“I’m only here to practice my healing,” she whispered.
I gave her a breathless smile. “Then you’ll probably get plenty of practice. It’s only been two weeks, and I’ve already had my ass handed each and every time.”
She didn’t laugh. Just looked at me, pale and serious. “Be careful, Thea.”
I looked over the sparring rings, my heart pounding, a cold pit opening inside me. Nothing ever made me feel this exposed, this desperate. This was my least favorite class by far.
There were no spells allowed. No flame, no sun made blades, no tricks of shadow or shield. Just fists and bone. Pain and pride. It was combat you couldn’t fake your way through.
Professor Hog had made the rules painfully clear on day one of combat class.
“This is not a duel of magic. This is Dragontail martial combat. You will feel pain. You will bruise. You will not be saved unless you tap out. That is the rule. You do not tap, you risk unconsciousness or worse.”
Not a threat. A promise.
Each combat mat was threaded with an Auroric suppression veil, fine and made of invisible strands of woven magic that stripped away all power the instant you stepped inside the ring. I’d felt it the first time, how it smothered something deep within me. My flame. My edge.
Professor Hog had been blunt: there are moments in real battles, against dragons, against Wildweavers, when your magiccould fail. From exhaustion, injury, or sheer distance from Rionis’s heart. When that happens, only your blade and your strength will keep you alive. Those who can’t fight without magic don’t live long enough to regret it.
So here, on this rooftop of stone and sky, your only armor was your will. Your only weapon, your body. There were no second chances. No healing unless you earn it. If you went down and didn’t tap, no one could save you.
Dragontail didn’t teach survival. They taught how to end the fight.
I wasn’t afraid of pain. I trained harder than most. I lifted, ran, and outlasted half the first-years in drills. But this wasn’t just endurance. It wasn’t spell work or strategy. This was pain made personal. And I had never done it before.
Not like this.
Across the mat, Shakari caught her opponent’s leg mid-strike and twisted, graceful and ruthless in the same breath. She dropped low, swept his other foot, and slammed him to the stone before I could blink. The boy let out a strangled gasp as the wind was knocked out of him. Shakari stepped back without even panting. Her braid swayed as she turned.
She was made for this. And she loved it.
There was a kind of freedom in her movement, a feral joy in the way she fought, as each strike reminded her she was alive. The professors were already talking about her, how she might be one of the fastest Dragontail placements in years.
I envied that certainty. That fire.
Soehl interrupted my thoughts: “This Draventh Moonveil is ruthless.”
To the west, I spotted one of the mats and there he was. Lorik. Fighting Ugo. Both of them shirtless, muscles flexing under the cold terrace light. What was with all these Dragontail males fighting without shirts all the time? This was something I would never have witnessed in Emberkeep, and I was certainly enjoying it.
Lorik stood tall and unyielding, every movement precise and brutal. I lost myself watching them. He was winning.
Was there anything he wasn’t good at?
I hadn’t seen him in the library all week. Not a glance. Not a word.
Maybe that was for the best.
I need to stop falling for Moonveils. For the love of Solvir, what’s wrong with me? My chest twisted with shame and longing at the same time, a hopeless, humiliating ache.
And then —
“Guess you’ll be sitting out this round, Solenhart,” Professor Hog said. “Your opponent has food poisoning.”
That left me unmatched. Relief.
For a breath, I let myself believe that would be it.
Then I heard a voice. Cold. Sure.