Aesgir glared at me. For a moment, I thought he’d summon his maul and come at me again.
Instead, he offered me a slow, grudging nod and raised both his hands.
I lowered Trulissinangoth to the ground and stared hard into her eyes.
The dragon clenched her claws and nodded.
“You have beaten us,” she said humbly. She bowed low and directed her next words to the floor. “I am shamed by my loss and accept your dominion over me and my people.”
Aesgir’s fusion blade reappeared in his hand mid-swing. He’d crossed the arena far faster than I’d thought possible and brought his weapon screaming down toward the exposed back of Trulissinangoth’s head.
If I did nothing, he’d become the dragon slayer he’d always wanted to be. Maybe that would earn me some points in his book.
But I’d never be able to live with myself.
Two of my serpents lashed out with a series of sharp snaps and clicks. The bladed tip of one sliced across the underside of Aesgir’s right forearm. The wound turned his hand into a useless lump of meat and sticks on the end of his arm, and he lost his grip on his hammer. My second attack struck him hard just above his left ear, a blunt blow delivered with the force of a sledgehammer. He crumpled and fell to the floor next to the dragon.
“My patience with fools is now officially exhausted,” I shouted. “Get away from one another. Line up with your schools against the walls.”
As the rest of the competitors did as they were told, Trulissinangoth straightened and looked at me with her head tilted to one side like a dog hearing a noise it couldn’t identify.
“Why did you save me?” she asked.
“Because I’m better than that,” I said flatly. “You’d all have been much happier if I’d died in the challenge.
“But I’m not like the rest of you. I came here to be healed, not to fight.”
Trulissinangoth took a respectful step back and raised both hands in front of her, palms exposed to show she was no threat to me.
“You certainly seem healed,” she said. “Was that the Flame’s gift to you for winning?”
“No.” I banished my serpents and my fusion blade. “No. The Flame didn’t give me anything.”
She nodded uncertainly and lined up along the wall with her team.
I sat down, exhausted, and closed my eyes.
The Gauntlet was over.
The Rescue
AFTER MINUTES PASSED with no portals appearing and no one coming to let us out of the arena, I got to work helping the wounded.
“Thanks,” Abi said when I plucked wound aspects from his aura and replaced them with vitality aspects I’d harvested through my cycling. “I feel a lot better already.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said with a smile. It felt good to use the Eclipse Transplant technique to heal, rather than harm. “Sorry I dragged you all into this. I had no idea how it would end.”
“Nobody asks to be a hero,” Eric said.
The Resplendent Sun winced when he smiled. An ugly burn covered the left side of his face, and his robes were torn and tattered where blades had wounded him.
“Let’s fix that up.” I went to work on Eric’s face, and he relaxed as my power took away the worst of his pain. He’d have a scar, but Eric would be proud of the battle badge rather than embarrassed. Plus, it’d look super scary during his televised fights.
The healing went on for an hour, maybe more. I left Aesgir with a concussion for the trouble he’d caused, but the rest of the fallen were back on their feet. They’d done terrible things to each other, but it was in the past.
Exhausted, I returned to my team and slumped against the wall. I wanted that missed dinner something fierce.
“What happened in there?” Clem asked. “We all felt something, but none of us knew what. Then the Bright Lodge and the dragons attacked, and we were all too busy fighting to think about it.”
“The Flame.” I tried to put what had happened into words that would make sense. “Things are different now.”
“Do tell,” Hirani said as she stepped into the arena through a portal. Sanrin was right behind her, and the two of them looked like they’d been on the losing end of a fight with a flamethrower-wielding food processor.
“Honored Elder.” I pushed off the wall and reached out for her. “Let me help you. You look—”
“Awful,” Sanrin said. He chuckled. “We’ll be fine, Jace. We came as soon as we could. I’m sorry we weren’t faster. Your core...”
He stopped and peered at me more closely.
“What have you done?” His voice was lower than a whisper.
“What I had to,” I responded. “My core delaminated. There was only one way for me to win the Gauntlet.”
“And so you have,” Hirani said. “If you did not need the Flame to heal you, what prize did it grant for winning?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“That hardly seems fair,” Sanrin said. “Let’s get you all out of here. This place reeks of blood and pain.”
“We have to get to the initiates,” I said. “Before Inquisitor Rhône hauls them off to Atlantis.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Hirani said. “Rhône left some time ago. As did Elushinithoc.”
My hands balled into fists. I’d wanted to catch the inquisitor myself. He needed to pay for what he’d done. But he’d already escaped back to his island sanctuary. There’d be no way to bring him to justice from there. Even with the Empyrean Flame gone, the priesthood wielded enough power to keep him safe forever.
“They knew I’d expose them,” I snarled. “This was all a lie, Elders. The Inquisition and the Scaled Council conspired to let the dragons win the Empyrean Gauntlet.”
Sanrin crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at me. Disapproval radiated from his core in crashing waves.
“You should have told us,” he said. “We would have stopped this madness.”
“I couldn’t tell you,” I said. “I didn’t know who to trust.”
“Jace,” Hirani said cautiously, “you know you can trust
