LEVI
The announcer's voice boomed like a war-drum cracked from the heavens, shaking the courtyard's veined marble and twisting the iron spires into silent screams.
"In the pit's embrace—laws shatter, mercy crumbles, souls shatter to dust.
Bleed… or bury."
The crowd erupted, but the Mad Prince barely heard them. His attention was fixed on the elf across the pit.
Nyelis Vaedryn stood taller by a hand's span, lean muscle wrapped in blackened steel veined with silver. His short white hair framed pointed ears, and his grey-black skin glinted like storm clouds caught in moonlight.
The prince, matching Nyelis's build, carried a darker presence.
His blue and black dreadlocks. A blue, slim cloak rested on his shoulder, revealing the golden markings tracing patterns across his shirtless chest and torso. Every step seemed to swallow the light.
This was the elf whispered about in taverns lit by dying lanterns—
Nyelis Vaedryn, who devoured Arcane wherever he walked, who left villages as blood-stained husks, who carved runes into bone hoping the Arcane would bend to him as it did to the royal line.
The prince figured the royal family kept Nyelis around to bleed the country dry of its power.
One parasite less, he thought. If I kill him.
He lifted his chin, eyes closing as he listened to the Arcane mourning—a thin, pained whisper weaving through the air. His pulse steadied, thick and heavy, like thunder waiting to break.
A grin split his face.
Finally, we meet.
He spoke softly, almost amused, as Arcane tension coiled through his veins like bowstrings drawn taut.
"They call you…" He tilted his head, searching deliberately for the name, savoring the twitch in the elf's jaw. "Don't tell me—don't tell—ah. Yes. Nyelis."
The elf exhaled through his nose, unimpressed.
He unsheathed his black-and-gold blade with a whisper of steel, pointing the tip at the prince's heart. His lone eye—ice-cold, hateful—sharpened to a killing point.
"I'm tired of you pirates contaminating the Arcane," he hissed. "I'll end you before you poison it further."
The blade ignited with a whoosh, flames racing up its edge.
The prince pressed both palms to his own chest in mock offense.
"Now, now—you don't have to be racist," he said lightly. "Don't hate me just because I'm beautiful, bat."
Nyelis didn't wait.
He lunged.
The prince dropped his hand in one smooth arc.
The ground erupted—stone and dirt blasting upward as a shockwave tore a fresh trench between them. Dust swallowed the pit. When it cleared, the elf stood braced, ears twitching, searching for movement.
"Enough of this hum—"
He never finished.
The prince appeared beside him in a flicker of motion, fingers closing around Nyelis's face. He slammed him into the far wall, stone cracking under the impact.
Still grinning, the prince scooped a handful of dust and compressed it with Arcane force, shaping it into a jagged lance. He hurled it.
It struck true.
Nyelis staggered, the lance jutting from his shoulder. His breath came in harsh, furious bursts. Hatred rippled through him so violently it shook his whole frame.
The prince walked toward him unhurriedly, brushing his dreads back with a bright, dangerous smile.
The gold-lined markings along his torso pulsed, lighting him like a beast risen from myth.
From the stands, the announcer's voice echoed faintly:
"The Mad Prince never fights fair."
"I missed your head," the prince said with a laugh.
"Must be getting rusty. You'll have to forgive me—it's been a while since I let my animalistic side out."
The elf let out a raw, wordless yell. Arcane burst beneath his feet, exploding into a shockwave as he flashed toward the Mad Prince.
The Prince slipped aside with a lazy tilt of his body, the attack carving a jagged scar through the stone where he'd stood a heartbeat earlier.
Dust billowed. The crowd roared.
Above it all, the announcer bellowed,
"Look at that—Nyelis moves first! The Arcane bites hard tonight!"
The Mad Prince cocked his fist, knuckles popping like stones grinding.
"Can't have you getting all the praise."
He drove an uppercut into the elf's jaw—clean, brutal. Nyelis shot upward, body twisting through dust and fractured air.
The prince tapped the ground with two fingers.
The earth bucked—then split.
A snarling construct erupted from the stone: a massive dirt-hound with two heads, both jaws carved from packed earth and glowing veins of gold. It shook the dust from its shoulders and lowered itself.
The prince stepped onto its back without missing a breath.
The hound rocketed upward, claws digging into the rising pillars of stone as it launched after the falling elf, the arena roaring beneath them.
They met in the air.
The prince crashed into Nyelis mid-flight, slamming him down. The elf hit the ground on all fours, stone splintering beneath him. Purple blood spilled, curling into thin snakes that coiled protectively around his limbs.
The hound landed beside the prince, shaking dust from its twin maws.
"You will wish you never challenged me!" the elf screamed, hatred shaking his frame. "I will erase you—and your bloodline—from this world!"
The prince clicked his tongue. "Go, boy."
The hound blurred forward in a streak of stone and pressure. The blood-snakes surged to intercept—but burst into puddles on impact. One of the hound's maws clamped onto the elf's arm, teeth grinding into bone.
Nyelis shrieked and, in a violent wrench, severed both hound heads at once.
The announcer howled, "The elf breaks the beast—barely!"
The prince snapped his fingers.
Nyelis froze, clutching his bitten arm, palm hovering uncertainly over the wound.
"That," the prince said, "is why you build constructs from the world around you… not from your imagination."
Behind him, dirt and stone swirled upward.
The severed heads re-formed—jaw by jaw, fang by fang—rising again with a low rumble, ready to strike.
The twin hound constructs lunged as one.
Their jaws clamped onto the elf's skull—stone teeth grinding against bone—and with a violent wrench they tore his head apart. Purple blood fountained across the cracked arena floor.
The announcer's voice boomed over the courtyard, half shocked, half triumphant:
"Nyelis Vaedryn has fallen! The Mad Prince claims the pit!"
The crowd erupted—but not in cheers.
A wave of boos rolled over the arena, echoing against the stone.
The prince turned slowly, brows lifting in offended disbelief.
"What?" he said, brushing a spot of purple blood off his cheek. "I just killed a very wicked man. That's one less evil walking this world."
He shrugged, genuinely puzzled, as the hounds crumbled back into dust around him.
The jeers only grew louder. He waved them all off with a lazy flick of his hand and stepped away from the carnage.
The hound dissolved back into dirt and stone as he strolled from the courtyard, unbothered, heading straight toward the dorms as if it had all been nothing more than a warm-up.
Talis lounged on the red sofa, one leg crossed, swirling wine in her pale hand.
Black-and-white hair framed a face marked with gold Aether brands—the unmistakable sign of Arcane blood.
The gem in her chest caught the lamplight, pulsing faintly. Her black-and-yellow eyes found him first, her smile sharp and amused.
Around the room, the men he'd saved earlier sprawled across the wet benches, blades still dirty, laughing loudly about tavern fights as if they'd survived a real battlefield.
Half of them would fold the moment true steel sang, but they looked at him with something close to reverence. Men desperate for a banner. Or a purpose.
Talis's voice cut through the noise—silk laid over a blade.
"My liege… quite the spectacle out there."
She slid a plate of oxtail and dumplings toward him, the wine placed beside it as though he were a crowned prince.
He dropped into the chair, fork in hand, blowing out a tired breath as he glanced at the men.
Talis sauntered over and flipped a chair around, straddling it so the back faced him.
"Empires aren't built in a day," she said, chin resting on her arms. "This is just the start. And trust me—your rise is going to make one hell of a hero's tale."
A dull thump hit the window—something landing on the ledge.
A black raven perched on the sill, head cocked, watching the room with glassy intelligence. Levi didn't bother to look up from Talis.
"Maybe it brings us fresh blood to spill," he muttered.
One of the rescued men—still jumpy, still green—lurched to his feet with a trembling sword. Levi stomped once. The floor cracked. The whole room shuddered.
"Sheath it, fool," he snapped. "That's no enemy."
The raven shook out its wings. A scroll hung from its leg, sealed with black wax that glimmered under the lantern light.
Levi tore it free.
His eyes skimmed the message—once, twice—and the color drained from his face.
Levi, your father's been taken. They're marching him to Kingston for public execution.
He sank onto the nearest stool, a hand clamping over his mouth. Talis rose at once, pacing toward him, her black-and-yellow eyes narrowing.
"What is it?" she demanded.
Talis watched the prince's hand tighten—parchment crumpling in his fist until the wax cracked. He didn't answer at first; his gaze had already drifted beyond the walls, fixed on a place only grief and fury could see.
She stepped closer, voice dropping to a knowing whisper.
"Then we know what we need to do."
He finally nodded—slow, distant, the kind of nod that meant a decision had stopped being a choice and turned into a destiny.