The oceans are death. Rivers, death. Even small streams, be wary. Any water that runs to the sea must never be trusted.

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The room fell silent, even the whispers hushed. A formal challenge! No one wanted to miss hearing the response.

While duels for standing and prestige were common among advanced students, Jair and Lian had advanced less than half a day ago. Neither should have anything worth fighting with.

Some of the more observant noticed that Jair carried neither sword nor sheath. Lian hadn’t reshaped his soulspace to accommodate his new sword yet, wearing it at his waist instead.

It wasn’t unheard-of to internalize your soulsword on day 1, but it was far from commonplace. Glances were exchanged. Students pointed, but still no whisper broke the silence.

Lian’s eyes narrowed as he glared at Jair. Clearly he suspected some kind of trap, but its exact nature eluded him. This close, Jair saw the confidence in Lian’s eyes flicker uncertainly.

The observers weren't the only ones to notice the lack of sword at Jair's side.

Jair let his smile show just a little. "Come, now, there's no reason to delay, are you afraid to face me without your gang?"

Lian's jaw flexed, but he didn't allow himself to be rushed into answering, still taking his time to assess.

"You can surrender now if you prefer,” Jair goaded, but Lian was harder to fluster than the headmaster. Larenok was only an administrator with delusions of grandeur; Lian was a noble heir with years of training in dealing with unexpected social situations. Though academically average, he was still an heir of House Teretho.

When Lian finally spoke, it was with calm disdain. "Of course I accept your challenge, Initiate Welburne. What terms would you request?"

Jair’s smile twitched a few notches upward. Lian had severely underestimated him if he thought he could get away with letting Jair set the parameters of the fight.

"I choose tonight as the time. The location and weapon terms are yours to determine. As are your preferred handicaps."

Though he hadn't explicitly told anyone but Ran, Jair was two full ranks above Lian now. Ascendant mageblades could only engage in duels with lower ranked initiates or reforged by agreeing to uneven terms that favored the weaker.

This was more of a gamble even than Lian's offer, since the young noble was within his rights to demand concessions that would cripple Jair's ability to defeat him without his standard complement of spells. In this, he was counting on Lian’s pride; regardless of Jair’s official ranking as an ascendant, to claim his rightful restrictions would be the same as admitting Lian couldn’t beat him on his own.

Absently Jair retraced the manapath for Absorb on his hand while he waited for Lian’s reply. As before, his adversary took his time considering before finally speaking.

"I need no handicap from you. No restrictions. Main arena. Midnight."

Jair inclined his head, restraining his mirth to polite levels by the barest of margins. "If you're certain."

"I am."

“Then let it so be witnessed! Lian Teretho has declined his rightful handicaps.”

Lian's brow furrowed and his voice lowered as the significance finally registered. "You said... handicaps, plural?"

"Not too late to back out if you'd rather surrender." Jair smiled and tapped his forehead in subtle reminder: he’d already connected his soulblade to his soulspace, at minimum. Possibly more.

Lian didn’t reply. His pride wouldn’t allow him to back down in front of everyone and they both knew it.

"See you at midnight." Jair smiled and turned away, leaving his one-time nemesis to his uncertainty.

Whispers and discussion burst into being all around them as the tension of the moment broke and the speculation began.

Jair casually walked over to the food tables, smiling as he wondered what the odds would look like for the unofficial betting pool. He collected a large plateful of everything. With the amount of strain he planned to put his body through over the coming months, he'd need a lot more than the average student.

Ran was still staring in openmouthed astonishment, somewhere between incredulity and frustration. Jair sat back down and resumed eating his second bowl of soup as though nothing of consequence had occurred.

"Jair, what."

"I don't have time to deal with him harassing me this week. If I kill him, his father will definitely cut me off and possibly engage in a full vendetta. If I let him think he can keep pushing me around, he'll never stop. So..." Jair shrugged, the solution obvious.

Ran vigorously rubbed at his head as though to dispel a headache. "So you challenge him to a duel in front of everyone? I know your sword is amazing, but this is still Lian Teretho we're talking about. He's been practicing with the blade since the day he was born!"

"Time doesn't matter nearly as much as quality, and I've learned things he can't even imagine."

"When? Where? How?" Ran's voice rose with each word, frustration winning out. "You talk like you..." Ran's face suddenly went slack, eyes losing focus as something occurred to him. "You're like Oliss."

"Oh?" Oliss Methesdi's soulspell was one of minor prophecy, providing her with glimpses of the future that she took great pride in lording over everyone. Even if it was stupid to let anyone know the nature of your soulspell, there were always those who’d do it anyway.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Jair didn't see Oliss in the audience at the moment, so she must have chosen not to attend dinner early today. Otherwise, she'd have been surrounded by a swarm of gossipy everyones.

Perhaps she'd foreseen the chaos and decided to avoid it entirely.

Ran continued to speak, ticking off points on his fingers. "You suddenly talk about things you never mentioned before, suddenly care about things you have no reason to." Ran stiffened as he continued putting pieces together. "Dragons. You said... studying dragons could save my life. That wasn't a joke, was it. You saw something."

Jair laughed softly. "If I say yes, will you go order the ballista?"

"What happens?" Ran asked, unflinchingly serious. "What did you see?"

"Dragon, smashing towers, eating students." Jair shrugged. "But I have Maelstrom now."

"What good is a soulsword going to do against a dragon? You haven't suddenly learned to bladewalk or something. Or have you?"

Jair shook his head. Movement abilities like Bladewalk were common enough, but not so simple as that. "I've had Maelstrom less than a day, that's not enough time to learn a whole new discipline, even if I had the pathing for it."

Again, Ran didn’t let him get away with anything. "You didn't answer my question."

"True." Jair stacked the empty bowl with the first, pulling his overstuffed plate closer.

Ran glared at him.

Jair didn’t speak.

“What’s your plan?” Ran demanded.

"Stab dragon with sword," Jair explained very slowly, demonstrating with his fork and a slice of sauteed sand-eel, then held it up before popping it into his mouth. "Dead dragon, safer school."

"I hate you."

"Mhm."

Ran smacked his forehead with his palm. "Oh, Aelir above... that's what you wanted the ballista for? To throw your sword at it?"

"Of course. What did you think I needed that specific shape for."

". . ."

"I still think it might work."

Ran thudded his face into the table. "You do know that dragons are fast, right? You can't just expect it to--"

"I can do it. Just need to lead it right." It may take a few hundred tries, but he was confident he could hit it eventually. And with Maelstrom being properly bound now, he could resummon it to himself at will, so he could fire multiple times.

"That's not how dragon slaying works. You can't just hit it with a sword once and expect it to die."

Jair huffed out a laugh. "I'm aware. You hit the poison sac first, explode the vapor, then while it's grounded jump on and stab it until it stops moving. Not a hard concept to understand."

"I really do hate you."

"I know." Jair flicked a slice of pepper cactus at his friend.

Ran deflected instinctively, smacking the slightly squishy vegetable back toward Jair with instincts honed over a year and a half of close acquaintance with one another.

Jair leaned up just right and caught it in his mouth, biting down with a smile.

Ran's glare only increased. Neither spoke again and they finished their meal in silence.

Jair finished his pile of food and rose to his feet. Ran made as if to follow, but Jair held out a hand to stop him. “You might want to hang back a bit.”

“What? Why?”

“I might have to deal with some things it would be better you’re not involved in.”

“No way. I’m not leaving you alone, especially not today.”

“I know–”

“--what you’re doing,” Ran chorused with him in perfect sync. “So you keep saying. But I don’t know, and it doesn’t seem like I have much of another option to find out, now, do I?”

“I’m going to walk into an ambush and probably kill someone.”

Ran only sighed. It had been that kind of day. “Dare I ask why?”

Jair shrugged. “I’m making a statement, and testing limits. Lian is too important to do anything beyond public humiliation with, but Bren? He’s a nobody.”

“Nobody who comes here is a nobody.”

Jair waved the comment away. "He's not going to do anything important enough to justify his existence continuing.”

“What happened? This isn’t just unlike you, this is…” Ran shook his head, unable to even voice the depth of his concerns.

“Which is why I need you to stay uninvolved.”

“I can’t stay uninvolved now! You just told me you plan to kill someone!”

“Only if I have to. If I can get out of it without violence, trust me, I’d rather not have to deal with the paperwork either.”

Ran thumped his head back onto the table. “I’ve lost my mind. I went too long without sleep, and now I’m going crazy. Or you are. Maybe both.”

“Just me. But I’m over it now. If things are going to go too badly, I’ll backtrack before it’s too late to correct course.”

Ran tilted his head to stare up at Jair as though he wanted to ask something, then thought better of it.

“Go out the back way, get some sleep. I’ll be home as soon as I’m done.”

Ran exhaled very slowly, then nodded and stood. He glanced back once, but whatever he’d decided about his friend’s new prophetic soulspell was clearly strong enough for him to trust Jair at least this once.

Good. That should keep him from getting caught up in whatever happened next.

Contrary to what he’d implied, Jair didn’t actually plan to kill Bren or any of the rest of Lian’s gang, but he did plan to make it very clear that he was no longer someone to be messed with.

He’d tried doing similar things in the past, but with an unbound mundane soulsword as his only weapon and a body six years weaker than he was used to it had been too easy for his adversaries to disarm and overpower him.

Things would be different this time. An ascended and bound sword could not be so easily taken away.

A casual glance around the room on his way out showed Lian sitting with the heir to a secondary holding in the southern fringe region, still without any of his usual hangers-on. So despite accepting Jair’s challenge, he hadn’t seen fit to call off whatever ambush he’d set his minions up to.

Jair set his dishes on the cleaning counter, then strolled out the main entrance as though nothing was wrong in the world.

He made no effort to search for any attackers as he walked down the main path between the dining hall and the central plaza, pausing now and again to admire the amber light of the nightglow shrubs, but overall making his way directly toward his and Ran’s shared apartment.

Arriving at the student housing village without incident, Jair began to think he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion about Lian’s cronies’ absence. Perhaps they were away on some unrelated task, as hard as that was to believe.

He’d turned down his own street before the expected ambush finally materialized.

Bren Tolo stepped out into the path just ahead of him. A quick glance verified the other four coming out to flank and surround him. Eria hanging back a bit with her usual pleased smirk, clearly the one in charge of this little encounter, while Korin, Atrek, and Zyn closed in around Jair from the sides.

Jair continued walking forward with a smile, allowing himself to be surrounded in return for closing the distance to Bren. “Ah, there you are, I was wondering if you were even planning to show up.”

He hoped to deal with them relatively peaceably, but if it came to a fight, Bren would be the one to deal with first.

Knowing how to fight with a summonable blade gave him a significant advantage. No one here had ever trained against an ascendant. None of them even had a single protection ability imprinted yet. Jair may only have the one trick at the moment, but it was quite a good trick.

It didn’t matter how strong you were when you had a magic sword through your throat.

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