Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
Eirabella
We walk off the arena and into a small, lit chamber. The moment we step inside, it’s as if the air itself changes. Gone is the ever-present hum of magic, my connection to the essences—severed.
I reach out instinctively, trying to summon a drop of moisture from the air. Nothing. My heart beats a little faster. It’s disorienting, like losing a part of myself, and for a moment, panic claws at the edges of my thoughts. But then I breathe in slowly, steadying myself. This isn’t an ordinary test. This is meant to challenge something deeper than magic.
I glance at Selene, expecting to see some reaction from her, but she just paces, arms crossed, glaring at the glowing symbols etched into the walls. She doesn’t even look at me. I can tell she’s rattled, even if she won’t admit it. I know the feeling—being cut off from magic is like losing a sense you didn’t know you relied on.
For a few long moments, I stand still, trying to understand what’s happening. The symbols on the walls glow faintly, pulsing with a quiet energy that’s nothing like the wild, chaotic power of the earlier tests. This is different. There’s no imminent danger, no physical threat.
Selene’s pacing quickens, her frustration mounting. “This is ridiculous!” she spits, finally stopping to glare at the room. “We’re supposed to be testing our powers, not… whatever this is.” She waves her hand dismissively at the puzzle. Her voice rises in anger. “It’s unfair!”
I almost laugh. She still thinks this trial can be won with brute force, but I know better. This challenge is about something else. Something she hasn’t even picked up on yet. Something right up my alley.
I step toward the pedestal in the centre of the room. Five stone tablets are lined up, each etched with a crest—crests I’ve seen before. And along the wall, five empty clots. I run my fingers over the first tablet and feel a memory tug at the edges of my mind. These are the crests of the first five kings of the kingdom, the rulers who built the foundation of everything we know.
I remember walking with Rylan through the capital, his voice soft and sure as he pointed out the gates, etched with the story of the five kings. We’d talked about it for hours—how each king embodied one of the kingdom’s core values. He had been so passionate, so proud of the history. That day, we’d each chosen which value meant the most to us. For Rylan, it had been courage. And for me... it had been hope.
I brush my fingers over the first tablet, the one bearing the crest of the first king—the king who embodied courage. The words from the poem come back to me.
“Courage led the first of kin, with steady hand, they sought the light.”
Rylan had admired that king the most, the way he had charged into battle, fearless and strong. It had been easy for Rylan to choose courage as his guiding value.
I lift the tablet and place it into the first slot on the wall. The walls around me pulse with light, confirming I’ve made the right choice.
I move to another tablet, the one representing wisdom. Rylan had told me about this king—the strategist, the one who guided the kingdom through its hardest times with his intellect, never rushing into battle, but always thinking ahead.
“Wisdom was the second key, to shape their fate and set them free.”
I press the second tablet into place, the light growing stronger as I remember Rylan’s words. He had always admired the balance between strength and wisdom, but for him, courage still came first.
The third crest belongs to the king who built the kingdom’s strength through sheer force of will. This was the king who stood against overwhelming odds, his strength both physical and moral.
“Strength was earned with sweat and bone, the mighty arm to guard the throne.”
I place the third crest in its slot, and the air seems to hum around me.
The fourth king was the one who brought unity, the king who had pulled together the warring factions and forged the alliances. He didn’t rely on the might of his army, but on his ability to unite people, to forge bonds where there had been division.
“Unity became their call, to build a land where none would fall.”
I place the tablet into the fourth slot, the wall’s glow intensifying .
Finally, I reach the fifth crest—the king of hope. This had been the one I connected with most. Rylan and I had laughed about it later, how my heart had chosen hope, the quiet belief that no matter how dark things became, there was always a way forward.
“Hope was the final, brightest flame, a light that bore the kingdom’s name.”
I hold the tablet for a moment, remembering how Rylan had smiled at me that day, the warmth in his eyes as we stood by the gates. He’d teased me for being too idealistic, but I hadn’t minded. Hope had always been my guide; even now.
I place the final crest into its slot, and the room trembles. The stone walls around me shudder, the symbols flaring with brilliant light as the doorway ahead opens. I’ve done it. The puzzle is solved.
Selene’s face tightens with surprise, and she storms past me, pushing first through the newly revealed tunnel. But I don’t care. This victory is mine . I solved this, and it wasn’t because of magic—it was because I cared enough to learn the kingdom’s history, to understand its heart.
I follow Selene into the tunnel, my heart steady and my mind sharp.
Whatever comes next, I’m ready.
The moment I step out of the chamber, the temperature drops again, and a hundred metres of flat, glistening ice stretches out before me like a frozen ocean. The air feels sharp in my lungs, my breath misting in the cold. My connection to my Strength, to water and ice surges back, the cold seeping into my veins as magic floods through me.
This is it—the final test.
And there, waiting for me on the battleground, is Selene.
Her eyes lock onto mine, narrowed with determination and fury. There’s no room for hesitation now, no more alliances, no more recitation of history.
This is the fight we’ve both been building to, the one that will decide everything. It’s about who can outlast, outthink, and outfight the other. The stakes have never been higher.
Winner takes all.
Selene moves first, summoning an ice board beneath her feet and glides forward with alarming speed. Her magic crackles in the air, sharp and focused. She’s already attacking me fast, launching ice spikes toward my path. Her intent is clear—overwhelm me quickly, give me no chance to recover.
But I won’t be taken down that easily.
I throw my hands out, summoning a towering wave of water from the moisture around us. The icy crest rises above me, and I leap onto it, riding the surge forward. The water roars beneath my feet, pushing me forward away from her attack, but she’s already adjusting. Her ice spikes shoot up from the ground, deadly sharp, forcing me to swerve to avoid being impaled. I twist, barely dodging her, each movement straining my already exhausted muscles.
She’s relentless, faster than I anticipated this far into our trial. As I dodge, she hurls a spear of ice directly at me. I summon a shield of water just in time, freezing it into a barrier. The impact rattles through me, but I hold firm. Her smirk shows she thinks she has the upper hand.
Let her think that.
I retaliate, summoning a blast of freezing water aimed straight at her. The torrent hits her side, knocking her off her board for a moment, but she recovers quickly. She twists mid-air, gliding smoothly across the ice as if it’s second nature. She’s good. So I’ll just be better.
The distance between us closes, and the battle intensifies. Every breath feels like fire in my lungs, the cold biting at my skin. My legs burn with the effort of keeping pace, but I can’t stop. Not now. Not when everything is on the line.
The ice beneath me cracks as she sends a tremor through the ground, trying to throw me off balance. I stumble but manage to stay upright, my body aching from keeping my core balanced. I summon a shield to block her next attack, but the moment I do, I feel the sting of cold as one of her daggers grazes my arm. Blood wells up, staining the snow beneath me.
I focus, pulling all the moisture I can from the air, shaping it into a massive mist cloud. I slam it forward, aiming directly at her. Selene’s eyes widen for a split second just before it engulfs her, hindering her visibility, she starts spinning erratically on the ice, before the mist quickly condenses into hailstones that she pelts toward me.
With a clasp of my hand, I gather them into a huge snowball that I have barreling towards her.
She dodges it with a laugh. Fuck she’s fast. I need to slow her down.
From wisdom, power.
Rylan’s voice echoes in my mind, and I remember—this isn’t just about pure strength. I need to be smarter.
And then I know what to do.
Envisioning the brake tracks at the bottom of the sledding hill in Larilea, I throw my hands forward, pulling at the ground in front of Selene to raise into a million little bumps, the friction stopping her easy glide over the ice.
She screams out of sheer frustration as her board comes to a stop, and then, forgetting to move forward, instead lunges at me, a conjured blade aimed at my chest. I dodge, feinting to the side, and for a brief moment, I see it—the way she’s favouring her left, the injury from the Frostfang fight still slowing her down. She’s hiding it well, but not well enough.
That’s her weakness .
I dive under her next strike, feinting left again, making her overextend her injured right hip. She grits her teeth, her frustration mounting as she swings wildly. I duck under her blade and summon a wave of freezing water, slamming it directly into her side.
Her cry of pain is only satisfying in that I know my aim was true. Grabbing her waist, she stumbles back a few steps as the ice beneath her cracks. Panic flares in her eyes. She knows she’s losing control.
I press the attack, using every ounce of strength I have left. My body screams in protest, but I can’t stop now. I hurl another wave at her, aiming low this time, freezing the ice beneath her feet. She tries to summon more power, but her movements are slower now, her left side still weak.
She swings again, but her blade is sluggish, and I dodge easily. I send another blast of freezing water at her legs, and the ice rises to trap her. She’s stuck, unable to move.
She thrashes, but only her upper body flails. Her magic flickers, weaker and weaker, and she lets out another frustrated scream as she realises she’s been outplayed.
But she’s not done.
Selene’s gaze turns cold, calculating, and before I fully process it, I feel the ice shift beneath me, the faint shimmer I’d noticed too late crystallising into a deadly trap. The ground beneath me splits with a harsh, echoing crack, and a ring of ice collapses around me, the floor dropping out from under my feet. I gasp, reaching for anything solid, but I’m falling, a strangled cry caught in my throat as I plunge into the frigid darkness below.
The icy water engulfs me.
The freezing depths steal the breath from my lungs. The cold is all-consuming, wrapping around me, sapping my energy and draining the last of my magic. My limbs go numb, my body sinking deeper into the abyss, and when I look up, I see it—the faint shimmer of light through the ice above, quickly dimming as Selene seals the gap I fell through. She’s trapping me down here, cutting off my only route back to the surface, leaving me to drown.
My heart races, panic clawing at me, my heartbeat so hard it ripples the water around me. It’s the most surreal sensation to feel like I’m in this wide open space, but to feel trapped by the billions and billions of water molecules around me, moulding to my body, and… they’re squeezing me.
Reaching out with my hands and magic, I will my legs to kick, to take me back to the surface. But the more I try, the more the memories surge—Samfer’s cold, callous smile each time as he shoved me into the wardrobe, locking me in that tiny, suffocating space over and over, testing me, taunting me, cutting me, thrashing me, trying to force my magic to appear. All in the name of my own safety. The sting of his laughter, the taunts, the cruelty.
No.
No!
My eyes spring open, burning in the bitterness of the impossibly cold water.
Not this fucking time, I think, my fear hardening into anger, into defiance that blazes through my veins. Not ever again.
Fuck you, Selene.
Fuck you, fear.
And fuck you, fucking Samfer!
I refuse to die here, in the water, in my own essence. I wield this magic, not the other way around.
And from this moment I will take back my power, and return my fear to the depths of Morath’s hell where it came from.
Fingers twitching, I reach down into the depths of my magic, deeper than I’ve ever gone before, and something within me snaps free—a wellspring of power I didn’t know existed, fierce and unyielding, raw and unstoppable. My anger fuels it, flaring brighter, hotter, until I feel the magic surge through me like fire, like an unbreakable tide.
I will be forever fierce.
I will be forever fearless.
And I will be, forever, fucking, free!
With every ounce of strength I have left, I pull on that power, the water around me stirring, responding to my call, churning into a relentless current beneath me. I channel it, focus it, commanding it to carry me up, up, up—and with a cry, I surge upward, the water roaring in a column beneath me, lifting me with unstoppable force.
The ice above shatters as I break through, shards scattering around me as I burst from the dark, soaring into the air, a pillar of water propelling me forward. I land back on the icy surface, gasping, the world around me coming into sharp, vivid clarity.
Gasping for breath, I scramble to my feet, the crackle of power igniting between my fingertips.
Thank you, Morath, I whisper my gratitude to the god as I shake my head, clearing my vision to see Selene standing a few paces away, staring at me in shock.
But her shock quickly turns to fear as she stumbles backward, the very ice she stood on now splintering beneath her weight. The ground gives way, the cracks spider-webbing outward, and before she can react, she’s falling, her scream echoing as she plunges into the dark water below.
For a heartbeat, I stand frozen, watching her disappear. It would be easy—so easy—to let her fall, to walk away, to finish the race and win. But something within me rebels, an instinct so fierce it drowns out every thought of revenge or victory. I reach out, summoning the water around her, wrapping it in a safe current, and with a steady pull, I guide her back to the surface. Grabbing the back of her armour, I drag her to the surface, turning her to the side as she splutters out a lungful of water.
Selene’s eyes meet mine, wide with shock, her face pale and confused. “Why?” she whispers, her voice raw and broken.
I hold her gaze, feeling the truth settle within me, solid and unshakable. “Because my promise to protect people doesn’t only kick in after I take the Keeper’s oath.”
She stares at me, speechless, her body limp on the ice, the weight of my words sinking in. Leaving her, I turn, every part of me aching with exhaustion but my spirit blazing with resolve. I don’t look back as I cross the final stretch, closing the distance between me and the finish line, each metre filling me with new strength. And as I finally take the final step over it, a surge of triumph floods me, filling every corner of my being.
The crowd erupts into cheers, the sound echoing through the chamber, but for a brief moment, all I can hear is the rush of my heartbeat, the beat of triumph that thrums through my veins. I look up, catching Rylan’s proud, steady gaze from across the field, and a fierce smile breaks across my face.
And in that moment I know…
I’ve won.