Chapter 36 #2
The thought made something hot and ugly twist behind my ribs.
I released my attack spell.
It left my hands with the force of a crossbow bolt, channeled through the banner’s spell-threads and aimed directly at the merchant boy’s barrier.
For an instant, everything worked exactly as I intended. The spell traveled through the air between the banners, amber-green and deadly, gathering speed as it went.
Then I felt something coil around it.
And pull it back.
My spell reversed course with the sickening inevitability of a wave meeting a seawall.
Power surged back into the standard with a force that nearly tore the pole from my grip.
The spell-threads brightened to a searing, painful blue-white that made spots dance across my vision. The pole shuddered against the stone floor, nearly knocking Damien and me off our feet.
It still wasn’t releasing any of its stored energy. Instead, it was drawing my spell back into itself and drinking it down thirstily, adding it to the reservoir of power already straining at the enchantment’s limits.
“Lukhan.” Damien’s voice came from very far away. His fingers dug into my shoulders hard enough to bruise. “Stop. Release the spell. Pull away. Now!”
I wanted to. I tried. But the banner had me.
Its spell-threads had wound around my magic with the tenacity of a drowning man’s grip, and it was pulling—hard, relentless, drawing power from my body.
The arena’s wards dimmed further. The protective spells lining the curved walls, designed to contain combat magic and shield the spectators from stray effects, flickered and guttered like candles in a draft. Their blue glow faded to a sick, pulsing violet, then to something closer to gray.
Someone must’ve tampered with our banner.
The realization landed in my chest like a dagger between the ribs. For a banner to fail this catastrophically, to draw power without releasing it, to pull from the arena’s wards themselves… there was no other option.
But who?
Miss Fishwife?
No. She didn’t have the access, the knowledge, or the ruthlessness.
The merchant boy? Possibly clever enough, but again—access. These banners had been under guard since they arrived at the academy yesterday. Only the mage-instructors and designated officials had been anywhere near them.
Which meant the sabotage had come from inside. From someone with authority. From someone who wanted—
What? Me humiliated? Me defeated? Or something worse?
Father had been in exile for years, but he still had enemies from his days on the Imperial Council.
Or is this personal? Does someone want me dead or injured for my own sake?
The banner shuddered again. Harder this time. A crack appeared in the wooden pole just below my grip—a hairline fracture that raced upward, marring the polished surface with a sound like ice breaking on a winter pond.
“Luk!” Damien’s voice had changed.
His usual measured calm was gone, replaced by something I had never heard from him before.
Panic.
“If our banner ruptures with this much power inside it—”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.
I’d heard about what happened when a military-grade enchantment failed under load.
Father had told me about the Northern Fae Campaign, where a battle-standard had ruptured during a naval battle against a Fae fleet.
The resulting discharge had destroyed an imperial frigate and killed two hundred and thirty sailors and marines.
We were currently trapped in an enclosed amphitheater with three thousand spectators. If the banner ruptured… I didn’t want to think about it.
The banner’s spell-thread vibrated at a frequency that made my teeth ache as it fed from me, from Damien, and from the wards. I felt a painful pressure behind my eyes, and a buzzing, burning sensation that traveled through my skull and settled at the base of my spine.
The crack in the pole widened. Splinters lifted from the wood, hovering in the disturbed air around the standard like iron filings around a magnet.
I tried again to let go of it. My hands still wouldn’t obey. The banner continued to hold my body captive and devour my magic with relentless hunger.
“I can’t—it won’t let me—” Damien’s hands still gripped my shoulders. I realized he, too, was being held captive by the malignant length of enchanted cloth straining above us.
Now it was pulling harder, drawing from the failing wards, from the very stone of the arena floor, from everything within reach.
Miss Fishwife was shouting something. Her voice came to me distorted, as if through water. Her words blurred into a single, desperate noise.
Ferraro’s eyes were fixed on our standard with an expression of dawning horror.
He understood. They both did.
The herald’s voice cut through the noise, magically amplified, desperate. “Lord Lukhan, Mr. Corvellan, cease charging your banner!”
The surrounding air warped visibly, light bending around the distortion like water around a stone.
The crack in the pole split wide open. Power poured from the fracture—not the controlled, purposeful glow of a working enchantment, but something wild and chaotic and blindingly bright.
I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t close off my powers. I couldn’t do anything but stand there with my hands locked around a splintering length of wood while three thousand people watched avidly from the tiers of marble benches rising all around us.
The only thought in my head, the only coherent thing left in the screaming chaos of my mind, was: This thing is going to kill us all.