One hour.
That's all it took for things to escalate from a sweet reunion with the heroines and the villainess to me standing inside an arena like a gladiator.
The place was packed. Every seat filled. These motherfuckers had skipped their entire class schedule just to watch four students tear each other apart.
Can't blame them though. The lineup was something else.
First was Angelica Zel Holfort. The Imperial Princess. Her family didn't just rule a territory or two. They ruled almost all of them.
Charlotte Lombardi. The Royal Princess of the North. Her family held an entire kingdom under their boot.
Then came Aria Halloway. No royal title. No imperial crest. But her bloodline was rumored to descend from dark mages powerful enough to rival the Lombardi house blow for blow. In wealth. In strength. In the kind of destructive force that rewrites maps. And her family didn't need any fancy title to prove it.
And finally. Me.
