The finalists were announced.
The duels were over.
The war was about to begin.
My name, Kael, echoed through the stadium, followed by Isolde Ember and Marcus Pyre.
Three of us.
Three Adepts of Ignis.
I stood there, the weight of a thousand eyes on me, feeling the quiet hum of my power. It was a secret I had guarded my entire life, but now, it felt like a beacon. I was no longer a hidden firefly. I was a star.
The final round was a simple elimination.
One-on-one matches, winner moves on.
My first match was against Marcus Pyre.
The name, even the way the announcer said it, sounded like a raging fire.
He was a mountain of a man.
A broad, imposing figure with a beard the color of a burning ember.
He walked onto the stage, not with grace, but with a deliberate, stomping authority.
He held no weapon.
His hands were his weapons.
His element, Ignis, was his fury.
He saw me, saw the dagger at my waist, and a booming laugh, full of contempt, filled the stadium.
"You again?" he roared, his voice a gravelly boom.
"The boy with the butter knife?"
I didn't answer.
I simply stood there, my calm exterior a stark contrast to his bluster.
He drew a finger across his throat in a mocking gesture.
"I'll go easy on you," he promised.
The judge, a serious-looking man with a face like a stone, called for the match to begin.
Marcus moved first.
He didn't run.
He simply stood and roared.
"Ignis... Fireball!"
A massive ball of pure fire, a burning sun no smaller than my head, shot towards me.
It was a brute-force attack.
A display of raw, uncontrolled power.
I sidestepped, the fireball soaring past me and impacting the stadium wall with a deafening crash.
The heat, a palpable wave, washed over me.
"A firefly's dodge!" Marcus sneered.
"Let's see you dodge this, boy!"
He raised his hands and a wall of fire, a roaring inferno of pure heat, erupted between us.
"Ignis... Wall of Fire!"
The flames stretched for ten feet, a solid barrier of angry, burning energy.
I didn't have a choice.
I had to get through.
I drew my dagger.
The dagger hummed with a quiet, contained warmth.
I whispered the word.
"Ignis... Disruption."
I plunged the dagger into the wall of fire.
The effect was instantaneous.
The flames didn't just part.
They collapsed.
The aetheric flow of Marcus's power, a simple, straight-line force, was shattered.
The wall of fire winked out of existence, replaced by a momentary, shimmering heat distortion.
Marcus's eyes widened.
He hadn't expected that.
"What sorcery is this?" he demanded.
I didn't answer.
I lunged.
My dagger, a whisper of a weapon, was a blur.
Marcus, a man of brute force, was slow.
He could only react with brute force.
He raised a massive hand and created a shield of raw flame.
"Ignis... Flame Shield!"
My dagger, humming with disruptive heat, met his shield.
The flames flared, a brilliant white, and for a moment, we were locked in a dance of fire.
His was a raging inferno.
Mine was a perfect, contained heat.
We were equal.
For a moment.
Then his power began to overwhelm me.
The sheer volume of his Ignis was too much.
My perfect heat was being drowned out by his wild, uncontained rage.
I broke away.
I was struggling.
My hand felt burned, and my arm trembled with the effort.
He saw it.
He smiled.
A cruel, triumphant smile.
"I told you, boy. Your little knife is no match for a true master of Ignis."
He began to charge his power.
The air around him shimmered with raw, unrestrained heat.
"I'll end this now. Ignis... Sunburst!"
A massive, brilliant sphere of fire began to form in his hands.
It was an attack that would destroy the stage.
It was an attack meant to kill.
I knew I couldn't stop it with my dagger alone.
My mind, racing, went back to my grandfather.
When your opponent is a raging river, do not stand against it. Find its current, and use it to your advantage.
I let the power of Ignis within me flow.
Not into the dagger.
Into my legs.
Into my core.
I was no longer just an Adept of fire.
I was a dancer of heat.
I moved.
A series of movements that were not a dodge, but an embrace of his power.
The closer I got to the Sunburst, the more I used its own momentum, its own heat, to fuel my speed.
I was a ghost.
A whisper of motion in the heart of his inferno.
I was seeing a different kind of fight.
This was a dance of pure energy.
From the other side of the stadium, in the area where the other finalists waited for their turn, Lirael, the Adept of Lumen, watched me. His cold, grey eyes, which had held nothing but disinterest for most of the tournament, were now wide.
He's not fighting the fire, Lirael thought. He's... becoming it. He's using the energy of his opponent against him. It is a form of passive mastery. A beautiful, deadly paradox.
Next to him, Isolde Ember, the dancer of fire, was on her feet. Her brilliant orange robes were a testament to her element. She was a master of Ignis, but her power was graceful, like a ballet of flame. She saw what I was doing.
Marcus's power is a hammer, Isolde thought. It is powerful, but it is clumsy. Kael's power is a scalpel. It is subtle, but it is perfect. He is not fighting with fire. He is fighting with heat. He is a genius.
Seraphina Stonefall, the stoic Adept of Terra, simply watched. She saw the raw, unrestrained fury of Marcus, a force of nature. And she saw me, a boy with a dagger, a silent, graceful ghost. She saw the sheer, unbridled arrogance of Marcus, a man who believed in the size of his power. And she saw me, a boy who believed in the perfection of it.
A small stone can stop a tidal wave, Seraphina thought. If placed in the right place, at the right time. He is a small stone. He is a master of leverage.
Back on the stage, the Sunburst was complete.
It was a miniature star.
It was meant to incinerate me.
But I was no longer there
.
I was at Marcus's side
.
My dagger, now a shimmering, perfect point of pure, controlled heat, was not aimed at his chest.
It was aimed at the source of his power.
The aetheric flow from his core.
I whispered the final word .
"Ignis... Core."
I plunged the dagger in.
Not into his skin.
Into the very core of his Ignis.
I didn't stop the flow.
I disrupted it.
I found the one, single, perfect weakness in his aetheric energy.
And I used the heat of my dagger to destabilize it.
The Sunburst, which was meant to be his final, glorious attack, imploded.
It didn't explode.
It simply winked out of existence.
One moment, it was a star.
The next, it was a wisp of smoke.
Marcus stood there, stunned.
His hands, which had been full of the power of a star, were now empty.
He stared at me, at the dagger, at the nothingness where his power had been.
I had been holding back.
Holding back a lot.
A lot more than just my mastery of Ignis.
I felt the phantom touch of a different kind of power.
A cold, whispering darkness that lived within me.
Umbra.
The element of shadow.
It was my true power.
My heritage.
It was a power that could have ended this fight in a single, silent moment.
A twist of shadow.
A whisper of darkness.
A blackness that would have snuffed out his fire before it even began.
I could have simply faded from existence, a mere silhouette of a boy, and reappeared behind him.
I could have used a single thread of shadow to bind his limbs.
I could have ended the fight before it even began.
But that would have been too much.
Too much attention.
Too much power.
My grandfather's words rang in my ears.
Umbra is a special element, Kael. It is not like fire or wind. It is an element of secrets. It is a power that is feared. You must never use it in public. You must never let them know what you truly are. You will attract the attention of the kings and queens, the High Council and the Elders. They will want to control you. They will want to dissect you.
They will want to own you.
I had to play the part.
The part of an Adept of Ignis.
A powerful one, yes, but one who was still a master of a known element.
So I used Ignis.
I used it with a precision that was my own.
I used it with a wisdom that was my grandfather's.
And I won.
The judge, his face a mask of utter astonishment, called the match.
"Contestant 047, Kael, is the victor!"
The crowd, after a moment of stunned silence, erupted.
A thunderous roar of approval.
They had seen a force of nature defeated by a whisper.
They had seen a hammer broken by a scalpel.
They had seen me.
I stood there, the dagger still humming with a quiet heat, and I looked towards the finalists' box.
Lirael's grey eyes met mine.
They were no longer cold.
They were full of a deep, silent understanding.
He had seen it.
He had understood the paradox.
He knew that my power, a controlled, refined fire, was more dangerous than the raging inferno of Marcus.
He gave me a small nod.
A gesture of respect.
Isolde, the dancer of fire, gave me a look of pure, unadulterated awe.
Seraphina, the Adept of Terra, simply watched me, her face unreadable.
I was Kael.
An Adept of Ignis.
And the next duel was about to begin.