Chapter Thirty-Eight
For a heartbeat, I think it's a mistake. Wrong name. Wrong face. The echo of someone else's nightmare.
But then Beth steps on to the mat. She doesn’t look at Professor Strannt. Doesn’t scan the crowd. Doesn’t blink. She just turns toward me—and her smile spreads. Confident, almost kind. The kind you give a rabbit before you snap its neck.
My gut flips.
No, I don't understand. She's been training me, helping me. Why would she—
The cadet beside me gives me a hard shove. “Go,” he mutters, like it’s obvious.
Air doesn’t move; everything in me clamps tight. Maybe she’s bluffing. Maybe I can talk to her, figure out what this is before it starts. But the look in her eyes—steady, cold—and I know. There’s no maybe. There’s no talk. There’s only the mat.
Beside her, Professor Strannt watches me stall, arms folded behind his back, his mouth already curving into something between a smirk and a sneer. He wants me to run. He’s hoping for it.
My eyes drift across the crowd before I even realise what I’m doing, scanning, searching. For him. Talen. I don’t know why—Lucien said he wouldn’t be back till next week—but still... My chest tightens when I don’t see him. God, I don’t even know what I hoped to find.
I get up.
My boots feel like they’re filled with stone. The blood’s drained from my face so fast the cold hits like a slap, but my back’s slick with sweat.
Don’t faint. Not now. Not before it's even started, I force in a breath, steady myself and walk down.
I just wanted to avoid being called, and if I did, I just needed to take them out without hurting myself in the process.
Now? Now I need a new plan. One that ends with me alive.
Beth stands dead centre as I step up on to the mat, her arms loose at her sides, like this is just another training session. Like she’s not about to try and kill me in front of everyone. Her eyes haven’t left mine. That scar down her brow catches the light—sharp, angry, and it’s never looked worse.
She knew every way to hurt me—because I showed her where to aim.
The words from mum's journal echo through my mind.
This was her plan all along. Beth didn’t just train with me; she studied me. Catalogued every weakness. Every opening. Now she knows exactly where to hit.
Across the edge of the mat, I catch Lucien. He’s stiff. Tense. His eyes lock on mine—fear. But not for Beth. For me. He knows she’s going to win.
Professor Strannt limps forward, hands clasped.
“You both know the rules,” he drones, weaselly voice cutting through the hush.
“Once the bell rings, physical, magical—use whatever you like, but only one of you leaves the mat.” His gaze drifts to me.
He lowers his voice. “I’d wish you luck, but we both know it won’t help, Outerlander. ”
He steps back.
It’s just me and her now.
My core reserves are knotted up tight, still can't access them, so I’ve let my Threads build as much as I can this week, just in case I need them, to fight against Ryven, or Elijah. But Beth? I don’t have enough for Beth.
I have a few days worth at best, and they’re rattled as hell, unpredictable from the last weeks’ emotions that nearly cracked me. And today, now, they’re a full-blown fucking mess. Pressure with no direction. Power with no leash.
The crowd’s gone quiet. So quiet I can hear a cough from the back row, the silence before the storm.
“Why?” I breathe as my pulse starts to rise in a fast uneven rhythm. “I don’t understand….”
Then—
The bell cracks.
Beth moves first. Fingers flick. Threads catch the room like a net—and the candles along the wall gutter hard, flames pulling towards her. Then she drops her hands, fast, and the fire hurls towards me a second later
I throw mine up to block—pulling forward a layer of air that holds for half a second before splintering. I stagger under the pressure, barely dodging the flame that singes inches from my shoulder.
My pulse jumps, fast and thin. Fire—she’s fucking using fire now? Since when?
It lands hot, fast, but not full force. She’s holding back, measuring me. Not fighting. Playing.
The crowd leans forward, chairs creak, someone gasps.
“You’re so slow.” Beth calls, circling me. Her voice is casual, like she’s commenting on the weather. “You still don’t get it.”
I grit my teeth and dig deep, pulling magic from the pit of my gut, dragging it like a weight through mud. Threads snap to my hands, gathering the air around me, messy and unstable. Still, I grit my teeth and hurl it towards her with everything I have.
Beth ducks before it’s even left my fingers. Effortless. Predictable, then she moves, and another flare whips toward me, sharp and blinding.
I throw myself back, lungs seizing as I drag up another shield again, hopeless, messy.
A jagged wall of water vapour slams into place.
Beth keeps driving forward, pressure slamming into me like a wave, and my vision flickers—just for a second—as I try and hold on.
Bracing my feet, locking my arms. Force the shield to stay up even as my muscles scream.
But it’s not enough. The shield’s already breaking. Chest rising too fast, arms tingling, and my Threads start to slip again. They hum against my skin, crackling with too much power and no direction.
I was ready, I was ready for Ryven, for Elijah. But I wasn't ready for this, for her. I can’t think—can’t breathe past the pressure building in my throat, the beating in my chest, but I need to calm down. Focus. Get the magic under control before it turns on me.
I try to pull them back, force them into line, but my Threads surge sideways, sparking against my ribs like they’re ready to tear out of me.
And then Beth steps in. Clean, Surgical. Her elbow hooks around mine in a lock I taught her.
I feel the pop before I hear it.
A collective exhale from the audience, abrupt and involuntary, like the whole room flinched with me.
“You taught me that one,” she whispers against my ear, warm.
Pain streaks down my arm, blinding. My legs buckle, breath tearing through clenched teeth. But I don’t drop. I twist, shoulder grinding, spine screaming, and wrench myself out of the hold.
Beth staggers back a step.
I meet her eyes. “I didn’t show you that one.”
Magic builds at my fingers as I lunge to draw again, but she’s already moving.
She sees it coming, of course she does; she fucking trained me.
A sharp flick of her fingers and power slams toward me—fast, brutal.
It hits like a brutal wave. My feet leave the ground and then I’m down, slammed on to my back, air punched from my lungs as I skid across the floor. The ceiling spins. My ears ring.
Gasps scatter through the crowd, but no one dares speak. The sounds feel distant now. Blurred.
I suck for breath and get nothing, chest rising too fast, too shallow now. Just heat, fear. The weight of every mistake I’ve made since I came back here.
Across the mat, Beth stands still. Perfectly still. Arms at her sides. Power humming soft and steady around her fingers.
Oh god.
She said she was preparing me for Call Week. But this, this, was never about strength.
It was sabotage.
She wasn't preparing me to win, to fight Elijah or Ryven; she was preparing me to lose, against her.
She knows I can't access my reserves, that I can't unknot my Threads. She knows my emotions are a fucking mess. Shit, she knows every trick I’ve got. Hell, she taught me most of them.
Beth throws again.
I brace, muscles locked and drag another shield into place just as the impact lands, cracking through the air with the sting of raw magic.
A half second, I reach deep. Grip. Drag. My Threads bite as I force them into motion, ripping moisture from the air. My lungs burn, a violent rush crashing through my chest, every muscle screaming to strike—but I hold steady, teeth clenched, body straining.
Then I throw. Fast and crude. Power lashes out like a snapped tendon—But she’s already moving. Already sidestepping. Already smiling.
She goes again.
Another strike.
I throw another shield.
Another useless blast of magic that burns through more of what I can’t afford to lose. My legs start to go.
But she’s not going for damage. Not really.
She’s just playing.
Prodding. Pressuring. Letting me waste my power in messy, desperate bursts while she barely lifts a finger.
Around me, the only sound now is static—magic fizzing against my ribs, burning out with nowhere to go. I’m starting to run on scraps, but I keep going.
Because I have to.
There’s no rhythm. No control. My Threads crackle under my skin, bloated and raw.
She strikes. I block. I retaliate. And each time, a little more of me slips away.
Fuck. I need more power, it's there, I know it is, I can feel it—Every Thread I've knotted, tangled from months of trying to force them into something useful. And she knows I can’t access them.
Something in me snaps taut, instinct flaring hard and fast. God, this whole fight?
It’s a slow bleed. A setup. She’s baiting me to burn out.
To spend everything. To leave myself empty.
And when that moment comes—when I’ve got nothing left—That’s when she’ll finally end it. So she can break me clean.
Another hit, another shield, another retaliation that misses.
I’m just bleeding energy. Bleeding focus. Bleeding the last fraying edge of control I have left.
Shit, shit, shit. I need to do something different, something she won't expect. I need to think.
“Is this about Talen?” I force out, breathless, trying to buy time as she stalks towards me. “You love him, and you think I took him from you?”
I yank at my knots, willing them to release, like they’re reins or something that’ll respond if I just pull hard enough.
But they only tighten.
Think Lyra, think.
Beth scoffs. “You think this is about love?”
The silence in the Rec Hall is oppressive now. Thick as fog. The crowd’s gone, or maybe I’ve tuned them out completely.
“Then what?” I grind out, my pulse so heavy now I’m sure she can hear it.