Euryphel was the first to rush forward, wind empowering him to lope swiftly over the ground, spanning ten feet in a single stride.

Meanwhile, Ko’la’s sinuous, swarthy form disappeared from sight; even his vital signature grew murky and difficult to perceive, though it was still present. Ezenti barely seemed to move, stepping forward slowly, tentatively, likely waiting for others to come to him. His wispy white hair fluttered around his face in the morning breeze, his azure eyes stark against leathery skin.

Ian thickened his Death energy jacket, coating himself in a dense, protective shell. Without any bones to offer reinforcement, however, he had to admit that it wouldn’t offer very much protection against even a wooden practice stick when wielded by a high-affinity practitioner.

He decided to play things safe like Ezenti, remaining in his corner, his eyes tracking Euryphel as the prince darted like a slippery eel around Ko’la’s muted vital signature. Ian wondered if Euryphel was able to see the Dark practitioner through his wind elementalism.

When Euryphel landed a hit on the second prince, his strike seemed not to hit a person but a viscous liquid, and Ko’la didn’t seem to sustain any damage. Instead, he used Euryphel’s attack as an opportunity to retaliate, his twin staves reappearing to land a strike. To Ian’s naked eye, Ko’la’s staves looked like floating, darting, pitch-black cylinders, distinct from the Dark practitioner’s invisible body. After the sticks struck, they returned to being invisible, suggesting that while Ko’la’s invisible form offered superior defensive protection, it also prevented him from dealing damage.

Seeing that Ko’la’s Dark-shrouded body was mostly immaterial, Ian reevaluated his presumption that Euryphel tracked Ko’la through wind elementalism. Perhaps the prince was using more of a brute-force method with his Regret affinity.

While the first two princes fought in the center, Ezenti walked toward Ian, his expression sober. After Ian’s last experience with a Remorse practitioner–Clarabella Nixia–he wasn’t eager for a repeat experience. He decided to try and take out the spry elder before he could do anything.

Ian rushed forward, gliding over the ground. Euryphel said that I couldn’t control other people directly, but never said anything about myself. Ezenti seemed surprised by his rapid burst of speed. Ian expected the man to try and keep his distance, but instead, Ezenti began to run forward.

Suddenly, Ian felt as though his mind was on fire, but he wasn’t trapped in an illusion...yet. It was as though Ezenti were probing him, trying to understand the limits of his mental defenses.

On instinct, Ian drew his Death energy around his mind, as though trying to push Ezenti out by force. Ian wasn’t sure if it would do anything, but it was all he could think of. Ezenti just chuckled and increased his mental pressure, making it increasingly difficult for Ian to focus on his surroundings. Ian almost forgot himself for a moment, his mind screaming for him to do anything to stop the splitting pain.

Instead, Ian gritted his teeth and continued. It had only been a few seconds since he started moving in Ezenti’s direction, and the sooner he defeated the man, the sooner he could get rid of the pain.

Unfortunately, the closer he came to Ezenti, the worse the pain became. He felt as though he was barely managing to move forward, his mind slowing to a crawl.

How am I supposed to protect myself against something like this? Ian raged. People with mentally-inclined affinities–namely Regret, Remorse, Beginning, and End–had natural, instinctive ways to protect their minds from this kind of attack. As a decemancer, however, Ian felt as though he had very little to work with. Against a weaker practitioner, surrounding his mind with Death energy very well might be sufficient; but now, it was like trying to put out a forest fire with a bucket of water.

“How did you stop Nixia before?” Ezenti called out, his voice cold.

Ian could barely register the man’s words, but managed to call the image of the golden arrows to mind. The pain began to lessen, though it wasn’t reduced by much.

“Try harder,” the third prince called out. “I’m a tougher nut to crack than any of the Guard.”

How am I supposed to try harder? Ian lamented. He was already thinking of the image in his mind. Was he supposed to think harder?

“How!?” Ian managed to grate out between clenched teeth.

“Change the image, of course,” Ezenti replied, his voice calm. “If the image is power, then you must change the image.”

Ian thought back to when the image first came to his mind, to the golden thread stretching endlessly through the abyss. He focused on the glow that gave way to uncountable golden vectors. How was it supposed to become more powerful?

Ian heard Ezenti grunt in disgust, a far-off, muffled sound through his ringing ears. The pain intensified, like his body was burning up in the sun again. Except this time, instead of the pain giving way to blessed nothingness, it didn’t seem to have any end. It was as though he were trapped in this one agonizing moment of time.

It became even harder to keep the image in his head than before. He lost it, and the pain became completely unbearable.

“Ezenti!” a voice called out, seething. Ian suddenly felt a pressure on his shoulder.

“If he can’t even deal with this much...” Ian couldn’t hear the last part of the sentence.

“Ian, what do you see?”

“Nothingness,” he gritted out, his voice hoarse. He felt wetness on his face.

I won’t scream, he thought, repeating the words over and over again like a mantra. Not to this asshole. Ian refused to believe that Ezenti was going easy on him. This attack felt personal.

He suddenly had the strongest, most primal desire to crush Ezenti to dust and scatter the particles, just like the arrows had scattered him into the void. In a flash, the image of the golden arrows returned. Except this time, rather than the arrows reaching him, Ian was treading the arrows’ source: a thin, golden ribbon. The arrows were coming up through Ian’s skin, passing through him as though he were a ghost. They tickled and felt warm, like the familiar embrace of Death energy.

Every penetrating arrow felt as though it were imparting a piece of knowledge, a piece of surety: it was knowledge that something would come to pass. But after each arrow passed through him, its imparted knowledge melted away. Ian felt as though he was learning of many things, and also learning nothing at all.

But one thing for sure was that he was gaining a greater sense of just how little he actually knew. To Ian, it felt as though the universe was a vast tapestry, composed of these golden arrows. But not even just the golden arrows: He had the sense that somewhere in the infinite distance, there were arrows of different shades and hues, and that they all met at a singular point, forming a literal weave of rainbow threads.

He saw the golden arrows that now carried parts of himself join the tapestry, intersecting and meandering over other threads. There was something beautiful about losing himself in the interlacing, unfathomable whole, and contrary to what he expected, he found comfort in the understanding that he knew almost nothing.

Ian opened his eyes and stared up at the sky, feeling the sun’s golden rays on his tear-streaked cheeks. He thought that maybe Euryphel was saying something, but he couldn’t make it out. Time was moving very, very slowly, and he felt as though he was submerged in water.

He turned his head toward Ezenti, their eyes locking. He was already quite close, Ezenti only twenty-or-so feet away. In a flash, he leapt the distance; when he neared Ezenti, the man hissed and defended himself with his wooden staff, pushing Ian away. But as the prime deflected, Death energy around Ian flared up, sinking into Ezenti’s skin like viciously-curved barbs.

Ian pulled the man in closer, the barbs expanding and becoming long, stiletto-thin needles. They would be agonizing, but they were only incorporeal energy. They wouldn’t actually do anything permanently harmful unless Ian wished it.

Smiling cruelly, Ian hit the man lightly on the neck with the stick.

He’d won. And presumably, Euryphel had won against Ko’la, or he wouldn’t now be standing to his left, wearing a displeased expression.

“We’ll talk about this later,” the first prince said, scowling. “But for now, Ian, you’re my opponent.”

Ian released Ezenti, his Death energy retracting like a set of claws.

“You fight like you’re a puppet on a set of strings,” Euryphel said. “Can you really be comfortable like that?”

“I’m just used to doing it this way.” It was the difference between moving his body instinctively, and controlling it as though in the third person. He found that the latter option superseded most irrational impulses. People like Euryphel and the other princes had years of training to learn the right kinds of instincts, to teach their bodies how not to flinch, how to judge when to dodge or when to block or even take an injury for the purposes of retaliating.

But if he tried to fight this way, he felt lost, ungainly. He was just the boy on the cruise ship, hacking wildly at skeletons, fueled entirely by desperation: untrained, undisciplined. But when he controlled himself from a distance, relying mostly on his Death perception to visualize himself, beyond himself–he felt completely in his element.

Euryphel kicked off the ground, wind racing about his feet and funneling behind his body like a tailwind. Ian moved his body to the side, dodging just as Euryphel swung past.

“I see at least some of the appeal,” the first prince exclaimed, flashing a predatory smile. “You can move in any direction, all the time, regardless of whether you have a surface to push off of. But the main flaw is that your body has limits to the maneuvers it can perform.”

Euryphel wasn’t wrong; when Ian moved his body around like a mechanical puppet, it put no small strain on his connective tissues and skeleton. If the movements were sudden enough, the momentum could cause internal collisions, his organs crashing into one another. It had happened before in the loop, and usually resulted in a restart.

“The question is whether you’ll force me into attempting said maneuvers,” Ian retorted, flinging himself forward. In general, Ian knew that the key to his method was avoiding sudden and sharp changes in momentum. If he suddenly moved forward, he couldn’t just arrest his body’s movement. What he could do, however, was try to keep the momentum going while pivoting in new directions, like an unrelenting, winding snake.

Euryphel, meanwhile, darted around like a swift, zig-zagging arrow, always seeming to move exactly where Ian didn’t want him, and striking every so often with the wooden training staff. His strikes were light, probing, as though Euryphel could sense that even the slightest overreach would result in him being skewered by Death energy barbs.

Ian was quickly growing frustrated, as he had yet to land even a single blow on Euryphel’s maddeningly-fast figure. He felt that he was starting to understand why Euryphel was Crowned Prime, while Ko’la and Ezenti were his second and third: Though stemming from a relatively low End affinity, Euryphel’s wind elementalism combined with his Regret affinity made for a particularly slippery combination. Against someone geared toward defense and powerful burst-damage ambushes like Ko’la, Euryphel shined. Moreover, his twin affinities were particularly suited to deal with Ezenti’s Remorse affinity.

In essence, Euryphel enjoyed an excellent strategic match-up against the only princes who boasted higher affinities than himself.

Ian and Euryphel continued to dance around each other for another minute before Euryphel found the smallest of openings, jabbing his wooden staff into it forcefully before quickly stepping back.

“That’s good enough,” Ko’la called out. “The Crowned Prime’s win.”

Ian and Euryphel were both breathing heavily, their brows dripping with sweat.

“Is this how you three always practice?” Ian asked, completely exhausted.

Euryphel’s mouth twitched. “Not exactly,” he said, giving Ezenti a withering look.

“Don’t pretend I haven’t just done you a huge favor,” Ezenti barked. “You’re right that his talent is no joke: He’s already improved his image to the point that I can’t keep him forcefully under for more than a few seconds.” He shook his head. “I know you’re starting to realize that Ko’la was right.”

Ko’la gave the man a dark look. “Ezenti...” He then looked to Ian.

“Of course I’ve given it more thought,” Euryphel replied solemnly, his eyes narrowing. “I’ve never been one to escape from reality, nor have I been one who disregards what the two of you think.”

“Then why aren’t you acting at all concerned?” Ko’la questioned, cocking his head. “Is it because it would have happened in Selejo, perhaps?”

“If it has already happened, it would have commenced in Pardinia,” Euryphel confirmed, his voice low. “Do you two understand?”

Ezenti’s expression twisted. “If the Eldemari learns of this, she’ll order him killed. And if you keep it a secret, well.” Ezenti began to chuckle darkly. “You’ve been lucky to avoid the Eldemari’s wrath, Euryphel. You joined the Prince’s Council just after the peace accords. But most of us still remember just what a nightmare it was to face her legions of practitioners. And if I’m not mistaken,” Ezenti said, pausing. “If the Eldemari can produce someone like him, she can, at the very least, produce the typical practitioners required to fill her squadrons.”

“Then what do you propose we do, Ezenti?” Ko’la sneered. “You always criticize, but never do you propose solutions.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Euryphel grunted, sending the fallen training staves to their posts with a well-controlled gust of wind. “Here is definitely not the place.”

Throughout this entire exchange, Ian stood silently, letting his sweat dry in the breeze streaming across the open ground. He schooled his features, feigning indifference while he tried to puzzle out what the three princes were talking about. He knew that they were talking about him, but the crux of the matter eluded him. Whatever it was seemed important enough for the Eldemari to go to war over.

Ian wracked his brain, feeling as though he was missing a critical piece of information. He thought that he’d severed ties with Selejo; he’d left, and had no intention of going back anytime soon. So why did the princes speak as though...as though he was somehow going to lose his mind, return to Selejo, and...?

Ian honestly had no idea. Ruin the Eldemari’s palace? Defile the bones of her ancestors?

She’s not so conceited as to go to war over such a thing, he thought. It would take no less than the death of her son, or the destruction of a city. But as Ian planned on neither killing the Eldemari’s son nor razing any of Selejo’s cities, he was at a complete loss.

The four of them left the practice grounds, with Ko’la and Ezenti going off in their own direction. Ian and Euryphel headed for the nearest door; when Euryphel tugged it open, it led into a narrow hallway with a ceiling covered in a blue mosaic.

“What were you talking about?” Ian probed, tentatively. “I don’t know what you think of my feelings towards Selejo, but I can assure you-”

The prince raised his hand, cutting him off. They continued in silence, finally coming to a stop at a series of doors.

“The door on the right opens to the sauna, and the one on the left to the showers. Finish up here first, then come find me so I can send you to your room.”

With that, Euryphel walked off toward the door at the end of the hallway, opening it to enter the sun room.