Page 94 of Tempest Blazing
Broken stone arches cast jagged shadows across our assigned sector, remnants of a grand amphitheater. The ruins looked like picked-over bones. My team—if I could even call it that—had claimed a relatively sheltered alcove formed by two collapsed columns.
Anxiety knotted in my stomach as I studied them. This ragtag group was supposed to be my ticket to passing? The thought made my chest tight.
I couldn't afford to fail—not when everything depended on proving myself worthy of my bond with Thalon. The Guild could sever our connection with a few bureaucratic signatures if I didn't demonstrate my value here. No matter what it took. No matter what I had to endure or become. I would pass this trial.
"Right," said the tall girl with silver-streaked hair, brushing dust from her hands. "I'm Kira, lion shifter." Authority rolled off her in waves.
The others followed suit. Tobias, a stocky earth mage with mud-brown eyes. Jace, whose water affinity showed in the way moisture seemed to gather around his fingertips. And Senna, a slight girl whose shadow magic made the air around her shimmer with darkness.
When the introductions circled to me, I kept my voice level. "Tess Whittaker."
"The human," Tobias muttered, not quite under his breath.
"Thefluke," Senna added, her tone sharp enough to draw blood.
Jace shook his head. "This is what we get for being in the bottom tier. Stuck with—"
"Is this really how you want to spend your precious prep time?" Kira's voice cut through their complaints like a blade. The easy demeanor vanished, replaced by something harder. Something that suggested she'd stepped on plenty of people to get where she was. "Because I'm pretty sure the other teams are actuallyplanningright now."
Everyone straightened. Even me.
"We need to hide our flag somewhere defensible," Kira continued. "I'm thinking we bury it under enchanted stone—Tobias can handle the earth work, and I can ward it with barriers."
I stepped forward. "What about magical misdirection on a larger scale? We could set up false energy signatures to draw teams away from our real position while we—"
"Theory's great and all," Tobias interrupted with a dismissive wave. "But this is about practice."
The casual dismissal stung. I'd spent hours studying arena layouts, magical theory, tactical applications. None of that mattered to them.
"—or we could create layered illusion fields keyed to emotional magic," I continued, refusing to be shut down. Desperation leaked into my voice—the sound of someone who couldn't affordto be sidelined. "There's a rune cluster near our boundary line that could serve as a false marker if we—"
"Look," Senna said, rolling her eyes, "we get it. You're trying to prove you're not just a fluke. But maybe leave the actual strategy to people who've been doing magic longer than five minutes?"
My throat tightened. Five minutes. As if time measured worth. As if every sleepless night studying, every hour I'd spent proving myself, counted for nothing because I wasn't born to this world.
Then Kira's expression shifted. The calculated look of someone who'd just found the perfect solution to an annoying problem.
"Actually," she said, her tone deceptively casual, "I think we're overcomplicating this." She turned to face me directly, and something cold settled in my stomach. "Tess, you'll run decoy."
The desperation clawed at my chest, mixing with the familiar burn of determination. Whatever they asked of me, I'd do it. I had to. But beneath the fear, anger flared—hot and sharp. Of course. Of course they'd find a way to make me expendable.
"Decoy?"
"Think about it." Kira's smile was sharp-edged, predatory. "You're fast, you're... visible. Draw the other teams toward you, pull them away from our flag position." Her eyes glittered with something that made my skin crawl. She knew exactly how desperate I was. Knew I couldn't afford to refuse.
Tobias nodded slowly, catching on. "While they're chasing her, we shadow from a distance and—"
"Ambush anyone who takes the bait," Jace finished. "Hold them for the two-minute capture penalty."
The rough stone bit into my palm as I clenched my fist. Metallic fear coated my tongue. My magic flickered defensively under myskin, a golden heat that made my fingertips tingle. Every instinct screamed danger.
The two-minute rule was designed to prevent teams from simply eliminating opponents outright—if you could restrain someone for a full two minutes, they were considered "captured" and had to return to their starting position. Legal, yes. But the way they were talking about it...
This wasn't about strategy. It wasn't about demonstrating skill or magical prowess or any of the things this trial was supposed to test. This was about knocking other players out of contention through magical ambush tactics.
"That's..." I started, then stopped. What was I going to say? That it wasn't fair? That there was no honor in baiting half-wounded opponents into point-draining traps? They'd laugh me out of the arena. Thalon would hate this. Honor mattered to him—even in a rigged game.
Their eagerness sickened me. Trapped between their ambition and my own desperate need to survive.
