After lunch, I completed the written half of my exam, and it was sent off to grade, but I knew that I wouldn't do as well on this one as I had on the first semester exam. Not only was the material just harder, but my mind was elsewhere – like I'd told him, I had to defeat an ember-roc, and then my brother.

Jackson, Salem, Yushin, and I gathered in the open space just outside of Shadesilk forest almost a full hour before the Erudite arrived, just to run over our battle plan one more time. When Henry stepped out of nowhere and surveyed our prepared spells, weapons, and papers, the corner of his mouth actually twitched for a second. It wasn't much of a reaction, but given how little the headmaster seemed to care about anyone or anything, I counted it as a win.

"Well, I can see that you're all prepared," he said. "Good. Your mission briefing is simple. Kill the ember-roc, but don't kill its rider. You can beat him within an inch of his life, but don't kill him."

I frowned. A rider hadn't been mentioned as a part of the exam, and given what my mother and siblings bred ember-rocs for, I had an unsettling feeling that I was going to have to fight another of my brothers.

Gerhard had mentioned that this was Greta's war, while he was acting as a chaperone, which probably meant that we'd be fighting a younger member of the family than she was. If I was fighting an older member, then I had to hope that they weren't too much older – I couldn't afford to reveal my cards too early.

"Change of plans," I said, turning to my team. Before I could say anything, though, we were awash in blue light. Seconds later, we were standing in some of the red clay and mud that was endemic of Summerbone.

The smells hit me immediately, the strong burning earth in the air above us that indicated the ember-roc, the smell of a weaker, yet vast, fire above it. The earth had been soaked in blood days ago, and yet… less than I expected. And the smell of a familiar, powerful bloodline observing. The moment I smelled it, I yanked Seren back into my ether pool.

"Great," Gerhard said. "Ano– Well, hello Emrys."

I looked up to see Gerhard standing on a hill a short ways away from where the Erudite had appeared from us. Before I could say anything, Henry stepped forward.

"Per your mother's agreement with the High King, we are acting as chaperones for this battle, and not to interfere, but I am allowed to transport students and troops via teleportation, much as you may via ship. Regardless of what's going on with Emrys, you are only to observe. If you interfere, I will be allowed to act."

The Erudite smiled, and the air seemed to tense for a second, then absolutely thrum with ether. I hadn't cast ethersight, and my bloodline wasn't especially helpful with sensing the flows of wizidrical power, but I could feel it. As, apparently, could Gerhard, who took a step back. A grin spread across his face.

"Oh, I can only observe, can I? You drive a hard bargain, but I'll respect the rules."

I saw the Erudite's plan then, and had to stop myself from grinning. Gerhard thought he could use this as a chance to gauge my powers. He was right, partially, but not nearly as correct as he thought he was.

I reached into my spirit and sank the flame of my bloodline into the coals of my spirit, letting the power blaze up around me. In the months of practicing my attempt at Summers' inversion, I had almost doubled the amount of power I had access to, without losing any of the density that my years of work had gathered.

Compared to Gerhard, it was now a pair of candles before a bonfire, rather than just one, but that was fine. The Erudite had given me the best shot possible at my duel.

Increasing my bloodline was something that they would have expected. Maybe not this much, but they would have expected it. Greta's fight against me in the guise of Alastor had revealed my ability to cast shields and arcane armor, so the fact that I'd already prepared those was fine.

Energy barrier would probably look like a generic barrier of some sort, and unless they managed to research it specifically off a few sightings, then it should remain a mystery. I would also be fine to use aquatic torrent, since it was a pretty generic water attack spell, the kind of thing they expected me to be able to learn at a magic school

I would be showing them next to nothing.

In exchange, they'd think I was showing them everything. Even if they assumed I was keeping a few things in reserve, they wouldn't be able to expect the full scope of everything I'd been able to do.

There was only one trick I had to have us hold back, so I shot Salem a meaningful look. A moment later, his voice echoed in my head.

"No usin' the spellglyphs we prepared?"

They hadn't been able to prepare as many for this fight as I had for the fight with Gerhard, but they had a few.

"None," I agreed. "Sorry."

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"It's fine!" Jackson's telepathic voice boomed. "We don't need them. We should be able to do enough as is."

We didn't have any more time to speak before the roc was diving down at us.

It was absolutely enormous. I'd been aware of that, and I'd even seen one when I was younger, but it had been a long time since then. I'd forgotten the fact that they were large enough to dwarf most buildings, covered in thick armor of magma, with a leather saddle for the commander on top.

We leapt into action in an instant. Yushin vanished. Per our plan, she would be casting a flight spell as well as her invisibility, then layering herself with as much assassination magic as possible to try and kill the roc from hiding.

Salem and Jackson both snapped their hands out in spells, their energy barriers flaring to defend them across the smoke and flame, while I sucked it into my mouth. My job had always been about defense and distraction. Without summoning or some of the other spells, that would be harder, but not impossible.

I would also need to eliminate the rider. I leapt into the air, landing on the back of the roc with a crouch. Through the smoke, I could see a sibling of mine. He and I had been kids the last time we met, so I didn't really recognize him, which was a great sign. Between the weakness of his bloodline, and his age.

I sprinted along the massive saddle strapped on the bird, and my sibling raced at me. To his credit, he didn't emit any smoke, keeping his bloodline firmly under his control.

I was in front of him in an instant, and he lashed out with a half dozen strikes in the time it would have taken a human to blink. I tapped my own bloodline for power, and batted his blows aside with little effort, then slammed my palm into his chest, knocking him off the roc.

I leapt into the air and landed on top of him, then drove my fist into his neck, cutting off his airflow. It would hurt, but he'd live. His bloodline made him tough enough to deal with it.

I turned back to the ember-roc. With my bloodline flared at full power, it was moving normally. I needed to move faster, so I crunched my bloodline down, blasting into the air with a leap and driving a kick into its back. Before, this would have been the point where I was completely drained. Now, I was running at roughly half power.

Empowered as my strike was, there was a quality to raw mass that was hard to beat, leaving me more like an angry needle than a sharpened sword. The blood spurted into the air, and I wiped it out of my eyes. I'd summon a cleaning spirit when I got back to campus, but until then, I started chanting out another spell. Even as I chanted, I drew my hydra dagger and stabbed it into the roc. The venom probably wouldn't do much, but who knew?

The roc was flapping, trying to take into the air now that his commander was gone, but I drew on my bloodline and raced to the head of the roc. It twisted, and I felt its bloodline engaging, magma flowing from its feathers to kill me, and I jumped into the air again, catapulting over the quasi-real stone. I twisted shields to protect me from the flying rocks, then landed, still chanting and running up its neck.

The academic part of me recognized how interesting it was that it could materialize stone, and wondered if it was drawing it from an elemental plane of magma, or if it was actually creating it, but I didn't have time for that. I finished my chant, swept my hand down, and cast aquatic torrent.

A rapidly spinning sphere of water appeared over my hand, then blasted out, condensed into a line the thickness of a pen. It slammed into the neck of the bird, where the white-hot feathers caused it to evaporate in an instant. It did drain a chunk of the bloodline, though, and forced the bird to divert more attention to me. It twisted in mid-air, snapping its beak at me, exposing its neck, rather than having it protected by armor for the first time in the fight.

And my fellow teammates struck.

During all the time I'd been serving as distractions, Yushin's attack had been waiting for the perfect instant. Salem and Jackson, after using the barriers to weather the attacks of the roc, had taken to the sky as well, and prepared their own powerful attacks.

A blade of darkness a hundred feet long, and as thin as a razorblade, punched through the now-exposed neck of the roc.

A second later, four different blades of wind and water launched by Jackson slammed into the wound Yushin had created. His powers weren't quite as well suited to fighting off an ember-roc, but he'd still packed as much raw power into these spells as he could.

Finally, Salem unleashed an attack on the massive bird's mind. The monster wasn't sapient, and unlike the complex network of brains that the hydra had used to organize its multiple heads, the roc only had one mind.

I leapt just an instant before the roc slammed into the clay of Summerbone, baking it in an instant. The bird was half buried, but it flared its wings, and unleashed a massive wave of fire in all directions. I opened my jaws and sucked power in, draining as much from the attack as I could.

It wasn't enough. The flame crashed over my teammates, energy barriers and shields creaking. Salem and Yushin vanished as one, leaving me and Jackson, who seemed to weather it through the application of his own affinity magic.

I cursed as the bird ripped itself from the hardened clay, and I leapt into the air, throwing a massive amount of power into a blow at the monster's beak, only for it to unhinge its jaw and–

Darkness, infused with a terrible poison, speared through the roc's mouth, into its gut, as Yushin materialized on a shaky flight spell. Her right hand had been charred, but she was still there. I gave her a shaky smile.

Then Salem's mental spell struck again. The bird's wings seemed to spasm without control, and it slammed into the ground again. I fell, delivering a kick to the skull, and Yushin released another shadow blade. It wasn't nearly as strong as the first one, and unlike her second, there was no bloodline behind it, but it left a shallow score on the neck of the bird.

Jackson sprinted across the battlefield, lifting a sword made of golden light, and swept it down. A crescent of golden power left another long, scoring strike across the roc, who swept out with another wave of fire. This time, I flared my bloodline and punched down on the beak, even as I sucked in more flame.

The wash of stone and flame cut off abruptly as it was sent scouring back down the monster's throat, and shot out of the birds nostrils. The blast struck me dead in the face, and even with my strong resistance and energy barrier, taking it point blank wasn't pleasant, and I turned to catch most of the flame on a single arm, like Yushin had.

The roc let out a pained cry and took off again, only for Salem's mental spell to cause it to stutter mid-flight and crash back down. Yushin started retreating, muttering a spell under her breath.

It sent several thin arcs of magma down at us from its claws, which Jackson met with crescents of gold from his sword, and I leapt into the air, snagging one of the claws and knocking the blasts aside from Yushin.

"Buy me thirty seconds!"

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