The afternoon sun bled gold across the Academy's high spires, casting long shadows that stretched over the gathering crowds. The Trials continued without pause, one battle after another unfolding across the many arenas like clockwork. Arin sat high in the observation tiers, a place reserved for duelists who had already completed their matches. He wore a plain cloak now, his name whispered far more than spoken aloud. No one dared approach.
Not yet.
From this height, Arena Three was in full view. Unlike the sealed violet depths of Arena Nine, this battleground was shaped like a broken wheel—eight spokes of terrain fanning outward from the center. Each section hosted a different environment: shifting sands, shallow water, jagged stone, dense thickets, open steel platforms, and more. It was a test not just of strength, but of adaptation.
Arin's eyes followed the two students stepping forward into the arena.
Lucien Vael, dressed in dusk-grey magewear, a polished rapier clipped to his hip and his spellbook chained to a belt loop.
Across from him, Cambria Eldwyn, a kinetic adept from House Irynn, her hands wrapped in silver-threaded cloth that crackled faintly with magnetic energy.
The arbiter signaled the match.
They moved at once.
Cambria launched herself forward with a magnetic pulse, her feet barely touching the steel paneling before redirecting toward a cluster of jagged stone. Lucien remained still, murmuring under his breath as three floating glyphs appeared around him.
"Aetheric Prism."
Light warped around him, bending in unpredictable arcs. Cambria's next leap veered wide, her aim distorted.
"He's displacing refraction," Arin murmured.
A murmur nearby caught his attention. Elias and Talia had arrived, settling beside him with expressions tense with excitement.
"That's a new spell," Talia said, watching Lucien closely.
"Aetheric Prism? It was in one of the older conjuration tomes," Elias replied. "Nearly impossible to maintain while casting offensively."
Lucien was doing exactly that. With one hand maintaining the prism field, his other drew sigils midair, sending arcing bolts of concussive light through the distortion.
Cambria dodged the first two, but the third clipped her shoulder, staggering her backward.
She retaliated with a kinetic sweep that shattered a boulder, flinging shards in a radial blast.
Lucien twisted his glyphs inward.
"Reflectum Halo."
A wave of mirrored force surrounded him, deflecting the stone fragments away. One shard pinged off the barrier and sliced through a copper coil Cambria had affixed to her left arm, shorting her gauntlet.
She hissed.
Then smiled.
Arin narrowed his eyes.
She wasn't out.
Instead, Cambria slammed both hands into the earth, her palms pulsing with charged momentum.
"Magnesurge!"
The steel spokes beneath the arena groaned as polarity reversed. Lucien staggered, his boots locking to the metal. Cambria darted forward, a blur of motion, drawing a metallic staff from her back. The weapon unfolded, crackling with radiant arcs.
The strike came swift and low, aiming for Lucien's ribs.
He caught it with a conjured barrier, but the force threw him backward into the stone quadrant.
Cambria pursued.
Lucien gasped. "Phase Array."
The ground beneath him shimmered, and he vanished—reappearing a second later on the water platform. His boots skimmed the surface, holding fast through an anchoring spell.
Cambria landed where he had stood, the stone fracturing under her charge.
"He's bleeding mana," Elias observed.
Arin nodded. "Cambria's forcing him to burn through his reserves. If he doesn't turn it around in the next minute, she'll overwhelm him."
Lucien drew a line through the air, not a sigil, but a thread of glyphs. They flickered, unstable.
Then Arin felt it.
A thread of dimensional vibration. The same type that Rift Fold had produced.
"He's trying to fold."
Lucien shouted, "Aether Gate!"
For a heartbeat, space split behind him—a spiraling vortex of silver and void—and from it, a chained figure stepped forward. Ethereal, spectral.
"A construct," Elias whispered, stunned.
The figure raised its arms and unleashed a cascade of chained light toward Cambria.
Caught off guard, she was thrown backward, her staff flying from her grip.
The arbiter raised a hand. "Match complete."
The arena fell silent.
Then thunderous applause.
Arin remained still, but his thoughts raced. That construct… it wasn't in any known academy arsenal. Lucien had either found or created something beyond sanctioned curriculum.
Beside him, Talia gave a low whistle. "Didn't know he had that in him."
"He didn't," Arin murmured. "Not until recently."
He stared down at Lucien, now standing alone, the construct already fading.
Somewhere beneath the academy, the fracture stirred again.
Recognition.
Trial by trial, match by match—the echoes of something ancient were growing louder.
And Arin knew.
Soon, it would no longer be just duels.
The true trial was coming.