“Dragons.”

“Yeah, I…that was a dragon.”

“Sia, why the fuck are they fighting dragons?”

“It’s a drake, actually,” Gideon pointed out. He sat in the row behind them, sandwiched between Sage and Hawthorne, with Ilias on Hawthorne’s other side. “They’re in the same family as dragons, but they’re a flightless species.”

“Okay,” Oren said, irritated. “I’ll rephrase: why the fuck at they fighting drakes?”

Did Gideon have to butt into their conversation? Sage had been talking her brother’s ear off all throughout the waiting period between games two and three, which meant he and Sia had heard everything, too, seeing as they were less than a foot away from each other. He’d hit his daily dose of the Eriksen siblings a half hour ago, and the slight reprieve he’d gotten from the Golden Phoenix match hadn’t done much to improve his mood.

“That I can’t answer,” Gideon replied, with that infuriating, unflappable demeanor of his that drove Oren up the wall on most occasions.

Then why bother getting involved in this conversation at all?

He almost wished Waverly were here; she’d probably read up on the history of the tourney, if anyone would know why drakes it would be her. She might not deign to share the information unless prodded relentlessly by Sia, but Oren still preferred her over Gideon’s obnoxious interjecting.

“Hey.”

Oren slumped back into his seat, arms crossed, as Sia knocked her shoulder against his. He frowned at her, to which she bumped him again, grinning.

“What?” he asked.

“They’ll be okay,” Sia said. “Lock and Cross. Well, Lock will bail Cross out of whatever trouble he gets into, because it’s Cross. But they’re going to get past this.”

“I’m not worried,” he said, because he wasn’t. What did he care that Lock and Cross were fighting a gods-damned drake? No skin off his bones if something went wrong. And he wasn’t competing, so, win or lose, Oren wasn’t really affected by any of this. “I’m not,” he repeated, scowling at Sia’s sympathetic expression.

“And neither am I,” she declared. “Because I trust our guildmates.”

“Ugh,” Oren groaned, sliding down in his seat until his spine protested the awkward, slumped position, then slid down another inch just to make a point. Sia’s giggling was summarily ignored.

“Oooooh, there’s Lock!”

Varya’s exclamation was enough to rouse the gathered Roses, Oren included, all of them straining to see as both Lock and Cross entered through an archway. Sky started shouting instantly, demanding that Lock and Cross kick the drake’s scaly ass; Ilias, meanwhile, shrunk down into himself, to the point where someone might have overlooked him completely if not for the arm Hawthorne had slung across his shoulders.

Oren watched as his guildmates walked into the center of the arena, Cross bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet, Lock taking a sweeping look around the space before flexing his hands at his sides. At this distance Oren couldn’t be sure, but he figured Lock was prepping his magic, the familiar golden threads winding around his fingers and shining metallic in the dazzling afternoon light.

Across from them stood the much larger archway the Phoenix’s drake had emerged from. The black barrier was already starting to lighten, the magic dissipating from the top down.

Oren fidgeted in his seat, stuffing his hands under his arms so wouldn’t be tempted to pick at his nails—Ilias’ habit of chewing on his nails was gross enough. Sia stared with rapt attention at the arena, her eyes flickering between the barrier and their guildmates. Behind them, Sage and the others had fallen silent, though Oren assumed Sky would be rioting the moment Lock or Cross failed to live up to her heroic expectations.

Aaramis’ voice boomed throughout the stadium, shattering the quiet and rattling every last one of Oren’s nerves. Sia cursed under her breath, her hand balled into a fist where it rested on her thigh.

“For the second fight, we have Starry Rose, the least notewo—” Sia shot the balcony where the djinn resided a venomous glare. He cut off for a moment. When he spoke again, there was a strangled note to his voice that had Sia stifling a snort. Oren’s lips twitched into a half-smile, pleased for once that Cross had been unapologetically himself. “The eccentric adventurers of Starry Rose will face a drake of unparalleled power. The king of the earth, the conqueror of mountains.”

The last of the barrier vanished and a slate-gray drake burst from the arch’s depths, roaring at the sudden freedom. Its tail swung into view, tipped with an armored ball that looked as though it would break more than a rib or two if it connected with either of their guildmates. Moss and lichen grew between its scales, creeping out over its torso and down its legs. A black, forked tongue flicked out from between craggy teeth, tasting the air as its head swung from side to side.

“They’ll be lucky to survive the fight,” Aaramis added, sounding entirely too eager about the prospect of their potential deaths.

“Motherfucker,” Sky exclaimed, rocketing to her feet as the drake’s beady black eyes finally settled on Lock and Cross.

Sia clapped both hands to her mouth, not quick enough to completely block her high-pitched gasp. Oren would have said something—to distract her, or reassure her, or just to talk—but his tongue was stuck fast to the roof of his mouth, and his hands had clawed into the loose fabric of his pants, his palms suddenly clammy.

They had to fight that?

Varya, still perched on the banister in front of them, said nothing as she leaned forward, dove-gray hair spilling over her shoulders and obscuring her face from view.

Oren’s eyes darted back to the arena just as Cross moved, sinking his magic into the long shadows cast by the high walls and afternoon sun; the shadows took on wispy edges, writhing with the influx of Cross’ mana. As he cast them out, wrapping them around the legs and tail of the drake, Lock raised both arms, fingers spread—multiple threads shot out from each fingertip, twisting around one another to form thicker, stronger ropes as they unspooled from his hands. Oren had seen him work before, he knew Lock more than deserved his rank, but watching the near-instantaneous creation of the mana-infused net was still fascinating, sending a thrill of exhilaration up Oren’s spine.

The drake snarled and thrashed as Cross’ shadows took hold of its limbs, chomping at the wispy restraints where it could reach them. The wild movements drew the shadows taut and thin, some of them snapping from the strain of trying to hold down a thousand-pound beast. Cross continued to wind his shadows around its torso, though, adding more and more as the drake went on with its rampage, until Oren was sure its bucking was going to outpace Cross’ ability to hold it down. The drake gave another mighty thrash, moss-tipped spikes jutting out of its massive legs that speared through the shadows. The moss glowed—some type of bioluminescence that weakened or outright dispelled the shadows.

Just as the last of the shadows snapped, Lock’s net fell over it, and at his signal Cross’ shadows abandoned the drake altogether, instead rushing down its body and into the ground, forming thick black spikes that drove through the edges of Lock’s net and into the packed earth. The drake bucked again, but the net held.

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They didn’t have to kill it, Oren thought, they just had to subdue it. Right? Hadn’t that been what the asshole of a djinn had said once Golden Phoenix had finished with their match? Lock and Cross could kill the drake, but they didn’t have to.

So—was that it?

The question hung heavy in the air, bringing the crowd’s cheering to a standstill as Lock and Cross faced the drake, neither of them moving as they waited. If the drake couldn’t—

A piercing cry split the air, and the drake raised its front legs as much as it could beneath the net before slamming them down into the ground with a resounding boom. The ground trembled with it, cracks appearing in the earth, spiderwebbing their way outwards from the tips of the drake’s talons. The cracks widened as the shuddering increased in intensity, the ground yawning open around them; it sent Cross skittering back to avoid falling into the fucking abyss that now divided the two halves of the arena, the cracks only stopping when they hit the magic barriers along the walls.

Oren’s eyes found Lock stranded on the opposite side of the arena from Cross, slowly picking himself up from where he’d skidded to a stop after darting away the drake’s frankly ridiculous display of magic. Loose threads dangled from his hands, and Oren tracked them back to the net, his eyes widening as he noticed the new spikes sprouting from the drake’s body, severing sections of Lock’s threads. Not enough to break free — yet.

The drake roared again, bringing forth clusters of thorny thickets from between its scales, each of them threatening to snap more threads. Lock called out to Cross, something Oren couldn’t make out over the reverberating cry of the drake, winding threads up both arms, but before either of them could make a move, there was another ear-splitting screech as the drake slammed its forelegs down again, the last of the threads breaking. Instead of splitting apart the ground again, though, multiple, fast-forming pillars of earth shot away from its feet, chasing down Lock and Cross on either side of the chasm.

It was like an optical illusion—the ground rippled as the pillars punched up and shot back down, moving so rapidly it looked more like something fluid than solid earth. They didn’t follow a predetermined path, either; wherever Lock and Cross went, the pillars followed, dogging their heels with a vengeance. The two weaved their way across the arena, Lock making use of his threads to pull ahead of the pillars, Cross doing the same with his shadows. Only—only Oren thought… the more magic they used, the more intense the pillars got, almost like…

“Gods, it’s tracking their mana,” Sia murmured, an undercurrent of awe to her voice that Oren begrudgingly understood. Sensing mana was something most magic-users could do, human or otherwise, with some people more sensitive and attuned to it than others, but this was an effortless fusion of sensory magic with combat, not to mention the nature magic it was conjuring from its scaly hide. Oren had never seen anything like it before.

If only the damn dragon wasn’t trying to murder his guildmates with it.

Lock abruptly switched tracks, turning towards the drake as he ran, his threads glimmering around his arms, uncoiling. Once he was close enough, he shot out a set of threads, wrapping them around one of the short spines protruding from the drake’s back and using a perfectly-timed pillar to launch himself into air.

What the fuck?

“Oh, Lock,” Varya sighed, much less sober now, her cheeks puffed out in an exaggerated pout. “You’re gonna be in trouble for that later.”

“Why would he—”

Oren cut off as noticed Cross had stopped running, as well, shadows swarming around his feet, arms raised as though he were going to throw something at the drake. But he wasn’t moving, and the pillars—

Cross disappeared into his shadow at the same moment that Lock swung himself under the drake’s foreleg, and the pillars—still following Cross’ mana—drove straight up into the underside of the drake’s chin, snapping its head back with such force that Oren and Sia winced, shrinking back into their seats. The drake growled as it staggered back, the momentum throwing Lock into an unintended spin, and Oren’s heart was lodged in his throat as the man fought to right himself, catching his feet on the outer side of the drake’s foreleg and using it as a springboard to propel himself towards the nearest arena wall. His threads latched onto the edge of the wall, just beneath the barrier, and he swung again, without releasing his hold on the drake’s spine.

His momentum, combined with the dazed state the drake was left in from the punishing uppercut, was enough that—when his strings pulled taut—the drake’s leg gave out, sending its front half crashing to the ground in a shower of dust and bits of shredded greenery.

For a moment, Oren’s ears rang with the sudden silence. No one moved, no one dared to breathe. And then the arena flared to life again, the crowd roaring even louder than anything the drake had managed as people surged to their feet. The Roses crowded the railing, Oren and Sia squished together somewhere in the center of the group as they stared down at their guildmates slowly picking themselves up from the aftermath of the fight.

“Cross is going to pass out the second he sits down,” Sia shouted over the din of the crowd, and Oren rolled his eyes, because Sia couldn’t be more right; Cross was barely walking in a straight line as he made his way over to Lock.

“What did he even do?” Oren shouted back. He hadn’t seen where Cross had disappeared to, his focus caught on Lock’s string-fueled acrobatics.

“Teleported?” Sia didn’t sound entirely certain about that, but Oren had to admit it made as much sense as anything else. “I’ve never seen a move like that before from him.”

“Of course he breaks out the high-level magic here but not when he’s on a job.”

“Showing off for Lock is second-nature for Cross at this point,” Sia laughed, which, yeah, Oren could concede the point on that one.

Oren watched as Cross helped Lock to his feet, the two of them sharing victorious smiles. Something was caught in Lock’s hair, though, or…maybe he’d had it before, but Oren hadn’t noticed it during the fight. He squinted, trying to make it out.

“Is that…does Lock have a flower in his hair?”

“The one Master gave him before he left?”

“He had it the whole time?”

Sia laughed again, covering her mouth with her hand, like that would prevent Oren from hearing her mocking him. “Really, I’m just surprised it didn’t fall out. Master would’ve been upset if it had, though, so…good thing it didn’t.”

Oren shook his head, unable to comprehend that Lock went through that entire fight with one of Varya’s flowers weaved into his hair. It wasn’t uncommon—he walked around the guild like that more often than he didn’t, actually. But what sort of flower withstood a fight with a drake?

Never mind, Oren thought, his gaze flicking to Varya. Her face lit up with euphoric cheer. It's Master. End of story.

Cross pulled Lock into an uncoordinated hug just as Aaramis’ voice returned, cutting through the cheers like a knife.

"If you two are done," Aaramis grumbled.

Much like before, the earth shuddered as Aaramis’ magic flooded through it, crumbling around the dazed drake and dragging it down into what Oren hoped was a room beneath the arena before sealing it shut again, smoothing out the damage the drake had done to the stadium in the same moment.

"Congratulations to the—creative Roses. Now—" Aaramis cut off. The arena rumbled again, only this time Oren had the feeling it wasn't for a purpose, unless expressing the djinn’s potent irritation counted. "Just—move. Please."

Lock and Cross complied, hobbling their way towards the now-vacant archway they’d entered from.

The rest of the drake fights passed by without much fanfare from the Roses, though Hawthorne (and Cross, which Sia pointed out to him by jabbing an elbow into his side) paid special attention to the Polar Fox match-up. Falkner and his partner, Taryn (evidently the white-haired potential fae), could not have gotten a less fitting drake, as apparently Taryn favored ice magic, and so did the drake. She was so incensed by this that she completely disregarded the safety of her partner, firing off attacks in every direction, which resulted in Falkner taking an ice shaft to the shoulder.

Taryn was, gratifyingly, disqualified after that.

The pair from the Adventurers’ Coalition pulled off one of more creative wins of the day, with the green-haired kid managing to possess the drake and compel it into falling asleep right there in the middle of the arena. Aaramis hadn’t had much of a choice but to give them the win when it was clear the drake wasn’t waking up anytime soon.

Aside from that, though, there weren’t any major surprises, and when the last pair had gone (the Steel Knights failing out spectacularly once again), attendants appeared in the center of the arena to cast—something. A shield, or an illusion. Whatever it was, it hid the arena completely from view, and Aaramis announced the fourth game would proceed as soon as the necessary alterations had been made to the stadium.

“How much do you wanna bet whatever’s going on down there will make your hatred of the monarchy skyrocket?” Oren asked.

Sia made a face, tearing her eyes away from where she was attempting to burn a hole through the shielding to look at him. “I don’t hate the monarchy—”

“The class system, whatever, it amounts to the same thing.”

She blew a lock of hair from her eyes, grumbling to herself for a moment. “I don’t want to take that bet,” she said at last, and Oren smirked.

Just as well. He’d get to see her reaction to the latest round of the crown’s reckless spending soon enough.