Chapter 3 – The Space Between Blades
Rael
I can feel her watching me again.
Silver aura. Cold presence. Sharp like frost cutting through heat.
She’s not like the others—doesn’t flinch, doesn’t posture. Just watches, like she already knows how this ends.
I hate that.
The prep chamber echoes with footsteps, voices, tension so thick it hums through the floor. There’s a gate ahead, sealed shut. Behind it, the first trial. No one knows what it’ll be until it begins.
I shift my stance. Breathe once. Twice.
Then she speaks.
“Your mark’s fresh,” she says from behind me. “You’re either very lucky… or very stupid.”
I don’t turn to look at her. “Funny. I was thinking the same about you.”
She walks closer, slow and deliberate, like a predator sizing up another. Her boots stop just short of my shadow.
“You walk like someone who’s lost something,” she says. “Which means you’ll break when it matters.”
“I don’t break,” I reply flatly. “I burn.”
Her gaze narrows. “Fire’s pretty. But it runs out fast.”
For a moment, the air between us warps. Not with heat or magic—but with something deeper. A thread I don’t understand. A pull. Familiar. Foreign. Feral.
“I don’t need a partner,” I say, just to cut through the silence.
She smirks. “Good. Because I don’t babysit.”
Before I can answer, the gate thunders open. A blast of crimson light spills into the chamber, followed by a voice booming from nowhere:
“First Trial: Bloodbound Duel. You fight as pairs. If one dies, both fail.”
I turn slowly to face her. She’s already looking at me, her expression unreadable.
Of course.
Of course it’s her.
She sighs.
“Try not to bleed too much, fireboy.”
Chapter 4 – Bloodbound
Rael
The gates slam shut behind us. No turning back now.
The arena shifts under our feet—black stone breaking apart, floating platforms rising, pillars cracking through the mist. Everything smells like heat and iron.
And blood.
Lira stands at my side, blades already drawn. Twin sabers, curved and elegant. She moves like she was born with them in her hands.
I don’t draw mine yet. I let the arena speak first.
A heartbeat passes. Then the enemies rise.
Two of them—armored, silent, dripping with red aura. No faces. Just crimson and steel. Puppets, maybe. Or past contenders brought back to life. The arena likes to recycle pain.
“They’re linked,” Lira says quickly. “Strike one, the other adapts.”
“How do you know?”
“I read the arena archives.”
“Of course you did.”
They move. Fast.
The first rushes her. The second comes for me. I duck low, draw my blade in one fluid motion, and block the strike. Sparks fly. My arms shake.
These things are strong.
But I’m stronger.
I twist, drive my elbow into its neck—not that it has one—and slide my blade through its ribs. It staggers, just as the other one suddenly changes direction mid-swing, aiming not at Lira—but at me.
She curses under her breath, spins, and intercepts it cleanly.
“They’re synced to intent,” she mutters. “Not just wounds. They sense weakness.”
“Great. So no pressure.”
We move back-to-back, instinctively. Neither of us says it, but we both know: one wrong move, we both die.
And yet… something shifts in the air.
My chest burns. Not from the fight—from the mark. It pulses in time with hers. Our sigils glow faintly, flickering in sync. And in that moment, I feel it—
Her anger.
Her calculation.
Her fear.
Her fight.
Not thoughts. Not words. Just raw emotion.
“Are you feeling this too?” I ask, breath tight.
Lira doesn’t look at me. “Shut up and move left on my count. Three… two… now!”
I obey.
She sweeps low, I leap high, and our blades cut through both enemies at the same time—from opposite angles.
They collapse.
For a moment, everything is still.
Then the arena sighs, like it’s satisfied.
“Trial Complete. Pair survives.”
The gate opens again.
I turn to her. “That was—”
“Don’t get sentimental,” she snaps. But her breathing’s off. Her hand trembles slightly.
So does mine.
Because whatever just happened between us...
It wasn’t normal.
It wasn’t strategy.
It was connection.
And in this place, that’s more dangerous than any blade.
