The moment I stepped toward Iskanda—barely half a breath into her personal orbit—I felt the temperature in the training hall shift in that cinematic way where you just knew people were whispering about you before you even heard it.
The sand under my feet was warm, almost soothing if it weren’t for the swarm of eyes crawling up my spine like nosy little insects.
All around me, Velvets paused mid-strike, mid-flip, mid-summoning-whatever-the-hell-that-was, their gazes flicking toward us with the hungry curiosity of predators watching something unfamiliar wander into their hunting ground.
A few of them leaned close to whisper behind painted nails and glossy lips, their snickering dancing at the edge of my ears like gnats gossiping about the weather.
And of course, the classic:
"Is that a Drudgewhore?"
"No, no, look at the hips—definitely a girl."
"Why is he dressed like that?"
"Why is he here?"
Iskanda, of course, absorbed the attention with all the effortless arrogance of someone who’d been raised on gold-plated praise and had never once been denied anything except, perhaps, humility.
She moved in a slow circle around me, each step cutting a gentle groove in the sand, her hips swaying with that languid, predatory grace that made it impossible not to track her out of sheer biological instinct.
It was like being stalked by a goddess who’d decided ambush predation was a hobby. One brow lifted in amusement as she walked behind me, and I felt—actually felt—each Velvet’s attention sharpen, as if the entire room collectively tightened a bowstring.
"We’ll begin with basic hand-to-hand combat," Iskanda murmured, her voice sliding behind me like silk dipped in menace. "I want to gauge what you can do before I decide whether you’re worth investing time into."
There was a short, deliberate pause, followed by the light scraping sound of her heel dragging through sand.
I turned just in time to watch her carve a perfect circle around herself—slow, meticulous, almost ritualistic. A sun ring for the execution of my dignity.
When she finished, she stepped into the center and tapped the sand off her toes with the sort of flourish that made it clear she thought this would be over quickly. She lifted her chin, eyes gleaming like polished steel.
"If you make me take one step outside this circle—just one," she said, voice dipped in challenge, "I’ll consider you worthy of training."
I stared at her, squinting slightly. "And if I fail?"
Her smirk widened—not just wicked, but radiating that specific brand of confidence only possessed by people who regularly bench-press bodies as a warm-up.
"Oh," she said, lips curling wider, "you’ll find out."
Wonderful. Why did I even ask?
I exhaled slowly, feeling my heartbeat settle somewhere low and dangerous. I rolled my shoulders back, sinking into stance, knees bent, arms loose but ready. The sand shifted beneath my heels, reminding me that this environment belonged to her.
Her element. Her arena. Her rules.
My brain whispered something along the lines of: You idiot. Fantastic job walking into this. I ignored it. I always ignore it. I should stop ignoring it, but today was not that day.
The instant she gave the smallest nod, I launched forward, leading with speed instead of power, because speed was the only blade I owned sharp enough to cut through her perfection.
My first strike—quick and precise toward her shoulder—was swatted away with a single, almost bored flick of her palm. The second, a fast jab toward her ribs, met the same effortless dismissal. The third—a feint turned real mid-motion—was parried so gently I almost apologized for inconveniencing her hand.
She didn’t move her feet. Not once. Not a toe twitch. She just pivoted her torso and hips, swaying like a reed in the wind with infuriating elegance.
I tried again. Harder. Faster.
She casually deflected me with the ease of someone brushing away crumbs from a table. Each time my fist came close, her hand appeared: graceful, calculated, maddeningly soft movements that stopped each attack without force.
She wasn’t even looking at my fists half the time. Her eyes flicked around the room, checking on the others in the room, only glancing back at me in time to swat another strike aside.
It was humiliating in the way only being ignored while losing miserably could be.
I didn’t dare use my disappearing ability. Not here. Not now. Bringing that out in front of a room full of Velvets would be like setting myself on fire to win a candle-lighting contest. I needed to win without exposing myself.
My lungs burned, but I kept pushing. I dove, rolled, swept low, flipped over her arm, twisted into spinning kicks, turned my body into one fluid, determined line of motion.
Acrobatic maneuvers, odd angles of attack, unpredictable footwork—everything I had ever improvised in fights to compensate for raw strength. But she adapted to each one like she’d known my entire playbook since before I was born.
Every strike was rebuffed. Every kick blocked. Every attempt to throw her off balance dissolved like mist in sunlight.
Somewhere around my twentieth attempt, I caught a brief flicker of something in her expression—something that wasn’t mockery.
It was surprise.
And saints above, it was intoxicating.
She raised her brow. "You’re stronger than you look," she remarked mid-parry, sounding genuinely impressed. "And faster."
"I’m offended you sound so shocked," I panted, already regretting the number of decisions that led me here.
By now, the entire room had stopped training. Even the girl conjuring frost runes let her magic dissipate mid-air, sending sparkles raining onto the sand.
The Velvets formed a loose circle around us, the air thickening with whispers, awe, confusion, and the occasional badly-concealed laughter at the sight of a Drudgewhore going head-to-head with the city’s golden monster.
And—if I wasn’t imagining it—excitement.
I grinned at Iskanda, giving her a deliberately cocky tilt of my head. "Are you sure you’re not warming up to me?"
The laugh that burst out of her was entirely too entertained for my comfort. "I might keep you just for the entertainment value."
"That’s what they all say," I muttered.
But while she laughed—she made a mistake.
She let her eyes close for half a second.
And I moved.
Behind me, hidden by my own body, my fingers curled into the sand. I prayed to every god, spirit, demon, enchanted rock, and cosmic entity in existence that she hadn’t noticed. The grains were warm, fine, easy to scoop—too easy. I held my breath. Baited the moment. Tightened my stance.
And then I went all in.
I burst forward with a sudden, aggressive feint—high, fast, wild, intentionally sloppy. Iskanda’s hand came up instantly to knock it aside.
Perfect.
I flung the sand.
Iskanda inhaled sharply—not pain, not anger, just surprise—and blinked as the cloud hit her face. It wasn’t enough to blind her, but it threw off her rhythm.
And I slipped in.
I scaled her like a damn tree—one foot braced on her thigh, one hand grabbing her shoulder for leverage, my other arm hooking around the back of her neck. I twisted my hips, locking my legs around her torso, and dropped my weight backward like an anchor dragging down a ship’s mast.
Her balance shifted—just an inch. But an inch was all I needed.
Her heel slid outside the circle.
Time slowed. My breath caught. The room went silent. The world narrowed to that single, perfect scrape of her heel breaking the boundary of sand.
A slow, wicked smile unfurled across my face like a sunrise made of pure, petty triumph.
Then Iskanda grabbed the back of my collar and lifted me—effortlessly—into the air like a misbehaving kitten. She held me up one-handed, her muscles barely tensing, her expression halfway between disbelief and deeply amused fury.
Around us, the Velvets stared with slack jaws and wide eyes, whispering frantic little impossibilities.
"No one has ever—"
"First try?!"
"Is she letting him win?"
"She doesn’t let anyone win."
Iskanda’s eyes were locked on me, narrowed, burning, analyzing like she was looking at my skeleton through my skin.
"Well," she murmured, voice low and dangerous, "that was unexpected."