Chapter Eleven #2
Julian did nothing to hide his scowl. Verena got stuck with Egan Odanis, a silver-ranked boy from the east islands.
Nareen flicked her wrist again and let the constellation dissolve.
“Looks like the Rift has taste,” she announced. “All pairings, report to your lanes. First up, Allencourt and Delvanir.”
The platform erupted into movement. Students scattered toward the preparation chambers, voices rising in a mix of anticipation and dread. Some were already strategizing aloud, others walking in tense silence.
Cassara didn't move immediately. She stood there, staring at the space where her name had hung beside his, trying to process what the Rift had just decided for her.
Behind her, she heard Julian's voice, low and irritated, talking to someone about his pairing. Verena swept past without a glance, her expression carefully neutral but her posture rigid.
Taking a deep breath, Cassara finally turned and headed for the prep chamber.
The narrow room was all stone and steel, lined with benches and equipment racks. A few other students were already gearing up, checking straps, testing their ACS synchronization.
Cassara sat on the edge of a bench, gauntlet straps half-tightened, the air around her charged with nerves and frustration. The Rift shimmered beyond the prep chamber walls, glowing like it could sense her heartbeat.
Across from her, Gideon was checking his codex in silence—calm, methodical and detached.
The Rift had sorted them out of a storm of rivalries and still decided he was the one she needed to face. Not Verena. Not Julian.
Him.
Cassara couldn’t decide if it was a curse or a challenge, but either way, it was too late to figure it out.
The warning bell sounded.
Cassara’s boots snapped against the pressure seal as the Rift’s entry gate opened. A rush of cool air hit her, scented with charged stone, forged metal, and the coppery tingle of old magic.
Across the mirrored divide, she saw Gideon stepping into motion, every inch of him fluid, composed, sharp as a drawn blade.
Let him be. Let him look perfect.
She was going to beat him anyway.
The first phase surged to life—a wide chamber littered with platforms, hanging chains, pivoting stone ledges, and elevated rune-points etched into the walls.
Cassara’s gaze snapped toward the nearest trigger rune, one of six, glowing faint gold. She needed three to open the gate. The moment she activated a rune, its twin would seal on Gideon’s side, locking him out of the easier options.
She ran.
The first jump was clean, off a rotating ledge and onto a suspended beam. She didn’t hesitate, springing to the right where the lowest rune hummed just within reach. She pressed her hand to the carved surface, mana surging from her rig’s core into the stone.
The rune flared.
A corresponding rune on Gideon’s side went dark.
Good.
Cassara pushed off before the beam twisted. Took a higher route, narrow stones rotating on invisible axles. She had to keep momentum. The second rune was wedged in a steep corner, above a narrow climb.
She scaled it with grit rather than grace, breath hissing between her teeth as the strain hit her ribs. One slip, one flare of pain, and she still made it. Palm to stone.
Two.
Below her, the stone shuddered. On the far side, she caught a glimpse of Gideon rerouting. He’d gone for the central pillar, only to find its rune dead.
He looked up at her, just for a second.
Their eyes met.
No words. No pause.
But something passed between them. A pulse of rivalry that seemed to say: you’re faster than I thought.
She dropped down to her third point and took the longer path to avoid the one she’d seen him eyeing at the start. If she got there first, she’d block it entirely.
Stone rumbled again.
A sharp white flash to her left.
Gideon had just triggered his second, cutting off the last remaining easy rune.
Cassara grinned. Perfect.
She swung from a chain, caught the edge of a high turning platform, dragged herself over the lip just as the last viable rune came into view.
It was high and almost out of reach.
No time to question it.
She leapt and hit the wall, kicking off before catching a hanging rung. From it she swung and slammed her palm against the rune just as it pulsed gold.
Three.
A deep grinding sound filled the chamber.
Her gate began to open: carved metal sliding into stone. She dropped to the platform and ran toward it, sparing a glance over her shoulder.
Gideon was still moving, still calculating. He’d have to find one of the advanced runes hidden in the upper chamber, ones that required higher mana output or riskier acrobatics.
He’d be out soon, but she’d made damn sure he’d earn his place in the next round.
Taking advantage of the head start, Cassara burst through the gate into a new chamber—and nearly slipped right off the edge.
The floor beneath her shimmered with a thin sheet of ice.
Wider platforms rose ahead like broken glacier shelves, layered with frost and pulsing with subtle arcane glow. Streams of freezing water rushed between them, fast-moving, narrow channels churning with mana currents.
High above, wind glyphs spun lazily, decorative at first glance, until a gust hit her from the left, trying to unbalance her mid-step.
This wasn't just a path, it was a storm.
Another gust struck, stronger this time, causing her to stagger, the soles of her boots fighting for purchase. She went down on one knee, palm slapping against the frozen surface to keep from toppling over entirely.
Her ribs screamed in protest but she ignored them, pushing herself back to her feet and leaping to the next platform.
She slid half a step, then used a low crouch and momentum to ride the slick surface to the edge before springing onto a jagged ledge.
The ice snapped underfoot but didn't give entirely.
Another gust struck. She ducked, braced—
Splash.
From somewhere behind her, water surged and a body hit the course hard.
Gideon had crossed the threshold.
She didn’t look back. Instead, she scaled a narrow ledge slick with frost, each grip burning with cold.
The rune markings in the ice gave her just enough foothold to keep climbing.
At the top: a fire glyph flaring intermittently.
If she passed beneath it during a flare, it would strike the platform with a burst of heat that would melt the path and her rig.
Cassara paused, watching the rhythm.
One… two… flare.
One… two…
She moved. Slid under the arch as it dimmed, boots skating over melting frost just before the glyph erupted again in a hiss of steam behind her.
A shadow passed overhead prompting her to look up.
Gideon had taken the high path, leaping a wind-carved ledge above her. His coat flared behind him like a banner, his landing almost silent as he moved from icy outcrop to icy outcrop, choosing elevation over balance.
Smart, but risky.
The higher platforms twisted in a slow spiral, forcing him to take more steps and follow a less direct route.
Cassara kept to the low road, watched the patterns, and calculated the pulses of the glyphs.
Fire. Wind. Water. Ice.
It was like dancing across an elemental heartbeat. She slipped twice. Swore once. But she moved, and the path unfolded beneath her in a rhythm of risk and momentum.
She was nearing the final jump, the exit ledge carved into a frozen slope with barely an edge to land on.
One shot.
Cassara built speed across the slick, uneven frost, her breath ragged, legs aching with every push, ribs howling.
Her boots struck the final ridge, a jagged, rune-scored ledge barely wide enough to count as footing, and she launched.
It was a perfect leap, timed between the shifting gusts of wind glyphs spinning overhead.
Almost.
A sudden gust struck mid-air, stronger than any before it, slamming into her like a wall. Her trajectory veered. Her balance shifted mid-flight, and her hip slammed hard against the lip of the next platform. The pain was instant and blinding, a white-hot flare beneath already-bruised ribs.
She hit the ice and skidded, breath wrenched from her lungs in a sharp gasp.
For a moment, she hovered at the edge, boots scrambling, fingers clawing across frost-slick stone as the platform shuddered beneath her weight. One slip and she’d be down in the chasm.
But she didn’t fall.
With a growl of effort, Cassara hauled herself up, chest heaving. A rough cough tore from her throat as the cold hit her again, hard and sharp and merciless.
Behind her, the soft crunch of boots on ice.
Gideon landed cleanly on a higher ledge, his descent fluid and controlled. He dropped into a slide that arced down the slope, his timing perfect.
Cassara was already standing by the time he reached the same platform.
They were neck and neck now, just a few paces apart.
Their eyes locked across the frost-scarred stone. No words. No false politeness. Just breath, visible in the cold between them, and the weight of everything that hadn’t been said.
Both of them were marked, frostbite edging their gloves and sleeves, grit clinging to their boots, bruises blooming under armor. She was scraped and battered. He was flushed and wind-creased. They’d bled for this.
But they were both still standing.
The Rift shuddered around them as the next gate activated. Runes crawled across the archway behind them, burning gold.
Shared Arena Initiating.
Cassara tasted copper and lifted a trembling hand to her mouth. Blood came away on her glove. She must have bitten through her lip at some point and hadn't even noticed.
The gate hissed open to reveal a narrow ledge curling around the edge of a vast, open chamber.
She stepped toward it and froze.
Before her stretched a chasm lit by molten light. Floating stone discs hovered over a pit like scattered coins tossed by the gods. They glowed faintly, pulsing in strange, shifting rhythms.
There was no rhyme or reason, no pattern that Cassara could discern, and none of them were marked.