Vayra knew exactly what to expect from the gunpowder-wielding wizard in front of her. He lashed out with tendrils of the black powder, turning them into sharp spikes or trying to bind her weapon.

She slashed through them, the heat of her scythe detonating the little beads of gunpowder on contact. The God-heir’s path extended to control over explosions, especially at his power level, and he always directed the blasts outward at Vayra.

She Warded herself and dodged. Both of them activated Bracing techniques at the same time, and he unleashed a flurry of fast blows. She leveraged her speed to block and deflect them, then lashed out in the gaps between. For every strike he threw out, she blocked and counterattacked.

First, she struck his inner wrist and activated her runestone, disabling his Arcara and shutting down his bracing technique. Then she slashed his other arm with the blade of her scythe, leaving a glowing gash.

By the time his flurry had ended, he hadn’t left a scratch, but she had sliced a cross-hatching of wounds across his skin.

The wind-Path God-heir swung his staff down at Vayra, splitting her and the pirate apart for a second, but the swordwyrm retaliated and harried him, forcing him to block a few more heavy flying sword swipes.

The pirate drew on his bird companion and Moulded feather-shaped blades of gunpowder-Arcara. They hovered in the air behind him. He launched them, but Vayra unleashed a Starlight Palm and knocked them all aside.

She jabbed her scythe’s blunt end down at the man’s foot, locking him in place, then drove another palmful of starlight into his gut. He tried to stagger backward, but she kept him in range. He tried to swat her, but she reached up and snatched his hand, then tightened her mechanical fingers around it.

He shouted and deactivated all his techniques, then halted his cycling loops—a sign of surrender. Vayra struck him on the head with the blunt haft of her scythe, knocking him unconscious, then pushed him over the side of the shrine.

The wind-Path heir lunged at her again, and they traded blows between the scythe’s haft and the wind-enhanced staff, but with the swordwyrm’s help, she pushed him back up against the wall. He panted, and he was nearly out of mana, but he still wasn’t surrendering, and he was still aiming deadly blows at her head and neck.

She pinned his staff and pulled her pistol out of her belt, then directed a concentrated beam of starlight through it. It pierced through his heart, killing him in an instant.

Whirling around, she faced Glade. The swordwyrm inched closer.

But Glade had everything under control. With a shout, he twirled his sword, and cleaved the swordswoman’s head from her shoulders. She hadn’t been giving up, either.

Against the Velaydians, when so much honour was on the line?

“You stay on the shrine first,” Vayra said. “Get one Essence Drop.”

“Then you must trade places with me,” Glade replied. “I will not abandon you.”

“Understood.” Vayra sprinted down to the ground around the shrine and took a fighting stance, ready to push away any invaders who tried to hold the shrine for themselves. As soon as she stepped onto the ground, the runes on the Essence Drop vat turned blue, and bright orange elixir started accumulating on the spout. Glade held out his vial.

Rumbles and shouts rolled through the forest. Occasionally, a contestant would scream. Arcara whined and screeched, and techniques smashed against each other. Flashes of light blasted up into the sky, and bursts of force made the trees tremble.

A chunk of the Shattered Moon’s crust moved in front of the sun, darkening the island, and all the colourful Arcara blasts seemed to double in brightness.

Vayra deactivated her own techniques to conserve mana. They needed to hold the shrine for two minutes each, and they needed enough strength to carry the Essence Drops to the central clearing.

Only one more God-heir attacked her while Glade gathered his Essence Drop, but Vayra fought the woman off with a chain of Starlight Palms. The woman sprinted away into the woods, seeking easier prey.

Once Glade had his drop in his vial, Vayra traded places with him. She ran to the spout and grabbed her glass vial, preparing to catch the next droplet. A pair of water-Path God-heirs, children of Karmion, approached, but Glade and Vayra both launched ranged Reach techniques at them, fighting them off and holding them back until they gave up.

When the Essence Drop spilled out the spout, Vayra caught it, then corked her vial. The neon liquid seethed, straining against its bonds. It wanted out, and it wanted to be used. It didn’t seem like a substance that she should ingest—and she couldn’t until she presented it to Karmion.

‘Very few elixirs will seem palatable when they’re this strong,’ Phasoné commented. ‘Just get it to the central clearing, and we can worry about using it later—if they even let us keep it.’

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Vayra sprinted off the shrine and ran to Glade’s side. The swordwyrm flattened and hovered a few inches above the ground, waiting for him to climb atop it and fly it. Vayra activated the Astal Shroud.

“Race you to the clearing?” she asked.

“I will meet you there,” Glade replied. He stepped onto his sword.

They sprinted off through the forest. Vayra set the blocky stone audience stands in the center of her vision and kept it there, even as she slipped between the trees. Glade flew on his sword, hovering just above the treeline.

Halfway to the central clearing, they swerved to the west to avoid a swath of burning forest. An out-of-control contracted beast—a tree-height bison made of ice crystals—rampaged, forcing them to skirt around the edge of the clearing and approach from the south.

Only a few paces from the central clearing, a God-heir leapt into their path. He wielded a musket with a bayonet of Moulded sunlight-Arcara, and he launched a beam of concentrated golden light from the musket’s barrel. It seared through the forest and sliced a tree, but Glade interrupted it with a swat of metal filings and sword-Arcara.

Vayra launched a Starlight Palm into the man, and he staggered back.

“Phas, how are we doing on mana?” Vayra asked softly.

‘You still have a third left. Just get past him, and—’

The sun-Path God-heir’s eyes widened and his throat bulged. He dropped his musket and clasped at his neck, but nothing touched him. Vayra hadn’t done anything.

Then his chest caved in, as if struck by an invisible palm strike. His clothes nor flesh didn’t rip from the direction of the impact, but a spurt of blood shot out his back. He collapsed.

Vayra spun around. She hadn’t done that, and Glade couldn’t have any techniques that could cause that.

“What’s this? I didn’t think I’d see you here!”

Vayra held her hand out and mustered her scythe. That voice…

Larra.

“Vayra!” Glade yelled. “Get to the clearing!”

Aside from Karmion’s protection—which she didn’t have much faith in—the Shattered Moon’s guards waited inside, guarding anyone who made it to safety and breaking up any residual fights.

Larra emerged from the gloom of the forest. She wore a long, dark coat, and a cloak with sea-foam edges. Her wolf’s tooth hung on a necklace in front of it all, blowing in the wind. At the moment, it was raising her to the power of a Commodore. She didn’t carry any water with her, and she hadn’t pulled out her three-part staff.

Vayra turned. There was no need to fight right now. If they ended up in the same bracket, then they could fight. She turned and sprinted to the central clearing.

As she sprinted, something tugged on her left wrist—on her flesh-and-blood hand.

On? No. Inside.

Her blood churned, pulling against her and trying to drag her back toward Larra. Larra held her hands up, and her fingers glowed with Arcara.

She was manipulating Vayra’s blood.

The control wasn’t perfect—not yet—but Larra must have just learned the technique. If she’d already gotten strong enough to slow Vayra down…

“Vayra!” Glade shouted. He stood on the ground beside her now. The swordwyrm slashed at Larra, forcing the woman to duck under the blade, and Glade lashed out with a Reach technique, slashing Larra’s cheek with metal filings.

Vayra slammed the disruption runestone into her own arm and activated it, freeing herself from Larra’s technique—it had to be a Reach technique.

Larra’s hold shattered, and Vayra sprinted away at full speed. She and Glade stumbled into the central clearing. Panting, Vayra held up her vial of Essence Drop.

The guards closed in around her and Glade, preventing anyone from the forest from attacking, then shepherded her and Glade away from the edge and into the center, where a set of brown-coated adjudicators were judging the Essence Drops and confirming the contestants had completed the task.

Vayra and Glade weren’t the first to arrive, but they were far from the last. Only about fifty other God-heirs had arrived before them.

Vayra and Glade approached the table at the center of the arena. She felt a weightless pressure on her shoulders as she approached—hundreds of eyes all settled on her, observing her and judging.

There was a single wooden booth near the top of the risers, where a troop of redmarines, King Tallerion and his guards, and Nathariel sat. Tallerion’s face read of relief, and Nathariel of satisfaction.

Still, as they approached the table, Vayra couldn’t help but look back over her shoulder and stare out at the woods. Larra didn’t enter—she hadn’t hadn’t gotten an Essence Drop yet, but there was plenty of time. But Vayra didn’t know the range of this new technique. Maybe Larra would try to drag her out.

But there was nothing.

Worse, Vayra had no counter to it. The more Larra developed it, and the more she expanded upon it, the stronger it’d become.

‘Not the time to worry about that,’ Phasoné pointed out. ‘We need the adjudicators to confirm that we’re still in the tournament.’

Vayra nodded, then blinked a few times, long and hard, trying to purge the residual feeling of her blood rebelling against her. It didn’t work, but her mind stopped running in circles. She ran with Glade the rest of the way to the table and set their vials down. The adjudicators lifted the vials and stared at them, tapping the sides or swirling the glass around. They jotted down notes and compared them to a colour chart.

They were probably looking for any reason whatsoever to disqualify her and Glade.

Let them try. Her Essence Drop was perfect. She tapped her foot and let her gaze wander. Most of the other God-heirs who had already arrived looked exactly as she’d expect—tall, muscular, and wearing pristine and elegant clothing. A few of them panted, but most retained their composure as they stood and waved at the crowd.

And then there was Myrrir.

He knelt, wearing dirty and ragged red robes and dented brass armour. His shoulders slumped and he leaned on his jade sword, heaving breaths. He must have arrived just before them.

“Mediator!” an adjudicator called, snapping his fingers. “Your vial is good. Take it, and do what you want. Consider it your reward for the first round of the tournament. You passed, and you’re onto the next phase.”