The arena Tavric led them to was one of the smaller dueling rings on the edge of the Arcanum's training grounds. Still, it was large enough for the packed semicircle of students now filing in once word spread that the Empire's chosen boy was about to duel one of the academy's most capable upper-years.

The polished sandstone floor was etched with concentric circles of faintly glowing sigils, all dormant until a duel began. The air shimmered with the faint tang of magic, the wards ready to flare to life at the first hint of lethal intent.

Thorne stepped into the ring first, rolling his shoulders and keeping his ashthorn wand loose in his hand. He could feel eyes on him from every side, hungry for a show, eager to see him humbled.

Maris followed, her steps measured, gaze fixed. She wore no armor, just the sky-blue uniform of the academy, but the way she carried herself made her look armored nonetheless. In her hand was a wand of pale ivory, runes faintly glowing along its length.

The two met in the center and gave the formal bow, though Maris's was curt.

"Rules?" she asked flatly.

Thorne's smile was easy. "Don't kill me."

Her lips quirked faintly before she stepped back to her starting point.

The referee, a bored-looking teaching assistant, lifted his hand. "Begin."

The sigils around the ring blazed to life.

Maris moved first, her wand flicking in a tight arc. A spray of silver motes burst outward, coalescing into a shimmering disc of force that hovered before her, a mobile shield. Without pause, she sent it spinning toward him like a thrown blade.

Thorne sidestepped, the edge passing close enough to raise the hairs on his arm. Even as it sailed past, the disc shattered into a dozen smaller shards that wheeled midair, angling for his back.

He didn't look, just raised his wand and twisted, sending a sharp pulse of aether behind him. The shards met it and ricocheted harmlessly into the warded floor.

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

Maris's eyes narrowed. She'd expected a scramble, not a clean counter.

Her next attack came faster. She traced a hooked sigil in the air, and the floor beneath Thorne's feet shifted, the sandstone becoming slick as glass.

Thorne didn't break stride. The wild aether in the air tickled at the edge of his senses, and he leaned into it, letting it guide the subtle shifts in his balance. He slid back a step, deliberately making it look more difficult than it was.

Let her think I'm straining.

Maris pressed in, ivory wand flashing. Ribbons of condensed air whipped toward him, each strike sharp enough to welt skin or worse. Thorne dipped under the first, turned the second aside with a small shield sigil he had learnt in Battle Magic class, then flicked his wand toward the ground.

A single flame needle flared into existence, smaller than usual, its glow subdued.

Maris's eyes caught it. She angled her shield to intercept...

... just as Thorne let the needle fizzle deliberately, using the cover of the flash to step sharply left and unleashed his ashthorn wand, the wand demanded aether, and thorne was more than willing to satisfy its hunger. A pulse of concussive force erupted at her feet.

It wasn't enough to knock her down, but it staggered her, forcing her shield wide.

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

Tavric, leaning against the railing, grinned. "That's it, prodigy boy. Make her work for it."

Maris recovered quickly, her expression shifting from mild amusement to razor focus. She pivoted her stance, her wand sweeping in a half-circle that left a trail of glowing glyphs hanging in the air.

Thorne recognized the pattern just in time, it was one that Marian had demonstrated during her class, a binding weave. If it caught him, he'd be locked in place for several seconds, enough for her to end the match decisively.

He didn't retreat. Instead, he raised his wand and whispered the Lux incantation, not fully formed, not yet mastered, but enough to make the tip of the ashthorn wand burst with a blinding flash.

The light flared off the polished sandstone, dazzling the audience and, more importantly, Maris.

Her weave faltered, the last glyph misaligned.

Thorne's smile was thin and sharp as he moved. He didn't unleash his flame needle yet, he wanted her thinking about it, waiting for it.

Instead, he pressed forward with a burst of raw, unshaped aether, the kind that made his style unpredictable, the kind no neat classroom casting could prepare for. The air rippled around him, each step a measured choice, every movement bait and pressure in equal measure.

Maris's grin returned, faint but dangerous. She adjusted her stance, clearly realizing he wasn't going to play the tidy duel she'd expected.

Around them, the crowd had gone quiet, leaning in.

They knew this wasn't going to be over quickly.

The moment of stillness broke like a snapped bowstring.

Maris struck first, her wand tracing a fluid figure-eight that bled sparks into the air. Those sparks stretched and curved, condensing into three whirling orbs of compressed force. They spun around her in lazy arcs, an obvious feint, before she flicked her wrist and sent them darting toward Thorne in erratic, looping paths.

They weren't projectiles he could simply sidestep; they adjusted midflight, tracking him.

Thorne pivoted sharply, ashthorn wand snapping up to release a rapid succession of basic bolts. The first two went wide on purpose, skimming the orbs just enough to alter their approach vectors. The third connected dead-on, destabilizing one and shattering it into a burst of harmless sparks.

The crowd murmured. Not bad, most first-years would've panicked under a tracking assault.

Maris didn't give him time to breathe. She stepped forward, stance shifting, and the floor between them surged upward in jagged sandstone spires. The sight would have forced most duelists to retreat, but Thorne lunged forward instead, Windborne Agility carrying him up onto one of the rising spires like he'd been born in the air.

From the elevated position, he flicked his wand, the ashthorn drinking deep from his core. A single blast erupted, not the tidy, restrained burst expected from a first-year's wand, but something heavier, sharper, its edges jagged with raw, fused ambient aether.

Maris's shield snapped up in time, but the impact rang across the wards in a concussive shockwave, making her stance buckle for a fraction of a second.

She's fast, Thorne thought, landing lightly on the far side of the collapsing spire. And careful. She's used to people folding when she leans in.

He'd have to give her reason to lean harder.

Her wand cut the air, and a shimmering tether snapped into existence between them, a binding spell. Thorne didn't think; Deadzone Reflex took over. The world slowed to syrup, the strand of magic stretching toward him in glacial motion. He twisted sideways, the tether grazing past, and countered in the same breath, a perfectly formed flame needle sparking into existence and sailing toward her exposed flank.

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Maris's eyes flicked to it at the last instant. She deflected it, but not cleanly. The needle clipped her shield and splintered into a spray of burning motes, which hissed across her uniform.

She stamped them out with a look that was almost… approving.

Then her wand blurred, and the air itself hardened around Thorne. Invisible pressure closed in from all sides, like the hands of a giant trying to crush him.

He planted his feet, channeling, letting the ashthorn pull harder, siphoning aether until his core flared in protest. The air around him rippled before bursting outward in an uncontrolled shock, the oppressive grip breaking.

Gasps from the crowd again, that wasn't supposed to happen without a formal counter-sigil.

Maris tilted her head. "Interesting."

"You have no idea," Thorne murmured back, just loud enough for her to hear.

She answered with a barrage of short, clipped spells, bolts, binding lines, a low sweeping arc of force aimed at his knees. Thorne ducked, leapt, and twisted through it all, never giving her the satisfaction of pinning him. He wasn't winning, not yet, but he wasn't breaking, either.

It wasn't the duel she'd expected, and he could tell she knew it.

The crowd had gone quieter, their attention sharpening. What was supposed to be a swift humbling was turning into something else entirely, a test neither duelist seemed willing to end quickly.

Maris was circling now, her wand moving in sharp, clean arcs, spells snapping from its tip like the crack of a whip. Thorne kept pace, his steps light and precise, eyes locked on the smallest openings in her form.

The flame needle had become his weapon of choice in this match, not just because it was his newest spell, but because it gave him room to test it in real conditions. He cast it quickly, seeing how far he could shorten the incantation before the sigils warped. He let one manifest faintly before flaring it bright at the last second, forcing Maris to commit to a block too soon. Another he curved midflight with a flick of his wrist, the needle veering just enough to force her into a step she didn't want to take.

He was learning. Fast.

But she was adapting faster.

A cutting wave of force came low; he vaulted over it, Windborne Agility letting him twist in the air. He landed, wand already up, launching another flame needle, this one fired at half power so it'd detonate in a wide scatter rather than pierce. She shielded anyway, her eyes narrowing.

"You're probing," she called over the distance, her voice steady but her tone edged.

Thorne only smirked in reply.

She answered by upping the pace. A three-spell volley, a blinding flash, a kinetic shove, and a slicing wind arc, came at him in tight sequence. The flash and shove he dodged, rolling under the arc as it whistled over his head.

That was when something in him shifted.

Ashthorn was warm in his hand, warmer than it should've been. The wand's hunger was a steady thrum in the back of his mind, promising him more if he'd just let it draw deeper.

Normally, he would have kept that leash tight. But here, now, with Maris pressing, with the crowd leaning forward in silent anticipation, with that old competitive fire burning bright in his chest…

He loosened his grip.

Ashthorn drank deep, a flood, not a trickle, and the raw output surged up his arm. The spell that formed wasn't anything elaborate. Just a basic, point-and-burst strike, the kind any novice could cast.

Except this one wasn't a novice's spell.

As the magic roared to life, the wild aether, always there, always whispering at the edges of his perception, felt that gap in his control and slipped in, twining with the already overfed attack. He didn't call it. Didn't force it. It simply wanted to be there.

The blast tore from Ashthorn's tip like a ballista bolt made of molten sunlight. The wards screamed to life, flaring bright gold as the projectile slammed into Maris's shield.

For a heartbeat, he thought she'd hold it. Then the fractures appeared, spiderweb cracks racing across the translucent barrier, her wand arm shaking under the strain.

The shield shattered. The wards caught most of what came next, hungrily siphoning the excess magic into harmless light, but enough got through to slam into her chest like a battering ram. She stumbled back three paces, her boots skidding against the arena floor.

Gasps rippled through the watching crowd.

Maris's eyes were wide, her breathing quick. For the first time in the duel, she looked… unsettled.

"What..." she started, then stopped, jaw tightening.

Thorne lowered his wand slowly, the faintest curl of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Inside, his pulse was a hammer, his core still shivering from the loss of so much aether so fast. The wild aether had already receded, like a predator slipping back into tall grass.

Dangerous. Too dangerous to risk again here.

But gods, it had worked.

Maris straightened, brushing imaginary dust from her uniform, her expression carefully smoothed back into composure. But the way she reset her stance told him all he needed to know, she was rattled, and now she knew he had teeth.

"Again," she said, voice clipped.

And Thorne obliged, another flame needle already spinning into existence, this one sharper, faster, its form tweaked mid-cast in ways only a true master of the spell could manage.

Maris didn't waste another breath. The polite duelist's mask dropped, and the space between them filled with layered sigils, each one snapping into place with the kind of precision only years of drilling could produce.

Three, no, four, spells formed simultaneously: a snapping arc of kinetic force aimed low, a spray of glittering shards angled high, and two ghostlike wards that shimmered faintly in front of her like half-drawn curtains. It was a trap disguised as a barrage, the wards weren't for defense, they were channels to redirect whatever he threw back at her.

Thorne's eyes narrowed. Smart.

He leapt sideways, letting Windborne Agility take over, turning what could have been an awkward dodge into a fluid glide over the kinetic wave. Ashthorn barked a bolt in reply, not overcharged, not reckless this time, angled deliberately toward one of the wards. It struck, hissed, and instead of being reflected, it fizzled against the glasslike surface. He saw her eyebrow twitch; she'd expected him to commit harder.

Good. Let her wonder.

Maris surged forward, no longer content to trade from range. Her wand slashed, and a ribbon of force cracked toward his head. Deadzone Reflex flared, the world slowing just enough for him to slip under it, pivoting on the ball of his foot and countering with a sharp flame needle.

She batted it aside with contemptuous ease, following with a hook of wind meant to knock him off his feet. He let it take him, half rolling with the momentum so it slung him across the arena in a low arc rather than sending him sprawling.

The crowd was whispering now, the tension in the stands as taut as a bowstring. They'd come expecting a short, polite duel between a cocky first-year and a seasoned fourth-year. What they were getting was something else entirely.

Maris's precision was a nightmare, every spell chained into the next, every feint designed to herd him exactly where she wanted. But Thorne's unpredictability was keeping her from finishing it. He never gave her the same angle twice, never let his rhythm be read.

He tested flame needle again, this time conjuring two back-to-back with minimal draw time, letting the first fly direct and the second arc in from the side like a hunting bird. The crowd gasped when she blocked the first and had to pivot sharply to dodge the second.

That flicker of surprise in her eyes was all the encouragement he needed.

The duel escalated again, bolts of raw force, lashes of heat, concussive bursts from Ashthorn's tip, but underneath it all, Thorne was measuring. Waiting.

And then he saw it.

A brief overcommitment in her stance, a fraction of a pause in her weaving between sigils. Not much, not nearly enough for most opponents to exploit, but he'd spent years killing men and women who made smaller mistakes than that.

He moved.

Burst of speed.

The space between them vanished in an instant, the floor of the arena floor blurring beneath his boots. Maris's eyes widened, then narrowed, as she snapped her wand up, the beginnings of a defensive incantation already spilling from her lips.

But in that instant, she heard his incantation.

"Lux."

She froze. Almost laughed. Lux, the most basic illumination spell in the Academy's repertoire. Harmless. Childish, even. You learned it in your first week.

Her lips curled into an arrogant smirk.

Thorne guessed she hadn't heard about his first day in Arcane Fundamentals & Spellcasting.

A bead of light bloomed at the tip of Ashthorn, hovering no more than a hand's breadth from her face.

And then he was the one smirking.

He let go. Intentionally. Dropped the iron discipline that kept the ambient aether at bay.

It rushed in like a tide.

Like moths to a flame, the motes swarmed the tiny sphere of light, fusing with it, feeding it until the air around them warped and shimmered. In the space of a breath, the bead swelled, first to the size of a fist, then a melon, until it was a blinding miniature sun, white-gold and searing.

Heat blasted off it in rolling waves. The smell of scorched dust hit the air.

Maris's smirk disintegrated.

She screamed.

The wards of the arena flared to maximum, greedily siphoning the lethal heat before it could do more than singe the outer layer of her uniform, but the light, the sheer, overwhelming light was unavoidable. Even with her eyes clenched shut, the afterimage seared across her vision.

She staggered back, arm thrown up in instinctive defense, her stance shattered, her precision gone. The crowd erupted, half in shock, half in exhilaration.

Thorne lowered his wand, the tiny sun winking out with a faint hiss. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. He'd ridden the edge of danger again and this time, in front of dozens of watching eyes.

But gods, it had worked.

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