As I entered the chamber, the first thing I felt was heat.
Not comfortable heat either, like from a fireplace or a candle, the type of warmth you can negotiate with. No. This heat was much more menacing. The type of heat that arrives as a verdict, pressing down on your skin and breath until only one thought remains.
Endure or burn.
The fiery prowess of Cyril Valenhardt stands 10 paces away from me in the circular chamber, his cloak unmoving, his posture perfect, and even the floor around his feet is scorched with fresh lines of melted crystal.
He doesn't look excited.
He doesn't look angry.
He looks... calm.
Which is even worse.
The small flame above his knuckle tightens, collapsing into a hairline seam of white-gold fire. Its rotation turns slowly, but exactly, like a compass needle surrendering to the true north.
And suddenly.
"Ignis: Sovereign Flare."
The spell cast answers Cyril's call with a snap, and the corridor staggers around it.
It isn't just like any other projectile made of fire Aether. It doesn't swell or scatter. It pronounces, carving through space with immaculate certainty. The air along its path shudders, and the maze's walls flicker in panicked pulses, as if itself is alive.
I move before the heat can find me.
My hand rises. This time, I don't just summon the wind. I do everything I can to take hold of the corridor's breath and wrench it into order.
"Ventus: Draft Twist."
The world inside the maze inhales.
Air piles onto my hand as if drawn by a tide, tightening into a visible helix, dust and loose ash lifting to trace its spine. The spiral deepens, widening into a controlled vortex with a low, straining hum, the kind that would make your teeth ache. For just a second, the hall's torches gutter, the maze pulls at the sudden pressure change... and then the twist bites.
It catches the Sovereign Flare not like a hand swatting at fire, but like a current seizing a blade. The direct line of flame shivers, dragged a fraction off-centre, forced to acknowledge something other than Cyril's will.
It works.
But barely.
Sovereign Flare passes close enough to curl my sleeve at the hem. Fabric blisters to black, and heat kisses skin with a sharp, needle-sting burn that raises goosebumps up my forearm.
Cyril watches the deflection the way someone watches a pebble tap the ocean floor.
Then he steps forward.
And the temperature is rising with him.
He lifts his hand again, but this time it's not a spear-shaped flame that takes shape.
Instead, it's a crown of flames wrapping around his knuckles. An impossibly thin ring of fire, yet ever-present. It's bright as a furnace and so stable that it looks like a drawing rather than a real-life burning flame.
"Ignis: Diadem Arc."
The ring jets outward, and as it's halfway to reaching me, it splits, clean as a knife through silk. Three distinct crescents peel off in a widening fan, curving mid-fight as if predicting my next step.
My stomach drops.
I know I can't outrun them. So, I do my best to re-route them.
I inhale hard and snap my palm out to the left.
"Ventus: Draft Twist."
The air moulds into a tight spiral and yanks sideways, causing a controlled tug meant to drag the crescents wide, to change their geometry and cease their hunting of me.
The first crescent bends... and misses by inches. It was close enough that my eyelashes tingle.
The second crescent kisses the floor and blooms, not causing an explosion, but a splash of heat that skates across the crystal flooring like molten water. The corridor of the maze flashes orange, then dims again.
The third one... doesn't miss.
It clips my shoulder.
Pain erupts hot and immediate, as if someone branded my skin with hot steel. My arm goes half-numb, half on fire. I stumble back a step, my teeth clamped so hard that my jaw nearly cramps.
Cyril doesn't rush forward the way a desperate duelist would.
He just keeps walking. At his own pace. Like he owns the minutes of this fight.
'Yeah, right... as if you can even call this a fight.'
"You can't avoid the fire forever," he says, his voice level. He seemed observational, almost bored, even.
I don't answer, I look at him and shift my stance, lower my centre, my injured shoulder hidden from direct sight.
I observe.
And that's the worst part.
As I observe him, I can see. His casting isn't frantic. There's no unnecessary flourish, no panic. He doesn't throw spells at someone; he places them. Surgically.
He isn't an aggressive spell caster.
He's a controlling one.
Which means any path I take will get erased the moment I commit to it.
Cyril's fingers flex. Heat gathers again, not into a solid flame this time, but a distortion that makes the air shimmer like glass under the summer sun.
"Ignis: Thermic Drift."
The chamber warms up instantly, not evenly, but directionally. A wave of heat pushes from my right like a hand pressed to my ribs, forcing me to take a step, then another. I could feel sweat popping out on my skin. My breathing is constricting slightly.
He isn't trying to hit me.
He's trying to corner me.
'Fine. We'll do it your way.'
I raise my hand, ignoring the sting screaming down my shoulder, and throw my Draft Twist downward, near my own boots. The spiral forms, it's smaller, uglier, and weaker than what I want, but it's deliberate and actionable. A pocket of opposing pressure. A slight refusal. As I propel upwards, the heat ensnaring me begins to dissipate.
For a heartbeat, the heat's shove stutters.
That's all I get.
'Honestly, I'll take it.'
I side-step. Pivot. Circle. I try to move into his flank rather than back into his line of sight.
Cyril turns with me as if we're connected by a string that only he can feel.
He lifts his hand.
The flame above his fingers condenses into a palm-sized sphere, too bright to stare at. It's white-gold at the centre, ember-red at the edges.
"Ignis: Fireball."
He releases it.
It doesn't fly like a typical Fireball.
This one locks on. It tracks my movement, too smoothly and too intelligently, as it curves after me like it knows where I'll be half a second before I do.
My heart jumps into my throat.
I throw Draft Twist straight at it.
The wind catches the sphere... and the sphere punches through my distortion like it's cardboard, losing only a fraction of speed. It hits the floor where I was a half-breath ago and blooms in a controlled burst. Not wide enough to shatter the chamber, but precise enough to scorch the edges of my boots and heat up my shins.
I keep moving. My breath is sharp. My brain is too loud.
This didn't feel like a normal duel.
This was a demonstration.
Cyril's gaze tightens.
For the first time, something shifts behind the calm.
Not anger.
Annoyance.
Not because I'm hurting him.
Because I'm refusing to be predictable.
He flicks two fingers.
Another ring of thin bright flames appears in the air in front of him. The ring whips outward and splits into three crescents again, this time immediately.
"Ignis: Diadem Arc."
My routes shrink.
I feel it in my chest first.
My world is getting smaller every second he's allowed to shape the room.
And I'm still only using one spell.
One.
Draft Twist
It's like trying to stop the vigour of a flood with a teacup.
I dart left toward a gap in the three crescents.
Cyril lifts his hand and redirects the crescents to close the gap with a snapping arc of heat.
I stop short so fast my knees complain.
My options flash too fast in my head to hold; jump, roll, feint, break the line, risk the burn—
Then Cyril speaks again, calm as a judge.
"Enough. Stop struggling."
It wasn't an order to stop.
It was a statement. Letting me know that he is ending this because he can.
And that it wasn't a matter of if... but when.
His hands come together briefly. Heat compresses between them. For a split second, I think he's forming something massive, something that will erase the room and me with it.
But he doesn't.
He simply points.
And it forms
"Ignis: Regnant Bolt."
The bolt launches in a straight, fast line. It was denser than anything he's cast so far, a blade— no, a sword of fire with the weight of a sentence. There was no curve. No hunt. Just an executioner's strike.
I throw Draft Twist at it on instinct... and the sword rips through the spiralling air, only slightly nudged.
It still hits.
The impact isn't an explosion.
It's a wallop of heat that drives into my chest and hurls me backwards.
The maze's crystal wall slams against my spine. The pain causes my eyes to flash white. My lungs empty all at once like someone had ripped the air out of me.
And for a moment... I can't breathe.
I blink, seeing nothing but light and heat.
Then the world rushes back in. Sound first, then shape.
Cyril stands over me at a distance, still calm, still controlled.
I force myself up onto one knee. My breathing is ragged. My shoulder screaming. My chest is in agony as it is aching like it's bruised from the inside. My hands were numb from casting the same spell until my fingers forgot they existed.
The maze is still humming around us, indifferent.
Cyril's gaze doesn't leave, as if he hasn't finished calculating.
"How did we even get to this point..." I mutter.
"Did you say something, weakling?" Cyril replied, still in front of me.
He watches me like he's waiting to see if I break.
Then—
A Few Moments Ago
When I entered the chamber, Cyril was already there, surrounded by the residue of broken constructs. He didn't look surprised to see me, in fact he seemed... interested.
Like a predator noticing sudden movement.
I stepped through the crystal door and felt his heat well before he even lifted his eyes.
And surprisingly, the first thing he said wasn't an insult.
It was a question.
"So, you're the one they've been talking about?" He said.
His gaze drifted over to me, taking note of my torn sleeve, scorch marks, and the subtle tremor of exhaustion I refused to reveal. Then his gaze returned to mine.
"You're not even a noble, yet," he said, as if that explained everything. "And still... they looked at you. He looked at you."
"They?" I asked
He didn't need to clarify. I could guess who he was referring to.
Elya Veyrannis and Taron Caelvarin.
Their attention was obvious even amid the huge crowd. Elya's was more quiet and direct, while Taron's... well, his was more playful I guess.
'Though I have to admit, I wouldn't have been able to notice without the help of the Codex.'
"I don't understand it," he said. "Why would an heir take note of an ordinary commoner?"
Cyril's voice stayed calm, but his words carried weight. It was a statement of fact, delivered in the way a rule might speak about a normal civilian.
He seemed upset that a 'civilian' appeared to matter to some of the other heirs.
But to him... a civilian isn't supposed to stand at the same table as royalty.
" You aren't even exceptional," Cyril continued. "Your output is average at best. Your Aether pattern is... odd, but that doesn't mean it's rare. It usually means weak."
'Yikes. That was harsh.'
I held his gaze, like a subject about to usurp his king. "And yet... you're still talking to me."
That comment seemed to earn a small pause, as Cyril's eyes narrowed for a fraction, like I'd said something unexpectedly sharp.
"I'm talking to you," he said, "because Elya watched you like you were a page she couldn't read."
His jaw tightened slightly at her name.
"And Taron—" he added, and his voice changed, just a little. It wasn't anger, something more restrained. Something closer to irritation that had been forced into politeness.
"Taron doesn't waste his attention," Cyril said. "Not on people he finds boring."
I didn't respond.
I observed the way Cyril's fingers had curled slightly when he spoke Taron's name.
I couldn't tell, but it seemed like it was jealousy, not that it's a word that fits him cleanly. However, something in his posture suggested it anyway; it was an unwillingness to accept that another person's interest could be directed away from him.
'Let's just chalk it up to a noble being a noble. There's no point in trying to figure out what a noble is thinking.'
"Taron is—" Cyril's voice flattened, as if he'd caught himself revealing too much. "Sometimes too careless."
The way he said it sounded like a complaint.
It also sounded like admiration he refused to accept, openly.
"I think... maybe he's interested in the idea that a commoner can rise to the level of a noble— or even beyond," I said, carefully.
Cyril's gaze sharpened. "That's a child's fantasy."
"Are you sure about that?" I asked.
His calm cracked for half a second, it was just enough to show the teeth behind it.
"The Academy allows commoners because it needs the bodies for it to function," he said. "Because it needs the appearance of fairness... but that does not change the truth."
"And what truth is that?" I asked.
Cyril's eyes held mine, unwavering.
"Bloodlines built Elyndra," he said. "Bloodlines stabilise it. Bloodlines will rule it. That is the structure of the world."
There it was.
Not hatred.
Conviction.
The kind that makes people dangerous because they don't see themselves as cruel. They see themselves as correct.
I breathed in slowly, then said, "You sound like you've never even considered that you could be wrong."
Cyril's mouth twitched; it was almost a smile, but not as warm.
"I don't need to consider it," he said.
His gaze flicked, briefly, toward the chamber's exit corridor, where other candidates might eventually appear.
"Elya," he continued, voice returning to calm, "she watches anomalies. That's what she does. That's what she's interested in."
Then his eyes returned to me again.
"But Taron…" Cyril's jaw tightened. "He's not like that. His interest is… selective."
I didn't ask why that mattered so much to him.
I didn't need to.
Cyril stepped forward, heat gathering around his palm like a quiet storm.
"If you're going to be a variable," he said. "Then I'll measure you myself."
I held his gaze and responded with the only thing I could, because I knew backing down in front of him now would define me forever.
"Then do it."