I could hear the raucous screams and cheers from the spectators like a giant clap of thunder.
“DARREN! DARREN! DARREN!”
The thick clay walls were shaking from the stomp of thousands of feet.
And then it was silent.
“Best of luck, my lady.” The guard walked me to the edge of the tunnel and then looked my way. “My sister was a second-year apprentice during your last year with the prince. She convinced several of her friends to bet on you.”
My tongue stuck to the back of my throat, and it was a great effort to swallow. “And you?”
“The prince. But I do believe you will give him a run for my gold.”
“Thank you, Rhett.”
“Good luck, my lady.”
I strode out into the night.
****
Hundreds of cheers cut the air as I emerged from a tunnel of darkness to a somber violet sky. Rolling black clouds were speeding across the expanse, and I could barely make out the stands, bright blue mage’s orbs lining the rows against a sea of shadowed faces.
Tiny sapphires of water poured down like glittering tears and made wet sand stick to the bottom of my boots as I ran. Thunder groaned and heaved, stark flashes of light sliced above like a waiting knife. The summer storm that had been brewing all day was here.
By the time I reached the center I was slick with sweat and rain, every inch of me alive.
The prince stood facing me, not fifteen feet away—dark garnet eyes and hair as black as coal. Droplets slid down his bare chest as he regarded me with the crook of a grin.
“It was always you,” he said.
“TEN SECONDS, CANDIDATES! TEN. NINE. EIGHT…”
I gave Darren a shaky smile. “May the best of us win?”
“FIVE. FOUR. THREE…”
“They already have. But, yes…” His eyes danced, a streak of crimson in a shadowy night. “May the best mage win.”
“ONE. AAAAAAND BEGIN!!!”
Twin blasts of power crackled and soared.
A brilliant flare lit up the whole arena as our castings shot out against the night—and then an awful ear-shattering screech as the brute strength of our magic collided. The sheer force of the impact sent the prince and me airborne, soaring back against the sand. Back, far, possibly a hundred and fifty feet between us when we landed.
I hit the ground with the air knocked out of my lungs and my whole back smarting from the unexpected blow. Darren’s magic was more powerful than any I had ever come across. I had never hit his head on—not with the full force of an unrestrained attack. And now that I had, I wasn’t eager to repeat the act again.
Funny, the two of us chose the same casting as the last time we fought.
My palms braced against the sand, and I leapt to my feet, kicking up a spray of dirt as I scrambled back up with a casted pole in the fold of my fist.
I relaxed the muscles in my arm and pushed off, right foot forward, metal edge of the javelin tipped slightly down as I sprinted down the way, counting the number of steps with my breath.
I could see Darren favoring an elbow as he also pushed up from his fall, his whole face a shadow across the gap. He was slower than normal.
The balls of my feet bounced along the stride and I sped up, letting the pole fall back to a full arm’s extension as my right heel touched the ground and my left foot rose and fell, my shoulders aligned with Darren’s direction.
Then I let the casting soar.
The pole whistled across the air, and I stood rigid, my mind focused on keeping its course against the heavy lilt of rain.
The prince ducked and threw up a soldier’s timber shield, catching my javelin as easily as an arrow. The speared point absorbed into the wood and then dissipated as I released my casting with a bolt of power from my left.
He countered my attack with a thick beam of ice—drawn from the falling rain—that shattered and splintered into a thousand tiny shards.
Darren raised his hands to the sky. The clouds twisted and tore and I braced myself for an attack, swallowing down a gasp of shock. A torrential downpour of pellets rained down from above. Hail shot at me like an army of rocks, fist-sized lumps of crystalline ice that blinded me in their assault.
The storm of ice bounced as they hit the sand, hard. A cry fell from my lips as they violently pelted the sphere, the shield vibrating from thousands of tiny bits slamming the globe at once. I couldn’t see out from my casting—the arena looked like a battle of stars. Arrowheads of milky white shooting in every direction, hitting the sand with a spray, hitting my defense with a crack.
I could barely hear. The noise was deafening. With each numbing crash the casting echoed, and it was all I could do to hold my casting as I squinted into the onslaught beyond.
Where is he? The pellets were nasty little things, but they were hardly the attack I would expect. It has to be a distraction.
There. A flash of light across the way. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it didn’t take much to guess: Darren.
I released my casting—not wanting to waste any more magic now that I knew he was far enough away—and then started toward the stadium wall.
My boot caught on a pellet in the sand and I tripped—