‘Nothing can cure the soul like the senses, and nothing can cure the senses like the soul’

  This strange duality, this dichotomy of purpose; to ground one in nature and to remove oneself from it simultaneously. An aching expression of a juxtaposition that can only have its roots in the divine.

  This is the curse of the enlightened races. To know always more than one thinks, and always less than one wants.

  - Excerpt from Ude Hanunda’s ‘discourse on the divine’, dated to the 2nd age, in the aftermath of the first cleansing.

  Our gazes met, as Jacyntha raised her heavy battleaxe from one shoulder and into a ready stance. I steeled myself for what was to come and yanked the leather cord in hand.

  Nothing happened.

  I tried again, but the thin leather might as well have been forged from steel, unbreakable as it was in my hand. The warrior before me didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but she could read the surprise in my face, and her lip twitched upwards into a satisfied smirk. The expression looked almost inhuman, lit from below as it was by the orange light of her glowing scars.

  She didn’t waste time gloating though, and we both knew this was to be the end. But I’d never been content to let endings drag me along. I clung to life, whether it was battling for survival in that endless valley, or fighting for my freedom when captured at the foot of the Dragon-Spines.

  I activated Indomitable Prey, shunting as much mana as I could out into the constellation that dominated my soul-space. It didn’t stop her in place, but the shock of my fully unleashed aura caused a moment of hesitation, and the two-handed blow slammed into my shield rather than collarbone.

  I crumpled onto my back from where I had been kneeling, and she leapt forwards to me, another heavy blow already raining down on my prone form. I rolled, slamming my shield into the haft of the long axe and knocking it to the side.

  She abandoned the weapon then, straddling me with her legs and grabbing my shield with both hands, before wrenching it aside. I let her, and connected with a straight jab to her face, once more staining her teeth red. She only grinned though, using her mounted position to land a flurry of disorientating strikes at my head and body.

  I couldn’t even turtle up due to her dominant position, and given her enhanced strength, each blow hit like a thunderbolt. I felt my nose break with a wet squish, and the entire left side of my body felt like pulverised meat.

  I scrabbled to draw my dagger from my belt, the leather wrapped fang falling free from numb fingers even as another punch split my eyebrow. One eye closed against the sheeting blood, I saw Jacyntha lean back, raising the leather wrapped fang that I’d failed to draw above her head, ready to sink it into my chest.

  At that moment, all thoughts of this being simply a tournament were forgotten. Even my indignation and outrage at Nathlan’s treatment fled my mind. No thoughts of revenge either. Just the animal terror of a life-threatening battle.

  If I had taken a moment to look up, I would have seen Finanda hovering mere feet from where Jacyntha and I wrestled, ready to intervene. But I had no time, nor the intention. Every bit of body and mind was screaming in unison that I had to stop the descent of that dagger.

  My arms shot out and found her wrists, and there we pitted our strength against one another. She had the dominant position, pushing down against me with all her weight. I had desperation on my side, but my attributes weren’t a match for hers, diminished and enhanced as they were respectively.

  The gleaming bone-white tip of the fang of an ancient beast slipped inevitably towards my neck, and I did scream then. A vocalisation of the terror and frustration. The hatred at my powerlessness, seeing death descend so achingly slowly, and still being powerless to stop it.

  I still had more to give too, but it was locked behind a wall. An impenetrable division enforced by the will and intent of Jorge – the venerable 3rd tier. If it was his intent driving things though, he surely didn’t want me dead.

  I didn’t necessarily think the thought – there was no time for deductive reasoning, and I had no focus to spare from the task of slowing that fang’s descent. It was more of an instinctual understanding. If Jorge’s intent was what was locking my attributes, then I could break through. He would not want me to die for vanity, and so his intent would be weaker than my desire to live.

  I pushed. Rather than physically breaking the amulet’s encirclement of my neck, I fought to break the amulet’s spiritual encirclement of my soul. My attributes were my own, and they were supressed by the amulet and Jorge’s will because I allowed it.

  They were not some temporary enhancement that could be taken away. My very being was stronger, more agile and enduring, more perceptive and streamlined. I wasn’t weak.

  I marshalled my intent, focusing not on the amulet itself, for that was just an object. Devoid of mana to power it and intent to shape it, it was inert. Instead, I reached towards the arena stands, past the cascading froth of hundreds of tonnes of water, and into the caves.

  One particular cave I searched for. One particular person. I don’t know how I knew, but my soul must have recognised the binding placed upon it, for I found him easily. A beacon of power shining within a cave lit by many other great souls, all ablaze with light and energy.

  The fang slipped towards my neck another inch, and my arms were shaking now, sweat dripping from Jacyntha’s forehead into my face, her teeth bared in a snarl. She lifted one arm off, and for a moment I felt the pressure abate. But then she slammed one palm into the base of the hilt, and the knife jerked forwards another inch.

  Over and over, she pounded that weapon down further, and with each blow the tip sunk closer to my bare skin. I had only moments left before my death.

  With one last push I connected to that ball of power in the cave. The moment the connection snapped into place, I felt the link between us. The chain of power that bound my attributes. I took it within metaphorical hands, and I shattered it.

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  Jacyntha slammed her palm down once more onto my dagger, but rather than lurch, it held still. New strength had flooded into my body the moment the artifact link had broken, and I felt my potential bloom once more. Strength, agility, endurance, perception, cognition. All rose, though not equally.

  My shaking arms stilled, and I looked up from the dagger for the first time. My eyes met Jacyntha’s, and she hesitated. My aura rose around me once more, Indomitable Prey active and blazing with mana and intent, pushing back the futility from moments ago.

  She wasted no more time, and reared up, putting her entire body into one final slam of the dagger. Rather than meet her strength for strength though, I lurched my hips upwards and rolled to the side, pushing the dagger away from my body and throwing her to the side in the same movement.

  Her looping scars blazed with fell green light, but her advantage in strength was now gone. Even at my full power though, my strength wasn’t much above hers in her enhanced state. But my endurance was, and my agility and perception were both much higher.

  So it was that I rolled to my feet far faster than my opponent. I backed away and collected my spear from the ground, keeping my eyes on her as I circled. She staggered to her feet in turn, and lurched towards her battleaxe.

  I made no move to stop her, rolling my shoulders and stretching my neck out in a casual gesture. I was still injured, my left side a pulpy mass of bruising, and at least one rib cracked. Blood gummed one eye shut, and my teeth felt loose in my mouth. But as I spat blood to one side and looked over at my barely harmed adversary, I felt confidence bloom in my chest.

  I let it show on my face, the smile cracking the drying blood smeared across one cheek, and was gratified to see Jacyntha’s eyes widen. I knew I could beat her now.

  And so I did.

  She roared with anger as she swung. The rage of victory denied at the last moment. Impotent and bitter. I moved swiftly, using my longer reach to keep her at bay before using my shield to get inside her guard. A headbutt and a trip had her sprawling backwards to the floor, and my spear followed her.

  She battered it aside and rolled to her feet, but the lanceolate bronze spearhead followed the movement, and she returned face to face with it once more. She tried again, and again I punished her for it, superior speed and agility defeating strength.

  It was an anticlimactic end in many ways. I wore her down, and eventually she slipped. My spear didn’t, and Finanda knocked it out of the way before it could pierce Jacyntha’s windpipe.

  She screamed then, as I had so recently. Hers marked an end though, where mine had marked the beginning.

  *Sadrianna*

  She kept one eye on the brawl, and one eye on Jorge. She couldn’t quite bring herself to look away entirely from the two figures wrestling with the knife, given what Jacyntha had done to the other lowlander, but the Holder was hovering close by, and she was more interested in how Jorge would react to his pupil’s defeat.

  He seemed calm though. Not quite resigned, but there was a hint of something that could have been disappointment on his face. Although it could just as well have been frustration with Hastor’s roaring and crowing.

  She didn’t feel what happened next, but she saw the results clear enough. Jorge blinked in surprise, and leaned forwards in interest. Her parents both whipped around to look at him as well, and the fight on the ground abruptly changed.

  Lamb somehow managed to gain a second wind, and then threw Jacyntha off him. That was all she had time to watch of the fight though, because Hastor’s reaction was much more dramatic than her parents.

  He rounded on Jorge, bellowing with rage and reaching out with one big hand to grab a handful of Jorge’s long braid. He yanked the older man’s head back, pulling a knife from somewhere with his other hand, and pointing it down towards his face in a dangerous threat.

  “What did you do, Mage!?”

  She didn’t know what was happening, but she felt her mother shoot to her feet. She said felt rather than saw, because she couldn’t track the movement, so swift it was. One moment her mother was looking around in interest, and the next she was beside Hastor, laying a hand on his weapon-arm, eyes hard as diamond.

  “Easy now, Hastor. Let’s put that knife away.” Arynia said. Her voice was soft and low, but there was an edge to it that seemed far sharper than the knife Hastor currently wielded. Sadrianna didn’t get to see this side of her mother often. Before her now stood a standing member of The Sworn Triarchy, and there was no hint of the boisterous and loving figure from her childhood.

  He hesitated a moment, and Sadrianna thought she saw her mother’s hand tighten slightly on his arm. Hastor winced then and the knife disappeared back into a storage ring. He didn’t let go of Jorge’s hair though, and Jorge seemed content enough to sit where he was.

  “I will release him when this fight is stopped. He has interfered somehow, and now my DAUGHTER!” he shouted that last word with a volume to match his obvious anger. “…is sharing the ring with a cheater empowered by a 3rd tier. I won’t have it!”

  Her father looked to Jorge with obvious discomfort. “We did all feel it, Jorge. I hope there is an explanation for this?”

  The older man sighed and rubbed his greying stubble as he replied. “Aye, there’s a perfectly banal explanation-”

  His head was yanked to the side by Hastor, who pulled him fully off his stool and practically roared at her parents, “Stop this fight now! So help me, if my daughter is injured by this man’s welp, then I shall have his head right here!”

  The knife didn’t reappear, but her mother’s warning look was not enough this time, as a spiked gauntlet appeared sheathing one of Hastor’s hands, which he cocked back menacingly.

  Jorge for his part had picked himself up from the floor, and there was something different in his presence now. He stood, straight-backed and facing Hastor. It should have looked foolish for all the difference in their statures; a mouse facing a lion. But Hastor flinched.

  There was something in the smaller man’s gaze, some seed of warning and danger that made even the brash and abrasive Hastor take note. When Jorge spoke, it was with a tone of finality.

  “My lad down there is not cheating. He will not injure your daughter more than necessary to end the fight.” A pause for a moment to let the words sink in, before a final rejoinder. “I don’t teach my charges to lash out in anger like broken dogs.”

  The scene had unfolded rapidly, and Jacyntha and Lamb were still circling each other after grabbing their respective weapons. Hastor’s gaze flicked down at the fighters, and then back up at Jorge.

  Jacyntha lunged then, axe carving a wild path through the air. A few more blows were exchanged before Lamb stepped in close and headbutted her, tripping her back leg in the process and leaving her sprawled on the floor.

  Hastor grit his teeth and raised his arm, and Arynia made a warning grunt. Her father spoke again, “Okay, let’s all take our seats, yes? Jorge says he has an explanation, and I am inclined to believe him. If it doesn’t satisfy,” at this he cut his eyes at Jorge as if in warning before speaking directly to Hastor once more. “-then we can work on overturning the results of the match and move from there.”

  “If it doesn’t satisfy, I’ll have his fucking head.” Hastor growled. Sadrianna rolled her eyes. Egotistical posturing at this point. She stopped at his next words though. “Then I’ll make my way down to that arena and take your lads skull too.”

  A blur of movement, a meaty smack!, and a wet cough was all Sadrianna had time to notice as the scene abruptly changed.

  Hastor fell to his knees then, coughing. She couldn’t see what had happened, but her mother was there between the two men, facing Jorge. The lowlander leaned forwards, weight supported by Arynia and whispered something to the bigger man.

  There was a pause before a hesitant nod from the kneeling figure, and Jorge leaned back again, receiving a stern look from Arynia.

  Jorge casually righted his stool and took a seat, groaning as his knees protested the motion. He dusted off his hands and settled in, gesturing for her parents to sit alongside him. By the time everyone was seated, the Holder had stepped in to declare Lamb the victor, and the tall man was trudging back through the waterfall, leaving the defeated form of Jacyntha behind.

  “Now that that’s taken care of, let’s have a chat, shall we?” he said.