Towan’s teeth ground together as the blizzard’s fangs sank deeper. (I’m a statue in this cold… can’t feel my fingertips.) His breath came in ragged bursts, each exhale flecked with ice crystals. Somewhere through the screaming wind, Elliot’s voice pierced the chaos—“Finish him!”
(Finish him? I’m fighting the damn weather!) Towan ducked as a shard sheared past his ear, slicing a lock of hair. His frozen shoulder screamed with every movement. (But he’s right… no more holding back.)
He closed his eyes.
Deep in his core, where the Mediator had measured his potential in clinical terms, Towan found the leash he’d kept tightly knotted. The one that choked his Essentia into tidy, controlled streams.
(Unravel it.)
The world shifted.
Essentia erupted through Towan’s veins like wildfire breaching a dam. Gold light scorched through frost-clogged capillaries, thawing flesh with the agony of rebirth. His pendant burned against his chest—a tiny sun awakening.
Towan grinned through the pain.
“Come on, Deyar!” he roared, voice cutting through the storm. A spear of ice hurtled toward his face—Towan squeezed the air before it, Essentia pulsing. The projectile detonated into harmless mist. “Is this all your legacy amounts to?”
Deyar’s laughter faltered. The blizzard’s roar dipped half a tone.
(He’s doubting,) Towan realized, advancing. Each step melted frost before his boots touched earth. (His mind’s louder than his magic now.)
“You—you’re just a hammer!” Deyar spat, hurling twin ice javelins. “Brute force breaks nothing but itself!”
Towan moved. Essentia turned his bones to lightning, his muscles to coiled springs. He wove through the projectiles, shattering one with a palm strike, letting the other graze his ribs just to watch its edge melt against his glowing skin.
“Wrong.” Towan’s voice vibrated with power. The ground thawed in a six-foot radius around him. “Brute force…” He vanished—reappearing as Deyar’s widening eyes reflected gold. “…adapts.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
His kick connected with Deyar’s ribs. Ice armor spiderwebbed.
(There—the flicker in his stance when I close distance,) Towan catalogued, driving a knee upward. Deyar barely blocked, frost gauntlets cracking under the impact. (He’s never fought someone who outpaces his decay effect.)
The frozen battlefield became a chessboard. Towan pressed each advantage—melting footing where Deyar expected ice, trading superficial cuts for destabilizing blows. A shard sliced his cheek. He didn’t flinch.
(His Essentia’s thinning…) Towan noted as Deyar’s next ice wall crumbled too easily. (Overextended. Good.)
“You’re slowing down, Frostbite!” Towan taunted, feinting left. Deyar took the bait—his parry a half-second late. Towan’s Essentia-charged elbow smashed into the ice mage’s jaw.
Deyar stumbled. For the first time, fear flooded his quicksilver eyes.
(Now.) Towan’s senses screamed. (End it!)
He lunged—and the world turned white.
Towan closed his eyes, pushing past the biting fog. His master's teachings echoed: "When sight fails, Essentia speaks." He focused on the energy thrumming around him—the erratic pulse of Deyar's power flaring like a dying star at the storm's heart.
(He’s burning too hot. Can’t sustain this.)
Feinting a high kick, Towan lured Deyar into a defensive stance. Ice crawled toward his leg—exactly what he’d wanted. The blizzard’s roar stuttered as Deyar split his focus.
(Now.)
Towan pivoted, momentum twisting into a whip-fast spin. His heel slammed into the base of Deyar’s neck with a crack that silenced the wind. Fog peeled back, revealing Deyar crumpled on thawing cobblestones.
“Not bad,” Towan said, shaking frost from his sleeves. His hands trembled slightly—a detail only Elliot would notice.
“Finally,” Elliot drawled, stepping over a melting ice shard. “I was about to freeze to death watching his circus act.”
Towan nudged a frostbitten pebble with his boot. “He’s got potential. Just needs to stop treating Essentia like a bonfire.”
“Potential?” Elliot snorted. “The guy fights like a toddler with a flamethrower. All spectacle, no strategy.”
Elliot crouched, tapping Deyar’s trembling hand. Rivulets of cobalt energy leaked from the ice mage’s fingertips—wasted power. “He funneled 70% of his Essentia into environmental effects. Showy. Stupid.”
Deyar spat bloodied frost. “S-Screw… your critique…”
Towan snorted. “Relax, Frostbite. You’ll pop a vein.”
Deyar groaned, fingers twitching in a half-formed ice glyph. Towan crushed it under his heel—gently. “Rest. You’ll rupture your channels.” The adrenaline was fading, leaving his muscles soup.
“Don't give me… your pity…” Deyar rasped.
Elliot grabbed Towan’s elbow, steering him away. “Leave the drama queen to his soliloquy.”
Towan glanced back once. Deyar’s glare followed them, sharp as the ice he’d wielded—but quieter now. Humbled.
“Think he’ll try again?” Elliot asked as the academy gates loomed ahead.
Towan flexed his still-numb fingers. A ghost of Deyar’s cold lingered in his joints. “Hope so. I didn’t show him half my tricks.”
Elliot’s laughter bounced off the silent stones, warm and alive in the thawing night.