Chapter 21

  Imagine The Fire

  Rafinya Saint Pauli was the only daughter—and the first girl in three generations—born to the great House Saint Pauli of Luminus.

  The family had served the crown and the church for generations. Small wonder that as Rafinya grew up, the grandeur of her lineage seeped into her day by day until it became pride in her very blood.

  In truth, Rafinya could have lived a life of effortless ease. She could have been a flower adorning the family name—poised, polite, and pampered—while Nora, by contrast, had been born to rule a kingdom.

  In truth, Rafinya never faced any crushing pressure to be perfect at anything.

  The strange part is this:

  At six years old, what she picked up to play with wasn’t a teddy bear or a frilly dress, but a knife from her father’s desk.

  At ten, sent to a finishing school for noble girls, she got into fistfights with girls who gossiped about her. She broke things and ran away—so she could “practice swordsmanship,” just like she saw her brothers do all the time.

  She craved no gowns, perfumed tea, or chattering cliques.

  She craved combat. She loved it in her DNA. No one made her.

  Why Rafinya was like that, no one in the family could say—whether she absorbed it from her brothers or was simply born that way…

  Instead of forbidding her, her father encouraged her.

  Yes—encouraged.

  One thing people always get wrong about the Paulis is thinking the family head is only harsh and dictatorial with his children. That may be true… for the sons.

  But for a daughter like Rafinya, whose passion burned that fiercely—when it caught her father’s eye, it slotted into place like the last piece of a jigsaw.

  Rafinya was the kind of child whose desires lined up with what her parents had planned.

  Many people are ravenous but lack opportunity. Many more have opportunity but no ambition. But you, Rafinya—you have both. You are one of the luckiest people alive.

  The support was total. The moment her father understood, he pulled her from the finishing school and placed her in the nobles’ martial academy.

  She trained under Luminus’s finest. She lived in a ruthlessly competitive world where results spoke for themselves.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  And she loved it.

  Rafinya loved dueling; that was the path she chose. She was addicted to being number one. She wanted to face the strongest, at the best academy, in the best country.

  She hungered for it.

  No wonder she sailed into Artheris.

  No wonder the elders called her by a nickname: the Rose of Fire.

  And of course, the goal she set her sights on was not to be the “best student,” but to become what she admired most in all human history:

  Casca Saint Maximin.

  Madison Square Garden.

  Cold mist drifted in glittering haze. The entire arena looked like the polar cap.

  Princess Nora staggered back on unsteady feet.

  Before her stood Rafinya, entombed in a pillar of black ice.

  “That—!”

  Zeedee pointed.

  “The same thing that happened to me!”

  “You did?” Casca, chin propped in hand, turned her gaze down to the arena.

  Cut to Nora—

  Thunk!

  She wrenched herself free of Rafinya’s blade, panting hard from exhaustion… Two of her four “death points” had been shattered; it would take a month to recover. She was close to spent…

  The princess clutched her shoulder and opened her palm. Her pale hand was slick with so much red it drowned out the skin.

  “At least it’s better than getting gored by mammoth tusks…”

  “Nora!”

  ‘!’

  A voice from below the stage.

  “Mr.Fury.”

  The boy was gripping the edge of the platform.

  But the look on his face told Nora something else entirely.

  One thing was obvious… the referees hadn’t called it.

  “Nora!!! It isn’t over!!!”

  “What…?”

  The princess’s eyes flew wide. She spun toward the scene—

  And saw that the ice surrounding Rafinya… was turning red, fire blooming from within.

  The Rose of Fire bared its thorns.

  “…Don’t tell me—!”

  As the thought hit her—

  Rafinya’s eyes rolled up to lock on her, hard.

  If anyone could have measured the temperature inside that prism right now…

  It was boiling in the thousands of degrees.

  The charged red aura was being unleashed—

  Targeting the air trapped in the ice.

  When the air—caught in Nora’s ice (conjured so abruptly it held bubbles in the crystals)—was heated in a flash, it expanded with violent speed. Thermal expansion sent the pressure skyrocketing.

  The result: Nora’s ice would explode outward, blasting back at its maker and anyone nearby.

  Shards of needle-ice ripped back into Princess Ophilis herself!

  “!?!??!”

  Nora threw up her arms to shield her face, but she was closest—she took the brunt. Her body slammed a colonnade; the stone cracked.

  Blood everywhere. She collapsed and coughed up a flood.

  Rafinya broke free of the black ice—but her condition was far from good.

  Her body reacted just like Freya’s had, crumpling as her core temperature plunged; she retched from the sudden shock to her brain… and yet—

  “My… stake… is higher than yours…”

  !?

  She said it to Nora. What let her rise—without a sword, on trembling legs, bleeding out—was a hunger for victory greater than Nora’s.

  Because for Rafinya, this arena was her whole world. Unlike Nora, she had not been taken outside to see the real one.

  Now neither lady could stand. Nora had two death points broken. Rafinya had just burst out from a sudden deep-freeze. Even so… Dan read it in their eyes: if no one stopped this, one of them would die.

  “Instructor Zoros…”

  Dan stepped forward.

  “Please stop it. A little more and neither will make it.”

  “…”

  The instructor hesitated. Dan’s temper sparked.

  “Sir. You don’t want a princess or a noble dying on a stage with your name on it, do you? Call it now.”

  Dan looked to Professor Foden.

  The department head agreed. She gave the order to stop the bout.

  The signal sounded…

  Rafinya was in slightly better shape—at least she could crawl. Nora lay prone.

  Dan was the first onto the stage, followed by the medics.

  He went straight to Nora and took her in his arms.

  “Nora! Nora!”

  Her eyes were open. She slowly braced an elbow and tried to push herself up.

  “Nora! Can you hear me?”

  No answer.

  Nora couldn’t hear.

  The blast had deafened her. The impact with the column had ruptured her balance; she couldn’t stand.

  But—

  Her vision still worked.

  From blur and double image, her sight fused back to one… Nora saw the scoreboard clearly:

  Rafinya St. Pauli : Nora Ophilis

  87 : 86

  Rafinya led by one point—snatching it at the very end.

  She was the winner.

  Princess Nora’s eyes flew wide with shock.

  Her mouth fell open without her knowing… she forgot to breathe. Pain knotted her chest and gut. With her ears blown out, she could hear only the heavy drop of her own heart.

  Lost by a single point.

  And that meant… she would have to trade Mr.Fury to Rafinya at last.