“Please welcome our competitors for this year’s Powerspeed competition!”

The announcer’s amplified voice rang through the Games’ main stadium, its seats nearly as packed as they had been for the opening ceremony. Veltyen took the aisle seat on the long bench Eterna’s members occupied, protecting Sery and the others from the jostling of the crowd.

He watched in interest as each competitor was introduced by name. Twelve in all had registered for this year’s competition; all of them – including Asher, who had had his magic re-rated and received his five-star certification just before the start of the Games – powerful mages ranked at five stars. Their names were generally well known as some of the most skilled and accomplished in their respective countries.

The rules of the Powerspeed competition were simple: Each mage had the opportunity to cast a single spell or attack at the measuring device in the centre of the field, which would convert the energy it experienced into a numerical value. The energy of a spell was not perfectly correlated with the amount of magic it consumed – factors such as spell efficiency and interactions with physical and chemical forces could sway things considerably in either direction – but it was not an event that one had any hope of winning without massive enna stores. The event was enormously popular as an opportunity to see some of the most powerful spells ever cast, as mundane work rarely called upon mages of this strength to discharge all their magic in one go.

Veltyen wondered what Asher had planned that made the dimensional mage so confident in being able to win this event. Enna size could vary by as much as ninefold within the same rank, and Veltyen doubted that Asher’s artificial augmentation trick put him at the top of the five-star rank when his natural enna was only three stars.

The order of the competitors’ tries was determined by lottery, and Asher was going second last. The first mage stepped forward, carrying a massive sledgehammer that Veltyen was not sure he could lift without magic. He raised his arm to greet the crowd and received a roar of approval. Based on the way he handled the hammer, Veltyen could tell that he was an energy mage manipulating kinetic energy rather than a materials mage altering its weight properties.

The competitor made his way to the end of the competition field, hundreds of paces away from the measuring device. On the signal to begin, he started running forward, accelerating at a pace that could only be achieved with magic until he looked like a blur streaking forward. After reaching top speed, he made a massive leap in the air that brought him even with the stadium’s highest seats, coming down to smash the sledgehammer into the measuring device with devastating force.

Beside him, Sery braced for the expected impact, then frowned in puzzlement as the mage seemed to lose all momentum and land gently on the ground, hammer barely brushing the mana crystal device.

Veltyen grinned, remembering his own reaction to the uncanny sight the first time he had watched this competition. “The device is designed to absorb all types of energy that come in contact with it,” he explained. He watched as the vertical display, a mana crystal rod that was almost three times his height, began to glow from the bottom up as a visual representation of the energy absorbed, the glow ending at around the three-quarter mark. The crowd roared its excitement and the mage waved before bowing to the judges, body language clearly pleased at the showing.

“I’m glad Asher decided to take this competition,” Ariela murmured from several seats down. “I just don’t have the flashiness that would be popular with the audience even if I won this.”

Beside her, Devlin patted her hand. “Your magic’s beauty is in its pure efficiency, my dear. Let the young ones enjoy their flashiness.”

The second competitor summoned an enormous tornado whose energy was gradually eaten up by contact with the measuring device, followed by one who focused an incredibly intense beam of light, then another kinetic mage who shot a spear from her bare hands at such a speed that a small sonic boom rang through the stadium. The scoring was fairly close so far, all of them near the three-quarter mark on the display, with the light magic just edging into the lead.

Sitting on the competitor’s bench, Asher looked just as confident as he had last night. Clearly, the performances so far were within his expectations and no threat to whatever he was planning on doing.

Shaking his head at the brash confidence, Veltyen asked, “Sery, do you know what kind of spell Asher is planning on using?”

“Summoning, he said.”

“Huh. How typically esoteric of him.” Veltyen was not particularly well-versed in dimensional magic, but he knew the general principles of dimensionality. In addition to the dimensions of space and time, there were a theoretically infinite number of alternate dimensions with different properties that it was possible to access. The information dimension was the most popular, a group construct that allowed the storage and transmission of an almost infinite amount of records, but with the right connection, it was possible to find living creatures that did not exist in this world and temporarily allow them to manifest.

The magic cost of such a spell limited their manifestation to a few minutes at best, and the years of study it took to connect to even one such dimension were generally deemed a waste of time when whatever magical effects such a summoned creature could produce could generally be produced more easily and efficiently with a direct spell aiming for the same effect. As such, summoning was generally regarded as a relic type of magic from back before the four-type system of magic had been established, a time when the fundamental forces governing mana particle control had not been discovered and spells generally had much lower efficiency than they did today. As “flashy” spells went, however, it was probably perfect.

The competition continued with a mage who summoned a cloud of plasma to attack the measuring device, only to dissipate as the crystal ate away at the energy keeping it in its highly charged state. Several more kinetic energy specialists did variations on striking with a weapon. The eighth competitor managed to concoct some kind of explosion from thin air that had the crowd roaring, scoring at the 90% mark on the display. Through it all, Asher seemed to maintain his unworried expression.

The ninth competitor appeared to be a rare materials mage rather than an energy mage as dominated this category. He took a stone and dropped it on the measuring device; Veltyen guessed that magic had gone into increasing the rock’s weight by an incredible amount so that its fall would release an enormous amount of potential energy. The energy of the fall absorbed as it entered the device’s field of influence caused it to take an eerie path downwards without any acceleration, rolling off the mana crystal panel before falling to the ground and sinking several inches into the ground. Veltyen took note of the magic and filed it away to experiment with later in case it would have a more practical application on field jobs in the future.

The tenth competitor stepped forward, starting a spell that took many minutes and produced a single thunder-grey stormcloud over the stadium. With an oddly muted flash and boom, a bolt of lightning struck the measuring device and was absorbed.

The crowd went wild, cheering for long minutes at the incredibly complex magic that lit up the measuring device to just below the peak of the display rod. The mage smiled and waved, clearly confident of her victory.

“Asher still doesn’t look worried,” Veltyen commented, shaking his head again.

“I’ve never seen him make a mistake in his calculations, so I suppose he knows what he’s doing,” Foria replied, though her tone was doubtful.

It took a while for the crowds to calm enough for the announcer to call up the next competitor, but eventually, Asher walked onto the field. He stood casually in front of the measuring device, then tilted his head towards the sky and closed his eyes.

Veltyen shielded his eyes and sheltered Sery against his chest as a second sun seemed to appear in the air, a light so bright and pure that the real sun seemed weak and yellow in comparison. The light pulsed and dimmed. At the same time that it grew dark enough to look at the sky, the air was flooded with ambient magic, a thousand times stronger than what Sery could produce even when she consciously poured her magic out.

Veltyen shuddered under the onslaught. It was too much, his body feeling like it was being electrocuted, mana particles pouring into his already-full enna until he thought he might explode.

Sery grasped the front of his shirt to get his attention. “Veltyen, you’re too full. Close your enna walls.”

Right, he could do that. Taking a shuddering breath, he thickened the walls of his enna until it was impermeable to mana particles, sighing in relief as the unbearable pressure eased. Sery remained tucked against him, although she was now holding him upright rather than taking shelter. He brushed his lips against her forehead in silent thanks.

Turning to his other guild members, he prompted them to do the same as he had, although Foria, Ariela, and Devlin seemed to have protected themselves without needing instruction. Everyone who had recovered from the flood of magic was staring, rapt, at the centre of the stadium.

A glowing being had coalesced and was standing in front of Asher, listening to him speak with a serene expression. Enormous wings that looked composed of strokes of light extended from her back, not seeming to weigh anything or push air as she turned easily to face the measuring device.

The angel gently placed a glowing hand on the mana crystal panel. Rather than dimming as it began to absorb energy, her glow seemed to spread along the device, spreading across the crystal until even the display rod lit up like a lighthouse beacon. With a final pulse of light, the device shattered.

Turning back to face Asher, the angel smiled gently and placed her hand on his cheek before vanishing in a gentle ebb of light.

After a stunned silence, the crowd went insane.

***

Sery took shelter in her tent as the guild was besieged with visitors. From officials looking for Devlin to repair their extremely expensive mana crystal device – thankfully, the twelfth competitor had forfeited and it would not need to be ready until the next Games – to followers of the Luminari faith, who were torn between outrage and reverence at the summoning of one of their archangels in a ceremony outside their church, the guild heads had their hands full. Veltyen was around to make sure only invited guests were permitted in the area, whereas Asher had been sternly instructed to stay out of sight until everything had blown over.

Foria’s voice came from the other side of the tent wall, the communal space created by the ring of their tents. “Asher.”

“What? I’m not going outside,” Asher’s voice protested.

“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

A heavy silence.

“There’s no way—”

“You think I don’t know that?” Asher snapped. “I had to drain Sery four times to have enough magic to let her manifest for a single minute.”

Sery curled in on her bedroll, feeling uneasy about her accidental eavesdropping.

Foria’s voice came again, much lower in volume. “Sorry. We can’t control our feelings.”

Footsteps came around the side of the tent before Foria entered through the entrance flap. Sery was stunned to see tears in the web-mage’s eyes when she was always composed and unflappable.

“Foria…” Sery said softly, getting up to wrap the older woman in a hug.

“I love him,” she confessed in a whisper. “But I can’t compete with that.”

Sery did not know what to say and simply patted Foria’s back with comforting strokes until the web-mage regained her composure and straightened.

Foria smiled, the expression not reaching her eyes. “Thank you, Sery. I’m going to go to bed early today.” She got into her bedroll and lay on her side, back to Sery and the tent interior. Her breathing pattern told Sery that Foria was nowhere close to sleep.

Sery crept quietly out of the tent. Not having anywhere in particular to go, she visited the paddock that was marked out for Mindseye, Magewhisper, and the other horses the guild had brought to the Games.

Mindseye walked over to greet her. Though the mare did not need it, Sery pulled out the grooming supplies and brushed her silver coat until it was almost mirror-bright. Sery would not tell anyone else about what she heard, but she thought it would be okay to tell Mindseye, the horse being a very good secret-keeper on account of not being particularly interested in what mage-mounts generally considered the nonsensical complexity of human emotion.

Sery sighed. “You’re right, people make things complicated. But Foria’s really hurting, and I have no idea what to do to help.”

Mindseye snorted and walked in a circle.

“‘Move on’?” Sery interpreted. “I don’t think it’s that easy…”

“What’s not easy?”

Sery clamped her mouth shut and turned to greet Veltyen. Her sense of him was fairly muted since her enna was locked down, and she had not distinguished his patrol movements from an actual approach towards her location.

“What? You won’t tell me?” he coaxed with a teasing smile.

“It’s someone else’s secret,” Sery said solemnly.

“Ah. Well. Here, let’s sit.” Veltyen pulled out a folding chair and set it up in the paddock before settling in and pulling Sery to settle beside him.

Sery breathed in his familiar scent while still thinking. She did not quite understand what Foria must be feeling, having never been in an equivalent situation.

If Veltyen loved someone else…

A confused haze of emotions drifted across her heart. She would not be jealous in that situation, no, because Veltyen did not belong to her. She would be lonely if it meant he spent less time with her, but if it made him happy, she would want him to do so.

But a small, petty part of her wanted everything to stay as it was, where Veltyen seemed to enjoy her company and where she could be the one to make him happy.

He had told her he loved her, and it had given her the confidence to face the world.

“Veltyen?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

***

Veltyen’s breath hitched at the unexpected blow to the heart. Letting out a shaky exhale, he tilted her chin up to read her expression.

Her face did not seem to convey anything that was not usually there, her eyes sincere and earnest. There did not seem to be a motive behind the words, no expectation that their relationship would change because of them.

He relaxed with a combination of relief and disappointment. If there had been, he would have been forced to reject her, the power dynamics that had built their relationship too uneven for him to ever feel confident he had not unwittingly manipulated Sery into wanting him.

He pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. “I love you, too.”

Apparently unaware of the emotional upheaval she had caused, Sery leaned her head against his shoulder and drifted off to sleep after a few minutes.

Veltyen swore under his breath, the word very quiet but utterly heartfelt.