Paragon of Skills

Chapter 251

Years Prior

Iskara Drazhal is eight years old when she's one day brought to the training courtyard—beautiful, full of blooming trees and ripe with the scent of spring's flowers—to be told that today she is going to perform one of, if not the most infamous test for Infernal Royalty and their strongest warriors.

The Devil's Gauntlet.

It is a Primordial Skill, ancient beyond memory. No Infernal has ever completed it.

The girl picks up the sword for the eleventh time.

Her robe is ragged. She has cut herself several times while trying to perform the right movements. She's bleeding, sweating, and wheezing in a way that makes an eight year old sound like an eighty year old about to die.

Her hands are shaking.

She has trained through exhaustion before, trained until her vision spotted and her legs gave out and Aunt Veythra poured cold water on her face and told her to stand.

This is different.

The Devil's Gauntlet is very much different to anything one could have expected.

But every promising elite and every Royal child is told one simple lie: any Infernal worth their name can do this.

Is it true? No. It's not.

Iskara raises the blade. Her arms are lead. The training courtyard is vast and empty except for the practice dummy, the ancient diagrams eternally etched into the sand, and her mother.

Queen-Matriarch Maelthra Drazhal sits at the edge of the hall on a stone bench. She has not moved in two hours.

She is just watching in silence, and yet, it's the most oppressive feeling Iskara has ever perceived.

Iskara begins again.

She must channel the Mana through the right veins.

The first slash is precise and clean. The second follows—a mirror of the first, reversed. The third is a rising cut that sets the channels humming. Simple. Almost insultingly simple.

That is the trap.

Her body knows what comes next. Her body dreads what comes next.

The fourth slash. She rotates her wrist against the grain of the first three—the opposite direction, contradicting every vein the slashes have just gone through—and feels the mana stutter in her veins.

She pushes through.

The dummy's surface splits along the marked line.

Fifth slash. Her weight shifts into a stance that betrays the fourth the way the fourth betrayed the third. For a fraction of a heartbeat, the pattern almost connects—she can feel it, the way the mana channels want to lock, the ghost of a completed circuit flickering at the edge of sensation.

A white flash behind her eyes.

This is where one can start perceiving the greatness of such a Primordial Spell made by Devils—yet, too difficult for even the greatest Infernal to ever live, the greatest ancestor of House Drazhal, Lucifer Drazhal.

It is beautiful.

For that one moment, mid-slash, her face changes.

The fear of failure leaves Iskara. For just a moment, there's no anxiety about her mother's gaze.

There's only fascination.

The way the patterns nearly interlock, the ghost-circuits of a technique that exists at the edge of possibility, the pull of a thing designed to be almost reachable...

Then she remembers her mother is watching.

The fear crashes back. Her wrist locks. The sixth slash goes wide, the mana scatters, and the sequence collapses.

Iskara stumbles. The sword clatters against the stone.

Silence.

She does not look at her mother. She stares at the practice dummy, at the marks her slashes have left. Four of them are clean and one is ragged... and the ghost of the sixth went nowhere.

"Pick it up," Maelthra says. Her voice carries no anger.

Iskara picks up the sword.

"You will not be eating tonight," Maelthra adds.

And Iskara gets up.

What Infernals do when teaching young children to perform the impossible Devil's Gauntlet is providing discipline. They're trying to teach resilience, to teach them to be ready to squeeze every ounce of sweat and blood before you give up. It is a trial of endurance that is used to forge the new generations' determination in battle.

Yet, Iskara's body doesn't feel very determined. Her shoulders are slumped and there's no fire in her eyes. She flinches slightly when she picks up the blade. Her breathing is too fast, and her tail is curled tight against her leg.

She raises the sword.

I will be stronger. Mother said that everybody can do this. Even Azrakel. I will not be the one who falls short.

She begins the sequence again. First slash. Second. Third.

On the bench, Maelthra's expression does not change.

But her claws, resting on her knee, retract by a fraction of an inch.

Satisfied.

***

The sound of a blade hitting stone carries through the wall.

Someone else is being put through this, the boy thinks.

In a very much different training ground, one with no plants, barely any light, with the little of it present coming from flickering torches, a boy stands in front of an identical practice dummy to the one far from here, in the Capital.

The same ancient diagrams are etched into the floor beneath his bare feet.

His hands are empty. The sword lies on the ground where he placed it.

He left it on the ground after his third attempt.

The trainer stands near the door. He has not moved from a suspiciously relaxed posture the entire time. His weight is back, his arms loose, his stance settled.

The boy looks at the trainer. Not at the sword.

Three attempts. The boy has failed all three.

But he has not just failed—he has watched. The patterns. The timing. The way the technique betrays itself at the sixth slash, the way the mana channels demand contradictions that no amount of practice can resolve.

The trainer's face is bored. Patient.

In a wisdom that shouldn't belong to a young child, he thinks, he knows I'm going to fail.

He's been taught everything, from diplomacy to war, from fighting to executions. And knowing that his survival depends on these skills, he never stops using them.

The boy's gaze drops to the man's feet. Settled. He has not shifted his weight once—not when the boy started, not when he failed, not when he placed the sword down.

"It's an impossible task," the boy says.

The trainer's expression hardens.

"What did you just say?" the trainer asks.

"It's an impossible task," the boy replies. "I cannot perform this Skill."

The trainer looks bewildered for a moment before pointing at the weapon. "You will do what you're told and stay here until you succeed."

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But the boy does nothing.

"Pick up the sword," the instructor growls.

"No."

"Any Devil like you, any Infernal worth their blood can do this," the trainer says. His voice drops to something dangerous. "Pick it up. Now."

The boy looks at the trainer one more time. The outcome was decided before he picked up the blade.

I am being executed today, the boy thinks. They are trying to find a way to get rid of me and plunge me into despair before.

It would not be the first time this happens.

He exhales once and nods—to himself, not to the trainer.

Death is not something that bothers him. It appears that he must be less talented than he had thought.

I miscalculated.

"PICK UP THE SWORD!"

The slap comes fast. Open-palmed, across the face. The boy hits the stone floor hard enough to split his lip and break his nose.

Blood fills his airways but he forces himself not to cough. That will make the trainer even madder and shorten the process that will eventually lead to his death.

Death is not the worst outcome of a life such as his.

"Get up," the trainer says. "You gave up the easiest of anyone I've seen. Weaklings like you should be killed before they waste more resources."

The boy lies on the stone for a moment. The blood runs from his lip to his chin to the floor.

Then he gets up.

Calmly.

Then he tilts his head back and bares his neck.

"There was nothing I could have done differently."

You were never going to let me succeed.

The trainer stares at the exposed throat.

"I will kill you if you do not continue," the trainer says, unsheathing a dagger from his belt.

The boy waits. His pulse is visible in his neck. He is not trembling nor trying some performative courage.

It's just the next best calculation he has.

If he must die, considering he can't do anything to this man, he might as well go quickly. Pain, even to a boy birthed in it, is not something to glorify, enjoy, nor bask in.

The trainer's hand, which has risen, slowly falls back to his side. He stares at the boy for a long time. The boy stares back with eyes that have no bottom.

"Get out," the trainer says.

The boy lowers his chin. He picks up the sword from where he placed it, returns it to the rack on the wall, and walks toward the door.

His bare feet leave small bloody prints on the stone from where his lip has dripped. He does not look back at the trainer. He does not look at the practice dummy.

Through the wall, faintly, the ring of a blade on stone comes again.

Someone is still trying.

***

The Present

Cecilia is still holding his arm. The arena is behind them, the evening air full of voices, but none of them distract him from hers.

They have left so that he can walk her back to the inn.

She has been talking since the arena, a stream of words about the trial, about how scared she was, about the monsters, about Garros—"that boy who stabbed Jacob in the chest, Baal, he STABBED him and it HEALED him, can you believe—"

He lets her talk.

Her voice fills the space on his left side completely, without effort.

It's not unpleasant.

The thought is small. He kills it immediately. But it was there.

He almost does not feel the Mana shift in the air behind him. His shoulders tighten a fraction before his mind catches up—trained reflexes older than memory.

The thunder hits him before the sound does.

He releases Cecilia before she can be involved in it.

So, she comes.

Black fire and lightning envelop him in a cage of searing pain that locks every muscle in his body at once. His eyes go wide. His mouth opens but nothing comes out—the oaths carved into his blood activate simultaneously.

He falls forward.

His face hits the ground. His body seizes on the ground with involuntary spasms.

"BAAL!"

Cecilia screams.

The Sacrifice rises.

Slowly. Every motion costs something. He gets one knee under him, then the other. His hands press flat against the earth. He pushes himself up until he is kneeling, head bowed, and then he speaks.

"Your Majesty."

Queen Matriarch Maelthra Drazhal stands behind him. She has materialized from nothing. There was no warning, no announcement, no ripple in the air that anyone below Diamond rank could have detected. Her presence is a pressure that bends the grass flat in a circle around her feet.

"Look at me."

He does not.

"The girl," Queen Matriarch Maelthra says. Her voice is conversational. "You were touching her."

The Sacrifice does not move. His hands are flat on the ground. Blood is dripping from his nose — the punishment administered to him through his oaths burst something.

"She is no one, Your Majesty."

"I can see that. She is missing pieces." A pause. "Who is she?"

"A servant at the tavern I sleep in. She cleans tables. She is no one."

He says it without inflection. Without hesitation.

Cecilia is three paces behind him. Close enough to hear every word.

"Nothing," Maelthra repeats. She steps closer. Her shadow falls over him. "Then you won't mind if I —"

"She is nothing, Your Majesty. She approached me. I did not encourage it. I will ensure it does not happen again. You know what the Headmaster would do if you were to act now."

Silence.

She doesn't like being reminded that she's far from being the strongest here. This will provoke her anger, but she'll forget about Cecilia.

Maelthra studies the back of his head. Then her eyes turn angry and she snaps her fingers.

The oaths fire again. The Sacrifice's body jerks—a full-body convulsion that drives his forehead into the earth.

"You are nothing," Maelthra says, raising a hand, with dark flames gathering over it. "You are mine to—"

A hand closes around Maelthra's wrist.

King Skaernex is simply there. He is enormous, wide, dense, armored in scales that catch the fading light like hammered bronze.

"The Headmaster would not be pleased," Skaernex says. His voice carries the particular flatness of someone who has decided to be civil but wants you to know it's a choice.

Maelthra looks at the hand on her wrist. Then at the face above it. Her expression does not change but something behind her eyes recalculates.

"Skaernex." He releases her hand and she pulls her arm back to her. "I was merely disciplining my property."

"He is not property on these grounds. He is a student under the Headmaster's protection. You know the rules."

Maelthra holds the moment. She looks at King Skaernex. She looks at the Sacrifice, still kneeling, blood on his face.

She looks at Cecilia.

She smiles at her.

"Of course," Maelthra says. "Of course."

But before she vanishes, her gaze passes over the crippled girl one more time.

Maelthra's eyes narrow, very slightly.

Then she is gone.

***

The Sacrifice remains on his knees for three seconds after Maelthra disappears. Then he stands. His motions are precise and unhurried, as if nothing has happened. He wipes the blood from his nose with the back of his hand.

She looked at her.

The Sacrifice turns.

Cecilia is staring at him. Her face is white. Her one hand is pressed over her mouth. The other, the one that isn't there, seems to reach anyway, a phantom reflex in her shoulder.

"Baal—"

"That's not my name."

The words come out flat. Dead. The painted warmth is gone from his voice as if it was never there.

Cecilia flinches. Not from the words. From the voice. She has never heard this voice before.

She takes a step toward him anyway.

"Go back to your tavern." He does not look at her.

Her hand drops. She stares at him, and something in her face collapses — not dramatically, not all at once, but the way a structure gives when the one load-bearing wall is removed. Quietly. Completely.

"Baal, please —"

"Do not say that name. In fact, do not talk to me ever again. I was punished because of you," he lies, feeling something shift in his viscera, "I should have never bothered with you. You were only just trouble."

He turns and walks away.

His posture is straight. His pace is even. His right hand finds his left side, just below the ribs and checks for a wound.

There's nothing.

He does not look back.

***

King Skaernex watches the Devil boy walk away. Then he looks at the girl—small, broken, frozen in the grass with one hand still reaching toward nothing.

"Vyrrak," he says.

Vyrrak is already there. He has been standing at the treeline, watching. His face is stone.

Cecilia tries to run. She takes two steps toward where the Sacrifice went and Vyrrak catches her up in his large arm.

"Let go!" Cecilia screams. "HE—she'll hurt him again! I must—"

"He knows what he's doing," Vyrrak says quietly, silencing her.

Jacob is beside them, by Vyrrak's side. They have been watching The Sacrifice under Vyrrak’s stealth Skill.

He takes Cecilia from Vyrrak's hands—gently, firmly, the way you hold something fragile that is trying to break itself.

"I'm going to bring her back to the inn," Jacob says to Vyrrak. His voice is calm but his eyes are not. He has seen enough.

Vyrrak nods.

Jacob walks Cecilia away. She is still looking over her shoulder. She is still reaching.

***

"We need to talk," King Skaernex says.

Vyrrak does not turn around.

"I'm not talking to you. I have nothing to tell you."

They stand in the fading light. The arena is a distant hum behind them. The grass where the Sacrifice knelt is still flat.

King Skaernex exhales. It is the sound of a man who has had this conversation before, many times, and has stopped expecting it to go differently.

"It is your mother's doing," Skaernex says. "This is not negotiable, Vyrrak."

"I don't care."

Vyrrak turns to leave.

"I also have information," King Skaernex says, "about who formed the Dark Champions."

Vyrrak stops.

"They are connected to your friend. Jacob Cloud."

Vyrrak turns. His eyes are wide.

King Skaernex meets his son's gaze. There is no triumph in his expression. No satisfaction at having found the lever. Just the exhaustion of a father who came a very long way.

"If not by the duty of your blood," Skaernex says, "then at least accept the information your father came here to deliver."

Vyrrak's jaw works. His hands close and open.

"Why did you come all this way?" Vyrrak asks. "I have no intention of marrying whomever you've arranged."

"I am aware of that."

Silence.

Vyrrak stares at his father. His father stares back.

"Fine," Vyrrak says. The word is ground glass. "Talk."

King Skaernex nods.

"Come, then," the large Dragonkin says and is about to turn when genuine worry flashes in his eyes. "I do not wish to see you die, Vyrrak. Karma greater than you might even imagine is descending on this Generation of Legends. You will have important choices to make from here on out."