Jeers erupted. Several conversations quickly turned into arguments as three people tried to step down from their positions to address the two main parties directly. The chamber was heading toward chaos.

  Yztet raised a weathered hand and snapped his fingers, and thunder answered his call.

  Pressure slammed into Orion’s chest and made his teeth chatter, even though he was far from the epicenter in the gallery. Superheated lightning streaked thin and spider-like between the chandeliers, then exploded against a crystal wall with a thunderous boom. Every mouth in the Senate snapped shut as he stared them down as if they were misbehaving children.

  The First Senator stood straighter than he had all night. The humor had drained from his face, leaving behind only cold authority.

  “The record will reflect,” he said, grounding out each word, “that Archmage Ulysses has issued a formal challenge under the Rite of Candidacy, and that Archmage Antares has accepted. The stakes are as follows: the vanquished will withdraw his name, the winner will stand uncontested. Does anyone have anything to add?”

  No murmur dared to follow. He remained silent for a few more seconds before nodding.

  “As First Senator of the Arcane Collegium,” Yztet continued, voice hardening into something old and weary, “I will officiate. The duel will take place here. Now.”

  He clapped, and the building shifted at his beckoning. The crystal walls of the Senate glowed with a deep inner light. Mana surged like a tide, humming from all directions, and it almost felt as if the Mana Field had manifested into the physical world.

  The concentric rows of thrones shook apart as the floor at the center groaned and started to move.

  Orion’s stomach lurched as the dais unfurled like a flower, then collapsed and separated. The lower rings withdrew into the walls, with panels sliding and folding in an intricate motion that would have inspired awe in an engineer.

  In just a few seconds, the floor turned into a vast plain of glass-like crystal, large enough to fit a football field.

  The lights went out. Darkness pooled under the gallery rail, and a deep silence settled, making even breathing feel almost forbidden.

  A dome flickered into existence over the expanded floor, and lines of warding magic raced faster than sight could follow, overlapping until they formed a seamless skin that became the border between the arena and the Senate.

  Two figures stood on the empty plain, illuminated as if a spotlight had singled them out and nothing else. Ulysses had shed his outer robe, revealing a monk-like ensemble, only marred by the silver ring, shining despite the false night, as he waited impatiently; Antares, on the other hand, stood with his hands relaxed at his sides, head slightly tilted as if contemplating something.

  “The Rite of Candidacy,” Yztet said, and the words echoed loudly from all sides, “is a test of skill. It will show that the victor is the best among us. Its outcome will be final and uncontested.

  Orion had to suppress a scoff. If skill alone were enough to determine who could become the councilor, Questador and Oppellon never would have been allowed on a ballot, yet the Senate had spent the last month debating which of the two to elect. Hypocrisy dressed up in tradition is still hypocrisy.

  Besides him, Asteria’s hand gripped the rail, squeezing so hard that her knuckles turned white. “Moon Mother,” she whispered, too softly for anyone but him to hear, “hold his arrogance in check and let his aim be true.”

  So much for indifference. The prayer left a lingering warmth in the air, giving Orion the impression it was genuinely heartfelt.

  Yue watched with a face as hard as stone, with only a subtle twitch in her jaw indicating any emotion. Meanwhile, Naerys, seated on Orion’s other side, sat with her hands in her lap, appearing almost bored.

  “Aren’t you worried?” He asked.

  Her mouth curled into a strange smile. “My mentor cannot lose.”

  “That’s a lot of confidence.”

  “It’s not confidence,” she said. “It’s just the truth. You will see.”

  He opened his mouth to press her on what she meant, but didn’t get the chance.

  The duel started without fanfare. Ulysses exhaled and ignited the air. Spellfire bulged and screamed, a hungry star taking its first breath, which fell on Antares with the clear intent to devour him whole.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The ward-dome turned opaque as it blocked the glare, but inside that darkness, Antares’s silhouette remained perfectly defined. He raised one hand, palm facing out, and the fire disappeared.

  In one moment, it existed; the next, it did not.

  [Verification Principle] tried to gather as much data as possible to explain what had happened, but was unsuccessful. The magic had been too fast and too complex for it.

  Ulysses didn’t stop. Whether he expected it or not, his stoic expression made it hard to tell.

  Waves of fire surged, each bigger than the previous, producing pressure fronts that could have flattened a city wall, and rakes of golden heat that burned into the space, offering no safe harbor.

  Antares erased them all, barely bothering to slash his hand. Sometimes the fire unraveled into pale smoke; sometimes it simply failed to exist at all, with the causal chain severed before more mana could fuel it.

  The Senate remained silent, with no reactions or applause. Men who had spent their lives trying to be the smartest in the room watched closely, keeping their hands still in their laps if possible. Some lost their composure, their fingers trembling. Orion looked to his left and saw Yue’s composed facade cracking slightly, her pupils becoming pinpoints.

  They must see a lot more than I do, and their reactions prove that this is truly insane.

  Golden glyphs blossomed beneath Antares’ feet without warning, a star of light drawn so swiftly that Orion didn’t see the hand that created it. Tethers coiled from those points and instantly cinched his ankles, as locks layered on top of each other, with runes in ancient dialects carving into the empty void for completeness that he could barely interpret the basic meanings of: snare magic, phase-binding, a particle of stasis.

  There was no time for Antares to counter properly, so he didn’t. He took the mana Ulysses had already used and transformed it into something else.

  Orion felt the sudden shift like teeth grinding as the binding matrices trembled and then hardened into countless dull, needle-like shapes. Antares snapped his fingers.

  Tungsten arrows burst from the circle in a deafening hail of destruction. The kinetic energy he imparted upon them was enough to shatter any air inside the ring, and the wards shimmered brightly on impact, like a blacksmith’s forge. Orion could see enough to know a mountain would have crumbled under such force.

  Ulysses’ answer was a hemispherical lens that bent both gravity and light at the same time. Arrows curved like rain in the wind, and most of the storm of arrows followed the curve and moved away at safe angles. The few that got through slammed against a conjured shield.

  Orion tried to keep up but failed. He caught collisions of ideas: a stasis lattice hitting a probability veil; a temporal shear splitting a spell front in two, allowing the back to outrun the front until nothing made sense; a ribbon of water intertwined with a ribbon of salt that created fire through unknown mechanics.

  Minutes passed. Ulysses pressed harder as his spells grew stronger, and the waves turned into tsunamis. He summoned heat quickly enough to make the runes on the dome flare, and he threw it in every direction, trying to trap his elusive enemy.

  Antares barely acknowledged the effort. A palm turned, and a sheet of flame unraveled into raw, undifferentiated mana before returning to its source as whips of arcane lightning. A half-spoken word and a cascade of cutting wind shifted to still air. At one point, he took a spear of gnawing void and fashioned flowers from it, scattering them everywhere in a clear mockery.

  When it struck, the next trap was more effective because of his apparent superiority. The previous attempt had taught Ulysses not to trust his opponent’s distraction, so he lured him into false security with a line of glyphs that twisted the Mana Field; it was a harmless shimmer, nothing more. Just a flicker.

  Antares shifted to compensate for the false pressure gradient.

  Rings like the interior of a nautilus clenched tight. Ruins of ancient magic curled through the framework, in a language Orion didn’t understand, and clamped down tight. Antares didn’t exist in the material world for several seconds, but a pocket of space meant to allow his opponent complete control.

  He frowned, and the pocket fell apart.

  Not outward, in a fiery explosion, as Orion might have expected, but inward. He unraveled the space, overlaying it with his own reality, and effortlessly returned to the void. The wards protested as reality bent, but held as more power was infused into them by the building. Two archmages in the second ring cursed softly into their sleeves.

  “He is really taking his time,” Naerys murmured without looking away.

  “Is he now?” Orion said, dry as the desert sands. I can’t even imagine what his trying to end this quickly would look like.

  The pressure shifted subtly, and Orion felt the Mana Field hum angrily. Ulysses prepared for something bigger, the ring on his finger blazing like a white-hot brand. He channeled through it again and again, building new fire from everything he could find, no longer discriminating in his taste of mana type.

  Antares eliminated the final remnants of the old trap and started casting something of his own for the first time.

  His voice echoed through the Senate without the need for a spell. No sound had reached them this far, so that had to mean something.

  “[Dawn of the Silver Maiden],” he said.

  Light responded. Silver light took a coherent shape, not through the Sanctum’s prayers, but through understanding and true knowledge.

  Lines twisted behind him into the shape of a woman, vast and detailed, cloaked in threads that hung like waterfall spray caught at sunrise, her hair braided with crescents of liquid metal that shone with inner light. She looked down with eyes of silver, and Orion’s breath caught because her profile was familiar in a way that felt like home.

  That is Mom’s face. He crafted a spell so powerful that it could face a tier five Archmage and gave it Mom’s face.

  Asteria’s hand clenched the rail again as Yue pursed her lips.

  Ulysses brought the gathered fire down, throwing everything he had into the clash.

  The Maiden looked down at it with pity. The wave met her gaze and turned to ash, soft as snow, drifting nowhere. Then she raised one hand, palm outward.

  Ulysses flew back, crashing into the ward-dome headfirst. The impact lit up the runes in the outline of his shoulders and spine, like a terrifying lithograph momentarily fixed on the spell.

  The Maiden’s palm rose, ready to strike again if needed, but Yztet’s voice boomed. “It’s over.”

  Ulysses hung in her invisible grip for a moment, suspended like a fly in amber, then was dropped to his knees and remained there, breathing heavily. His ring flickered and went dark.

  The old man’s face looked pale and bloodless; it showed more anger than shame, which Orion figured was as much dignity as anyone could hope for.

  The Maiden gazed across the dome, beyond the wall, at them, and smiled. Then she disintegrated into particles and disappeared.

  The wards collapsed, and light and space reverted to their natural state with a strained groan.

  Yztet didn’t look very pleased, but despite the tired slump in his shoulders, he also seemed relieved. He raised his gavel and struck three times.

  “By the Rite,” he said, “the challenge is answered, and the outcome decided. Archmage Ulysses, do you concede?”

  “I withdraw my name,” Ulysses said, voice roughened by more than exertion. He did not look at Antares when he said it.

  “Let the record show that the Rite was performed successfully. We may proceed with the declarations,” Yztet said. He turned to the archmages and motioned for them to vote.

  Asteria stared at the spot where the Maiden had been. Orion looked from her face to his father, a knot of messy emotions tightening in his stomach.

  Around them, sixty archmages finally chose Cyril’s future.