The smell of dust and old straw hung in the air the moment Carsel stepped inside. This place was originally a grain warehouse—and no one had really bothered to hide that fact. Sacks were stacked against the sides to serve as seating. A chalk circle was drawn on the dirt floor by a hand that didn't care much whether the lines were straight. The referee stood in the center with a small bronze bell and the expression of someone counting down the hours until his duty was done.
Ten spectators. Maybe twelve, if you counted those standing near the door because there were no seats left.
Carsel took it all in within the first three seconds—then stopped paying attention, as there was nothing worth looking at any longer than that.
What caught his attention was the opponent already standing inside the circle.
Eiran Frostbane. His name was announced by the referee in a tone slightly livelier than before—a surname that was apparently quite well-known here, even if here was just a grain warehouse with twelve spectators.
Carsel read him before they exchanged a single word.
His left shoulder was lower than his right—not posture, but habit. Someone who had carried a weight on one side for too long. His leather armor was clean and polished, but there was a faint scratch on his right elbow that didn't match its otherwise well-maintained appearance—a mark from someone who trained hard, not from battle. His eyes had been locked on Carsel for a while now, but not like an opponent sizing up a threat. More like someone who had already decided something before coming here.
He doesn't want to prove something to the crowd, Carsel quietly concluded. He wants to prove something to himself.
The earring in Carsel's left ear throbbed softly—not a warning, merely a presence. Like someone tapping your shoulder before you step onto the stage.
The referee rang the bell.
Eiran moved first—a precise straight line, his shoulders stiffening just before his blade rose. A gray aura coated his metal, dense and controlled.
Carsel's thigh muscles reacted before his mind could formulate a decision. His knees sank to the ground, his body tilting—the tip of Eiran's sword swept through the air above his head, close enough to snip a few strands of hair.
Their eyes met as Carsel rose to the side.
Eiran didn't blink. Not surprised. That lower left shoulder of his didn't shift—he had anticipated this. He had already mapped out Carsel's possible movements before the fight began and chosen a path that forced a specific response.
He is very methodical, Carsel noted. And plans always have gaps in between them.
His earring throbbed with increasing regularity. Carsel let water flow onto his blade—thin at first, like mist that had yet to settle on a shape—and then slashed horizontally. A crescent of water glided low toward Eiran.
The arena ground shifted.
A stone wall emerged from below, rising to meet the attack. Carsel had already seen Eiran's shoulder move a fraction of a second before the stone appeared—an earth affinity requiring concentration to summon, meaning a small lag existed between decision and execution. A delay long enough to read, if you watched the shoulder instead of the hands.
The wall absorbed the water slash, then exploded—fist-sized rocks hurtled from every angle.
Many. Fast. No space.
Carsel chose to be present.
His knees, initially bent low, immediately sprang off the ground with full force. His feet shot high into the air diagonally, leaping over the first wave of stones sweeping the lower area. At the highest point, his body flattened momentarily, then he flowed like a spinning wheel—not that he was forcing the turn, he simply didn't resist the rotation that was already there.
The water on his blade followed the movement. Not exploding outward forcibly—flowing, spreading along the path already carved by his body's momentum. Like water poured onto a tilted surface, needing no direction because gravity was already doing the work.
The incoming stones met the spinning water. Some cracked. Some were deflected. Those that passed through struck the empty dirt floor.
His rotational momentum spent.
Carsel plunged downward—through the lingering dust of stone still floating in the air—and landed firm on the ground with both knees bent.
Dust settled around him.
In front of him, Eiran was already in a new stance—that lower left shoulder was now slightly higher than before. Not a conscious correction. A sign of someone starting to exert more than planned.
The first opening, Carsel noted.
Something shifted in Eiran's posture.
Not dramatically—no telegraphed motion, no change in stance. Just one small thing: the gray aura that had coated his blade began to recede, like a tide choosing to retreat. Slowly, then completely gone. The metal returned to ordinary metal, reflecting the candlelight in an unremarkable way.
Carsel watched it without reacting.
Eiran raised his blade with two hands—a deeper grip, not an offensive posture, but that of someone making a choice. His shoulders rose and fell once. The breath exhaled was longer than the one inhaled.
He laid something down. And picked up something else in exchange.
Carsel touched his water—then released it as well. He didn't know exactly why. Perhaps because there was a certain kind of courage that could only be honored in kind.
His blade returned to ordinary iron in his hands.
The referee made no comment. The twelve spectators made no comment. Perhaps they didn't catch what had just transpired between the two men inside the chalk circle. Perhaps it didn't need to be caught.
✶ ✶ ✶
Eiran stepped forward differently than before.
Earlier, he had moved like a plan. Now he was different—there was a bit more weight in every step, a bit more space between decision and execution. His first slash came from above, slanting to the right, not meant to hit—Carsel read that—but to force a response. To measure reaction distance.
Carsel took half a step back. Giving Eiran enough information, but no more.
The second slash was faster, targeting his left side—a side harder to cover if you weren't prepared from the start. Eiran knew that. This wasn't a guess.
Carsel parried. Metal met metal with a short, decisive ring, the vibration traveling up to his wrist. Eiran's shoulders absorbed the impact well—not perfectly, there was a tiny moment where his weight shifted to his rear foot, but he covered it quickly. The mark of someone who had trained hard to seal his openings before an opponent could notice.
But not before I saw it.
They backed away simultaneously. Two paces apart. The dust on the dirt floor between them had not yet settled.
Eiran regulated his breathing like someone who knew how much he had left and how much would be required. His eyes never left Carsel—no longer an evaluating look, but a gaze that had stopped judging and simply existed. There is a kind of focus that emerges when all plans are abandoned, leaving only a body in motion.
Carsel shifted his feet slightly to the left. Inviting.
Eiran didn't take the bait right away. He circled slowly to his left as well—maintaining distance, rejecting the offered angle. An experienced fighter. Or someone who had realized Carsel was being far too neat in leaving that opening.
Two seconds passed without anyone moving.
Then Eiran lunged in—not toward the offered opening, but straight toward Carsel's right side, forcing a rapid shift that had nothing to do with the previous trap. Clever. Using the time spent reading the bait as a bait itself.
Carsel was forced to turn his body further than planned. Eiran's blade glided toward his ribs—close, close enough to make the air between metal and fabric paper-thin.
He parried by raising his elbow, deflecting the blade upward and outward. Not a clean parry—rougher than that. His right wrist burned from an impact that hadn't hit at quite the ideal angle.
Eiran followed the momentum forward, his lower left shoulder now acting as the pivot for his spin—his blade arched back toward Carsel's head in a curve that relied more on physics than brute force.
That was good.
Carsel crouched. The blade passed overhead, almost too close. He felt its wind.
From below, he pushed upward and to the side—not a strike, just enough contact to shift Eiran's center of gravity forward while his rotational momentum was still unfinished. A small nudge delivered at the right time could become something no amount of muscle could resist, because you weren't fighting his muscles—you were fighting physics that had already set in motion.
Eiran stumbled one step forward. Just one. But here, a single step created space behind him.
Carsel rose.
They faced each other again. Eiran's breathing was slightly louder now. Not from exhaustion—from intensity, from a body that had stopped holding back reserves and begun pouring out everything.
There was something on his face that hadn't been there before. Not satisfaction—too early for that. More like someone discovering something along the way, something that didn't have a name yet, but already felt important.
He was enjoying this.
And Carsel understood why. There was no technique to hide behind. No aura to seal the holes opened by a wrong decision. Just two men, two blades, and everything they had trained until it seeped deep into their muscles. A kind of honesty unavailable anywhere else.
Eiran attacked three times in rapid succession—an accelerating tempo, each slash forcing Carsel back another step, eroding space within the chalk circle. His lower left shoulder moved as a subtle tell with every attack: dipping slightly before an overhead slash, flattening slightly before a horizontal sweep. Minute. But consistent.
Carsel counted without intending to—his body learned faster than his conscious mind.
The fourth slash came. Eiran's left shoulder dipped slightly.
From above.
Carsel didn't step back. He stepped in—moving inside the reach of the blade, his left hand rising to catch Eiran's sword wrist just as the slash was about to descend fully, deflecting its remaining momentum aside. At the same time, Carsel's blade was already at Eiran's neck.
Not touching. Just there.
Silence.
The referee's bell rang three seconds later—like someone who had just remembered his duty.
Eiran didn't move right away.
He felt the metal near his throat, gauging the distance like someone wanting to confirm that what had happened was real. Then he lowered his blade. Slowly, like someone putting down something heavy—not because of its physical weight, but because of what it carried.
Carsel drew his blade back.
They stood a single pace apart for a moment. Eiran's breath was clearly audible now. Sweat trickled from his temple to his jawline. His lower left shoulder finally shifted upward—not a correction, just a release of tension held for far too long.
His eyes locked onto Carsel. Not in the way he had at the beginning—the gaze of someone who had decided something before arriving. A different way—more open, more exhausted, more real.
He had found his answer.
Whether the answer was what he had hoped for, Carsel didn't know. That was none of his business. What he did know was that Eiran Frostbane had entered that chalk circle as someone who was not yet done with himself, and the way he stood now showed that something had been settled—whether the outcome was pleasing or not.
Eiran raised his hand briefly, half a salute.
Carsel returned it with a small nod.
No words. Neither needed them.
✶ ✶ ✶
The wind embraced Carsel as he stepped toward where Marta stood. Beneath a dense tree blocking out the sunlight, Marta looked at him not with pride, but with gentle conviction and trust.
Marta's voice began to reach his ears.
But it didn't fully register.
Something changed in the air—not drastically, just like the temperature dropping half a degree without anyone opening a window. The scent of damp earth and old wood replaced the smell of the arena's dirt. A single tree became many, surrounding him from every angle, and green grass grew beneath his boots.
Carrying an air he knew all too well.
Before him, they were there. His friends. His brothers. And his family. Whom he had buried himself with his own two hands.
They didn't call out. They asked for nothing. They were simply there, watching him in a way that never demanded anything in return.
Strange.
Even though it hadn't even been a year since the tragedy.
He wanted to stay longer.
Just a little—
"—understand?"
That single word was like a hand yanking his collar.
He returned too quickly. A brief sense of disorientation, a world that a second ago felt overly bright before his eyes adjusted back to where he stood speaking with Marta under the tree.
"I understand," he said.
Marta looked at him.
Two seconds. Three.
Then her gaze shifted to the young man standing a fair distance behind Carsel's back.
"It seems you have a visitor to deal with," she said, without turning her gaze.
Carsel turned his head. There stood the young man with light brown hair. Eiran was standing there.
Carsel looked back at Marta. One corner of his lips tugged upward—not an intentional smile, just one that formed on its own. Before he could open his mouth, Marta cut him off.
"Go."
Carsel remained silent for one long second.
Then he turned around.
Both of Eiran's shoulders were now level with each other. "I came to this place to test myself—"
Carsel didn't interrupt. He was simply there.
"—whether I could win this tournament through swordsmanship alone." Eiran's gaze dropped to the dirt Carsel stood on, then rose—locking his eyes on Carsel's. "And you have given me that answer."
His hand reached out. Neither too high nor too low. At a comfortable height for a handshake.
"Thank you, Carsel—"
Carsel's eyes widened, his pupils contracting. He stared at the hand, then looked sharply into Eiran's eyes. Eiran's eyes gleamed, and his sincerity lay in his smile.
"—that's your name, isn't it?"
Carsel didn't answer right away. His chest felt like a block of ice being eroded by running water. His jaw, which had been clenched tight—a tension Carsel himself was likely unaware he was holding—
Slowly relaxed.
He accepted the handshake.
"Thank you, Eiran."
✶ ✶ ✶
The moon completely dominated the night sky—not because the stars were absent, but because they chose not to compete. Shafts of moonlight pierced through the gaps in the curtains, slanting into a room that should have been dark and silent.
Should have been.
Seraphina touched the dusty glass orb at the corner of the antique desk—an unplanned, faint touch, fingers needing something to hold. "It's surprising that the Head of the Academy summoned me," her faint smile was already in place before she finished the sentence, "instead of Edward."
The man across the desk didn't answer. He simply gestured for Seraphina to sit. His desk stretched between them—completely bare, without a single document. An emptiness far too neat to be a coincidence.
Seraphina sat down.
His face was lined with wrinkles that did not diminish his sternness—if anything, every line felt like a mark of decisions long made and never regretted. He was in no hurry. Someone who commands a room never needs to hurry.
"If I wanted to discuss the Heartstone Faction, I would have summoned your brother."
His eyes met Seraphina's purple irises—and something behind that look felt like someone who had already read pages yet to be written.
The ticking of the Kala on the wall suddenly felt deafeningly loud. Seraphina's hand had already balled into a fist in her lap before she even realized it.
"At present—" The man paused. Not out of hesitation—he didn't look like someone who ever hesitated. More like someone granting his conversation partner time to prepare. "Prospective students wishing to enroll in this academy do not need those certificates. They will be evaluated directly by our examiners."
Seraphina froze.
...What?
She looked down briefly—the empty, slick surface of the desk offered no answers—then raised her gaze back to the sharp eyes in front of her, filled with an emotion that couldn't easily be given a single name.
Who did he mean? No... there was no way he knew.
"Oh." Her voice came out quieter than intended. She recovered as quickly as she could. "That is an... interesting policy."
The Head of the Academy interrupted before she could finish, "And if you happen to have an acquaintance who is interested, see Professor Fraiser."
He concluded the sentence with a faint, crooked smile.
What made Seraphina uncomfortable about that smile was how genuine it appeared.
Seraphina stood up before she consciously decided to. Her feet had already moved first.
Inside her head, questions came tumbling in all at once, jumbled together.
Why only to me? Why wasn't this announced in front of all the students this morning? And why is this happening right when Carsel wants to enter this place?
Her hand, already touching the doorknob, froze.
She turned back one last time into the room—and was greeted by a broad, warm smile from the Head of the Academy. No longer the smirk. A broader one. A more genuine one.
An even more annoying one.
Does he know about Carsel? Is he—
No. Not now.
Seraphina closed the door behind her.
What greeted her was a girl with honey-brown hair and ruby-red irises—an odd combination on paper, yet somehow turning into something striking on that face. Seraphina stared at her a second longer than necessary.
Ruby red. Estrella.
So this is Sylvia von Estrella.
Behind Sylvia, two young men followed with entirely different strides. Rion walked like someone who had determined his direction two steps prior—not arrogant, simply never hesitant. Beside him, Revan walked with the expression of someone holding something back and choosing not to say what it was.
Seraphina didn't know what had irritated Revan tonight. What she did know was that wherever Rion was, Revan was always nearby—like light that never comes without its shadow.
Sylvia flashed a friendly smile toward her. Seraphina returned it.
Until Rion's gaze shifted toward her. A lethal glare that had no business being there—and the smile on Seraphina's face faded like a candle catching a breeze.
She chose the opposite direction.
In a quieter hallway, her footsteps slowed on their own.
Her eyes found the moon beyond the window—already where it was supposed to be, exactly as she had calculated.
"That means it's still late afternoon over there." Her lips moved softly, meant only for herself. A subtle smirk formed on her face—not the one she had shown the Head of the Academy, nor the one she had shown Sylvia. A smaller one. One that demanded no audience. "I wonder what he's up to."
A pause.
"I know you won't disappoint." Her voice dropped into something almost warm—and almost warm, for Seraphina, was already meaningful enough. "After all, the strongest blood flows through your veins."