Shaya wondered if she had miscalculated somewhere as she kneeled on the ground, one arm limp and blood leaking from too many wounds.

Azreon stepped past her, out of reach of her sword, and focused his attention on Samorn.

“To think you threw away a chance to ally with me,” he hissed.

“I’ve seen what you do with your would-be allies,” Samorn replied, voice utterly cold, “our family’s arrangements didn’t suit me, though I suspect being turned down by a family so far beneath your station must cut your pride deeply.”

Shaya mentally thanked Samorn for her wiles and used the opportunity to draw in Jade through the red haze of her rage. Her ploy was working, though her grip on the rage was slipping as Azreon’s torture and taunting escalated. The desire to destroy him pushed against her ability to restrain it, and even the rational part of her brain found ways to justify it.

Even both her mothers might have agreed that putting him down was the greatest good she could accomplish, despite what it would cost her. Shaya knew she could manipulate his pride and use his sadism against him, but the depths of it frightened her.

Would he really kill me?

Have Quill put down?

Take out his fury on my friends?

Casting those thoughts aside, she focused on the moment to maintain a hold on her aether and trace a healing spell with it. The Jade writhed away from her anger, but her practice with Rea let her embrace the rage as part of herself and still draw in aether. Despite the Jade’s reservations, she maintained it long enough to cast her spell and felt a surge of relief as her deeper wounds sealed.

The relief was replaced with shocking pain as feeling returned to her arm and it took everything in Shaya’s power to avoid gasping.

“Don’t blame me,” Azreon snapped, “your stupidity is to blame for what happened back then.”

“Is that why your family has hidden you away from the world for so long?”

Azreon’s teeth ground together. “Fine, be obstinate. Let’s see how that helps the dog you’re allied with now.”

Samorn simply smiled as Shaya slashed her sword through the back of Azreon’s knee, the mithrite blade stabbing through the chain links that protected him and biting through his flesh.

He may have been out of reach of a normal sword, but not out of reach of one with a hilt that could extend.

Azreon wheeled, sweeping his sword in a decapitating blow, but his knee gave out as he spun. His spell made him unable to feel the pain that would have told him it couldn’t support his weight.

Shaya slapped his blade aside as she closed in, dropping her sword and pulling out her dagger. His eyes widened in surprise as they locked onto hers and realization dawned on him that she wasn’t lost to her rage at all. Instead, her eyes glowed with golden halos as she tackled him to the ground.

Gasping as the wind was driven from his lungs, Azreon tried to get his razor-sharp blade in between them. Even without the room to swing it, the blade would still be able to slice through Shaya’s padded armour and flesh with little difficulty as they struggled. Knowing this was his only play, Shaya was prepared for it. One giant hand clamped down on his wrist and slammed it to the ground.

With his weapon hand pinned, she smashed the pommel of her dagger into his head as he thrashed and tried to buck her off. It rolled off the smooth surface of his great helm, but her second strike landed, staggering him.

“You’re an embarrassment,” she spat, hoping she struck the right nerve, “an idiot incapable of amounting to anything.”

He snarled and thrashed some more, but she drove the pommel of her dagger into his helmet again, the metal ringing like a church bell. His one good eye narrowed as he struggled and he snarled like an enraged animal.

“Who’s the dog now?” She said, slamming her dagger into his helmet again. “You stupid. Ignorant. Child.”

His struggling slowed as the Amber faded from his eyes. A moment later, tears glistened as his ability to ignore pain faded without aether to power his spell.

That let Shaya finish her spell and two chains of hard-light snapped from the ground and around Azreon’s wrists. She rose, stepping away from him as her chains hoisted him onto his knees and kept him there.

Shaya looked down on him as he whimpered in pain, feeling a pang of guilt for what she had done to defeat him. But then she remembered everything he had put her through, and the worse things he planned to do to her and her friends, and the guilt flickered out like a candle in a hurricane.

You reap what you sow, you piece of spit.

“You’re beaten! Surrender!” Shaya shouted for all to hear.

“Never.” He managed.

“Don’t be a fool!” She followed up, gesturing, ”Everyone can see you’re done.”

“Never!”

Shaya turned to Basillo, quirking a bloody eye brow at him in question.

“By the challenger’s own rules, if he refuses to surrender then you must throw him out of the ring or knock him out. Even if he is otherwise helpless.”

“You want me to beat a helpless person into submission?” Shaya asked, earning approving nods from many of the spectators that sat on the edge of their seats.

Shaya avoided looking at the section containing her family, unable to meet their eyes.

“I did not stipulate the rules,” Basillo replied, “I must simply enforce them.”

Shaya sighed dramatically and flipped her dagger to hold it blade down, as if she planned to drive it through Azreon’s eye.

“Excessive violence will not be tolerated.” Basillo warned in a whisper.

Ignoring the referee, Shaya ripped Azreon’s helmet off and tossed it to the blood-covered ground.

Half of his face was torn open from where her barbed cloak had struck him through the visor, the other half covered in sweat and tears. Shaya’s nose wrinkled from the stench of him as she leaned in close to his ear, yanking his head back with his long, golden hair with one hand and holding a knife to his exposed throat with the other.

“I came here to be the best gods-damned Warmage I could,” Shaya whispered to him, “so that I could protect my friends and family and people from monsters.”

She let her dagger nick his throat before continuing, “I had imagined the monsters would just be Titans and their spawn, but you proved me wrong. I just wanted to prove to the world how good I could be despite my thin nephilim blood, despite my upbringing, despite the advantages denied me...”

Shaya leaned back to look him in the eye, “But here I am, wasting time on garbage like you.”

Azreon snarled and struggled against the chains binding him.

“You can’t beat me,” she continued, “not today, not ever. You don’t respect me enough to best me and you don’t train hard enough to keep up with me. You may have more power than me, but you don’t have the faintest idea of what to do with it.”

Shaya slowed the flow of Amber to her spell as she continued, “Aww, look at the little mutt struggling against his leash. Is that the best you have?”

She laughed as he screamed in fury, straining against his chains.

Then they shattered against his strength.

Shaya stumbled back, eyes widening in surprise.

Azreon snatched his sword from the ground and lunged at her. She dodged backward, parrying the strike with her dagger. He limped toward her, dragging his injured leg and chopping at Shaya despite his injuries, and she gave ground to avoid getting hacked apart.

Driven by rage and hatred and desperation, he lunged towards her for another decapitating strike.

Expecting nothing less from him, Shaya leapt back and avoided the beheading stroke.

With her back to the crowd and only Azreon’s eyes on her, Shaya shot him a small smile.

“Ring out!” Basillo shouted, throwing his hand into the air. “Azreon is the winner!”

“No!” He screeched, chasing her out of the ring and taking another swing.

He stumbled as his leg gave out beneath him, allowing Shaya to step back and dodge the blow.

“He looks like he wants to fight,” Shaya said to Basillo, her voice a growl of disappointment, “Can we resume the match from where we left off?”

“No!” He declared, “The match is over, you will both cease fighting!”

“I don’t accept it!” Azreon howled, climbing back to his feet and taking another step toward her.

Basillo rushed grabbed him and hauled him back.

Shaya cast her eyes to the ground, “Congratulations, I guess you did end up beating me.”

Azreon flailed against Basillo, but the larger man managed to restrain him.

Shaya shook her head in disappointment, collected her equipment, and walked back to where Samorn was standing, the petite woman looking more than a little displeased. Out of the corner of her eye, the veterans in the crowd pointed at Azreon and shook their heads. Shaya basked in their disappointment as the noble continued to struggle until Basillo conjured more chains to hold him down.

Duel lost.

Character assassinated.

Just as planned.

Now I just have to hope my greed and hubris don’t backfire on me...

Samorn’s eye twitched in equal parts amusement and annoyance, letting Shaya know she failed to suppress her smile as well as she hoped.

“You used me,” Samorn stated.

“Now we’re even,” Shaya countered.

Samorn’s expression didn’t change, but Shaya felt the other woman examine her with new found respect. “You really aren’t a woman to make an enemy of.”

“Right back at you.”

Samorn smiled, “Thank you, that means more to me than you know.”

The rest of Shaya’s lance approached, as well as Lumir, Rel and Krebo.

“Sis!” Rel shouted. He rushed to give her a hug, then pushed away from her a moment later, his uncaring, teenage veneer re-established. “I see you’re as stupid as ever.”

“Indeed,” Krebo nodded at her, eyes narrowed, “I believe I taught you to pay attention to your surroundings and spacing better than that.”

“Oops,” Shaya said, “I guess I forgot that lesson. Probably all the head trauma you inflicted during our sessions.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Lumir said, stepping forward, “I was worried for you more than a few times in that duel.”

Shaya stepped forward and hugged him tight, only feeling a little embarrassed a second later when she realized she just smeared blood all over his nice suit. After a moment of surprise, he returned the hug, unused to her showing him this kind of affection.

“I’m sorry to make you worry...” Say it! “Dad.”

Lumir’s eyes moistened at the word, “No, no, I’m just glad to see you safe now. I expected to surprise you, not the other way around.”

“Oh, you surprised me,” Shaya said, rubbing the back of her head, “definitely didn’t expect to see your faces in the crowd. And, um, I’m sorry this is how you learned of what I was going through at the Academy.”

“I told you she’d punch someone in the face almost immediately,” Rel said with a smarmy smile.

“Technically,” Shaya said, raising a finger, “I smashed him across the face with the butt of a spear. And the professor basically told me to.”

“Good professor,” Krebo nodded.

“Yeah, I’m sure the two of you would get along well,” Shaya smiled, “Both of you certainly have my best interests at heart.”

“Eww, mushy.” Rel’s nose wrinkled.

“Agreed,” Oraeus nodded.

“Listen you little-” Shaya started, then sighed, “Anyway, I don’t want to focus on the negative, so many great things have happened in my first semester too! Let’s grab a bite to eat, there’s lots to catch up on.”

“I can’t wait!” Lumir said with a grin.

It only grew as Shaya put her arm around Bri, making both of them blush.

Shaya hadn’t expected to introduce her girlfriend to her family that day, but as far as unexpected developments went in her first semester, it seemed the least harmless by a wide margin.

Thoughts of Imperial politics and rampant Titan-spawn faded from her mind and she felt that, more than ever, she deserved just one afternoon to relax amongst her friends and family.