Page 101 of Tempest Blazing
"Team Eight," Silvius announced, his voice cutting through my spiral. "Team score: Last place. Individual scores: Kira Nightpride, seventy-three points. Tobias Ironstone, sixty-seven points. Jace Riverborn, fifty-nine points. Senna Shadowmere, sixty points. Tempest Whittaker..."
The pause stretched like a held breath. Like the moment before a car crash.
"Eighteen points."
The number hit me like a slap across the face. Eighteen. Not just failing—humiliating.
A murmur rippled through the crowd—sharp, confused, angry. Fragments of whispered conversations erupted from the stands:
"—saved half the arena—"
"—my son would be dead if not for her—"
"The girl showed more leadership than half the teams combined!" another voice added.
The dragons above us went wild, their calls becoming louder, more insistent.
I'd known I was making a choice that might cost me when I decided to help the other applicants instead of focusing on my own performance. I'd accepted that sacrifice, made my peace with it. But seeing Selena and Valen's scores—people who'd stepped over others to get ahead—made something bitter and sharp twist in my chest.
It wasn't that I regretted helping people. I'd do it again without hesitation. But the unfairness of it all, the way the system seemed designed to reward selfishness while punishing those who actually cared about others...
My teammates had actually done well—really well for the circumstances. But me? Eighteen measly points out of a hundred.
"Order," Silvius called, his voice pressing down on the crowd like a physical weight.
The crowd's confusion spread. Even the Guild officials on the platform looked uncertain, exchanging glances and hurried whispers.
Silvius's pale gaze swept across the restless crowd, and when he spoke again, his tone carried centuries of cold authority—along with something that might have been amusement.
"Honored observers, I sense some...confusionregarding today's results." The word dripped with mockery, his lips curving in what wasn't quite a smile. "Perhaps we should hear fromsomeone deeply invested in the Guild's future. Someone who witnessed today's events firsthand."
His gaze found Kane in the crowd of applicants, and my blood turned cold. There was cold satisfaction in Silvius's expression as he looked between his son and me—the look of a predator who'd successfully cornered his prey.
This wasn't about clarity. This was a trap.
"Kane Ellesar," Silvius said, his voice carrying a father's pride and something darker underneath. "As my son and a future leader of this Guild, what is your judgment of today's trial? Specifically, regarding the applicant Tempest Whittaker?"
The arena fell into absolute silence. Even the dragons stopped calling, as if the entire world was holding its breath.
I turned toward Kane, my heart hammering against my ribs, searching his face desperately for any sign—any flicker—of the man who'd held me, who'd whispered that I was extraordinary. For a moment—just a moment—our eyes met across the distance.
But Kane's jaw tightened, his gaze sliding away from mine as if I were nothing more than a stranger. As if looking at me caused him physical discomfort. The deliberate dismissal cut deep.
His gaze was arctic blue, empty of any warmth I'd imagined there. No flicker of the man who'd traced my cheek with gentle fingers, who'd whispered my name like a prayer. Nothing but cold calculation, as if he was looking through me rather than at me. As if I'd never mattered at all.
He didn't look at me again.
"Father," Kane said, his voice carrying clearly across the arena. Each word precise, measured, delivered with the kind of clinicaldetachment I'd heard him use in strategy sessions. "Lord Protector. Honored Council."
"I observed Tempest Whittaker's actions throughout today's trial," he continued. "And I must say, what I witnessed was deeply concerning."
The words slammed into me like a physical blow to the chest.
"She abandoned her assigned team," Kane said, his voice never wavering. "Ignored clear objectives in favor of personal heroics. Showed a fundamental inability to follow Guild protocols or respect established hierarchies."
"More troubling," Kane continued, "was her emotional instability. She made decisions based on sentiment rather than strategy. Compromised mission objectives for personal relationships."
"Such behavior," he said, "represents a clear danger to the Guild's political balance. To our relationships with allied Supe factions. To the very stability we've worked centuries to build."
