Chapter 14
The crowd roars from the stands – thousands of voices contributing to a deafening wave that makes the ancient stone vibrate beneath my feet.
I grip the observation rail as the platforms spread across the arena, each leader isolated on their own floating stone disc. The heat rises in waves I can see, distorting the air like looking through warped glass.
Zevran stands on a platform near the arena’s centre, his dark silhouette sharp against the glow.
Even from this distance, I can see the careful way he tests his footing, assessing escape routes and defensive positions.
The other leaders do the same: Lady Isolde moves with feline grace, testing her platform’s stability, her dark hair plastered to her head and neck.
Lord Castor prowls the edges of his disk, his massive frame seeming to steam in the heat, face flushed crimson.
Commander Kaelix stands steady, considering every option, their lighter build already showing signs of strain as they wipe their brow repeatedly.
“First trial is always about strength – last person standing,” murmurs a voice beside me.
I turn to see Commander Nael, stripped down to minimal layers despite being in the observation deck. His copper skin gleams with perspiration from the heat already radiating up from the arena floor.
“Commander Nael.” Relief floods through me at the familiar face. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He nods, his expression grim. “I trust you have been helpful to His Grace in preparing for this.” He gestures toward the arena below.
“Each trial is coordinated by the Cardinals, and sometimes they decide to brief the Houses at the very last minute. Sometimes they even televise Conclave events for all the kingdoms to watch. This one…” He pauses, and I can see the concern in his eyes. “This one demands a live audience.”
An aide standing on my other side leans in to chat with the advisor from House Saturn, his insignia on his collar.
“The weapons are standardized,” I overhear him say, voice low.
“Same alloy, same weight. No House technology allowed, no stabilizers, no amplification devices.” He pauses, watching the platforms begin their slow rotation. “Violators are disqualified.”
I turn my attention back to the arena below as the stone islands slowly begin to move.
At first, it’s subtle – a gentle rotation, a slight tilt.
Then an orbit, picking up speed. The leaders adjust their stances, weapons appearing in hands as they realize this isn’t just about lasting the heat.
The platforms are going to force them together.
The roar of the crowd folds into the roar of the fire below. The air tastes metallic, like blood and ash.
Lady Nerida’s robes cling to her frame, soaked through, and she moves in slow, deliberate motions as though fighting through water.
Lord Evander has stripped off his outer layer entirely, revealing a lean, compact build that moves lightly despite the rivulets of sweat streaming down his face.
Lady Tavia’s skin glows with moisture, her breathing visible even from this distance – controlled, measured, fighting for every breath of superheated air.
Zevran stands on his platform, great sword outlined with a blue force field, held low and ready.
He’s positioned himself at the edge, where the platform’s rotation will bring him closer to the others.
His shirt is already dark with sweat, clinging to the planes of his back …
but his grip on the sword remains steady, his body used to holding his weapon in heat.
Lady Nerida raises her trident, her movements slower now, conserving energy against the oppressive heat.
She begins to sway her body like a current, and I watch as she conjures small waves of water around her feet, the faint outline of a glowing sigil on her chest peeking out from beneath her robes.
Lord Evander adjusts his grip on a compact mace, his chestnut and grey hair darkened with sweat and hanging limp.
Lady Isolde crouches with twin daggers, waiting, her breathing rapid and shallow as she fights to stay low where the air is marginally cooler.
Then the gravitational fields shift, pulling them toward the core one moment and threatening to fling them into the void the next.
Zevran drops into a crouch, sword planted point-down for balance as his platform dips nearly vertical.
Heat rises in visible waves around him, distorting his outline like he’s dissolving at the edges.
The crowd’s roar intensifies. Someone beside me, one of the Mercury aides, grips the railing hard enough that his knuckles go white.
Lady Isolde moves first. She leaps as her platform swings close to Lady Tavia’s, daggers flashing blue in the starlight.
I watch as Lady Tavia blocks with her staff, the impact sending electrical sparks across the gap between them.
They circle each other on the narrow surface, boots scraping for purchase as the stone beneath them begins to warp from the heat.
Both women are breathing hard now, their movements becoming slightly less precise, slightly slower.
Lady Isolde’s face is flushed dangerously red, and Lady Tavia’s hands shake as she adjusts her grip on her staff.
A platform fragment falls – not small, a piece the size of a door – and plummets into the core below. It flares bright enough to leave spots in my vision before dissolving into nothing.
The leaders fight like they’ve trained for this their entire lives.
Perhaps they have. Each strike is calculated, each movement compensating for the shifting gravity and the draining heat.
Commander Kaelix uses their flail’s reach to keep Lady Nerida at bay, but their movements are becoming erratic, desperate.
Sweat pours off them in sheets, and they’re blinking constantly against the sting of it.
Lady Nerida’s arms tremble with the weight of her trident, the spears on it crackling with electricity.
Lady Isolde and Lady Tavia continue to circle each other, both moving like they’re wading through sand, exhaustion written in every strained muscle.
And Zevran … he watches, letting the others expend their energy, biding his time.
But even he can’t escape the heat. His chest heaves with the effort of breathing superheated air, and he keeps shifting his weight, preventing the soles of his boots from melting to the stone.
When his platform swings close to Lord Castor’s, he doesn’t make a move.
I can see Lord Castor open his mouth to yell something, the massive man’s face an alarming shade of purple, his movements sluggish despite his obvious strength.
That’s when I notice it.
Lord Castor’s platform isn’t tilting like the others. While all of them struggle against the gravitational chaos, Lord Castor’s platform remains steady. Level.
I lean forward, squinting against the heat shimmer.
There … beneath his platform’s edge, barely visible against the Furnace’s glow. A ring of blue light, humming with a frequency I can feel in my teeth. An anchored thruster ring. Jupiter-made. The kind of stabilizer that costs more than most Houses make in a year.
My stomach drops.
“He’s cheating,” I say, but my voice is lost in the noise. I turn to Commander Nael and grip his arm to grab his attention. “Commander, look – Lord Castor has an illegal stabilizer. Beneath his platform.”
He follows my gaze, eyes narrowing. Then his face goes pale. “Stars preserve us.”
High above, in the Cardinals’ box, I see Cardinal Benedict surge to his feet, robes snapping. His voice cuts through the arena, distorted by the comms: “Security, stand by – Jupiter’s platform is showing unauthorized tech—”
But in that moment, all I can concentrate on is watching as Lord Castor reaches around himself to a hidden pocket.
The object he pulls out is small, maybe the size of his fist, but it catches the light wrong.
Even from here I can feel the temperature spike, the air suddenly even more thick and hard to breathe.
He’s holding a core shard – a fragment of a failed star-engine.
The kind outlawed on most planets after one vaporized an entire training fleet on Mars.
“NO!” The shout tears from my throat, but it’s already too late.
Lord Castor hurls the shard.
It doesn’t arc like a normal throw. It cuts through the air in a straight line, leaving a trail of white-hot afterburn. The temperature in the arena jumps ten degrees in a heartbeat. People in the lower stands scramble back from the railings.
The shard’s trajectory intersects with Mars’s platform.
With Zevran.
Time fractures.
I see him turn, see the moment he registers the threat. The impact explodes across his platform in a wash of light that turns the world white.
When my vision clears, Zevran is on his knees. His left arm hangs at the wrong angle. Blood streams from a gash across his ribs, smoking where the heat cauterized even as it cut.
The crowd’s roar turns to screams.
Zevran tries to stand. His leg buckles. He goes down hard, sword clattering away from his grip, and for one terrible moment I think he’s going to slide right off the platform’s edge.
My hands are on the railing, but I don’t remember moving. Below us, the observation deck barrier flickers – the core shard’s blast seeming to have scrambled half the arena’s safety fields. For one impossible heartbeat, the invisible wall becomes nothing but humming air.
“Miss Cyra, don’t—” Commander Nael grabs for my arm, but I’m already swinging my leg over.
The drop is several feet. I hit a stationary platform and my ankle gives with a white-hot spike of pain. I ignore it. The heat is immediate and overwhelming … it sears my lungs with every breath, makes my eyes stream, turns my skin tight and painful.
I run.
The platforms are still moving, still spinning their deadly orbit. I track Zevran’s position, calculate the rotation, and jump.
My fingers catch the platform’s edge. The stone burns – actually burns, leaving blisters across my palms – but I haul myself up anyway. My ankle screams. I don’t care.
I reach their platform just as Lord Castor winds up…
“Get away from him.”
My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It’s cold. Commanding. Filled with power I’ve never heard before.
Lord Castor turns, surprise flickering across his features. “Advisor, you’re violating—”
I grab his wrist.
The air ripples. The heat turns blinding. For a heartbeat, the whole arena seems to stop breathing.
Then something within me ignites.
The power that flows through me is nothing like healing.
This is solar fire, the fury of a star going supernova.
Pain erupts from my touch and pours into Lord Castor like molten metal through his veins.
He screams, convulses, tries to pull away, but my grip is iron.
Pain floods through him, through me, until I can’t tell whose voice is screaming.
Power courses through me in waves – not the gentle euphoria of healing, but more dangerous, more addictive. I’m blinded by pure ecstasy, sent into another dimension with ungodly pleasure.
On my chest, beneath my robes, a sun sigil blazes to life for the very first time. The fabric scorches, blackens, then falls away in ash. Golden light pours from my skin, and everyone in the arena can see the solar mark etched into my flesh.
This is his power … and this is his sun sigil. The Sun King’s brand – the same symbol burned into every history text and propaganda banner from before his fall. I recognize what’s happening only from stories – this is my father’s power, awakening after twenty-eight years of dormancy.
Lord Castor collapses, alive but writhing in agony.
I release him and turn to Zevran, switching powers with a thought.
Blood drips from my nose, hot and copper, as my vision halos white at the edges.
The moon sigil replaces the sun as healing magic flows into him, knitting his wounds and restoring the strength the arena’s heat has stolen.
His eyes flutter open, focusing on my face with recognition that fractures into something unreadable. Horror, yes. But something else too – grief.
Because now he knows who I am.
The arena has gone silent except for the crackling of artificial starfire. Every leader, every observer, every guard is staring at me with expressions ranging from shock to fury to fear.
Lady Isolde’s voice carries clearly across the platforms: “Cyra of the Sun Kingdom … daughter of the tyrant king…”
Suddenly, a voice booms across the arena. “This trial is hereby suspended until further notice.”
I watch as guards emerge from the sidelines. Emergency medics are dispatched to the platforms, a few head straight to Lord Castor and Zevran while I’m placed under arrest – not in chains, but with an escort of white-armoured guards that have made their way to the platform as well.
I catch one last glimpse of Zevran. He’s standing now, strength restored but eyes hard with betrayal.
I don’t resist as they take me away.