The heavy iron gates of the training yard seemed to groan under the weight of the tension as the two monarchs faced each other.
The blizzard held its breath, the snow falling in thick, lazy flakes that vanished the moment they touched the packed earth.
Caelen gripped his Solmire steel, the leather wrap of the hilt groaning under his squeeze.
He looked at Soren, at the shimmering skin and the eyes that glowed with a predatory blue light, and felt the familiar, bitter taste of an underdog's defiance.
"Magic or no magic?" Caelen asked, his voice cutting through the crisp air like a whetstone.
The crowd, a growing ring of knights, stable hands, and high-ranking guards, went deathly silent.
Every man there knew the truth: if Soren called upon the frost, if he tapped into the ancestral well of magic, Caelen would be frozen into a statue before he could take a single step.
