspects, I pulled his arm toward me and threw my opposite shoulder forward into his chest.
The impact knocked Eric off his feet and tore his hand from my grip. He tumbled nimbly through the air and hit the ground in a perfect three-point landing. Safely out of my reach, he cycled his breathing to replenish the jinsei I’d stolen from his core and summoned his fusion blade. Though my surprise assault had weakened him, the prizefighter was far from out of the fight.
This was how most of our sparring matches went. We started with fists and feet, I used my Thief’s Shield, and Eric went to swords and other tricks to stay outside my reach. Eventually, though, he’d get frustrated and wade in for a finishing blow.
And I’d drain him until he was too weak to continue.
It was a dance we’d both mastered. Unfortunately, that meant it wasn’t pushing either of us hard enough to
advance. There was no way we’d reach the next level of core mastery by doing the same thing over and over. It was time to mix things up.
“How’s Tru doing?” I asked nonchalantly.
Eric blinked and the tip of his sword wobbled a bit as he advanced toward me. He hadn’t expected me to start a conversation about his not-a-girlfriend. “She’s okay. Not happy with you, to be honest.”
That’s about what I’d expected. Tru was still joining us for lunch and dinner, when I could spare the time to eat. She was friendly enough, but there was a cold, calculating glint in her eyes when she looked at me. That told me she wasn’t thrilled with the agreement we’d made. I imagined she really, really wanted to run back to Shambala with the news that I was trying to fix the seers. Which brought to mind another question.
“You guys talk about me, do you?” I tried to keep the tone light, but I really wanted to know what they talked about when I wasn’t around to keep him from spilling the beans. “Probably feel insecure about how much more handsome I am than you.”
The tip of Eric’s fusion blade rose into attack position and his eyes darkened. His strike was blisteringly fast, but not as fast as my serpents. A pair of them manifested to intercept the attack and twist the blade to the side.
“Nice parry,” he said, gliding back out of striking range. “You’re dreaming if you think you’re prettier than me.”
“Pretty?” I scoffed. “You still have that scar.”
“It accentuates my rugged handsomeness,” he countered. “And, no, I haven’t told Tru about... you know.”
“Thanks,” I said, sincerely. Then, to make sure Eric didn’t get a big head about my gratitude, I pressed him with a series of snapping thrusts from my serpents. They clicked and whirred through the air, folding and unfolding like the front legs of a praying mantis.
Eric’s blade seemed to move of its own volition to protect him. The shimmering blade rang as he deflected my attacks with one lightning-swift parry after another. The exchange went on for what felt like minutes but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. When we broke from the clash, we were both bathed in sweat. Our footwork had churned up the earth inside the sparring ring so badly it looked like a herd of pigs had been rooting in it.