Nightblade (Darkest night)

Streams of brilliant lightning crackled dangerously in the subterranean ampitheatre, the sound echoing dangerously through the air intertwined with the sweet subtle scent of ozone.

A moment later, Emily hit the cold stone floor on her side, the impact knocking the air from her lungs with a harsh gasp.

Where her head had been a quarter of a second earlier, a lance of jagged white brilliance scorched the ancient masonry, blowing a crater several inches deep into the granite and showering her face with tiny, razor-sharp stone splinters.

You placed your weight on your left heel before the thought of the attack even crossed your mind," Merlin Hale Crest said, his voice flat and perfectly level.

He stood a few feet away from her in the center of the sunken dueling circle, his hands folded loosely behind his back.

"You decided to dodge before you evaluated the trajectory of that attack. That is not instinct, Emily. That is panic."

Emily pushed herself up onto her palms, her chest heaving against the stiff fabric of her training get up.

Sweat glued dark strands of hair to her forehead.

Her glasses had slipped down the bridge of her nose, in the moment she’d dodged, and were smudged with fine gray dust.

She reached up with a gloved hand, adjusting them with a sharp click, and glared through the haze of ozone and dust hanging heavy in the air.

​"I wasn’t panicking," she gritted out, her voice trembling faintly for the smallest of moments.

"I was...anticipating your attack."

You were guessing," Merlin corrected gently.

They’d been going at it for hours but despite that he didn’t look tired.

He didn’t even look the slightest been out of breath, despite the dozen scorched furrows and lingering arcs of white static dancing across the arena ground between them.

His dark grey sweat shirt and pants were immaculately neat, and his silver eyes were remarkably calm.

"And in the Veilrend Games, a guess against a competent opponent is simply an invitation for them to cut your throat. Get up."

​Emily swallowed the dry taste of copper and charcoal, planted her boots on the cracked floor, and stood.

The training chamber was an ancient, vaulted cellar beneath the eastern wing of Merlin’s home far below the grounds.

From it’s appearance Emily could vaguely feel the centuries of combat mages that had carved their marks into the surrounding walls.

But the recent damage was entirely theirs.

Scorched runic patterns, Merlin’s handiwork— glistened like molten silver on the flagstones before slowly fading into dull gray.

​Emily took a slow, deep breath, forcing her heart rate down. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, drawing upon the power of her Talent.

​When she opened them, the wind answered first.

​A soft, swirling gust picked up around her ankles, lifting the hem of her jacket and fanning the heat away from her skin.

Then came the spark.

A faint, humming static rippled along her forearms, causing the fine hairs to stand on end as blue light flickered beneath her fingernails.

Merlin’s ability...

And behind it all, sitting right at the edge of her consciousness like an uninvited guest, she could feel her seer ability stirring.

For all his oddities and eccentric behavior, Emily couldn’t deny the fact that the man was undoubtedly a genius.

The man was in a league of his own.

Over the course of the time she’d spent with him, he’d helped her develop some of her dormant abilities.

Abilities she hadn’t known were even dormant within her in the first place—but he had.

He’d known at a glance and proceeded to help her tap into them.

The training was grueling, brutal even.

But even then she’d pushed through with sheer grit.

​"Again," Merlin said.

"Alright, let’s see what you can do..." she murmured.

Behind her glasses, her eyes ignited with a burst of emerald light, glowing eerily in the dimly lit ampitheatre.

Merlin had not raised his hand nor had he made any effort to move from where he stood.

He was unarmed.

A moment later, he merely shifted his lead foot back by an inch.

​To an any other ordinary person, it was nothing — he’d merely adjusted his posture.

But to Emily, with her seer ability active, the air around Merlin fractured into three distinct translucent phantoms, each displaying a potential action, a fraction of a second before it occurred in physical reality.

"It’s ok, I can see him," she whispered.

"I’m stronger now. I’m faster..I can do this..."

The first phantom Merlin raised his right hand, sending a low flying fan of lightning across the floor at her legs.

At the same time, the second phantom closed the distance between them instantly with a single step, driving a devastating palm thrust into her solar plexus.

The third, instead, did nothing, letting a delayed rune beneath her left foot detonate instead.

"When did that get there?! How did he..."

It was incredibly horrifying. Even in the heat of battle, he’d been laying traps all the while cunningly maneuvering her into the right place even as he taught her.

The man was undoubtedly...

A monster.

Emily sucked in a breath, her eyes narrowing in thought.

Three futures.

Three distinct probabilities overlapping in her mind’s eye.

​Emily’s brain locked up for a microsecond.

Which one was real?

Which one was the feint?

​"The first one..." she decided, reacting to the most visually dominant image.

Even if the rune exploded, she’d still safe up in the air. In order for him to deliver the palm thrust, he’d have to close a greater distance than initially so it’d give her more time to react.

She gathered the wind at her heels and leapt violently upward, intending to ride the draft over the ground sweep of wild lightning.

​She was six feet in the air when she realized her mistake.

Merlin had utilized the actions of the third phantom, the delayed rune beneath her starting position.

"Huh!"

But because she had jumped, the rune’s blast didn’t hit her legs, instead it detonated upward, catching her mid-air where she had no ground leverage to dodge.

​A shockwave of air and lightning slammed into her ribs.

The wind cushion she had summoned disintegrated instantly under the sheer density of Merlin’s runic ability, and Emily went spinning through the air, tumbling across the stone floor before coming to a hard stop against the base of a ruined stone column.

​Her back hit the stone with a dull thud. Her glasses skidded several feet across the floor.