The world peeled away from me without warning.

The armory bled into nothing, the stone and steel dissolving like ink dropped into water, edges blurring, sounds stretching thin until they snapped.

One heartbeat I was standing over bodies that should have haunted me forever. The next, there was only white.

Then weight.

Then breath.

I staggered and caught myself, boots scraping against solid ground.

My body felt wrong for half a second, too big, too heavy, too mine, and then everything settled into place. I was back in my own body.

Not the shrunken, helpless thing from before.

Not the child locked in the dark.

Me.

I clenched my hands.

Power surged through my fingers, raw and familiar and violently alive.

Mana flowed freely again, answering me without resistance, coiling under my skin like a patient predator.

It felt different than before.

Sharper.

More honest.

Less restrained.

I exhaled slowly, shoulders dropping.

I was glad.

Not relieved. Not guilty.

Glad.

Glad that I had kicked my older brother in the balls.

Glad that I had broken his teeth

. Glad that I had ended them without hesitation.

The trial hadn't wanted remorse.

It hadn't wanted forgiveness.

It had wanted truth.

And the truth was simple.

They didn't matter anymore.

The floor beneath my feet shifted, reforming into a corridor of white crystal that stretched forward into the unknown.

The walls glimmered faintly, refracting pale light in endless angles. I stepped forward, boots echoing softly, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the crystalline silence.

As I walked, I noticed the figures.

Me.

Dozens of versions of myself were frozen inside the crystal walls, suspended mid-motion like insects trapped in amber. Some were younger, some older. Some wore armor. Some wore dresses. Some were screaming. Some were calm. One version had blood on her face and a vacant stare. Another was smiling faintly, eyes hollow.

None of them moved.

None of them blinked.

I didn't stop.

I didn't look away either.

I had already learned that lesson.

The corridor widened suddenly, opening into something vast enough to steal the air from my lungs.

A colosseum.

Ancient, circular, impossibly large. Tier upon tier of stone seating rose into the sky, cracked and weathered, yet untouched by time.

The sand-covered arena floor stretched out before me, scarred by countless battles long since forgotten.

It reminded me of something Sebastian had mentioned once, offhand, when we'd passed near a ruined arena. He'd called it "ancient Roman." I hadn't known what that meant then.

I understood now.

This was a place built to watch people bleed.

Standing at the center of the arena was someone waiting for me.

Me.

She looked exactly the same. Long white hair. Cold blue eyes. My face, my posture, my stance. She wore the same battered black academy uniform I did, torn and scorched at the edges, as if she'd walked through the same hells I had.

In her hand was a rapier.

My rapier.

The family blade. Slim, elegant, lethal. The reflection's weapon shimmered faintly, a perfect replica down to every scratch and imperfection.

I stepped onto the sand.

She raised her blade.

I didn't need an announcement. I didn't need rules. I already knew what this trial was.

Fighting yourself was the hardest thing anyone could ever do.

Because you couldn't lie.

I drew my rapier and felt my affinity respond instantly. Light bent around me, sunlight and moonlight bleeding together into a thin, radiant edge along the blade. Heat gathered at my back, cold forming along my spine, gravity tightening subtly around my feet.

I moved first.

I lunged, fast and precise, aiming straight for the heart.

She parried.

Steel rang sharply, the sound snapping through the colosseum.

Sparks flew as our blades slid against each other, identical movements mirroring perfectly. I twisted, pivoted, unleashed a burst of compressed sunlight from my off-hand.

She did the same.

The impact knocked us both backward, sand spraying as we skidded apart. I barely had time to regain my footing before a wave of freezing air slammed into me, frost racing across the ground.

I countered with fire.

Flames erupted, colliding with ice in a violent explosion of steam that obscured the arena floor. I leapt through it, gravity bending to pull me forward faster than my body should have allowed.

She was already there.

Our blades clashed again. Thrust, parry, riposte. Every feint I attempted, she anticipated. Every opening I tried to exploit, she closed. It was like fighting a perfect shadow, one step ahead and half a heartbeat behind all at once.

I summoned meteoric force, calling down fragments of condensed celestial energy. They screamed through the air like falling stars.

She shattered them mid-flight with razor-thin arcs of moonlight.

We circled, boots carving lines into the sand. Sweat ran down my temples, breath steady but strained. I layered my affinity, stacking heat and cold, light and gravity, trying to overwhelm her with sheer versatility.

She matched it all.

Every concept I wielded, she countered with equal mastery. Sun against sun. Ice against ice. Gravity against gravity. Not weaker. Not stronger.

Equal.

I pressed harder.

I fought faster.

I stopped thinking and let instinct take over, unleashing everything I had learned, every brutal lesson carved into my bones since leaving the academy. The air screamed. The sand melted into glass in places. Shockwaves rippled outward, cracking stone high in the stands.

Still she stood.

Still she blocked.

Still she struck back.

A glancing cut opened my shoulder. Pain flared bright and sharp. I welcomed it and retaliated with a point-blank blast of compressed moonlight that sent her skidding across the arena floor.

She rose immediately.

Unhurt.

Something inside me twisted.

I hated her calm. Hated her precision. Hated the way she looked at me like she knew exactly what I was thinking, exactly how far I would go.

Because she did.

Minutes blurred together into an endless exchange of violence. Neither of us gained ground. Neither of us faltered. The colosseum bore the scars of our struggle, but we remained locked in perfect, infuriating balance.

My breathing grew heavier.

My grip tightened.

And something ugly began to crawl up my spine.

Frustration.

No—anger.

I snarled and threw myself forward again, power flaring wildly, affinity bleeding out of control. I stopped refining. Stopped calculating. I just hit.

She smiled.

Not mockingly.

Knowingly.

She met my rage head-on, blade flashing, energy surging, and for the first time since the fight began, I felt it clearly.

She wasn't holding back.

Neither was I.

And that realization snapped something fragile inside my chest.

I was so sick of fighting myself.

So sick of being measured, mirrored, constrained by my own limits.

My vision burned.

My teeth clenched.

And as I lunged again, fury boiling over at last, only one thought filled my mind.

I was done playing fair.

I snapped.

I didn't ease into it. I didn't warn her. I hurled everything at once.

Dozens of spears of compressed sunlight tore free from my outstretched hand, screaming through the air like judgment made solid. Each one burned white-hot, dense enough to bend the light around it, sharp enough to shear stone like cloth. They fanned outward and then converged, a lethal storm aimed squarely at my reflection's center mass.

At the same time, I pulled silver moonlight down into myself, letting it flood my veins and knit flesh back together. The cut on my shoulder sealed with a hiss of heat meeting cold, pain receding into a dull echo as my body obeyed without hesitation. I didn't slow. I didn't pause to admire the balance. I attacked and healed in the same breath.

She reacted instantly.

Ice bloomed in the air before her, not a wall but a barrage. Spears of glacial blue formed in rapid succession, razor-edged and brutally cold, each one thrown with precision that mirrored my own. Sunlight and ice collided midair.

The explosion was deafening.

Steam erupted in massive waves, rolling outward like living things, swallowing the arena floor in white fury. Heat and cold fought violently, pressure cracking the sand beneath my feet, shockwaves slamming into my ribs. I dug my heels in, gravity anchoring me as the world blurred.

I didn't stop.

I raised my blade and reached higher.

Far higher.

The sky above the colosseum darkened as I called down a meteor, not stone but condensed celestial mass, burning orange and gold as it tore through the atmosphere I had forced into existence. It screamed as it fell, a promise of annihilation aimed straight at her position.

For the first time, my reflection didn't advance.

She planted her feet.

She lowered her stance.

And she drew on something deeper.

Her rapier moved in a precise arc, tracing an ancient pattern burned into my bones since childhood. The family sword art. The one drilled into me until my wrists ached and my arms shook. Power flared orange as she completed the final movement, and light exploded outward.

A lion's head formed before her, massive and radiant, its mane made of layered energy plates, jaws open in a silent roar. The shield solidified just as the meteor struck.

The impact shook the world.

Stone shattered. Sand vaporized. The stands cracked, entire sections collapsing inward under the force. The lion shield held, light flaring blindingly bright as it absorbed the blow, energy rippling outward in concentric waves that flattened everything nearby.

I was thrown backward, skidding across scorched sand until I slammed into a fractured pillar at the arena's edge. The breath tore from my lungs. Pain flared through my spine.

I laughed.

It bubbled up unbidden, sharp and breathless and a little unhinged.

Of course she knew that art.

Of course she could use it perfectly.

I pushed myself to my feet, steam still rolling across the arena floor, vision swimming with heat distortion. My reflection stepped out of the fading glow, the lion shield dissolving into sparks around her.

Unscathed.

My smile twisted.

"Fine," I muttered under my breath. "Let's keep going."

I surged forward again, this time bending gravity aggressively, warping space just enough to blur my movement. I closed the distance in an instant, blade flashing toward her throat.

She sidestepped, countered, and our rapiers locked with a shriek of protesting metal. I twisted my wrist, tried to disarm her, but she mirrored the motion exactly, pressure equal and opposite, our blades trembling between us.

We were too close now for wide-scale devastation.

So we got ugly.

I kneed her in the ribs. She elbowed me in the jaw. Pain flashed white, teeth clicking together hard enough to make my skull ring. I responded with a burst of solar heat at point-blank range, scorching fabric and skin.

She answered with a spike of cold that numbed my arm from shoulder to fingertips.

We broke apart and clashed again, faster this time. No theatrics. No restraint. Just raw, relentless exchanges.

Steel kissed flesh. Energy flared and collapsed. The arena floor fractured under our feet, each step leaving craters and scorched marks behind.

I called down moonlight in thin, cutting crescents, slashing horizontally.

She raised a wall of compressed gravity, the arcs splintering harmlessly against it.

I reversed polarity and yanked that gravity field sideways, trying to throw her off balance.

She compensated instantly, planting herself and hurling a lance of fire straight at my chest.

I barely twisted aside in time. Heat scorched my ribs. I felt skin blister.

I healed through it and snarled, rage tightening my chest.

Why wouldn't she break.

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