The duel ring shimmered with ambient aether, a translucent dome rising overhead to seal the combatants within. Faint glyphs pulsed across the boundary like a heartbeat—golden, thrumming, alive. This was the Academy's cradle of combat: where reputations rose and futures fractured.
Selene Altharys stepped forward, boots echoing lightly against obsidian tile. Her expression was unreadable, her raven-black hair pulled back, eyes glinting silver beneath the arclight.
The Tier One Duel Trial was not for show. It was a rite of balance—raw power was restricted. Lethality forbidden. Only control, efficiency, and presence mattered here.
Across from her stood Eryndor Vayne.
Younger. Lean. Sparks danced across his bare arms, crackling against skin like restless fireflies. He wore no coat, only a sleeveless battle vest woven with sigil-threaded leather, humming faintly with stored charges. His eyes, pale and storm-grey, watched her like a wolf preparing to strike.
The arena went still.
From above, a masked adjudicator raised one hand. "This is a sanctioned Tier One Duel Trial. Victory by surrender or incapacitation. Lethal force is prohibited. Begin on seal-break."
The glyph-seal fractured with a crack like lightning splitting stone.
Eryndor moved first.
Lightning flared from his fingers in a spiraling arc—twisting midair, the bolt split in three, each tendril seeking Selene's position. She stepped forward, not back. Her left hand slid through the air, fingers carving a symbol like ink on water.
A wall of shadow erupted around her. Not darkness—but density. Like layered smoke frozen in motion. The lightning struck and fizzled—absorbed into her veil with a muffled thud, like thunder underwater.
Eryndor blinked.
Selene extended her hand. From beneath her boots, tendrils of shadow snapped forward, slithering like serpents. They crept across the tiles toward Eryndor's stance, whispering over stone like silk dragged through dust.
He snarled and lifted both hands. "Scatter."
A shockwave burst outward in all directions—white-blue lightning expanding in a dome. The shadow tendrils shrieked in contact, twisting violently before dispersing into smoke.
He lunged.
Crackling electricity spiraled around his fists. He struck with open palms—one aimed at her chest, the other at her side. Selene ducked, spun, and whispered.
A glyph flared beneath her. Vel-kaar.
The air around her shimmered. Her image blurred—then vanished.
Eryndor halted, wide-eyed.
Mirror veil, he realized. An advanced cloaking illusion that left no heat, no ripple, no sound.
The arena pulsed. He pivoted, scanning—too late.
Selene materialized behind him, driving her palm toward his back. But Eryndor, to his credit, spun just in time, unleashing a radiant burst of lightning at point-blank range.
The impact sent Selene skidding backward, boots sliding across stone, her coat smoking from the blast. She landed in a crouch, sliding to a halt with one hand braced against the floor.
A ripple of applause erupted from the higher seats. Even Arin, seated in the shadows above, lifted an eyebrow.
Selene rose slowly, exhaling steam.
Eryndor grinned. "You're fast. I'm faster."
"No," Selene said softly. "You're loud."
She raised both arms.
The light bent.
A vortex of shadow spiraled upward around her, forming a cyclone of flickering darkness—half-aether, half-memory. It roared around her like a storm of broken feathers, and from within, three silhouettes emerged.
Shadows.
Each one shaped like her. Echoes. Guardians. Weapons.
Eryndor stepped back. "Illusions?"
"No," she replied. "They remember."
The three shadows lunged.
Eryndor detonated a storm ring at his feet, launching himself skyward in a bolt of pure lightning. While midair, he conjured a sigil array, each ring spinning faster, symbols spitting sparks.
"Vulkaris Form!" he shouted.
A spear of compressed electricity formed in his hands. Cracking, sparking, unstable.
He hurled it with all the force he could muster.
It tore through the air, aimed straight for her chest.
Selene didn't flinch. Her three shadows moved in tandem, intercepting the spear. The moment it struck, it detonated— BOOM —a blinding flash erupted across the arena, hurling smoke in all directions.
The crowd gasped.
When the smoke cleared—
Selene stood alone.
The shadows gone. Her tunic torn at the shoulder. Blood on her lip.
And yet—calm.
She lifted two fingers and drew a symbol midair. Ancient, unfamiliar. It hovered like burning ink.
Eryndor froze. That rune—
He'd never seen it before.
Selene whispered. "Nyss-varek."
A shadow surged from his own back.
It spoke. In his voice.
A single word in the First Tongue.
Eryndor's eyes went wide. His body locked. The storm anima within him flickered, then dimmed. His aura shattered like glass.
Selene walked forward.
Calm. Controlled.
She placed one hand to his chest and released a pulse of silencing aether. His legs gave way.
He dropped to his knees.
The bell tolled, deep and final.
"Victor: Selene Altharys."
The dome retracted. The crowd exhaled.
And above, behind the mirrored glass of the faculty's gallery, tension rippled.
"She used ancient speech," one adjudicator whispered. "That's restricted tier."
"Was it instinctual?"
"Or recovered?"
No one answered.
In the back row, Arin Valemore leaned forward, shadows clinging to his sleeve. He had felt it again—that resonance. The voice from the sealed chamber. The same tongue embedded in the stones beneath the academy.
Selene hadn't just fought like someone trained.
She fought like someone who was remembering.
And the Codex fragment hidden within her pulse—
—was watching.