Winter's Proving: Part 3

Alexis Ryder stared at her opponent across from herself. She had been watching Soren’s fights all the way up until this point and concluded that all her fallen colleagues had vastly underestimated him. She was not going to make that same mistake. To her, he was only a hurdle—one she had to clear before proving her worth in the finals and then claiming victory.

Nix. He always ignored her. Always looked past her as if she were nothing.

“Unforgivable,” she whispered under her breath.

All she wanted was his attention, his recognition, his love. But his eyes were always locked on the Fire prodigy, Konira.

Konira, who never gave him the time of day and hung around the stubborn failure facing her.

Alexis’s hand tightened around her staff. Her glare remained determined. She will have Nix see her for who she was, if it was the last thing she did.

Soren caught the sharpness in her glare, the way her staff trembled in her grip. Her expression said it all: she would not go easy on him.

The professor between them lifted his hand, verifying their readiness.
“Begin!” His voice cracked through the air as his hand dropped.

Alexis moved first, sweeping her staff in an arc. A gust of wind rushed forward, tearing across the snow dusted stone floor toward Soren.

“Create. Control. Condense.”
The mantra slipped from his lips as his hands rose. A thin pane of ice lifted from the ground before him, gleaming almost like glass.

“Tsk.” He exhaled.

It wasn’t as broad as Deymar’s wall, but it would have to do. The gale struck, splitting around the surface and roaring past on either side. Just as he thought—it held.

Alexis didn’t falter. She swung again, faster this time, her staff carving through the air. A second crescent of wind howled forward, broader and thicker than the first. Her strategy was clear: overwhelm him from a distance. His ice had reach only in close range; if she denied him space, victory was certain.

Soren narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t meet force with force. Not against her. His fingers twitched instinctively, the wall before him fracturing into hundreds of hexagonal shards, no larger than a fingernail. They lifted around him in a cloud, a scattered veil of frozen light.

The gale slammed into the barrier on all sides. Steam hissed upward, veiling the arena, blinding the spectators for a heartbeat—yet when it cleared, Soren stood untouched.

In the stands, Headmaster Halwin stroked his beard with interest.
“So. He used his limited ice to create a multitude of smaller shields. Resourceful… but there were gaps everywhere. How did he emerge unscathed?”

Lady Lia leaned forward, her lips pressing into a thin line. They weren’t just floating, she realized, eyes narrowing. He spun them. All of them. The memory flashed in her mind—the brief instant, just before impact, when the shards had whirled at impossible speeds, scattering the pressure of the wind. It was unlike any frost technique she had ever witnessed.

But Master Korrin knew better. His knuckles whitened against the railing, snow melting beneath his grip. He had seen what no one else did.

Fire.

Subtle and condensed, coiled along the edges of each shard, spinning. Flame wrapped so thin it was almost invisible, yet precise enough to seal every gap the ice alone could not.

He clenched his jaw. Flame, wielded like a scalpel…

Alexis’s eyes widened. He shouldn’t have had enough ice to withstand that storm. So how?

The fragments dissolved into powder around Soren as he panted lightly. Steadying his breath, chest rising under the weight of restraint, he felt the strain of holding both forces in tandem. Frost and Fire, bound in perfect tension, had pushed him to his limit. He had never managed so many at once, even in secret training—but he had survived. More than that, he had learned.

He fixed his gaze on Alexis, voice low enough for only her to hear.
“My turn.”

Soren steadied his breath. The swarm of shards he had conjured before had nearly broken him, but the principle… the principle had worked. Ice alone was brittle. Fire alone was chaos. But together, if he held the balance…

He raised his hand in front of him. A flat hexagon of thin ice materialized before him, so thin it caught the afternoon sun like glass. Slowly, deliberately, he hollowed the center. Frost condensed again, folding inward until a sphere took shape in the middle.

At first it was still. Then a whisper of flame licked across the ring’s edge. The fire crawled, following the edge until in joined together. And with an illuminating glow, the hexagon began to turn.

Alexis’s eyes widened. The shape blurred. What had been a rigid, angular, unmistakably hexagonal was now a perfect circle, spinning so fast it seemed etched from light itself. And in its center, the orb pulsed—like a heartbeat of molten fire wrapped in frost.

A ripple of pressure shivered through the air.

The first name that came to Soren as he stared at it was: Pulse Core.

Soren’s fingers twitched.

His face grimaced at the Pulse Core’s existence. It wasn’t as taxing as when he had to control thousands of them on a smaller scale, but he could feel the time limit of how long it can be maintained ticking away.

It hovered in the air in front of him almost as if it was a living thing, begging for him to release it. The orange glow glared at him in the center, pulling every eye in the arena.

It radiated quiet danger and impossible suspense all at once. He felt every atom, every molecule being forced to do what it didn’t want to do, race or be still. The ring was waiting to feed the orb and Soren knew, in a way he’d never known before, that the thing would obey.

With his thoughts, he let it go.

A wave of pressurized ice detonated outward from the orb, not a spray but a lance: a clear, focused column of vapor and glass that screamed through the air with terrible intent. It cut the space between them in an instant, a cold, humming shaft that left the smell of ozone and singed frost behind.

Alexis’s jaw dropped in panic. It all happened faster than what she thought. Her hands shot up, instinctively raising wind into a wall in front of her. But her attempt at defense was futile. The shot pierced through the veil and for a moment, the entire coliseum held its breath.

The sound of collision was the only thing that could be heard. Alexis looked back behind her and saw the blast had reached the stone wall, barely avoiding one of the professors watching. Everyone in the coliseum looked at the same spot, with the scar of the attack already had melted downward into a black wet line.

Alexis felt a chill on her arm and looked towards it. Her green robes now were missing a sleeve, and her skin flushed red to the winter cold.

“Impossible!”

Soren’s chest echoed with his heartbeat. He had missed—just barely—but he had reached her. The force of the strike had even passed his own expectations; but now he knew at this level, he wouldn’t seriously harm her if it hit directly.

“Good.” He thought, hands trembling with adrenaline. In a way he was happy his first try missed.

He needed better aim. He needed to tighten the knot of flame at the core without bleeding the ring dry.

However, the exhaustion in his body told him he had to end it soon. He just needed to land one, clean, undeniable hit.

Alexis, desperate not to let it end here, dragged in a trembling breath. Wind wrapped tightly around her ankles, lifting her several feet off the ground. Gasps rippled across the coliseum.

From the audience, the Headmaster leaned forward, eyes narrowing in surprise. She knows that spell already? At her age, no less… Wind mages usually didn’t master flight until after graduation, once they became apprentices.

Her staff angled skyward, the air itself bending to her will. A miniature storm coiled into existence, spiraling with wild force before she hurled it downward with a fierce cry.

Soren, with his Pulse Core still thrumming faintly in front of him, tilted his head upward. Sweat now streamed down his face. His voice, hoarse but steady, cut through the gale:
“Not strong enough… not dense enough.”

The Core blazed. A piercing stream of energy tore through the eye of the storm, shredding the winds apart before slamming directly into Alexis’ stomach.

Her scream cracked through the arena. The magic holding her aloft faltered, and her small body plummeted toward the floor.

But before she could hit the ground, a blur of motion streaked across the stage. Nurse Vivian caught her in her arms with effortless speed, cradling her as though she weighed nothing. Alexis's head slouched weakly against her chest, eyes closed.

The referee professor approached, checking quickly, then raised his hand.
“Miss Ryder cannot continue!” His voice boomed. “The match is over!”

The coliseum erupted. Cheers crashed against shouts of outrage, praise clashing with bitter criticism.

Soren staggers on his feet. His Core sizzled and died, leaving him alone. His chest heaved, each breath a struggle. With one eye cracked open, he forced his hand into the air. A weak smile tugged at his lips as the noise around him swelled.

He turned to walk toward the waiting hall, steps uneven. Just as his knees buckled, an arm wrapped around him—steady, familiar.

“Konira…” His voice was barely a whisper. She pulled him close, tears streaming freely as she supported his weight over her shoulder.

In the stands, Nix watched in silence, his expression unreadable. Professors leaned together, whispering rapidly, dissecting what they had just witnessed.

And among them, Master Korrin’s face shone with unrestrained pride. Lady Lia pressed a hand to her chest, dazed, as though she had just remembered how to breathe.

Together, Konira and Soren disappeared into the waiting hall.

Konira stared at him, her grip tightening, tears refusing to stop. 

Even if he didn’t win the whole tournament… he’s already changed his reputation.