Page 48 of Tempest Blazing (The Dragonne Library #3)

Tess

I burst through the crumbling archway at a full sprint—

And ran straight into a nightmare.

Selena's smirk hit me first, sharp and predatory, her dark hair whipping around her face like she was some avenging goddess of spite. Valen stood beside her, red eyes gleaming with anticipation, his pale hands already moving in the fluid gestures of a binding spell.

"Oh, look what we caught," Selena purred.

I tried to skid to a stop, to throw up my Golden Shield, but Valen's chains were already whipping through the air.

Dark metal wrapped around my arms with brutal efficiency, yanking them behind my back before I could even begin to channel my magic.

Cold bit deep, sending shocks straight to my shoulders.

"Shit—" The word barely escaped before Selena's palm flared with sickly green light.

The spell hit me like molasses mixed with lead.

Not just a standard snare rune—this was something else entirely.

Something designed to counter my specific magical signature, layers of binding magic woven together with careful precision and intimate knowledge of how my power worked.

Something that sank into my muscles, my bones.

Every breath felt like drowning in thick honey.

When I tried to twist against Valen's chains, my body moved like it was fighting through wet sand.

"Funny thing," Selena murmured, stepping closer until her breath was hot against my ear. Each word carefully chosen to cut. "We've been waiting here for you specifically, Tess. Amazing how predictable you get when you think you're being clever."

Ice water. They knew exactly who was coming. They planned this. Clever? I'd thought I was being strategic, taking the shortcut. But I'd just walked right into their trap like some amateur.

A force rune slammed into my ribs before I could process the implications. The impact drove all the air from my lungs in a harsh wheeze, and stars exploded across my vision. Pain bloomed sharp and immediate along my side, and I felt rather than saw my amulet flare to life.

Compromised.

Crimson pulsed against my wrist like a heartbeat counting down to my execution. Two minutes. I had two minutes before this became permanent.

What I saw when I twisted toward the path made my stomach lurch.

Anya. No.

Anya was pinned against a broken pillar, her smaller frame looking fragile and wrong against the stone. And it was my teammates holding her, their magic wrapping around her like living restraints. She must have followed me. Must have seen me take this path and tried to catch up.

And her amulet. Gods, her amulet was glowing the same crimson as mine.

Compromised.

Our eyes met across the ruined courtyard, and something in her familiar dark gaze flickered—not anger, not surprise, but a wounded confusion that made her scent shift from warm vanilla to something bitter and lost. Like she'd come after me despite everything, and this was what her trust had earned her.

This is my fault.

"Looks like your little friend got caught being reckless too," Selena whispered against my ear, her voice a mockery of intimacy.

A choked sound escaped my throat—part sob, part growl.

Adrenaline, raw and useless, flooded my veins.

I reached for my magic, trying to throw something toward Anya, anything to help her—but Selena's spell made it impossible to focus.

The familiar warmth flickered weakly around my hands before dissolving into nothing.

Every attempt to channel power felt like trying to light a fire underwater.

Valen jerked me back around with enough force to send fresh pain shooting through my shoulders. "Eyes on us," he muttered, his red gaze boring into mine with predatory focus.

What followed was two minutes that felt like hours.

Valen's fist connected with my solar plexus. Pain. Can't breathe. Before I could recover, he shoved me backward into the rough stone wall, scraping skin from my cheek. I tasted copper—blood from where my teeth had cut my lip. Anya… Have to…

Selena's knuckles found the tender spot between my ribs. The pain exploded through my torso, white-hot and nauseating. A sweeping kick took my legs out from under me, my knees cracking against the unforgiving stone. No… no… no…

"Stay down," she said conversationally, her boot slamming down on my shoulder blade. "You look better this way."

The whole time, I could hear Anya's sharp gasps of pain echoing across the courtyard, could see her amulet burning against her skin like a brand in my peripheral vision. The countdown ticked in my head with mechanical precision, each second another nail in the coffin of both our chances.

When my amulet pulsed one final time, locking in the deduction with a soft chime that sounded like a death knell, Selena and Valen finally released me. The chains around my arms dissolved into shadow, and the sticky resistance spell faded from my muscles.

"You're so far beneath us," Selena said, stepping back with that same cruel smile. "We don't even need to finish you."

They melted into the fog, leaving me bruised, breathless, and utterly alone.

I forced myself to stand on shaking legs, every muscle protesting. The scoreboard overhead blazed with fresh updates, and when my penalty flashed across the display, my stomach dropped through the floor.

Ninety points. From 50 to 25 in the span of two minutes.

But that wasn't what made my chest tighten with panic. Anya's score flashed next—from whatever she'd managed to earn down to a devastating low that made my throat close up. She'd been doing well before this. Better than well. And now...

Passing was no longer a sure thing. Hell, passing was barely possible now, even if I managed to capture every remaining flag in the trial.

My Golden Shield flickered faintly around my hands as I tested my magic.

Still there, but weaker. Each pulse sent a jolt of pain through my arm—a warning I couldn't ignore.

Like the trial itself was sapping my strength along with my points.

Like I was being tested on more than just tactics and power—on who I was willing to become. Who I was willing to sacrifice.

This whole time, I'd been telling myself I was playing smart. Strategic. But what kind of future was worth building on broken dreams and betrayed trust? Anya's trust. My trust in myself. All of it shattered in the space of two minutes.

The fog swirled around me, thick and concealing, as I stood in the ruins of my strategy and my certainty. Somewhere out there, Anya was dealing with her own compromised status, her own brutal point loss, her own realization that trying to help me had cost her everything.

I wiped blood from my cheek with a trembling hand and started walking deeper into the ruins, away from where they'd taken Anya. Away from my shame.

???

The hollow swallowed me as my legs gave out, adrenaline crashing. Every breath was agony—Selena's knuckles had found their mark between my ribs, and blood trickled warm down my temple.

I looked up. The hovering scoreboard made my stomach drop through the stone.

My name had slid so far down the rankings I had to squint to find it.

The numbers blurred. Pain, exhaustion, but the math was simple enough.

Even if I captured every remaining flag, even if I pulled off some miraculous comeback—the deficit was too deep.

Too wide.

Finality settled into my bones like lead. This is it. It's over.

My hands trembled against the stone floor. All those training sessions. All those sleepless nights studying magical theory I'd never truly master. All those moments of pretending I belonged here—for what? To collapse in a hollow while better candidates claimed their victories above?

You'll never last, Tempest. You're not built for this kind of pressure. You'll crack, just like you always do.

Mom's voice. Always at the back of my mind. For one terrible heartbeat, I almost believed her. Almost let that familiar poison seep back into my veins, telling me I'd been foolish to think I could be anything more than what she'd always said I was.

The trial raged around me—distant shouts, the crack of magic against stone, the thunder of combat echoing through the ruins. But through it all came another sound, impossibly clear over the din. A single voice, bright and fierce and utterly unshakeable.

"Tess! Tess, you've got this!"

Pippa. Calling my name from the stands. Not just a cheer. It was belief —pure, unwavering faith that cut through the fog of my despair like a blade.

Someone believes in me. Me. The thought hit harder than Selena's punch. In all my messy, broken humanity—someone still thinks I can do this.

My chest tightened, but not with panic this time. With something warmer, more dangerous. Flashes of the people who'd stood beside me—not because of my ranking, not because of my points, but because they'd chosen me.

Kane, his calculating gaze softening when he looked at me.

Those rare moments when his walls came down.

Draven's hand on my shoulder, steady and warm.

Anya's quiet understanding, the way she saw through masks because she wore so many herself.

Ciaran, always supporting me from the shadows.

And Mason—my mate, solid and unshakeable.

They saw me—truly saw me. Not the desperate girl trying to prove herself worthy. Not the broken thing my mother had tried to shape. They saw Tess, with all her flaws and fears and stubborn determination, and they'd chosen to stand with her anyway.

The realization struck like lightning. Every time I'd stumbled, they'd been there. Every moment of doubt, they'd answered with faith. Not because I was perfect. Because I was theirs .

None of them had chosen me because of points on a scoreboard. They'd chosen me because of who I was—messy, imperfect, human me. The thought sliced deep: if I kept playing this game the way the Guild wanted, if I kept chasing their approval at any cost, I was betraying them. I was betraying myself.

A warm pulse answered in my chest—Thalon's bond. Not urging me to fight harder or win faster, not demanding victory or dominance. Just a quiet promise that resonated in my bones: I'm here. No matter what happens, I'm here.

I forced myself to look up. To really see what was happening around me instead of fixating on my own failure. And what I saw made my stomach turn.

The left-behind. Injured applicants slumped against walls, their magic burnt out and their spirits broken.

People caught in elaborate traps, their amulets glowing red with penalty markers.

I recognized one of them—a young mage I'd baited into a snare earlier, part of my "strategic" gameplay.

She was curled against a broken pillar, tears streaming down her face as she stared at her amulet's crimson glow.

Nausea rolled over me. I did that. I helped create this mess.

Ice water in my veins—I'd been so focused on surviving, on proving myself worthy, that I'd become part of the very system crushing people beneath its weight.

I'd even gone so far as to reject my own friend, Anya, the one who had been with me the whole time.

My gut twisted with shame so sharp it was almost physical.

This wasn't competition—it was culling. A systematic elimination of anyone who wasn't ruthless enough, clever enough, powerful enough to survive the Guild's idea of worthiness.

And I'd been playing along, telling myself it was necessary, that this was just how things worked.

But weren't the Dragon Riders supposed to stand for something better than this? Weren't we supposed to protect people, not abandon them when they needed help most?

I stopped measuring the trial in points.

The scoreboard became meaningless noise, the Council's approval a distant concern.

The Riders I'd dreamed of joining—the ones I'd read about in ancient texts and heard whispered in legends—they didn't just guard their own wins.

They lifted others. They protected the vulnerable.

They stood between the darkness and the light, no matter the cost.

If I was going to fail, I'd fail doing the thing I actually believed in.

The Draconis Heart stirred—light and shadow threading together in my veins like molten gold and liquid starlight.

The ancient artifact embedded deep within my chest pulsed with warmth, more alive than I'd ever felt it before.

My hand trembled as I braced against the wall, and a spark flared at my fingertips, golden-white edged in violet flame.

This isn't the shield. It's... different. A thrill shot through me, mingled with a sharp edge of fear. What is this?

Not my Golden Shield. This was something else entirely, something that hummed in my bones and sang in my blood. Purifying Fire. A healing flame that could mend what was broken, restore what was lost, cleanse what was corrupted.

I'd never been able to access this power before—not in training, not in practice, not even when I'd desperately needed it.

Purifying magic was supposed to be one of my bonded abilities, but it had always remained frustratingly out of reach.

Until now. Until this moment when everything I believed in hung in the balance.

The realization hit me like lightning—this wasn't just about accessing dormant power. This was about becoming who I was meant to be.

I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath, letting the light swell within me. For the first time in my life, I didn't fight the magic or try to control it. I simply... let it be.

The fire spread through my body like liquid warmth, not burning but healing.

The sharp agony in my ribs began to fade, the bones knitting back together with tiny pops and clicks.

My breathing steadied, the painful hitch disappearing as damaged tissue repaired itself.

The throbbing ache in my skull receded, leaving only clarity in its wake.

When I opened my eyes, my hands were still aglow with that impossible fire, ready to turn outward instead of in. Ready to offer what I'd just received—healing, hope, a second chance.

I pushed myself up from the wall, my body moving with renewed strength and purpose. No more hiding.

The trial was still raging around me, applicants still fighting for points and position and the Guild's approval.

But I wasn't playing that game anymore.