The three at my front were the true competition. If the four of us were lined up, I wouldn’t even reach the shortest man’s shoulder. Not to mention the sheer bulk on the center mage—he was at least the size of my brothers. His arms were as thick as my legs. I prayed to the gods my magic held out long enough so I wouldn’t have to find out how hard he hit.
Frankly, I prayed to the gods I made it out of this corner with any magic at all. It was all I could hope they ran out of magic first.
From the discreet glances they were shooting one another, I could tell they were reluctant to cast more magic as well. Probably because they knew they still had to fight one another after they finished with me. The man at the end took a step forward, and they traded another set of cautionary glances.
Then they charged.
I sucked air in through my teeth.
Every casting that crossed my mind would only reach two opponents at a time, but as a slight breeze drifted across the arena, my dilemma was solved.
A bit of dirt rose in the air, and my hand shot out in front of my face. I closed my eyes and called on my magic to join. Not only was sand an actual component to the arena—meaning it would cost me less magic to use—it was everywhere.
Then I pressed down on the arrow’s shaft at my leg.
Sharp needles of agony exploded across my thigh. Pain and magic tore at my will, two savage beasts clawing and grasping for control. It felt like a thousand knives gutting my mind at once.
I took a deep, rattling breath and shoved them back, slamming my vision into the ravaging chaos with everything I had. My hands were shaking and sweat was stinging my eyes, but I held on, bending the torment to my will. The darkness shuddered just once, and then suddenly all was quiet, an eerie sense of calm rushed out as my casting took hold.
A spinning funnel rose up from the ground. A plague of golden debris and wind, faster and faster, higher and higher, until it was a storm of its own.
I held my ground, heels digging into the earth, a couple strands of hair escaping their hold, and I watched my tempest give chase.
“She still has magic!”
“Get out of her range, Quaran!”
The others froze. No one wanted to get caught in a sandstorm that would blind them to their allies’ attacks. The two at my left started to flee, but the three at the front threw up a defensive sphere.
With the twist of my wrist, the particles slammed together and melded with ice, making my casting as solid as rock. Then I lobbed it at them. With every bit of concentration I had, I threw my granite wall, and then watched as their casting shattered like glass. The impact was so great it sent the three sprawling backward into the dirt.
Run-limping forward, I set my projection to break.
A raincloud of sand rushed down on their heads, giant swells of dirt blinding them while I cut our distance in half. Coughing and sputtering, they tried in vain to stand and draw up a new casting in time, but their magic was weak and they had more than one enemy to contend. By the time the haze had cleared, three hovering blades were pointed at their throats.
I paused, one hand outstretched, as I locked eyes on my three victims. The metal quivered but held.
Slowly, with white-hot anger burning in the cores of their eyes, one, two, three sets of arms rose in surrender, palms forward. They didn’t bother to speak the words.
I shot a quick glimpse to my left and saw the two remaining mages engaged in a bout of their own.
Now was my chance at escape.
I started toward the right, skirting the edge of the stadium. A moment later, a gut-wrenching cry rang out behind me. When I peeked back, the taller of the two was on the ground, blood pouring from his side as he whimpered the words for surrender. The other didn’t bother to bask in his victory, like me he was already limping away, sporting a burn that webbed up his arm and half his chest.
Two of our six still in play. I wondered how the others had fared in the rest of the arena.
It became my next objective to find out. I was hard-pressed to engage now that I was on my last bit of stamina, and my leg was almost unbearable the more I moved. Pain casting had been a smart decision at the time—I didn’t have enough regular magic left, but now my whole body was throbbing in agony just from the effort to stand. Walking—or limp-running—was even worse.
I took a deep breath and headed toward the center. I needed to get a better idea of how many were left.
Six. After five more minutes of wary approach, I counted five left, and me. And all of them seemed to be conserving their magic or hiding. Somewhere in the last fifty-minutes of fighting, we’d gone from nineteen to not even a third of our original total.
Five. That was all that stood between me and becoming the best second rank. Of all.
The sharp whistle of a throwing axe snatched my attention, and I chastised myself for the momentary distraction. I threw up a hand and let my magic loose, creating a shield not a second too soon. You know better, Ryiah.
One of the mages had drawn closer since the last time I looked, and he still had magic.
The man threw another axe, and I deflected it only to have the ground cave out right underneath my feet.
I struggled to catch my balance, but my injured leg roared in protest. It went down and the rest of me followed. My balance was off, and the slippery sand sent me flying on my back.
The mage took off at a run, and as I tried to haul myself up off the ground, he sent another rush of magic that slammed my head against the sand. My vision blurred and every part of me ached as I pushed up onto my elbows just as he closed in, magic casting an iron grip against my throat and another on my limbs.
“Surrender,” he said.
Clearly, the young man had been conserving his castings.
I pretended to mutter the words, squabbling gibberish that wasn’t hard to fake—not when I was choking.
He drew closer, cautiously, one casted dagger in hand.
A couple steps closer and then his russet eyes hardened. “Surrender, now. Or I put this blade into your ribs. I won’t ask you again. Raise your hands if you can’t speak.”
He released my arms from their invisible chains just far enough to lift. I could feel them vibrating softly. His magic was waning.
I bit down on my cheek until I tasted blood. My casting sent him careening to the sand a couple feet away. His magic lost its hold, and I shot up and lunged. Pain was just a distant memory as I threw myself at the mage, a knife in hand.
He scrambled to rise and call upon a magic of his own when I was seconds away, but nothing came. His whole face was white and pooling sweat by the time my blade was against his throat.
“Surrender.”
“I…” He coughed up blood, and I realized he was already bleeding heavily from a couple wounds at his sides. He’d had the good sense to bandage them with strips of his tunic and cover up underneath his mail, but now I could see why he’d been so desperate to use magic to keep me at bay. “I s-surrender.”
My knife vanished from my fist, and I withdrew, gingerly shifting my leg as I stood. It was then I noticed the arrow was gone. Huh? I ripped off the hems of my breeches and wrapped them around my leg as tight as I could. I’d barely made it two feet away before I saw two red-robed healers hurrying over to treat their newest victim.
There was another healer on the other side of the arena, half-carrying a different candidate—the one with the burns who was now bleeding heavily from his head. That explained why the arrow vanished—he no longer had strength to hold onto his casting, but it also meant pools of blood were now seeping through my makeshift bandages every moment I stayed in the arena. A good blow is not what usually kills an opponent—it’s a loss of blood. My stomach started to turn, and I looked away, breathing deeply through my nose.
Four of us left.
I could see the three others from where I stood. A tall mage with black braids, dark skin, and a limp was farthest away. A bit closer was a stocky man in a full set of chai
nmail and leg plates, even a helmet. He had to be sweltering about now. The two were eying each other, but so far had made no move to attack.
The closest was a young man one hundred yards away who was bleeding heavily in—well, I wasn’t sure where exactly; he was coated in sand and blood and clutching a wooden shield to his chest—the easiest defense, and also the weakest.
If no one else was going to lead the attacks, it was going to have to be me. Time to make it three.
The throwing daggers whizzed through the air faster than my breath.
One caught the bleeding man in the shoulder, the other in the leg. Magic sputtered in front of him—the makings of a blast of fire—but it extinguished before it crossed even half the distance between us. The mage crumbled, and I skirted forward, watching as he tried again, only to have the flames flicker and die at the tips of his fingers. He swore at me, raising his palms in surrender.
The other two met my eyes across the stadium as the announcer declared yet another candidate down. They’d started to inch closer during my attack. All of us knew victory was bare minutes away.
I waited, dragging heavy gasps of air in an effort to prepare. My lips were cracked, and sweat was pouring so hard and so fast that I had to keep wiping it away lest I go blind.
The wound in my leg? It ached worse than any injury I’d ever encountered during my apprenticeship, possibly even more than that dagger to the ribs during the battle as a fifth-year in Ferren. That had only lasted a couple minutes before I lost consciousness. This had lasted a half-hour and counting. All my movement had tugged and pulled at the skin so that my whole thigh was shiny red and tender at the slightest touch. I was quite sure, with my pain casting earlier, I’d scraped against bone. The pain was even worse because it was increasing every time I moved.
I thanked the gods my constant pain casting had increased my tolerance to bodily abuse.
When they got close enough to pause, the three of us made up a triangle, each an equal distance apart.
My gaze flicked to the limping mage first. His expression was fierce, and despite his limp, I knew he wasn’t out yet. The second man was still inscrutable and deadly. Now that we were on our last limbs of magic, he had the best defense with his armor because it didn’t cost him anything to keep it.
I swallowed. If the armored mage had lasted this long despite his lack of agility, then his magic had to be great, his stamina even greater.
My eyes flicked back and forth between the two, my fists ready to cast at the slightest attack. A movement caught my eye and my chin jerked ever so slightly to catch the limping mage’s wink. He did it one more time, and then I casually returned my stare to the armored mage, who was shifting from one foot to the next, no injury that I could see.
I prayed it wasn’t a trick. After all, it made sense. We could waste our magic battling each other, neither keeping enough to challenge the armored mage on our own. Or we could both take him on first, and then let the best mage win.
Please, please don’t let this be a trick.
Magic shot out of my palms at the same moment as the other. The armored mage threw up a sphere not a moment too soon, but cracks crept across, snaking trails of amethyst across his globe, and then the shield vanished and our castings sent him flying back against the sand.
The man struggled to rise, clunky mail making the stand difficult as twin bolts of ice shot at the two of us. One ball of fire from the black-haired mage deflected one as I sent up a gust of sand to overtake the second.
Back and forth our magic danced. After a couple quick bouts, the armored mage dug his blade into his flesh. There was a ricocheting boom that echoed across the arena as the black-haired mage and I collapsed to the ground, spheres up just in time before a hot wall of fire cut across the gap.
I held back another cry as the bandage cut into my thigh, and I clung to my casted shield with the last of my regular magic. The moment the wave passed, my shield fell and I pressed down on my wound, sending a set of three war hammers slamming against the armored mage’s chains. The black-haired mage set his magic with a mace, and our castings pounded into the armored mage’s flesh.
Chainmail might protect against sharp blades, but it did not prevent a blunt but powerful force.
The armored man roared a surrender after his next pain casting barely charged—dying before it even reached the air. His magic had run out, and he wasn’t in a position to outmatch two of us still with magic.
I barely heard the announcer declare his loss. My eyes had flown to the black-haired man and his to me.
And then there were two.
This was it. I was so, so close. Every bit of me cried out in pain as I pushed myself to stand; I could see he was struggling to do the same.
For a moment, neither of us moved. He cocked his head, studying me as I studied him. The mage was definitely older, but not quite thirty if my assessment was correct. He was slimmer than most, and if he’d survived this long, he had to be my equal in agility and strength. He was down to pain casting just like me—and neither of us was faring well. His skin was clammy and pale, and he shook just to stand. I could see blood seeping through his bandages, just as blood was streaking down my leg.
That didn’t stop him from casting, and it didn’t stop me.
WHAM!
Our castings collided. His ice melded with my sand, and I snorted as the cluster dropped like a pile of crumbled debris between us. Clearly we had our favorite moves.
He scooted closer and I followed suit. This time neither of us chose a casting until we were five yards apart. He knew his limits—well, so did I.
Another flare exploded out as this time I cast flying daggers and he arrows. Both of our castings fell as we threw up shields that crumbled the barest second after deflecting one another’s casting.
I couldn’t help but notice he’d been digging a finger into his wound as I had pressed down on mine. We were already at our pain casting’s limits. I bit down on my tongue as I added pressure, but a wave of sickness roared up in its place. I bowled over and the other mage seemed to mirror the movement across the way.
Our magic was gone.
I sucked in a deep breath and charged, every bit of me crying out as my fist feigned right and my leg swept at his feet. The man anticipated the move and caught my leg with both hands and pulled—causing me to stumble—before jerking back and throwing his weight forward so that I lost footing and fell to my back.
My hand shot out and grabbed onto one of his long braids. When I fell, the man came crashing down on top of me. The blow momentarily knocked the wind from my lungs, and then the two of us were rolling and struggling in the sand.
When he had my hands and legs pinned—he was a bit heavier—I wriggled with all my might. Before the mage could make his hips and chest parallel to mine, my fingernails clawed desperately at the sand. I managed a small wad and shut my eyes and mouth just as I lobbed it at his face. The granules barely reached—my aim was severely hampered by the positioning of my wrist—but just enough took flight to catch in his exhale. He started to sputter, and I thrust all my weight to the side, rolling with all my might until it was me on top of him.
I choked on my breath, holding him as my arms started to shake. With his weight, he had the clear advantage, and my arms were always my weakness.
He fought my grip violently.
No.
He’d win. He would outlast me in this, and then I’d be back on the ground, his victory at hand.
No. This couldn’t be it. Already I was losing hold, my muscles screaming out as the numbing pain in my leg echoed their call and begged me to quit.
NO.
I clung to my resolve and fought against every quivering fiber, refusing to let go of the victory so close at hand. The man shifted and squirmed, his eyes alight with a vigor I refused to accept.
My muscles contracted, and he flipped me back to the ground. One hand pinned my defenseless wrists, his other reaching for my throat.
“Surrender?”
“No.” I whimpered the word, and the man squeezed, hard. I choked as the pressure increased and pain lanced across my lungs. A searing heat ripped at my chest and my skin was afire, every single bit of me raging as he continued to press. My teeth chattered violently as I gasped for breath.
You came this far. No one ever expected you to win anyway.
“Surrender n—”
The shuddering halted as a sudden, biting pain seemed to claw its way right out of my flesh. A jarring flash and then the pressure on my throat was gone.
When the dizziness faded, I was able to push myself up with both fists and elbows digging into the ground for support. What I saw—it sucked the joy right out of my breath.
The other mage was sprawled out in the sand not two yards away. His limbs flailed up and down, eyelids fluttering and expression blank, as his lips flapped in some meaningless words. There was nothing natural to his bodily tremors.
Then I noticed the red marks on his palm, feathering down his arm like a snake. Master Byron had explained those symptoms before, though I’d never seen them in person: lightning.
The heavy vibrations, the pain, the heightened emotions.
I’d been wrong. I’d still had magic.
We weren’t so equal after all.
13
The mage survived. His name was Hadrian, I found out later. Lightning strikes, as the healers reminded me post-melee, hardly resulted in death if treated. My casting had only hit his palm. As far as injuries could go, it was quite possibly the best one he could get.
We spent the rest of the day being treated with the rest of the candidates in the local infirmary. Extra healers had been hired for the week of the Candidacy, so even though we had eighty-one injured, by the time Darren’s party arrived, every one of us were treated by no less than two healers a piece.
I was so tired that evening that I hardly remembered a thing, except that the prince had also won—not that I had ever expected anything less.
Before the sun had even finished making an attempt through the hazy morning sky, the final candidates were escorted to the special candidates’ box—a section of seats reserved for the five best ranks and the Three Colored Robes.
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