by Tom Early
Tyler smiled at me. “Do you think my presence at the next ritual would help, then? Maybe I could help give you the lead in the whole possession fight by being there.”
“I like that idea,” I said, leaning into him. “It definitely can’t hurt.”
“Then I’m doing it. Let’s face it, I kind of suck as a normal familiar,” he said and held up a hand when I tried to protest. “You know it’s true.”
“It is,” Sam said, blunt as ever. “Not arguing that you two are adorable together, but you really are just plain awful at fighting. I’m like this close to declaring you a hopeless case.”
“Thanks,” Tyler said dryly and then turned back to me. “Anyway. This might be something I really can make a difference by doing. I’ll be there for the next one, I promise.”
“Well, we’ve got a month before that one comes around,” I said. “In the meantime, I’m supposed to familiarize myself with Winter’s memories as much as I can, so I can keep their self separate from my own in the next ritual. I guess I finally have something to do with the time I’ve got from skipping the Arena stuff. I’m going to write it all down and do some actual work on it.” I gave them a little half smile. “It’s amazing how much staying alive works as a motivational tool.”
“Soccer season’s almost over anyway,” Tyler said, smiling at me. “I’ll keep you company as much as I can.”
“I will—” Sam paused. “—provide motivational support from a distance,” she finished. “Because I’m terrible with most kinds of research and, unlike you two, actually have the Arena to worry about. Speaking of which. I have a match this Saturday. You’re coming.” She glanced at Tyler. “You too, if you’re free. This is the one that determines if I make it in the top three for the semester.”
“I’ll be there,” I promised.
Chapter Twenty-two
AS IT turned out, the top-level matches for the Arena were apparently a big deal. Not only was the Arena packed on the day Sam and the other finalists were fighting, it was packed with more than just students. There were more than a few adults in the crowd as well, layered up in the cold, wearing pins and ties and other things that declared their allegiance to one of the Families or to Avalon. The Chironians were pretty easy to spot as well, given that they didn’t look human, and the Arena had a special seating section for those individuals with physiologies not suited to sitting in the marble stands. I was sitting up in the corner section with Tyler, crammed in with a bunch of upperclassmen and a few bundled-up people who looked too old to be students. It was freezing out, and Tyler and I were getting more than a few curious stares, as both of us were relaxing in shorts and T-shirts. I felt more comfortable in the cold than anything else, and Tyler apparently shared that trait as my familiar now. The silvery lines my scars had left behind were on display as well, but I didn’t care so much anymore. The more time I spent going over Winter’s memories, the more in control I actually felt of what was happening. The scars were proof that I’d survived so far and would continue to do so. I didn’t need to be ashamed of them now.
There were three matches scheduled for the day, to confirm the top three leaders of the First-Year Arena. Aiden had likened it to a recruitment event—representatives of the Families and other big-name groups would be watching to see the potential the students held and take note. Even if you lost the match, getting this far was enough to garner you some attention. But if you won, well, you’d probably have your pick of internships, at the very least, and probably get a great job right out of university when your time was done. Considering Sam wanted to go into the police business, showing her battle prowess here was about as great an opportunity as she could hope for. But her match was the last of the three, so she had to wait.
I still wasn’t completely sure how the ranking worked, but it was apparently a mixture of the win/loss ratio and your individual performance in each one. For example, both Sam and Sofia had won all of their matches so far, but Sam was ranked a little higher currently because of the aptitude she’d displayed during the matches. Sofia wasn’t happy about it, from what I’d heard, but the difference was slim enough that she could still end up ahead of Sam if she won her match spectacularly. Only two members of each House were fighting today, the top two of each one. Septimus had ended up taking third for Obsidian, but he seemed content enough with that result. Sofia was fighting Jace, the raven-haired boy in Sol who had fought with the boy in full armor during the Trials. I remembered his talent with magic, and he was in some of my Infusion classes. I wasn’t sure who would win that one. The other Sol challenger, a boy named Tristan, was facing off against none other than Kaede, Aria’s partner during the Trials. She looked just as striking and scary as the last time I’d seen her, currently fastening the straps on her custom-made armor around her serpentine lower half. Sam, meanwhile, was up against a dryad named Merody, who apparently was skyrocketing through the ranks of Elemental users for her complete control of the Arena. The last time I’d seen a dryad fight was during the Trials, and the living forest she’d conjured had been intimidating, to say the least. I wondered if Sam would be able to handle something like that without my help.
The buzz of excitement that filled the Arena quieted down when Speaker Sekhmene made her entrance.
“As you all know,” she began, “these are the matches that determine the final rankings of the semester for the first-year students. Those of you in the audience, I ask you to pay special attention to the efforts of the fighters to succeed—if your ranking is lower than theirs, this is a learning experience for you. If you are a guest at Janus University attending for recruitment purposes, please remember to be respectful during the matches and give the students the attention they deserve. Now, without further ado, would Sofia Ombra and Jace Calvin please enter the Arena?”
Sofia was dressed in midnight-black leather armor, complete with a cape and everything. She had what looked like a rapier belted at her waist, and I wondered if she actually knew how to use it. The tiny smirk playing across her mouth made me think she probably did. Jace was in the same hooded robes he’d been wearing during the Trials, his eyes already that brilliant gold as he held a gnarled oaken staff in one hand. Where Sofia looked completely confident and at ease, Jace looked determined, though the tips of his ears were slightly red. I suspected that was because of his big, armored boyfriend, who was currently cheering him on from the sidelines, complete with paint and a sign that proclaimed “Jace is the best!”
“Think Sam would appreciate a sign like that?” Tyler nudged me.
“I think she’d be torn between flipping us off and laughing. But it’d also distract her, so let’s not and therefore avoid getting punched later.”
“Are both fighters ready?” Sekhmene called out. Sofia gave a lazy tilt of her head and smirked, and Jace nodded firmly. “Then begin!”
Sofia spread her arms in a showboating gesture, and tendrils of darkness poured off her body, spilling out into the Arena and absorbing all light into them. As her form became hazy and indistinct, Sofia blew Jace a kiss and vanished altogether. Jace’s eyes flared, and he began to set up a Ward around him to keep the shadows back—I recognized the ripple in the air as he did so. It was definitely better than anything I could manage with air, so I was pretty sure I’d figured out what his affinity was. His golden eyes were searching the battlefield, but there was nothing but the sea of roiling shadows, which were beginning to encroach on his Ward. He summoned a fireball and set it dancing over his palm, and then blasted it into the shadows. While the brief flare of light did send them dancing back momentarily, the fire swiftly guttered out, and the shadows flowed ever closer.
I’d forgotten how scary the Ombra magic was when you didn’t have a way to defend against it. If Sam didn’t have her ercinee, Sofia would have beaten her with her eyes shut.
Still, Jace might not have been able to do much against the shadows, but the shadows also didn’t seem to be making much progress on his Ward either. He still had a bu
bble of unaffected earth for ten feet around him, and then I noticed something weird. The earth beneath Jace’s feet appeared to be… slanting. Yeah, there was no way I was imagining it. The earth behind him was definitely rising up, tilting the entire unaffected circle down, and now Jace was losing his balance. Sofia was actually moving the earth to force him to fall into the shadows.
Jace narrowed his eyes, and then the air around him warped and layered even more, sending up a spray of rubble as his Ward forced its way through the earth, forming a perfect sphere around him. The earth settled back into place immediately, having effectively been cut off from Sofia’s magic as it fell into the sphere’s boundary. Once the Ward was completely changed, Jace stood in the exact center, shut his eyes, and began to chant something that made the air shimmer with a haze of heat. I didn’t know what he was doing, but it sounded suspiciously like a summons, and a powerful one, at that. Whatever it was, it made the shadows around Jace’s Ward beat against it that much harder in an attempt to break through. There was still no sign of Sofia herself, though, and that made me curious.
Jace finished his incantation with a shout, and then the air above his Ward trembled as something forced its way through. The air tore in two as a goddamn fucking dragon spread its wings and roared. Its scales were a gleaming crimson, and it had to be at least twenty feet long with a wingspan of maybe twice that. It practically filled up the Arena on its own, and then it looked down, matched its golden, slit-pupiled gaze with Jace’s own, and let loose an inferno on the entire Arena, burning away the shadows in an instant with the overwhelming heat and light, neatly blocked by Jace’s Ward and hitting everywhere else. I had to shade my eyes from the spectacle—there was no way Sofia survived that. Except that when the dragon cut off its attack, there was only scorched earth, and there was a flash of red light inside Jace’s Ward as Sofia pressed the tip of her rapier against the center of his back. The dragon and the Ward disappeared in an instant, and Sofia was declared the victor as she smiled happily at the crowd, completely unharmed. It took me a moment to figure out what she’d done, but when I figured it out I had to give her credit.
The reason Sofia had disappeared was because she’d done the same thing she had during Sam’s Trial—she’d gone beneath the earth. The only difference was that this time, she’d kept up her veil of shadows so it’d be impossible to tell what she’d done. And when Jace had expanded his Ward underground as well, Sofia must have slipped inside it before it closed her off. She’d probably just waited underground until Jace was effectively blinded by his own spell, and then taken the opportunity to attack. I was impressed by the cleverness of it all, and judging by the murmuring from the crowd, I wasn’t the only one.
There was a brief intermission before the next match, in which Jace’s boyfriend appeared to go the route of excessive hugging to comfort him, while the other Sol students present were busy congratulating him for managing to summon a dragon. As far as I was concerned, that was more than enough reason for congratulations anyway. Sofia was busy holding court among her usual group of admirers, plus a few of the visitors who were probably offering her jobs or something. Not that she needed the offers—I’d seen where she lived. Tyler pulled a bag of peanut M&M’S out of his pocket and offered some to me, and we sat in silent company until the next match began.
Tristan, as it turned out, was something of an archer, though nothing like Emerus. As soon as the fight between him and Kaede began, he summoned an absolutely massive longbow out of nowhere, drawing an arrow of brilliant gold fire from thin air and nocking it. He was dressed in full armor, and nothing in his posture suggested that he intended to move from his spot. He launched his arrow with blinding speed, and Kaede slithered out of the way—only to get blasted sideways as the arrow exploded in a fiery burst in midair. She hissed at Tristan, who simply drew another arrow in response. Seconds later, Kaede’s hiss was answered by her familiar, a serpent almost as gigantic as the dragon Jace had summoned. It slithered toward Tristan, who in response whistled lightly, and a bit of the golden flame of his arrow promptly broke off and expanded, transforming into the slightly hazy outline of a woman made entirely of the golden fire. She planted a kiss on Tristan’s cheek and then stepped daintily out to meet the serpent with a blistering wall of fire.
Kaede drew her two curved swords and clashed them together, white light pouring over the blades and reinforcing them, then stretching out to encompass the rest of her body. The next arrow that Tristan sent flying at her, she sent spinning to the side with a quick slash from one of her blades. It exploded harmlessly away from her, and when she met with the wall of fire that had kept her serpent back, she continued straight on through. I was pretty sure that whatever spell she was using, it was Evocation. It didn’t feel like a Ward to me, like putting up a wall to block an attack. Kaede’s spell felt more like force meeting force and then overwhelming it. Whatever it was, though, it worked. The fire parted for her, and Tristan was about to have an angry serpent-woman right in front of him.
Except Tristan simply smiled, shrugged, and drew out a strangely humming, transparent arrow. He nocked it in the split second he had before Kaede reached him, twisted his feet slightly and sent the earth wrapping up his legs to stabilize him, and then launched the arrow at point-blank. The arrow didn’t explode in flames when it connected with Kaede’s sword—instead it released a burst of wind so powerful that it ruffled my hair, even through the barriers protecting the audience. Tristan managed to stay in place thanks to the reinforcements to his legs, but Kaede was blasted away, her entire body thrown into the air with the force of it, her balance lost. And for the half second Kaede was in the air, Tristan’s body blurred, like Sam’s did when she boosted her speed. Once his arms stopped blurring, five arrows had slammed into the exposed underside of Kaede’s tail, and red light poured out from her as she crashed back to the ground. Tristan also swayed with exhaustion from the spell, but his rocky leg supports kept him upright, and he waved to the cheering crowd. I had to hand it to him—I was pretty sure Tristan was an Elemental user, but the way he used his arrows had to be the most controlled way I’d seen anyone use Elemental magic so far. And clearly, having that kind of control paid off.
There was another shift in the crowd as Sam got ready for her match. A few of the visitors had left after Sofia’s match, while a few more had come in for Tristan’s. I guessed that they were probably taking into consideration that Sofia, Jace, and Tristan already had pretty strong affiliations with one of the major groups. But Kaede was Chironian, and from what I could tell they were big on sticking with their own. Sam, though, was unclaimed, and so the number of people that came in to watch her fight was pretty damn high. Even the far-up seats where Tyler and I were sitting filled up pretty fast. I had to scoot over for someone who clearly couldn’t handle the cold, as wrapped up as they were. Seriously, a hat and a scarf in forty-five-degree weather seemed like overkill.
Sam took to the field with her trademark battle face on, completely focused. I doubted she could hear the crowd at all. All of her attention was on Merody, who was a slender girl with green-tinged skin and a dress made piecemeal of the rune-covered leather needed for the Arena with patterns of flowers and leaves layered on top. She looked bright and happy to be there, but there was an undeniable air of power around her. Sam wasn’t going to have this easy.
“Are both sides ready?” They nodded. “Begin!”
Sam’s entire body blurred, and she sprang forward, charging Merody in a zigzag pattern at a speed my eyes could just barely follow, not giving the other girl enough time to even begin any spells. Every time she altered her path, there was a soft gleam by her feet, so quick that I could have imagined it, but given that it was Sam, I doubted that. By the time she reached Merody, she was moving so fast and all over the place that I had no idea which angle she was going to attack from. Judging by the way Merody was spinning, I wasn’t the only one. Finally Sam’s foot slammed into the center of Merody’s stomach, too fast for he
r to block, and she staggered back, one of her feet landing on one of the strangely gleaming spots Sam had left behind, all over the ground. Brilliantly glowing chains shot out of the ground, wrapping up her ankles and working their way up her legs, throwing her balance off even more. Merody raised her hand, and water funneled through the air. She moved her hand down to launch it at the chains and break herself loose, only to stop the movement halfway through as Sam blurred yet again, jabbing Merody’s forearm and leaving another gleaming chain behind, before blurring once more and doing the same to her other arm, then finished up by yanking both of the chains to the ground and securing them to another gleaming point. Merody was effectively shackled to the earth, unable to move. Sam stopped moving at her insane pace and appeared in front of her, panting.
“Had enough?” Sam said, grinning as the sweat trickled down her brow.
Merody opened her mouth in a screech, showing off her terrifyingly sharp teeth. The ground all around her trembled and grew darker as roots and leaves forced their way to the surface… only to be held back by a grid of glowing chains that I could have sworn wasn’t there a moment previously. Every gleaming spot Sam had left behind during her charge had housed a chain inside it, specifically to stop Merody from changing the battlefield as she pleased. The energy expenditure must have been enormous, judging by the scale of Sam’s efforts and the way she was currently swaying, but it was an excellent plan. She’d come a hell of a long way from charging in with Minor Orbs, that was for sure. And it was only our first semester.
“Whoops, sorry, that was a bit early,” Sam said, tapping her chin as Merody struggled in her bindings and her forest was kept underground. “Here’s the right moment.” She leaned a little closer to the enraged dryad. “Had enough?” Merody snarled something incomprehensible, the flowers in her hair turning a sickly red. Sam shrugged and carefully hit her on the side of the head with just enough force to send a red flare up into the sky.