The forest floor was soft with moss and scattered leaves, damp with the lingering breath of evening.
His path took him past crooked roots and stones until it opened into a secluded clearing. A lake sat cradled between low mountain ridges, its surface a mirror touched with pale light. Moonlight shimmered on the water like thin silver threads drawn across glass.
Zarnis set his shirt and shoes aside on a flat rock and stepped barefoot onto the packed earth. The breeze traced across his skin. He inhaled slowly, grounding himself, then raised the sword.
Each movement began slow, deliberate, a downward cut, a sidestep, a rising arc. Every strike had been practiced a thousand times, carved into his muscles like memory etched into stone.
He shifted stance. Drew his arm back.
Then, the thrust.
The blade lunged forward in a blur, leaving behind a brief trail of pale blue light. The air cracked with pressure. Loose leaves were scattered. Pebbles leapt from the ground.
Then it vanished.
Zarnis didn't move. He stayed in position, breathing in silence.
A step forward. Another swing. The blade shimmered again, swift and sharp, and the lake answered with a ripple, as if something had skimmed across its still surface.
He dropped to one knee, panting, sweat on his brow. In the shifting moonlight, his reflection trembled in the water.
"In one year, I've reached two strikes with mana manipulation," he murmured. "Faster than I calculated."
He reached to cup water into his hands.
And then he froze.
There, reflected in the lake, a thin crimson streak tore silently across the night sky.
A burning line. No sound. No echo.
A red-orange light curved downward, descending past the far mountains. No tremor followed. No thunder.
But something inside him stirred.
Zarnis stood slowly, eyes fixed on the distant ridge.
Then, without a word, he turned and began walking toward the place where the sky had burned.
The descent took nearly an hour, winding through cold ridges and uneven stone. But even in darkness, the burned path was clear.
Trees split at unnatural angles. Soil carved like glass. And at its center, a crater.
Zarnis approached slowly, his breath catching. The core of the impact site pulsed with heat, but not from fire.
Something glowed.
Half-buried in the shattered earth was a crystal, red as blood and jagged like broken bone. It thrummed, soft and slow, like a second heartbeat.
He stepped closer, fingers twitching with instinct.
Then pain. Searing. Instant.
A pulse of light, crimson and blinding, surged up his arm.
He screamed once, and the world vanished.
He awoke moments later, breath shallow, fingers twitching against the grass. His vision swam as he pushed himself up. The sky above was still dark. Stars unobscured. Moonlight pale and unwavering.
Only minutes had passed.
Fire shot through his left arm. He pulled back the sleeve. The crystal shard was no longer in the crater. It was in him.
Embedded beneath the skin like a vein of molten stone.
Confused, he focused his breath and tried what had failed a hundred times before: channeling mana.
For the first time, something answered.
It surged through him like lightning under skin, wild and sharp. And in that instant, he saw it—veins glowing faintly blue beneath the surface of his arms. A network of energy, alive.
Then, just as suddenly, it vanished.
He staggered back, heart racing.
"What the fuck..." he whispered, staring at the crimson scar near his wrist. "I can see my mana flow. How the hell is that even—"
He didn't finish the thought.
A smile tugged at his lips. Not relief. Not joy.
Resolve.
"I'm going to make a visit to my little brother."
They bowed.
The duel began.
Varyn was the first to act. He started channeling a wind spell and launched it straight toward Zarnis.
Zarnis reacted instinctively. He reached for the mana inside him and pushed it into his legs, using the flow from the shard. With all the training from the past years behind him, he moved fast.
The spell shot past him, tearing through the air and slamming into a tree, slicing off several branches.
He turned his head, then looked back at his brother with a grin.
"Wow. For a second, I thought you actually wanted to kill me, little brother."
"Stop whining," Varyn snapped. "You dodged with a lucky move."
He began channeling again, but before he could release it, Zarnis dashed forward. The mana surged through his legs again, carrying him straight toward his brother.
A fireball formed in Zarnis's right hand. He aimed for Varyn's ribs.
But Varyn was ready. An arcane shield appeared just in time, and the impact of the spell sent Zarnis flying backward.
Varyn scoffed. "Do you really think it would be easy to hit me?"
He began channeling once more, but this time, when Zarnis tried to draw on the mana again, the flow collapsed.
His body dropped to one knee.
Suddenly, the ground beneath him shifted. A piece of stone shot upward and slammed into his chest.
He spat blood, one hand clutching his ribs.
Varyn laughed loudly.
"One time a failure, always a failure. I don't know what trick you used at the beginning, but it won't work forever. Heir-never-to-be."
Those words lit something inside Zarnis.
The hatred. The need for revenge.
His body surged forward before his mind could stop it.
A fireball ignited in his right hand, and he charged faster, harder, everything he had pouring into that strike. Once again, he aimed for his brother's ribs.
Varyn smirked, confident behind a fresh arcane shield.
But Zarnis didn't stop.
He twisted mid-motion.
His sword swung low, precise, deadly, targeting Varyn's left leg.
The blade was going to cut deep.
He meant it.
But just before the steel connected fully—
The world dropped.
A crushing pressure slammed into the courtyard like an invisible hammer.
Zarnis's entire body was forced downward, his limbs collapsing under the weight of it. The blade lost its arc, but not entirely.
The edge skimmed Varyn's leg with enough force to draw blood.
A clean, shallow line opened across his thigh.
Both brothers collapsed under the pressure.
But they felt it.
Aina's voice rang out like a command from the heavens.
"What are you two doing!"
They knew.
With that speed, that strength—if Aina had arrived a second later, Varyn would never have walked the same again.
Aina stood at the edge of the yard, her presence flaring like a silent explosion.
She didn't run. She didn't raise her voice again.
She simply walked.
Her steps were deliberate, steady. She passed by Varyn with a look of pure disdain, as if he wasn't even worth her attention.
Then her eyes found Zarnis.
He was still holding the sword, his knuckles white around the grip, his chest rising in sharp, staggered breaths.
Her gaze didn't carry anger.
It wasn't shock, either.
It was fear.
For him.
Because she knew what he would've done.
Because she knew exactly what this would have cost him.
She released the pressure.
Zarnis stayed where he was, still gripping the sword. His breath was ragged. The small cut on Varyn's leg bled slowly, but neither brother moved.
Aina took one step closer, silent.
She knelt beside Zarnis without a word, placed a hand on his shoulder, and helped him rise.
He didn't meet her eyes, but he didn't pull away either.
The courtyard was still. Cold. The kind of quiet that comes after something irreversible nearly happened.
Then,
the doors of the estate opened.
Crackles of energy licked at the stone columns, faint at first, like static clinging to the air.
Lightning coiled into existence around the man stepping through the arch.
Their father.
Valeth Arxal.
His presence didn't press down like Aina's.
It erased.
The very air seemed to vanish. The sky itself felt thinner.
Each breath became a risk.
Zarnis stiffened. Even Varyn looked away, still kneeling, not daring to move.
Only Aina stood tall, unfazed.
She bowed immediately.
"I'm home, Father."
The lightning around him dimmed, but the weight of his gaze only sharpened.
He stepped forward, slow and deliberate, stopping in front of them all.
"Stop this nonsense," he said. His voice was calm, but every syllable cut like a blade. "I won't have any son of mine getting injured before attending Zarethor."
His gaze shifted from the blood on Varyn's leg to the sword in Zarnis's hand, then back to Zarnis himself.
"You're going with your siblings. You and your brother will attend the test."
Varyn's lips twitched, a protest half-formed, but it vanished before sound.
He lowered his head.
Even he knew,
one wrong word, and it would all be over.
His Father paused.
Then delivered the final blow.
"Let's see what your failure is truly worth."