They said he'd won the previous match, and that he'd qualified to go further in the competition.

He'd first felt a vicious pride for having conquered that dog of a man, then horror for having disregarded both Daye and Fedrahn's warnings. He felt Fedrahn's disapproval, especially when he didn't come to check on him days after.

He was used to Fedrahn just closing off and turning away from him, distancing himself whenever Garin did something of which he disapproved.

But he'd always forgiven him. So why was he not coming to visit him? And why was the healer different than arch master Modin, the one who stayed near the dorms?

And then the day of the match arrived, and it had been all Garin could do to try and pretend he was still injured. The master who'd been sent to collect him only stared straight ahead, not making any move to depart.

He had his walking stick, and made a show of trying to use it to support himself. Even the new healer stopped trying to change the friar's mind at that, and instead just fixed the boy with a distrustful glare.

When they reached the arena, Garin's heart hurt. They weren't there, at that place in the bleachers where he'd seen them. Master Daye was never supposed to get too friendly with his wards, but Garin had thought...

But what about Fedrahn? He'd thought they were closer than that. Fedrahn had told him so many things about the world out there, outside the island, and Garin had thought he meant for them to explore it together.

No, he hadn't thought. Garin knew. He knew Fedrahn had plans for him, for when they both left this island together. It was important to him, because no body else had shown so much faith in him. Not even Daye, who'd been his first friend, his first father. First...

He had to be here. Garin searched the stands, once, twice. And still he couldn't find him.

The friar was there, just as he had been at Garin's last fight. The boy he was fighting though, looked too tense given Garin knew that by now no one stood a higher chance of winning than this particular boy. Nordard was the fastest, sometimes dubbed speed demon.

He didn't even stare up at the friar as the two combatants were told to bow. Garin was asked to lose his walking stick, and he leaned on his apparently working leg to hand it to the healer. That was strange though. Why were there so many masters surrounding the dueling circle?

"Both your legs had broken bones, boy," the healer ground out, before he grabbed the stick and stalked off to find a seat.

It was too late by now. Even the least observant on the island should know. It was a most unforgettable fight. A fight in which two legs had had bones broken. He'd somehow managed to stand at the end there, but that could be explained away with adrenaline. One full leg being able to work was another thing entirely.

When they called the match to start, his opponent wasted no time entering his dance state. Garin left it as late as he could, and still only managed to enter his state as he flew in the air. He hadn't seen him come, the speed demon as they called him.

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Garin frowned when he fell in a heap, yet somehow he was still in bounds of the sparring circle. He stared at the masters, who all but one had their eyes closed and hands clasped as if they were in prayer. And suddenly he knew.

They had created a pseudo sphere. A kind of smaller copy of a sphere, a copy of another world, with rules different than the one they lived in most of the time.

The other boy was too fast for Garin to trace, even in his dance state. It was all he could do to just barely evade the threatening moves.

He saw the friar in the stands, and when the man spoke, it was as if he stood next to him.

"Yes, little boy. This is not a fight where you can just quit and lose whenever you like."

Garin didn't visibly respond, still trying to cling to his feeble deception of injury. Fedrahn wasn't here.

"Oh, yes. The scribe is our captive, by the way. We are not sure on how exactly we are going to punish him and Daye for trying to hide you. Killing him would be too easy. Maybe we should send him to a fate some call worse than death."

Garin saw red at the words captive and scribe, and suddenly the ground rippled, and one of the masters fell to the ground hurling blood and releasing it from all his facial orifices.

The pseudo sphere was threatening collapse, and suddenly the lightening quick opponent couldn't get in any hits. Not a damn hit would Garin allow to land as he danced to a different tune.

When his hand landed, it was with the weight of a gigantic rock, and as the ground rocked there were visible fissures in the air. The sphere was splintering, and the whole audience, including the friar could see it.

Even with someone stepping in to replace the first injured master, all the others were injured. Including the replacement. In the sphere itself Garin battled Nordard.

The older boy might have been the better light dancer, but Garin was not light dancing just then. Or rather he was, but he wasn't only light dancing, and that was his mistake.

Nordard charged, his fist striking forward, only to hit space. Garin felt the fist coming, and even though he couldn't think past the blood in his brain, recognised the danger. The kick came super fast, but the wind warned him in time again.

And just like that, the wind evaded the light. Until Garin decided to tank one of the punches, turning his skin to stone. The snap of breaking finger bones resounded through the breaking sphere they were in. Nordard was forced to retreat with a surprised cry.

And then he looked up, flinching in fear. Even with his anger addled brain, Garin followed the movement, and flinched at the fissures in the pseudo sphere. If the sphere was forcefully destroyed like this, he had a feeling the whole island wouldn't fare too well.

It wasn't something he'd read about, but something he could feel. If a whole world was destroyed on this island, then how could the island stay afloat. It didn't make sense. And he was going to destroy the island.

Nordard knew it too. And so too everyone in the audience. Garin saw the panic in the bleachers as the men tried to push past each other to go...where exactly. Even if they took boats, they wouldn't get far enough to survive the ensuing destruction.

"Nordard. Kill the boy!" the friar, the only person to not panic spoke. "Kill him or you'll die here. And so will the whole island."

And somehow Garin understood. He grinned with evident malice. No one could enter the sphere right then. They wanted to kill Fedrahn, and Daye too. He'd kill them all. He'd destroy the bloody island.

Nordard charged, and the dance went on.

Fists flew, and even when they were invisible, Garin could feel them on the wind. And he landed his own hits. Nordard was visibly battered, and Garin was already healing from any of the earlier injuries he'd suffered.

He laughed as power filled him, filled his very core. He was invincible, untouchable. He would destroy this island and swim right through the ocean to look for Fedrahn. Distantly, Garin knew Fedrahn might still be on the island, but he couldn't stop himself.

Nordard fought well, even when Garin used a lost technique and turned his whole body invisible, still the other boy was able to parry more hits than not. Still though, Garin was stronger. Nordard crumpled at his feet, and Garin smiled savagely at the older boy.

He didn't need to kill him. He had never killed before. He just had to wait until the last of the masters still trying to preserve the pseudo sphere quit. He turned to them with a savage snarl, some how sounding like a wolf, and that was when the first cramp hit him.

And then there was only white and pain, and he was out of the dance state, and he was on all fours, and there was an iron taste mixed with bile on his tongue. He saw the blood. Very dark red and staining the ground where he knelt.

Distantly, he saw the fissures start to close. The pseudo sphere was repairing itself.

Nordard had scooted away from him, and sat staring at him with wild wide eyes.

"Kill him, Nordard!" the friar's voice broke through Garin's internal noise.

The older boy only shook his head in...was it disbelief, denial, maybe refusal?

Garin didn't know. All he knew was that the black was coming for him, and he knew no more.