The appearance of a full-fledged member of the Resplendent Suns in the arena had whipped the crowd into a frenzy. He was larger than life, a mountain of a young man with channels so filled with jinsei that his blonde hair practically stood on end from the energy coursing through his flesh and bones. His white gi shone like a beacon against the ancient polished wood beneath his calloused feet, and the bold scrivenings that ran down each of his sleeves blazed with so much sacred light they seemed to have been poured from molten gold.

I’d never seen an Empyreal before, but now I understood why the defender clans thought they were better than the rest of us.

They were.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t defeat one of them. And if I ever wanted to earn a place at the School and heal my wounded core, I’d have to beat the man at the heart of the arena.

The trip from the undercity had taken far longer than I’d anticipated, and by the time my mother and I had reached the arena, it was already packed to the rafters with rowdy spectators who’d overflowed their seats and formed a human traffic jam in the aisles between the bleachers. While it wasn’t the most honorable thing to do, I forced my way through the crowd and ignored their angry shouts and curses. These strangers could be angry at me, I didn’t care. My only chance for a brighter future was to reach the registrar before the challenger window closed.

For a fatherless son from a disgraced family, that chance was too valuable for me to miss.

“Watch where you’re going!” A fat man shouted at me as I brushed against his back on my way down the steps toward the arena’s floor.

“I am!” Before he could shout another insult, I’d already pushed three rows deeper into the crowd.

“You’re going to hurt someone.” My mother didn’t shout, but her sharp, crisp voice reached my ears with ease, as if we weren’t surrounded by thousands of howling fight fans. “Slow down. Move through the crowd, not against it.”

“There isn’t time!” I’d begged my mother to please, please let me register early for the Five Dragons Challenge. Unfortunately, she’d refused to even consider letting me take the challenge until after she’d drilled me relentlessly on the defensive techniques that we’d already worked on for most of my life. We’d spent years preparing for this day, but when the time came to leave for the arena she still wasn’t satisfied with my progress. I’d had to threaten to leave without her before she’d agreed to come with me, and now we were almost out of time. “There’s only twenty minutes left.”

I clutched the coinpurse under my shirt tight to my chest and pushed my way another row closer to the arena. We were still ten rows above the arena’s floor when another roar swept through the crowd. The challenger, a guy my age with a face prematurely lined from too much time spent in a labor camp and a whipcord thin body to match, had made his way into the ring. He was a good foot shorter than the Resplendent Sun and gave up at least thirty pounds to his opponent. Despite their size difference, the challenger exuded an aura of street-hardened confidence that I’d seen often in the undercity.

The Empyreals kept the best food for their warriors. As the defenders of the mortal realms it was imperative that they be well-fed and rested to face the incursions of hungry spirits who tried to devour the Empyrean Flame that fueled the word. A lifetime of extra calories and better medical care made the clan members bigger than the rest of us, stronger, and gave them the time they needed to practice and perfect techniques that we laborers could only dream about.

I knew why the laborer was confident, because he and I saw the world through the same eyes.

Despite all the advantages the Resplendent Sun possessed, the challenger had spent most of his life fighting for anything he wanted or needed. The challenger didn’t see an oversized mountain of a man in front of him, he saw a soft Empyreal who’d never had to knock out a neighbor for a scrap of maggoty bread to keep himself from starving. The clans fought because it was their duty and their honor. We fought because our lives demanded it.

“Honored guests!” The announcer unleashed the words in a jinsei-boosted shout that reached every ear in the arena. He must have put something other than simple volume behind the greeting, as well, because a wave of calm rippled through the crowd. Rowdy voices were lowered, and every eye focused on the black-robed speaker who stood between the two combatants. I recognized the man as Ben Oolou, a local politician who hailed from the Disciples of the Jade Flame clan. “Welcome to the Five Dragon Challenge! Our first contender is Hau-Lin Gray, who hails from the harvest camps outside our fair city.”

Mr. Oolou paused for a moment, and the hometown crowd offered their contender a few feeble shouts of encouragement. Sadly, most of the spectators were from the overcity, and they did not really want any of the laborers to succeed. Every one of us who escaped the labor camps thanks to the challenge would damage the profits of those who watched us fight, and to them even a miniscule loss was too much to bear.

“And here we have the School’s champion, Hank Eli, straight from the overcity of the Resplendent Suns. Give it up for Hank, who’ll face all of our contenders today.”

The Empyreal initiate thrust both fists toward the sky, and the scrivenings on his sleeves crackled like living flames. He turned in a slow circle, letting every member of the crowd soak in his glory, and then stopped facing his opponent. Hank’s aura flared up from his shoulders like fiery wings, and I marveled at the intensity of the jinsei that surrounded him.

Hank bowed low to his opponent, eyes never leaving Hau-Lin. It would be dishonorable for the challenger to strike before the bout had officially begun, but the champion wasn’t taking any chances. Those of us who had no clans were already considered without honor, and a desperate man might hope to strike the champion down and succeed at the challenge even at the risk of his reputation.

Hau-Lin, it turned out, was an honorable man. The challenger returned the champion’s bow so deeply his forehead almost bumped the arena’s wooden planks. He maintained this posture of deference for long seconds after the Resplendent Sun had straightened, then rose into a wide-legged stance with his arms raised like a boxer. It was an unorthodox combination of a traditional grounding stand to gather jinsei from the earth and a street fighter’s defense.

“His training is poor,” my mother whispered. She took me by the elbow and guided me through the crowd to the next row. Where I’d stomped and shoved, she flowed through the crowd like water. “And his stance will not gather the power he needs to withstand the fury of the Resplendent Sun. Do not make the same mistake when your time comes.”

Members of the clans had great experience accumulating and cultivating the jinsei, or life energy, that surrounded them. As children, they were trained to focus this mystical energy in their cores and used it to power their powerful techniques.

Those of us outside the clans never received such advanced training. A few of us could still bend jinsei to our will for small things, and a handful of clanless prize fighters had even mastered some basic jinsei art techniques to give themselves an edge over their less-skilled opponents.

But jinsei was tricky, and a master could turn a student’s own energy against him. If Hau-Lin relied on his life energy to defeat the Radiant Sun, it would be like trying to defend himself from a forest fire with a matchstick.

Personally, I had never mastered a stance, my fighting style was intended for children, and the only technique I’d mastered was a foundation breathing technique. I was so overmatched by the champion that he could kill me without breaking a sweat.

Fortunately, I’d planned ahead. I still had a chance.

The five dragons painted on the floor of the arena began to glow with vibrant colors. By the time my mother and I were five rows from the raised platform, the red and green dragons were already filled with brilliant light. When all five of the dragons were lit, the contender would be in for the fight of his life.

Both combatants watched the dragons and focused their breathing into smooth and even cycles. Every breath they drew into their lungs brought jinsei with it, and every exhalation expelled impurities from their cores and strengthened their bodies for the battle ahead. Even at this distance, the expansion and contraction of their auras was plain to me, as was the fact that the ghostly light that surrounded Hank was many times brighter and more expansive than Hau-Lin’s.

The crowd was thicker near the bottom of the rows of seats, and my mother and I had to force our way through ever-tightening knots of spectators who had no desire to give ground. My mother was a gentle woman, but I saw her hands jab into the sides of several people who wouldn’t let her pass. The blows which seemed more like gentle taps than any punch I’d ever thrown, had just banished a yelping group of college kids when a gasp rippled through the crowd.

The last dragon had blazed to life, and the challenger and champion were surrounded by a circle of neon-bright spirits. The representations of the five sacred dragons who had formed the Empyreal clans were hungry for jinsei to be spilled, and they licked their chops with forked tongues as they prowled the edges of the fight.

In the undercity, the first man to strike is often the only man to strike. The challenger’s experience in street fights had taught him that lesson well.

With an explosive cry Hau-Lin thrust the jinsei from his core out into his legs. The burst of sacred energy pushed his muscles past their normal limits and hurled him toward the Resplendent Sun with astonishing speed and force. The instant the challenger landed in front of Hank, he squared his shoulders and unleashed a brutal uppercut.

Hau-Lin put his entire body and every shred of jinsei he could muster into that blow. Serpents of crimson light exploded from his aura and reinforced his arm and fist with strands of sacred energy that sparked and twitched with supernatural life. It was a powerful, beautiful attack, and I couldn’t imagine how the School’s champion could survive its impact.

The Resplendent Sun didn’t try to block the attack or deflect its force. One moment his chin was a hairsbreadth from shattering violence, and the next he twisted his body away from the attack in a blur. The devastating strike that could so easily have shattered his skull instead passed by his chin with inches to spare.

Hau-Lin could only watch in horror as his all-or-nothing assault whiffed through his opponent’s aura with a crackling hiss, like a splash of water dropped into a red-hot iron skillet. The serpents of light around his arm and fist faded to pale ribbons as the jinsei he’d expended in the attack dissipated into the air. The challenger was twisted so far out of position, I knew there was no way he could erect a defense in time to stop Hank’s counterattack.

The Empyreal’s torso flowed back into position over his planted feet with a sinuous, predatory grace. His hands dropped until his knuckles were even with his hips, and the crowd went silent as we waited for the strike we knew was coming.

Hank’s left hand speared forward to strike under Hau-Lin’s exposed ribs. The perfect blow hammered the challenger’s core and concentric rings of jinsei blasted out of the defenseless man’s body like a supernatural shockwave. The sacred light fueled the dragon spirits, and they whirled into frenzied flight to catch every thread of jinsei before it could fade away.

With the last of his sacred energy driven out of his core, Hau-Lin went limp. His knees buckled, his eyes closed, and he collapsed like an empty garbage bag. The seasoned fighter had thrown the most powerful punch of his life, and it hadn’t been enough to defeat his foe.

Before Hau-Lin’s body reached the floor, Hank’s other fist drove up into the challenger’s midsection. The strike landed with a crunch that echoed through the arena, and the power of the attack folded the challenger over the champion’s fist and lifted his feet a full yard off the polished wooden floor.

Hank unleashed a furious blast of fire-aspect from his core. It traveled through his torso and arm in a pulse of hellish power so bright it made my eyes water. Every scrap of power in Hank’s body poured through that punch andslammed into Hau-Lin’s core like a lance of white-hot lava.

Jinsei channels blazed like the forked tongues of flame under Hau-Lin’s skin as the fire jinsei overloaded his core and rushed through his system. For a moment, every channel in the challenger’s body shown through his skin. The pure white life energy that filled those channels was driven out by the flood of fire, and Hau-Lin screamed in primal agony.

Dozens of the sacred life channels flared with a light as bright as a sun, then fractured with a sound like a hundred mirrors breaking and went dark.

My mother’s hand tightened around my wrist. We both stared wordlessly at the fallen challenger and tried not to think about how severely he’d been damaged.

A chill ran up my spine at the realization that Hau-Lin had been a much stronger fighter than me. Suddenly, my secret weapon no longer seemed adequate to defeat the Empyreal champion. My thoughts chased themselves in circles as I desperately sought a new plan.

The announcer rushed across the arena floor past the fallen Hau-Lin to grab Hank’s fist and raise it into the air. The crowd roared their approval at the stunning display of martial prowess while the spectral dragons who’d surrounded the fight nosed at Hau-Lin’s wounded form in search of any stray scraps of jinsei that might still be left within his unmoving body.

“This isn’t right.” My mother’s eyes narrowed and flashed like twin chips of polished jade. “The champions are not supposed to permanently damage the contenders. That boy’s core may never be whole again. His channels may never recover.”

As much as I hated to admit it, my mother was right. That savage display went far beyond any of the televised Five Dragon Challenges I’d watched growing up. There’d been plenty of bloody noses, chipped teeth, even a few broken limbs, but never anything more serious than that. These fights were supposed to let those of us from outside the clans prove our worth to the School and earn our spots as students. No one was supposed to get hurt, much less have their jinsei channels obliterated.

“Eve is right, Mr. Warin.” A man dressed in the ornate robes of an Empyreal clan elder had appeared in the row below his, and the weight of his aura had forced the crowd to shy away from him. His iron-gray hair and matching wedge of a beard sparked with threads of sacred power strong enough light up half a city. The scrivenings on his lapels told me this was Grayson Bishop, the headmaster of the School of Swords and Serpents.

He was one of the five sacred sages, the most powerful men in the world.

And he spoke my mother’s name like he’d known her for years.

“Why?” My mother held her ground as Grayson stepped so close that his aura surrounded hers. “What purpose does it serve to have your champion break a child?”

“The School wishes to raise the caliber of our students.” Grayson gave a slight shrug, as if to say the fate of those who found themselves injured or killed by the challenge didn’t bother him in the slightest. “This seems the most certain way to weed out the pretenders and fools before they can pollute our fine institution with their degenerate ways.”

Grayson’s eyes focused on me with the intensity of a spotlight. His attention burrowed into my aura and plucked at the edges of my core like a man inspecting the quality of a tool he planned to buy.

It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to stand firm next to my mother. I wasn’t about to let any man, not even the head of the school I so desperately needed to attend, push me off the path I’d chosen.

For a moment, the elder’s gaze wavered, and his forehead wrinkled with concentration. My mother had warned me that my core might be evaluated, but she had also told me few Empyreals would be able to understand the wound inside me. But as Grayson’s face darkened, I wondered if my mother had been wrong.

“We’re leaving.” Her hand closed around my wrist like a steel noose. “I did not bring my son here to be butchered for your amusement.”

“Then why bring him here at all, Eve?” Grayson’s smile hardened into a thin, dark line across his face. “His core is weaker even than his fathers, and we both know how that ended. Did you really think this pup would stand a chance against my champion?”

A fiery tornado of thoughts whirled through my skull. One of the five scared sages, men and women so powerful they might as well have been another species from the rest of us, knew my mother. He knew my father.

He knew me.

“Because I thought you were a man of honor, Grayson.” My mother pulled me past the School’s headmaster, with no more care than passing a beggar on the street.

“Listen to your mother, boy,” Grayson called after us. “My champion will break you even more easily than I broke your father for his crimes.”

The words stung my ears like a swarm of angry hornets. Shame reddened my cheeks and forced me to lower my head. My mother never told me what my father had done to earn death for himself and exile for what remained of his family. My father was a ghost that haunted our family, a spirit that had cursed us with a dishonor my mother had never been able to purge.

And, now, when I was so close to my chance to move beyond his sins and make a new life for myself, his specter had appeared again to turn the School’s headmaster against me. A cold certainty settled over me, and I knew that if I left the arena there would be no escape from the chains my father’s crimes had wrapped around my throat. This was my one chance to prove that I was worthy of something more than exile in the undercity, that I was more than my dishonored father’s weak shadow.

Fighting Hank Eli might get me killed, but leaving without even trying to win the challenge would leave me trapped in a life without hope or possibility. I’d spend the rest of my life as a virtual slave, my body breaking down under the strain of the thankless labor that would consume my days.

I’d rather die.

“I’m not leaving.” My words were as cold and unmoving as the floor beneath our feet. In all my fifteen years, I’d never defied my mother before that moment.

“Don’t do this.” My mother held my wrist so tight her pulse pounded against mine. “Please.”

“You deserve more than this.” I leaned in until our foreheads touched. I needed her to understand how important this was to me. I needed her to know what it meant. “I deserve more than this. And you taught me I can win, despite everything that’s wrong with me. I can bring honor to our name. I have to.”

“I would rather have a dishonored son who is alive, than a dead son who is exalted.” My mother’s eyes pleaded with me to hear the sense in her words before I got myself killed. “There is more to a man’s measure than his honor, Jace.”

“If I run from this, how will I ever know if that’s true?” My hand slipped out of my mother’s nerveless grasp and I left her there, alone, to face my fate.