Anon glared at Nora who sat opposite of him in the carriage. She no longer wore her leather robes that hugged her body tightly. Instead, she wore a dark cloak with golden rims that hid her form entirely. She looked like a grim reaper rather than the annoying girl he had become accustomed to. They had been travelling on the road for a few days now, only each other to keep in company. Nora no longer had red eyes or bags that hung low under her eyes, admittedly she looked quite pleasant to look at, well at least compared to how she looked before.

He himself had experienced a strong change in fashion. He no longer wore his novice robe, instead, he had been given a leather one courtesy of Nora and her Spellsword family. His unruled black hair had been trimmed and cut having it shorter on the sides. He looked In the reflection of the windows that were built into the carriage. He was quite attractive if he admitted even if it was vane. Proper food and access to body care had turned him from servant boy to looking noble like, though he supposed it was more mage like.

He was now a mage. He didn't feel much different. If anything he felt more different now he had a name. Anon Kinslayer. He was slightly used to being called Anon by Nora but now others had started referring to him as such. He didn't even realise he was being spoken to half the time in conversation if Anon was ever used. Thankfully most mages still kept their distance from him back at the academy, despite being protected by the Spellsword name rumours couldn't help be spread about the novice who defeated a real mage.

"When were you going to tell me you were the daughter of the Grandmage?" The two of them had spoken during their trip. Nether could be so broody that they could last more than two hours without taunting or teasing the other. Nora's favourite topic was the family name that he had chosen. Personally Anon thought Kinslayer was quite clever, he had earned the name after defeating Racheal Redkin. Nora though thought he was an immature child that would dress himself in dark clothes and call themself the master of death and all things evil.

"When were you going to tell me you were a dark mage?" She smiled back. Dark mages were any mages not affiliated with the Golden Crown and were either serial killers, rapists, slave owners, researchers into banned magics or murders. Either way, they were bad. It seemed people with magic and no authority tended to lead people to do bad things.

"I'm not a dark mage."

"Yeah," she rolled her eyes. "I just suppose you, a novice who had never cast a spell before was able to summon whips of fire just because you felt like it?"

Anon shot an annoyed look at her. Ever since his, he had one of his dreams during the duel he had been granted the knowledge he shouldn't have access to. He understood the repulse spell now and fire on a level he didn't before, he even knew how to weave its shape with magic. His magic stamina had also increased, he had no way of measuring it but he could feel it. It seemed that Thane's knowledge of fire magic had leaked through his dreams into him. Unfortunately, he didn't think that was a good excuse as for one, no one would believe him, two, mental magic was banned which probably actually did make him a dark mage.

"Besides this only works out for you." She continued. "You can keep your little secrets and not get executed, I get a mage to compete for me in this stupid competition for my hand." Zerin had mentioned before that the child of the Grandmage had made a tournament for his daughter. He just didn't think the one girl he met in a library would be her.

Zerin brought his attention to the fact that most of the mages in the academy were off to join a mage tournament to marry the only living child of the Grandmage. Most of them were combat mages which was something he wasn't looking forwards too. As his god awful luck would have it he would meet said daughter only to get blackmailed a few days later to compete.

"The way I see it, you do a few little tasks and win. Then we both agree and get immediately divorced. It's a win-win!"

"It's not a win when I die."

"Then don't. You either have a chance at winning and live the rest of your life as a mage with your precious Chelsea. Or plan b, you get reported as a dark mage and die. This way you have a chance at living." She seemed a little too happy at how in control she was. He had left Chelsea at the academy, now Chelsea Kinslayer, in the hands of the healers. After being blackmailed by Nora to go and compete in this ridiculous competition he had decided that perhaps it wouldn't have been the smartest idea to bring a child with him. At least he legally owned Chelsea so she wouldn't be stolen by any more mages.

"If you don't mind me asking what challenges am I to face exactly? Not to doubt you but my skill set is a little limited. Anything underwater and I'll be completely useless." Anon said as he let a small ball of flames fly in between his fingers like a hummingbird flying between trees. Magic was addicting and he admittedly used it far too much. He had wanted to find a doll or something, perhaps he could cast golemancy, or maybe he could only cast magic that Thane had successfully used in his dreams. Something to experiment with later.

"The first challenge is at the White Peak Mountain Range. I don't know what the challenges are, just there are three of them." He had never heard of the White Peak Mountains, though he hadn't really heard of anything beyond Vernia besides the major cities of the Northern Continent.

The carriage came to a sudden stop. The sudden stop had Anon hitting his head on the wall behind him, Nora would have laughed if her inertia didn't carry her forwards sending her sprawling onto Anon's lap with a loud cry turning the two young mages into a knot of limbs and hair.

"Get off me!" She screamed spitting his hair out of her mouth.

"Murmmf!" He yelled back his own mouth covered by her an expanse of cloak and soft skin. Through a very painful method of pulling and ripping the two of them were able to separate themselves from each other with only a few minor curses thrown at each other.

"What the hell what that?" Nora slammed the wall of the carriage a few times to get the attention of the driver. No response was heard. Of course, there wouldn't be, he probably fell asleep or fell off while dozing off. The man had been driving for a whole day, even he could understand how mind-numbingly burning it could be. Anon was better than that. He wasn't a selfish, arrogant mage like Nora, Racheal or... Thane. He wasn't like them, at all. At least that was what he kept telling himself, that he wasn't like them despite what old child thieving healers might've thought.

He reached for the door handle but a firm yet soft grasp stopped his hand. "What?"

"Where do you think you are going?"

"I don't know, this little place called outside, you might have heard of it? As much as I love pounding on wood I think just seeing the driver will get us moving faster than ruining my hearing with your yelling."

Instead of arguing she grabbed him by the hood of his robe bringing him down to the floor with her once again forcing their bodies together.

The boy have her a confused look, that was an overreaction if he had ever seen one. "If you keep this up I'm going to get the wrong idea."

"Oh shut up."

A loud sound of shattering glass ringed through the carriage followed by the sound of iron thudding into wood. Struggling to look past Nora's hair Anon saw an arrow wobble in the door. Not long afterwards another sound of thudding against the door on the outside until another arrow came through the window showering the pair in glass.

"Why are we getting shot at?" He whispered to Nora who was busy picking glass shards out of her hair.

"Bandit attack," She hissed. Anon fought the urge to give a clearly sarcastic response asking if 'she was sure'. The arrows that still bobbed seemed to be a clear indication that the reason the driver wasn't answering wasn't because of a nap. He tried to push down the bile that crawled its way up to his throat at the thought. He'd never seen a corpse and he wasn't exactly in a rush to change that.

"What do we do?" He whispered in a hushed tone.

"What you are going to do, is shut up and cover my back. I can stop any arrows and blades that may come to my front, I can't do much from behind though."

"Remind me again why we didn't take any guards with us? Aren't you the daughter of magic royalty?"

"I am a mage. I don't need mercenaries to do what I can!" For someone who was so set on being quiet, she had a funny way of showing it. If the bandits thought they were dead they certainly didn't believe it now. Most dead people didn't shout that much.

The sound of horse hooves started to approach the carriage. Anon tried to listen to where the clipping was and count how many there were but then he immediately he couldn't do that. He wasn't exactly the fighting kind of person, although he did have a flawless track record so far so he certainly couldn't be that bad at it. He did have a broken nose and some pretty bad burns on his side but thankfully Greenmist had healed him back to full health by the next day. Magic truly was incredible.

The carriage door opened with a loud creak. Anon didn't know what to expect, well he did. He expected a bandit to be varied in filth and mud and have a face so damaged it was impossible to recognise the face that sat beneath it. He was... kinda disappointed. The man wasn't ugly at all, he was fairly average. He had a few scars but nothing that screams 'I'm a murderous bandit who stole lives and wealth'. He didn't wield a noble sword but rather an axe and had a few daggers strapped to him. Honestly, the lack of a bandanna was kind of a letdown.

"Ye, tis just two brats rutting around with each other!" The man yelled to his companions. The thick hands of the man grabbed both Nora and Anon by their hood and threw them out of the carriage. The pair rolled through the dirt path out of the relatively safe carriage to now being surrounded by eight fairly sizable men on horseback, not including the man on foot who had thrown them out of the carriage.

Anon crawled to his feet, the bandit not too stressed with keeping him on the floor, rather more interested in pillaging the inside of the carriage trying to find any loose coin. Probably felt safe with his eight friends watching his back which he probably was. Anon certainly wasn't going to make the first move.

One of the men on horseback trotted to Anon and Nora, he himself wasn't to rememberable either or with any distinguishable features. These bandits just seemed so human. Plain and boring. Had his time with the mages desensitised him to normal? He was so used to people in extravagant clothing wandering down the halls messing with magic or wrestling tiny little imps.

Anon soon found the iron of a spear tip gently press against the underside of his chin angling his head up to look the horserider in the bland eyes. A quick flick of his wrist and the dirt path would be dyed red. He knew he should have felt scared, he was, his leg was shaking he could feel the hairs on his neck stand up. Yet despite feeling fear, almost tasting his heartbeat he didn't feel the urge to cower and beg. These were bandits and he was a mage a voice had whispered to him in the back of his head. Prideful and arrogant. It was weird but he hoped that it was just a dark part of him that he often kept repressed... rather than something else. Someone else.

"What are two noble brats like you doing by your lonesome? A honeymoon? Aye young love is something beautiful ain't it." The man jeered to his fellow highwaymen earning a few snarks. Nobles? Did they not release they were mages? Anon supposed it made sense, Anon himself had lived his entire life in Vernia which was near the largest Golden Order Academy and had never seen a mage in his life.

He had heard of them travelling through the city, of course, they didn't just stay in the palaces with kings and queens. Sometimes a mage would travel to the lower levels of the city to heal the sick if there were rumours of an outbreak or bring rain if the city ever encountered a drought, maybe even slay a beast on the outskirts of the city. Still, they were a rare sight and only really appeared if there was an issue that threatened the safety of the city. Anon certainly didn't look like what he thought a mage was. The magic that flowed through mages mixed with a healthy diet had allowed mages to live longer than regular men and kept them looking young even in their eighties. He wondered if they died by age looking young as well as if their heart just stops. Regardless the reality was far cry from the stereotypes of mages. He hadn't known where it came from, probably the fact that mages spend a fair portion of their life studying. But mages written in literature and plays were always old crazy but powerful men with beards that touched the floor, they weren't young adults just out of puberty.

"I wouldn't mention marriage, it's a sore spot for her," Anon replied looking up at the man and pointing over to his partner. He didn't take his eyes off the man who had a spear to his throat but he could feel Nora glaring daggers into his back. The other horseback riders didn't seem too concerned, three of them had crossbows which were loaded but they weren't pointed at the two.

"If you want a slave, please. Take him. I won't stop you." Nora spoke up.

"Trouble in paradise it seems." The spear holder grinned. He took his spear away from Anon's neck letting it drag against the ground menacingly as he approached Nora on his horse. "You noblewoman sure are something. So quick to call us monsters and filth." This time he brought his spear up again. He didn't bring it to her neck but rather caressed her face with it, letting it slide along her jaw on the flathead so as to not cut her.

"Noblewomen, I find are the most frustrated, they don't really fight it too hard? How about it m'lady?" He spoke mockingly. "You wouldn't be the first high lady to end up enjoying rutting around with a boar like me. A honeymoon should be spent with a real man."

Anon had never seen her so calm. He expected her to be furious or at least say something. She didn't though. She just stared at the man with unblinking eyes. Anon's eyes also didn't dare move, if he did he knew that his next move would be burning that bastard's throat still he spat smoke. He bit his lip hard to the point blood threatened to fall. He wanted to. He wanted so antagonising bad to run over there and break his nose with a satisfying punch, it would be worth the crossbow bolts in his back.

"All I see is are dead men." It was bound to happen, unavoidable. Anon didn't blame her for what she did next, he didn't think he could stop her even if he wanted to. She moved faster than he could see, unlike him who had the magic capabilities of a combat mage she had the body of one. The cloak hid her body well but such pure physical explosive force spoke volumes for the muscles that lay underneath.

It all happened so fast that in one second the man was on his horse and in the next he had thumped hard against the dirt screaming as his face was covered in a sheet of fire courtesy of the fireball that shot from Nora's palm. Before the other bandits could even comprehend what occurred she whirled around her cloak covering her and turning her into a tornado of black. From the tornado of black shot three large iron arrow-like shards each targeting one man with a crossbow with deadly accuracy. Two of the crossbowman went down one clutching his next the other his chest trying desperately to keep the crimson liquid from leaking out. The final crossbowman narrowly avoided the iron more on luck than skill probably saving his life.

The bandits to their credit acted fast, they drew their maces and axes and charged at her. To their credit none of them ran, maybe it was their fury or their courage but something charged them towards Nora who even to Anon seemed like the death incarnate with her black cloak and effortless killings.

"Scorch thy land flames and leave these fields barren." The chant escaped Nora's lips, and her cloak billowed behind her as a wave of fire surged forwards. It wasn't a lot of fire but more so of a ripple of fire that shot out with her from the centre that stopped the horses dead in its tracks. Unfortunately, it seemed Nora wasn't too concerned with friendly fire and Anon was soon greeted by flames. A quick repulse was able to push the fire away.

After the wave of fire passed there was a small bit of awkward silence. Neither side dared move except for Anon who hastily made his way to Nora's side. It was probably safer not because of the bandits but because Nora either was confident that Anon could survive anything that came his way or she didn't care. He wasn't so confident in his own abilities so he would rather make sure he wasn't in her sights. The horseriders also took this time to regroup, they had lost three of the eight, one of which was still screaming from his burning face.

"If we leave now mage, will you not burn us from our steads while our backs are turned?" One of the bandits asked. They looked confident, well they looked like they were trying to be. Anon could see the fear, the way they swallowed when Nora made slight movements. He couldn't blame them, for all they knew Nora could set them alight with just her gaze.

"Leave now, leave him for the wolves." She pointed at the spearman who still wailed shamelessly. Anon knew how much flames would hurt and the pain the man was going through, to have his face melted must have been unbearable. Without a healer, a burn like that would mean death, all too likely to get infected.

"Very well mage." He bowed from his horse. "Thank you." The bandit's teeth ground against each other he must've hated this, but there was no point dying over the wealth of robbing the two mages. Besides his clothing Anon had nothing in coin, he certainly wouldn't die over some leather robes. Better to leave with their lives and rob another poor soul than to die pointlessly.

It seemed that was it, it was over. The horseback riders turned to leave with a few glances over their shoulders to make sure there wouldn't be any fire to greet them. A little anti-climatic but Anon could live with that. It was only when he turned towards the carriage did the glint of metal caught his eye. The bandit who had been in the carriage before hadn't left. The axe sailed past Anon towards Nora who was clearly the bigger threat out of the two.

His body acted on instinct that only was taught after years of experience and countless battles. Invisible force exploded from his hand shattering the axe's handle into a thousand little pieces of splinters sending the axe head flying off to the side. Anon's other hand made it to the bandit's chest repulsing him back into the carriage with the force of a horse kick. He heard the sickening crack of his ribs echo as he flew. The man landed hard and didn't get up, he was too busy wheezing holding his chest in agony.

Anon let out the breath he had been holding the whole time. It was only after all the drama did he realise he forgot to breathe the whole time, he couldn't believe what he had just done. Where had that come from? Unfortunately, he thought he knew the answer. He needed some sleep, just close his eyes for a couple of minutes. He couldn't help but rub his eyes tiredly. Today was just too much.

He only closed his eyes for a second, a short brief moment of rest. He had underestimated just how much someone could move in a second. The first thing his eyes focused on wasn't the concaved chest of the man, or his eyes narrowed with fury, but the small knife that sat between his fingers. Anon's hands were still by his eyes while the bandit's own was half through his throw. It was a strange, oddly calm sensation. He knew he wouldn't be able to get his wrists forwards in time to have to create a wall of kinetic force to stop it. Maybe he just didn't fully grasp the severity, just didn't have time to actually feel fear, the only thought that reached his head was to hit something that wasn't vital.

The knife never came. The bandit had slouched over dead as blood leaked from his mouth as a small red waterfall. A familiar large metal shard was impeded deep through his right eye. Anon turned to see Nora, hand outstretched.

"T-t-thank you." He stuttered, only now did he start to feel the overwhelming dread of almost being killed. The delayed terror, that he didn't have time to feel before.

"All good slowpoke. Got to be faster or I'm going to steal all your kills." She grinned. A nineteen-year-old had grinned over another person's death. She was a combat mage, she had to be used to killing. He knew that their whole lives were based around getting contracts from the Golden Crown or monarchs to kill. Not every contract could be monsters, some were evil cults or large bandit camps. But her smile chilled him, he couldn't even look her in the eyes.

Anon looked back at the bandit who tied to kill him, his eyes lacked that lifeful glow. They didn't blink or move no matter how much he wished they would. He brought a hand up pointing at the body, calling flames to it. Could he have done it? Let the fire burn He would have liked to think that when it came to it he would do what was necessary. Yet, when he saw how Nora didn't spare a second thought to the bandits, even daring to step over their corpses he realised he was not the same. Despite having magic he was not a mage.

Strangely he was okay with that.