Celeste

  Darius moved first, a blur cutting through the stillness. He drove both palms behind him, blasting him forward hard enough to send leaves at the edge of the clearing spinning into the air. His boots barely skimmed the ground. One moment he was ten paces away – the next, he’d closed half the distance in a blink.

  He swept his arm as he landed, releasing a razor arc of Wind snapping toward Lioren’s ribs.

  Lioren thrust his hand forward, not forming Ice, but shattering it into the air. A burst of frozen flecks met the Wind blade head-on. The razor arc hit the sudden flurry, but its edge faltered, blunted to a bruising strike instead of a killing cut.

  It still landed.

  Lioren’s breath punched out of him as his body jerked sideways. He staggered, Ice dust clinging to his coat, a thin line of blood rising along his ribs where the blade had kissed too close. It hadn’t cut deep, but it was close enough to warn him.

  He planted his stance, shoulders heaving as he fought for breath, then snapped his hand out again.

  This time, the Ice didn’t scatter – it sharpened. A tight formation of jagged shards launched from Lioren’s palm in rapid succession, each one gleaming white as it cut a straight line toward Darius.

  Darius didn’t retreat. He lifted one palm and released a short, angled burst of Wind. The first shard veered off, the second skidded wide, and the third shattered against the thrust of air, its fragments flung past him.

  Stepping sideways, Darius swept both palms in a crossing arc. Wind surged outward, not a blade this time but a broad, crushing shove that tore frost and loose dirt from the ground.

  Lioren braced, boots carving furrows as the force slammed into him, rattling his teeth. The shove broke his next Cast before it could form.

  Before he could recover his footing, Darius was already moving. A short, brutal burst from his palms hurled him forward again. He crossed the gap in a heartbeat, twisting as he came in, Wind gathering once more, coiled and ready.

  Lioren jerked back and thrust his free hand up. Ice surged from his palm, wrapping along his forearm into a jagged shield. It didn’t’ cover him fully.

  The Wind blade struck with a crack like splitting stone, slamming into the Ice and sliding off the edge. The force drove Lioren back a step, boots gouging deep tracks in the dirt.

  The impact hadn’t finished echoing before the next Cast came.

  Darius swept his other arm through the air and loosed a second blade, then a third, cutting angles Lioren couldn’t fully cover. The Ice shield caught the first strike cleanly. The second chipped a chunk from its upper edge, fragments scattering like shattered glass. The third skimmed the weakened corner and slipped through, cutting a thin line across Lioren’s shoulder.

  The attacks never slowed. A blade snapped toward him one after another, testing the shield from every angle. Each impact carved away more Ice, shaving the edge thinner, cracking along the seams Lioren couldn’t reinforce fast enough. He rebuilt quick bursts, but the blow outpaced the repairs.

  Wind screamed against Ice in rapid succession. Frost and grit sprayed the dirt, and slivers of Lioren’s shield littered the ground around his boots in glittering fragments.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  One strike clipped his ribs. Another grazed his thigh. Small cuts, shallow but growing as the Ice weakened.

  I glanced at the others. A few of the Brotherhood flinched at the impacts.

  Tobar’s jaw flexed hard, his teeth grinding. Elena’s hand hovered near her belt, not quite reaching for a weapon, but close enough to betray the instinct. Harl, usually carved from stone, shifted his weight and exhaled through his nose.

  None of them moved to stop it. None even dared to speak.

  Fira stood nearest. Her arms were folded, but there was nothing relaxed about it. Her gaze stayed locked on Lioren, dread carved plain across her features.

  Their oath held them as firmly as chains, and none of them would break it.

  Looking back at Lioren, the Ice shield was barely a shield anymore. What had started broad and thick enough to guard his ribs was now no bigger than his forearm, jagged edges splintering and thinning. With every strike, more of Lioren was exposed – blood staining his sleeve, a cut tracking down his side, another along his thigh.

  Darius pressed forward, another Wind blade forming—

  but Lioren changed tactics.

  He flung his free hand out and Water surged from his palm, a low, sweeping rush that hit the ground and spread like spilled glass. The soil darkened, slick beneath Darius’s boots. Then Lioren’s other hand snapped forward an instant later.

  Ice erupted.

  It raced across the wet ground with a crackling snarl, locking the water into a jagged, uneven trap that lunged for Darius’s feet.

  Art had once mentioned that most Casters struggled to split even a single element across both hands. Switching elements took real control. Using two at once, different elements simultaneously, was a level of mastery few ever reached.

  And that pause was all the opening Darius needed.

  He shifted, driving backward off the slickened ground with a burst of Wind from both hands. He slid free of the creeping freeze a heartbeat before Ice sealed over the space his boots had occupied.

  Darius didn’t rush again. He came to a controlled stop, boots grinding back on dry dirt, eyes narrowing as he studied Lioren.

  “Clever,” Darius said, voice carrying across the clearing. “But improvisation has limits. You’re nearing yours.”

  Lioren didn’t answer. No quip, no smirk. Only the tight rise and fall of his shoulders as he drew breath through his nose. From what little I’d seen, Lioren met fights with humor. Seeing him quiet now felt wrong.

  Opposite him, Darius shifted his stance. One palm lifted, fingers angled toward the frozen patch between them.

  A Wind blade snapped out, not aimed at Lioren, but at the ice itself. It struck with a sharp crack. A second followed and then a third, each blow fracturing the surface until the trap splintered into jagged chunks scattered across the dirt.

  Darius swept both palms outward, and the air answered.

  Wind surged, not a blade this time but a wall. It caught the broken Ice and hurled it back toward Lioren in a glittering storm. Slivers and shards tore across the clearing, spinning and flashing as they flew, turned against their maker.

  The blood soaking through Lioren’s coat was its own verdict – he couldn’t dodge anymore.

  He braced instead, lifting both hands as Ice blasted into a desperate barrier. Even from the edge of the ring, I saw the truth the instant it formed.

  It wouldn’t hold.

  My breath stuttered and my feet were already moving.

  I broke from the circle, boots tearing across the dirt. The shards were in the air, flying fast, too many, too wide. Lioren was directly in their path.

  I came in from the side, cutting diagonal to the volley, but close enough to matter.

  I raised both hands.

  Heat built faster than thought, the core in my chest tightening, burning through every nerve until Light seared against my palms.

  I didn’t aim for precision. There was no need for it now.

  I unleashed it.

  Ardor tore from both hands in a burst wider and hotter than anything I’d ever dared. The beam became a blinding flood. Light thundered across the clearing, colliding with the oncoming Ice midair. Shards hissed into steam; others cracked violently apart, splintering into fragments too small to kill.

  What my Light didn’t reach, Lioren’s Casting did. Ice shattering against Ice, knocking the remaining shards off-course. They still struck, but fewer now, and those that landed left bruises instead of blood.

  Steam billowed around us, white and instant, swallowing half the clearing in a cloud that glowed faintly with the fading trace of Light.

  I stood in the open, both hands raised, palms burning, breath sharp in my chest.

  Darius’s gaze snapped toward me through the thinning haze. Every Brother around the ring froze.

  No one moved. No one spoke.

  They all understood what I had done.

  And so did I.