Chapter 42
Talisa
The crowd’s excitement ebbed as Domina-Regent Jacinthe took her seat in a gilded, throne-like chair at the front of the dignitaries’ box. The herald strode to the railing and raised his arms for silence.
“Today’s challenge is the Aurelian Crucible.
” He gestured toward the maze of stone corridors and floating platforms snaking across the arena floor.
“There are four stages. The first team to finish the course by completing all the obstacles and have one of its members claim the Aurelian Ring at the summit will be declared the victor.”
The wind howling through the course seemed to answer him, sending eerie harmonics through the stone corridors.
“Both teams will run the Crucible simultaneously. Any competitor who falls to the arena floor resets their team’s progress to the starting platform.
Teams may cast spells to overcome obstacles and to interfere with their opponents, provided no lethal intent is involved.
” His voice sharpened. “Attempting to kill an opponent is grounds for immediate disqualification and referral to the Imperial Office of Arcane Standards. Bypassing obstacles is grounds for an immediate reset to the beginning of the course.”
The herald turned toward the competitors’ bench. “I call upon the finalists to take their positions on the starting platform.”
Cresta rose first. She moved with languid grace, as if her gut wasn’t churning with nerves like mine. Her diamond hair-clips winked in her braids like hoarfrost. She glanced at the obstacle course, and her mouth curved in a smile that made my skin prickle.
Beside her, Bernardo rolled his shoulders and flexed his hands. I caught the gleam of a ruby ring on his index finger, something he hadn’t worn in previous matches. Confidence radiated from him in an almost-visible aura.
Elio’s hand found mine and squeezed it. “Ready to surprise everyone?”
“More than ready,” I replied, but my voice cracked on the last word.
We walked down to the arena floor side by side, the sound of our footsteps lost in the wind’s howl.
Cresta and Bernardo stepped onto their starting slab without hesitation.
Cresta stood with her weight on one hip, her hands already wreathed in the faint blue shimmer of a spell awaiting release.
Bernardo crouched, one palm pressed flat against the stone, his Earth magic already awake and humming through the platform beneath his feet.
I stepped onto the slab next to them and felt it shift under my weight. It warned me that nothing in this course would be stable. Elio followed, the hem and wide sleeves of his academic gown snapping in the wind. He reached for my hand again.
“Your share of tomorrow’s dessert says I beat you to the first platform,” he said, his amber eyes gleaming. I felt a subtle tremor from his fingers and knew he was as nervous as I felt.
Somehow, that made me feel better.
“And your share says you eat your words, because you’re not getting any dessert tomorrow,” I shot back, and the laugh he gave me was worth more than silver.
I saw Cresta roll her eyes and purse her lips in disgust.
The herald’s voice boomed: “Competitors, prepare yourselves.”
Elio and I squeezed each other’s hands, then let go.
Following Cresta’s lead, I muttered a spell beneath my breath and drew on the power of Air.
The starting bell rang.
Cresta moved before the sound of its peal had died away.
Air exploded around her in a thunderclap. Her spell launched her from the starting platform with such force that a plume of sand erupted twenty feet below. Her academic gown streamed behind her like a pair of dark wings as she flew toward the first obstacle of the Shattered Approach.
Elio and I dropped to our knees as the recoil from Cresta’s launch hammered across the platform. At the same instant, Bernardo dropped one hand onto the stone beneath his feet.
The starting platform groaned.
Stone flowed upward like molten rock in answer to his command, surging out over the arena in an arc before hardening into a narrow bridge scarcely wide enough for a footstep. Displaying an impeccable sense of balance, Bernardo sprinted across it after Cresta.
The instant his boots left the bridge, it crumbled away behind him. Chunks of stone floated in the air, reminding me of a different match.
Before the rest of the starting platform could disintegrate beneath our feet, I thrust both palms against the cracking stone beneath us and drew on Earth magic to power a Foundation Weave spell.
The fragments of rock answered me eagerly as I slipped tendrils of my spell into the rhythm already pulsing through it. The trembling beneath my boots softened, as though the stone was sighing in relief at being restored.
“Now!” I shouted.
Elio swept one arm outward, calling on Air to power a levitation spell at the same moment as me.
Together we landed on the first obstacle, a long, narrow belt of floating stone plates that overlapped like plate armor.
The first floating plate dipped beneath our combined weight, and immediately bucked up in recoil.
For one terrifying heartbeat, Elio and I staggered, precariously close to losing our balance.
Then the plate steadied.
We stood for a moment, studying the obstacle, and I realized the plates weren’t moving at random.
Each one rose and fell in time with an enchantment flowing through the entire course, a slow magical pulse that passed from stone to stone like a heartbeat. Fight that rhythm, and the plates recoiled violently. Match it, and the stone welcomed your weight.
Ahead of us, Cresta had no intention of listening.
A second burst of Air magic hurled both her and Bernardo onto the next plate before the current one had finished recoiling from their landing.
Before their new landing spot could react, Bernardo slammed his palm downward.
Stone screamed as he forced the plates flat with sheer magical strength and sealed the plates together. They remained in place just long enough for the pair to race across the remaining length.
The instant they reached the next platform, he flung another spell. The locked plates shattered behind them, a spray of jagged fragments exploding into the air before crashing into the sand below.
Gasps rippled through the amphitheater.
“They’re destroying the course!” someone shouted.
Each obstacle they conquered and destroyed became another, more complex obstacle for us.
“Move,” Elio hissed, tugging at my sleeve.
Our progress across the now-shattered obstacle was painfully slow as we leaped from floating fragment to floating fragment.
We reached the second platform just as Cresta and Bernardo defeated the next obstacle, a series of spinning, tilting floating platforms.
The distance between us was growing with every passing moment.
Elio turned his head. “You know this course was built to favor Cresta and Bernardo, right?”
“Of course it was,” I replied, looking at what remained of Stage One of the course, nicknamed “The Shattered Approach,” with its howling gusts and shifting stone plates—perfect for mages with strong Earth and Air affinities, everything Cresta and Bernardo needed to showcase their abilities.
“And they’re running it like they’ve seen it before,” Elio commented, his hands moving as he cast a spell to counteract the membrane of ice Cresta had left as a booby trap for us on the surface of a tilting stone plate.
“They probably have,” I called as we pushed forward. “At least three times. How often do you think they change this course?”
We pushed forward. My Air spells steadied us against the gusts. Elio’s Water magic gave us traction on surfaces that wanted to throw us off.
And we still weren’t catching up with the other team. If anything, the gap between us was widening with every step.
By the time we conquered the final obstacle of The Shattered Approach, Cresta and Bernardo were already halfway through the next set of obstacles in the Gale Corridor, their dark robes billowing and flapping as they moved swiftly through a howling wind tunnel.
Every spell they cast was loud, brutal, and devastatingly efficient. Stone shattered under Bernardo’s fists. Wind screamed around Cresta’s shields and left them untouched. The course yielded to their brute force like a castle gate to a battering ram.
The crowd’s roar had settled into a steady, rhythmic chant of Cresta and Bernardo’s names.
When I could spare an instant to look at the dignitaries’ box, I saw a wall of smiling faces. Domina-Regent Jacinthe watched with her hands folded in her lap, her expression composed.
My hands shook with anger and determination burning through me like a fever.
They think we don’t belong here. They built this entire course to prove it.
Fine.
So let’s disappoint them all.
Then the Gale Corridor hit us, its magically generated winds howling through the narrow stone entry corridor with enough force to peel skin… just like winter storms back home.
“Get down!” I shouted at Elio, fighting to make myself heard over the noise as I immediately dropped to my hands and knees.
My academic gown ballooned around my chest and back as the wind slammed into me, shoved a freezing hand down my neckline, and halted my forward progress like an invisible wall.
Sand and grit stung my face and my eyes, and scoured the inside of my mouth when I gasped for breath.
If we’d been standing, we would have been blown backwards and sent flying into the shattered mass of floating stone fragments Bernardo left in his destructive wake.
Too far ahead of us, Cresta and Bernardo moved through the last stretch of the Gale Corridor with impossible ease.
The wind that was crushing us seemed to part for them, flowing around their bodies in obedient currents.
Each step they took was accompanied by gestures that bent the gale to their wills, creating pockets of calm that they stepped through as casually as crossing a garden.
Then she turned her head and looked back at us over her shoulder.