News traveled like wildfire through Etherevalis.
The royal heirs were competing.
The returning princess was battling her older brothers in a test of skill.
By midday, balconies were filled.
Market stalls closed early.
Merchants whispered updates.
Rumors had exaggerated the first round beyond reason.
Some claimed Llandra had shattered stone walls with her arrows.
Others insisted she had humiliated both heirs beyond recovery.
None of it was entirely true.
But none of it was entirely false either.
The Arena
The next contest was far more complex.
The royal training grounds had been transformed into something else entirely.
A mock city.
Half-collapsed stone structures.
Broken walls.
Narrow alleyways.
High perches.
Wooden scaffolds.
It simulated a city devastated by war.
Within it, magical mechanisms were hidden.
Pop-up targets would rise and fall unpredictably.
Some moved along tracks between buildings.
Others swung on arcs.
Some emerged briefly from windows before vanishing forever.
But there was a catch.
Certain targets were marked in blue and gold.
Friendlies.
One arrow striking a friendly target meant immediate disqualification.
No second chances.
And there was more.
Hidden within the structures were magical paint-launch devices.
If struck by the paint—
You weren't disqualified.
But you were out.
No more scoring.
Five minutes on the clock.
Five points per hostile target.
One hundred bonus points if the contestant completed the full route.
Which created a dilemma.
Was it better to move fast and claim the bonus?
Or hunt thoroughly and rack up raw points?
Strategy mattered as much as skill.
The Starting Line
The three heirs stood back-to-back in the center.
Bows ready.
Legos tall and tense.
Heiron calm and calculating.
And Llandra.
Slightly shorter.
Long blonde hair flowing behind her.
Focused.
Still.
The crowd had doubled since the first round.
Spectators watched from elevated viewing platforms.
Some had left work entirely.
This was no longer a private wager.
It was becoming legend.
"Ready."
Silence spread.
"Begin!"
Legos
He exploded forward.
Full speed.
Aggressive.
The first hostile target rose—
Gone.
Second.
Gone.
He fired rapidly, barely pausing between shots.
Magical arrows formed instantly as he drew.
No need to reload.
Targets popped up in rapid succession.
He nailed them mid-rise.
A moving target swung from behind a broken tower—
He tracked it fluidly and struck center.
Cheers followed him.
He looked unstoppable.
But his pace was reckless.
His speed was impressive.
His restraint was barely holding.
Heiron
On another path, Heiron moved slower.
Measured.
Deliberate.
He allowed targets to fully rise before firing.
He studied their markings carefully.
Hostile.
Release.
He progressed like a tactician rather than a warrior.
When paint launched from a hidden slit in the wall—
He had already predicted the angle.
He sidestepped calmly.
A swing target came into view.
He waited.
Counted the rhythm.
Released.
Bullseye.
Heiron was not flashy.
But he was efficient.
And he was clean.
Llandra
Llandra advanced at a pace between the two.
Not reckless.
Not slow.
Balanced.
A hostile target rose from a shattered window—
She loosed two arrows mid-stride.
Hit.
Another appeared behind partial cover—
She angled the shot off stone and clipped the edge.
Bullseye.
Movement to the right.
Swinging hostile.
She didn't hesitate.
Gone.
She turned a corner—
Three targets rose simultaneously.
Her bow was drawn before they fully cleared the barricade.
She fired three arrows.
The crowd gasped.
She had destroyed the threats in a heartbeat.
There was no wasted motion.
No panic.
No hesitation.
Dungeon raids.
Real battles.
Shadow armies.
She had trained under chaos.
This was controlled.
Almost simple.
The timer ticked down steadily.
Four minutes remaining.
Targets continued rising and vanishing throughout the ruined streets.
The crowd's eyes darted between the three routes, trying to track all of them at once.
Legos
Legos was already deep into the structure.
He moved like a wildfire.
Fast.
Direct.
Unapologetic.
Targets barely had time to fully rise before his arrows split their centers.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
He pivoted sharply around a collapsed wall and fired two shots without even fully stopping his stride.
Both struck true.
Cheers followed him wherever he moved.
He was thrilling to watch.
Every shot was confidence.
Every movement declared dominance.
But in his speed, he bypassed two targets that rose slightly behind him.
He never noticed.
He was chasing momentum.
And momentum did not look back.
Heiron
On another route, Heiron advanced carefully.
He cleared every corner before committing to the next step.
He did not allow surprise.
Targets rose—
He verified.
Then fired.
Every arrow was intentional.
Precise.
Calculated.
He rotated through the maze like a general surveying a battlefield rather than a hunter chasing prey.
When three targets rose simultaneously, he did not rush.
He shifted position to improve his angle.
Eliminated them one by one.
Clean.
But the hesitation cost seconds and targets.
And in those seconds, two additional targets rose briefly in a side corridor—
Then vanished.
He had chosen certainty over opportunity.
The crowd murmured.
It was efficient.
But it was not explosive.
Llandra
Llandra flowed.
She did not charge like Legos.
She did not pause like Heiron.
She moved with instinct sharpened by experience.
A target rose behind broken scaffolding—
She adjusted her stance and released before it fully cleared the obstruction.
Bullseye.
She transitioned seamlessly into the next lane, striking two mid-range targets in a single breath.
Her awareness extended beyond her immediate line of sight.
She anticipated where targets would appear.
Not by guesswork.
By pattern recognition.
A year of dungeon raids had taught her something her brothers had not yet mastered—
Battlefields were chaotic.
But chaos had rhythm.
A trio of targets emerged at staggered heights.
She loosed three arrows in succession without overcommitting.
Each struck center.
The crowd responded louder now.
She was not flashy.
She was fluid.
There was something unsettlingly composed about her movements.
As though this environment was not a challenge—
But familiar ground.