Two days later…

“Good! Keep pressuring her. Force her on the defensive!” Eleanor shouted.

Ayax dodged Edana’s counterfire and threw a smoke-producing card to the ground. Using the mist as cover, she ran to her opponent’s right and swung her glowing staff.

Edana blocked it with her shield, but Ayax continued to hit at her again and again, until the war mage suddenly lashed out with her staff. The troll blocked the blow, but was forced to back away and get some distance, as Edana threw another fireball scorched the ground in front of her.

Panting, Ayax took a deep breath, and resisted the temptation to scratch her ears. The itching powder was not helping.

“Stop!” Eleanor called out. Edana and Ayax stepped away, grinning. “That’s very good, Ayax. We’ll take a break now. I have a few things to say to you and Frances before your matches tomorrow,” said the Windwhistler matriarch.

As soon as Frances came over from her practice area, Eleanor had the pair sit down, sipping cups of water.

“So I’m going to teach you the most important lesson for winning a duel. Your mind.” Eleanor sat down on the dirt floor. “Tell me, Frances, Ayax, do you think you’re going to win?”

“I think so,” Frances replied.

“I’ll do my best,” Ayax said.

“Wrong!” Eleanor pointed at the two girls. “I believe you are going to win. You just need to believe it. With every fibre of your body. Even if you are flat on your back, as long as you are in the circle, as long as your safety ring hasn’t activated, you have a chance.”

“But… we might lose, no matter how hard we try,” Frances pointed out.

“Oh that’s true, and very adult of you. But you need to realize that if you believe you will lose, you will lose.”

Eleanor’s voice had dropped to a solemn, and almost comically serious tone, and yet, Ayax felt herself nodding to her adoptive grand-aunt’s words.

“So, do you believe you’ll win?” Eleanor asked.

Frances nodded, lips set in a determined smile. “Yes.”

Ayax however, hesitated. “I’m not sure. Is that alright?”

Eleanor smirked. “Ayax, you know how Robert is going to fight you. You’re going to win.”

Ayax nodded, and smiled as well, but her smile wasn’t as wide as she could make it.

The Day of the Duel…

The Tawantinsuyu Memorial Stadium had private changing rooms where the competitors could prepare themselves. Frances noticed that while they didn’t look anything like her school’s changing rooms (there were no metal lockers and the entire room was built of the same dark stone that the stadium was made of) there were showers and cubbies for people to put their things.

Ayax examined her staff for possible cracks. She knew there were none. This was the fifth time she’d done so. But there was nothing to do as she waited for her name to be called up. She’d already emptied her bowels. The troll didn’t think she looked like it, but Ayax was nervous. She forced herself to keep a stoic mask up as she sat on the bench, but she was clasping her hands so hard, they were beginning to hurt.

In contrast, Frances was just quietly reading a book and sipping some hot tea that she had in a flask. It was like she was just waiting in line for a shop, not going into one of the most important fights in her life.

Ayax had always thought she was a very calm person. She wasn’t bothered by a lot of minor things. Except… her cousin’s composure seemed to be on an entirely different level.

“Frances, do you mind if I ask you a private question?” the troll asked.

Bright amber eyes looked up from the book. “Sure.”

“When you go into battle, how do you stay calm? If you die, you could be sent home to… to your biological parents?” Ayax waited, and watched as Frances put her book down, her brow furrowed.

Her cousin’s lips curled in a wince. “I know part of it is just me. When I’m scared, I force myself to act. It’s not something that can be taught.” She smiled. “What I find also helps is thinking about what I do have.”

Ayax narrowed her eyes, but unable to catch Frances’s meaning, she asked, “Can you clarify please?”

Frances nodded. “My biological parents can’t take away my memories with Edana, my friends, and my family. They can’t take away the fact that I was happy, and loved. I know it’s… a bit odd, but for me, that’s enough. Especially since I need to defeat King Thorgoth.” Frances blinked. “I mean… um…”

“No, I get it. Besides… I don’t really have any loyalty to him. He was always… a very distant figure in my family,” Ayax said, almost absent-mindedly. Frances’s words were making her mind spin. They were odd, but they were correct.

If she did fail today, that wouldn’t take away her parent’s love for her, or even her new family’s approval. That simple truth made Ayax feel infinitely better.

“Thanks Frances.”

“You’re welcome, Ayax.” She smiled and glanced over her shoulder. “It looks like you’re up. You’re going to beat him.”

Ayax stood up and faced the referee that had been sent to get her. “I know,” she said, and this time, she said it with confidence.

The stands were full of an eager and chattering audience who watched as Ayax and Robert listened to the referee. This time, Ayax and Robert drew their rings from a collection in a bag, meant to prevent the kind of sabotage that nearly killed Frances. There were also a number of white-robed mages from the White Order in the stands and around the stadium. Clumps of red-cloaked City Watch also patrolled the stadium.

Security essentially had been beefed up, which was a comforting thought. Ayax knew she could now just focus on her opponent.

Robert was sneering at her, but he held his tongue as the referee read the rules and sent them to their respective sides of the circle.

Ayax held her staff in both hands and braced herself. She watched out of the corner of her eye, as the referee stepped out of the ring and raised his starting pistol, loaded with a blank.

With the crack of the shot, both duellists moved.

Robert, wielding a wand, cast a spell that sent several beams of blue light curving towards Ayax, trying to cut off her movement. Having started with singing an aria, Ayax ducked and slid, her knees sliding over the beaten snow, narrowly dodging the beams. Whipping herself upright, Ayax focused on the gem set in her staff. A grey barrier of energy appeared before her. Ayax took a deep breath and charged.

Robert immediately threw several cards down on the ground. The moment they touched the snow on the ground, the cards combusted, and the ground heaved. Sharpened earthen spikes plunged up toward Ayax. She had to immediately turn on her heel and leap away, but the spikes continued to pursue.

Words of Power fell from Ayax’s lips as she visualized her staff growing stronger. As her staff glowed grey, she planted her feet, and smashed the spikes into dust. She lunged forward again, switching to a different aria that would speed her steps.

Robert countered with a barrage of spells that forced her on the defensive, but after taking two fireballs on her shield, Ayax danced out of the way and came at him again.

But instead of simply charging at him, Ayax drew several cards from her pouch and threw them at Robert. As she screamed the activation word, the cards transformed into arrows.

Robert put up a shield and the arrows clattered off, but Ayax had bought enough time for herself. She was on the other troll, smashing into his shield with her staff. Every blow punching him backwards, towards the edge of the circle. He tried to retaliate, to throw another spell, but she hit his shield again, breaking his concentration.

“You dumb war orphan! You Clodthrog!” Robert yelled.

Clodthrog, a term referring to an inbred moron, the result of incest. Ayax snarled and hit Robert harder. The troll tottered backward, and only by twisting out of the way did he manage to stay in the ring. Still, Ayax pursued him along the edge.

“Know your damn place you Windwhistler—Agh!” Robert gasped as Ayax smashed through his shield. Her staff caught the edge of his chin and whipped him aside toward the centre of the ring.

“Not so haughty now Windstorm. Go ahead, insult me, and my family again!” Ayax stalked toward Robert. Taking a deep breath, she gathered her power and began to chant an aria.

The other troll struggled to his feet and sneered. “Very well. Your father was a shitty war mage and your mother was an ugly bitch!”

Ayax nearly lost her concentration as her anger surged in her throat, like sour bile.

Got to control it, got to control. Can’t fail—

Ayax yelped as Robert suddenly lashed out. Abandoning her aria, she focused her attention onto her shield. The spells were light, but the Windstorm troll continued to hammer at them, using cards drawn from his pouch, and a glowing sapphire ring to focus his casting.

Ayax internally berated herself for losing her temper, but she was finding it difficult to focus. The clash of emotions in her mind was making it difficult to think about her next move, especially when Robert kept attacking her.

She flung more cards at Robert, choosing the smoke ones. They shielded her from him and bought her time to retreat.

The problem was that she was now in Robert’s preferred range. As Ayax backed away, she found spells soaring through the smoke.

Ayax ducked and dodged the wild shots. Her breath came in gasps as she twirled away from the spells. She wasn’t winning. She had to win. If she lost, she’d fail her family, her parents, herself and—

Hold on.

Ayax took a deep breath and threw more magic into her shield. Failure… wasn’t the end of the world. Losing would be bad, but she didn’t need to be scared of it.

Besides, she could win.

Ayax drew a vial from her pouch, depressed the cap, shook it a bunch and threw it underhand into the smoke. She watched it disappear into the mist.

There was an explosion and Robert cried out in pain. The spells abruptly stopped coming at her. Ayax ran forward.

Robert was cursing, the edges of his sleeves on fire from the chemical bomb she’d thrown at him. He looked up in time for his ankles to catch Ayax’s staff. She’d swept it underneath his shield. The troll bellowed with pain and fell to the ground, but he broke his fall and immediately threw more cards at Ayax.

Except, Ayax just took them on her shield, which shattered. As the shards of magic faded, she hammered Robert’s shield with her staff. The other troll snarled, both hands clutching his glowing wand.

Before he could think of how to get her away, Ayax suddenly kicked her opponent in the side, managing to score a glancing hit on his shoulder. Robert yelped. She raised her staff and shouting a Word of Power, brought it crashing down.

The blue shield shattered and Robert gasped as the metal-tipped butt hammered into his stomach. Ayax followed it up with a strike to her opponent’s head, but Robert dodged that and screamed a spell. Yanked backward, Ayax sang a tune and planted her staff into the ground, stopping her from sliding back any further. As her opponent struggled to get up, Ayax used her weapon as leverage and kicked Robert in the chest.

Robert slid back, gasping, and before he could catch his breath, Ayax stepped forward, and chanting a short aria, she swung her staff into the troll’s midsection.

The emergency shield activated encasing Robert in a bubble of energy, even as he was flung out of the duelling ring, where he landed on his butt. As the bubble faded, he struggled to his feet, wide-eyed in disbelief.

“You… you beat me. How… how… I insulted you…”

Ayax took a deep breath and opened her mouth to respond, but all she did was shook her head. She exhaled, turned on her heels and let the referee raise her hand, to the cheers and muttered murmurs of the audience.

Her eyes were, however, on the section of the stands where her family cheered and whooped, and on Frances, who was jumping up and down at the entrance to the changing rooms.