The training grounds outside the temple had been remade into a battlefield. Wooden dummies, stone barriers, enchanted traps—all scattered in careful chaos. Overhead, banners fluttered, painted with the emblem of the Fellowship: the rising sun over a crossed sword and staff.
The rules were simple. Thirty minutes. Collect five crests from opponents. Reach the drop-off point. Fail, and you were out for a year.
The proctor's staff struck the ground. "Begin."
The field erupted.
Tessa moved like a storm, wind-magic sharp as her eyes. She cut through three opponents in minutes, faster than anyone could track. By the time the rest of us had taken positions, she already had her five crests and was racing toward the finish.
Lucen was a different kind of storm. His Dominion Blade shimmered into a plain astral longsword—no element, just radiant steel—and he tore through challengers like weeds in his path. Precision, power, inevitability. The nobles cheered every swing. He wasn't aiming for crests alone. He was claiming the field.
I took a different path. Careful. Measured. My first crest came from reading the line of victory against a water-user whose spells followed her hand too literally. My second from an echo-user who overextended, his empowered fists slamming into the dirt as I sidestepped and tapped his chest where a faint thread pointed me. Trace Insight showed me where to move as soon as I even thought of moving.
But reading and doing aren't the same thing. Every path it showed me felt like a cheat I couldn't always cash in. I scraped by so far, but each fight left me more drained, less certain how long I could keep it up.
By the time I had two crests, danger came fast.
Two opponents—one weaving water like whips, the other's fists glowing with echo-force—burst from cover. They weren't here to spar. They wanted my crests.
Threads flickered in my vision. Grey. Unclear. A path forward appeared.
The water-user lashed out. I dodged—barely—too late to follow the path properly, so the echo-user's punch slammed into my ribs. Pain exploded white-hot, forcing me to stumble. My blade slipped, nearly torn from my grip.
The threads flickered again, too faint to trust. My body refused to follow what my eyes half-saw.
The echo-user's next strike blurred toward my face—
—and slammed into a wall of stone.
"Couldn't let you have all the fun!"
Braun barreled in, grinning wide despite the sweat. Five crests already jingled at his belt. He stomped hard, and the ground obeyed, stone snapping up to trap both attackers' ankles.
The water-user staggered, losing rhythm. The echo-user roared, tearing free, his mana-charged fists hammering into Braun's shield of earth.
The threads flickered again—grey, trembling. A path through the chaos. Narrow, dangerous.
I forced my aching body forward. Reversing my grip, I cracked the hilt across the water-user's temple. She slumped, her whip splashing uselessly into the dirt. Two crests clattered free.
Braun seized the opening. With a bellow, he rammed his shoulder into the echo-user and slammed him into a wall of stone. The boy's fists thundered, echo-force cracking the shield, but Braun didn't budge.
"Stay down!" Braun roared. His grip crushed like iron, holding the fighter pinned until his struggles slowed, then stilled. Two crests rolled free onto the dirt.
We stood over them, chests heaving. I scooped up three of the four crests, bringing my total to five—barely enough to qualify. Braun pocketed the last, raising his to six.
Only then did he clap my shoulder with a grin broad enough to split stone. "Told you—you're the knife, I'm the wall. And walls don't let knives fall."
I managed a ragged laugh, though every breath burned.
And then the air split.
Lucen strode into the clearing, Dominion gleaming in astral steel. Crests jingled at his belt—ten, maybe more. He hadn't come to survive. He'd come to dominate. His gaze swept the scene—the fallen opponents, Braun steady, me bleeding but upright. For a moment, his smirk faltered.
"Lioren," he said, eyes narrowing. "Still standing?"
"Barely," I muttered, wiping blood from my mouth.
His smirk returned, sharp as his blade. "Next time, get good."
I met his gaze, breath ragged but steady. "Next time, be faster."
For just a heartbeat, the smirk froze on his lips. Then Braun's laughter boomed beside me, breaking the moment as he hauled me toward the finish.
Moments aftr Braun and I stumbled across the line,the bell began ringing. Lucen was a step ahead, his belt heavy with spoils, Dominion fading to nothing at his side.
The proctor's voice cut through the courtyard.
"First place—Tessa Draemir. Second—Calven Ironhide. Third—Sera Veyra. Fourth—Bran Alden…"
One by one the names were called, cheers rising for the highborn and murmurs for the strong. Until finally:
"…And last—Lucen Vale, Braun Stone, and Lioren Thalen."
A hush fell, then the whispers began.
"A Vale, last? Impossible."
"He dragged himself down, running with peasants."
"Proof enough, isn't it? Nobles shine brighter without mud on their boots."
"Or maybe he's not as bright as we thought."
The words cut sharper than any blade.
Braun only laughed, clapping me on the back. "Better last among the victors than first among the failures," he said, though his grin wavered under the weight of the stares.
Lucen stood silent, jaw tight. His eyes flicked once toward me, then to Tessa at the front of the ranks.
I said nothing, though my ribs burned with every breath. Inside, the fire coiled tighter