Side-by-side and with a heavy silence hanging between the two, Jon and Bella walked into the open arena towards one of the eight circles on the sand. Neither had spoken a word ever since the previous evening when they were paired together.

With Jon, Bella, and Deon all advancing in the tourney, they were bound to eventually face off against one another. He just wished this wouldn’t happen this soon, when he was at the brink of achieving his goal.

The remaining contestants filed into the arena under the stares and applauses of thousands of spectators.

“How do you feel?”

The question caught Jon by surprise as he headed to the edge of the circle. “Nervous,” he said, turning to face Bella. “I didn’t want us to duel one another.” She nodded in agreement. “Also anxious and somewhat angry. If I didn’t know it better, I’d say the old headmaster plotted to have us fight one another.”

“As much as he might dislike us, well, mostly you, I doubt he’d risk his position solely to harm you.” Bella looked down and adjusted her sword belt, doing a poor job at appearing calm. “Listen. I know how invested you’re in this tourney… and I don’t want you to think me insensitive or uncaring, but…”

Jon understood what she wanted to say. “Don’t worry. It took both of us a lot of effort to get to this point in the tourney. Because we both hope to do well, maybe even win a medal.” He approached her and extended a gauntleted hand. “So let’s just do our best and may the best one win.”

Bella shook his hand with a smile. “Thank you,” she said before turning around and walking to the edge of the circle.

Save for the first day, the duke didn’t waste any time with useless speeches for which Jon felt all too grateful. This was his future one the line, and so he’d rather go straight to the point. As soon as the sixteen contestants were all positioned, the duke raised his hand and brought it down immediately after.

Unlike their previous spars, Bella didn’t start with a spell-aided dash. Not only out of cautiousness, it was also out of necessity. Maintaining a shadow spell under so much light took too much of an effort, so it had to be used sparingly. Instead, she walked, slow and carefully as did Jon.

From their previous bouts, Jon knew he couldn’t defeat her in a straight-up duel. And the same trick as last time wouldn’t work twice. She was smart enough to see through a similar ploy, but she might not expect it twice in a row. If he could get Bella to lower her guard after seeing the first one, he might just be able to beat her. Not his greatest plan, but it was what he could come up with.

She took the initiative, as usual, bending one knee and pulling her arm back before stabbing at his chest. Jon swiped sideways and deflected her sword, too easily for it to have been anything more than a probing attack. Bella slashed again, and Jon pulled his head back. The tip of her sword passed only inches from his visor. He quickly countered with a stab, but her shield was quicker.

The audience cheered at every clash of weapons and every spell cast. The lower number of duels at the same time allowed them to follow everything at once. A pillar of flame erupted somewhere to Jon’s left and the cheering turned louder. A student conjured half-a-dozen mirrored images of herself and the applause became deafening.

Jon maintained the back and forth against Bella at first, giving his all so as to sell the illusion. As the duel continued, his movements gradually turned sluggish and his attacks carried less strength. He began to give ground when before they were matched, and his plate had to stop Bella’s attacks more often.

Then, after a slash that left a bright line on his breastplate, Bella bashed her shield against Jon’s helmet, knocking his head back. Raising her sword, she prepared to follow up. Jon scrambled to regain his footing and braced himself for an attack that never came.

Bella stood in place, unmoving save for the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. “Were you planning to use the same trick as last time? Perhaps hoping it would make me lower my guard so you could try it again?” She took Jon’s silence as an affirmative. “I told you the same trick wouldn’t work twice.” She walked back to the edge of the circle and stood there, waiting. Jon slowly walked to meet her. When he reached the center of the circle, she finally moved.

A shadowy tendril rose from below the sands in between the two, and Jon immediately stopped in his tracks. It stretched towards Bella, wrapping itself around her waist so as to pull her forward.

Familiar with that move of hers, Jon turned sideways to meet her shield with his shoulder. Instead, Bella twisted at the last instant, slashing down too quickly for Jon to react.

The overlapped lames covering Jon’s shoulder saved his arm from being cut off. The force of the blow, however, passed through the armor and Jon felt such intense pain that he feared his shoulder might have dislocated. With not a second to recover, his head lurched back as Bella’s shield connected with his helmet.

Injured, but not defeated, Jon slashed high, hoping to catch her by surprise as he did to Sulvan. A high-pitched cry of pain let him know that the attack hit its mark. A heavy blow to his sword hand let him know that it hadn’t been enough.

The sword hilt escaped his grip and fell to the sand. Jon followed suit as the second blow knocked him off his feet. Hastily, he tried to stand up, but the tip of her sword was already in front of his visor, poised to stab into his eyes.

Jon remained still, racking his brain for a solution. Her feet were planted on either side of his hips, making it impossible to kick her down. He could pull them instead, but not before her sword took out his eyes. He couldn’t cast any spell. He couldn’t claw nor bite. The more ideas popped up only to be discarded, the more he was hit by the overwhelming realization that he had been defeated.

“I… yield…” Admitting defeat at this point of the tourney, after coming so far, was one of the hardest things Jon had ever done. His muscles lost all strength and the back of his helmet hit the sand with a thud. “I yield.”

Bella sheathed her sword before offering Jon a hand, who accepted it. Blood flowed from a gash at her face, starting at the cheekbone, cutting through the lips, and coming to a stop at the chin. “How do you feel?”

Jon tried to rotate his shoulder, and it immediately flared up in pain. “I’ll live. You should hurry to the healers and take care of that wound.”

With the back of her hand, Bella wiped the blood dripping down her chin. “I’ll live. And… I’m sor—”

“Don’t. You fought better and won.”

“Did I really fight better, though?” Her fingers brushed against the crunched lames covering his shoulder. “I mean, what were you even thinking? You can’t leave yourself completely open just because you’re wearing armor. It can’t protect against everything.”

“I thought you would open with the shield. Like always.”

“Yes.” Jon looked down at his damaged armor. He’d need to hammer the joint back into shape. Make sure it was in a good condition for the next duel. “Or at least I thought you were. Shows what I know.” He bent down, retrieved his weapon, and turned towards the exit.

“What will you do now?”

“Get healed. And then I’ll start preparing for tomorrow’s duel.”

There were still three more days of competition left. Victory in the next two days would translate into a tenth place at least.