The next day, I find the training room with Mare inside as well.
My face brightens into a smile as I see her, but anger plagues her face. At first, I'm confused, until I see Evangeline. I raise my eyebrow at their conversation, Evangeline's snappy comments. My hands roar, wanting to unleash the flames that are desperate to escape, but I keep it down and walk up to Evangeline.
"What is this all about?" I ask and place a hand over my skin tight uniform. Sonya and Elane sink back into their seats, embarrassed. But Evangeline ignores me fully and keeps trash talking Mare as my flaming eyes blaze in pure fury. "I'm sorry, but this is your princess talking to you."
Evangeline finally turns to stare at me, but instead of having kind, loving eyes, her eyes are full of the pure feeling of being above me, something I haven't been looked down upon in a long time.
"Oh, I'm sorry, but this is you're future queen talking to you." She points out. I let out a laugh. Evangeline just stares at me, confused for a moment as I shake my head and I dive into her thoughts.
What is she laughing about? Perhaps the princess truly have lost her crown.
"I think you might want to start acting a little nicer to me, Samos." I say, my voice a blank slate as I turn my head to stare at her. "With a single nod of my head, I can demote you. Do you not know the power I have? I can take your title with a snap of my fingers."
On that note, I turn around and walk away, my blond hair swishing behind me as I walk to where Mare and Maven are hanging out, in the corner.
"That was great." Mare said and diverted her eyes away from me. "Thank you." I smile and nod in return and I can see the question written in her eyes. Can I truly take away her ranking? I lean in close to answer the question she never asks.
"I can, perhaps. With enough persuasion, but for now, we just have to let her believe that I can. The secret to win, Mare, is not to play by the truth, but how they believe."
*E*
Two weeks run and go. Soon enough, I'm back at Training, Evangeline hasn't dared even breathe my way. My threat still lingers in the air.
When Maven loses at a fight, an easy one at that fact, I hear Evangeline's voice, directed towards Mare.
"I challenge Mareena Titanos." Her voice is clear, like the sun without clouds. Its then, when I stand up, instead of Mare.
"I challenge Evangeline Samos." I say, my voice just as clear as her. She smirks and coughs.
"I'm sorry, what did you say? I'm afraid my challenge wasn't against you." She says, her voice clear. Calm. But there's a hitch to it, telling me not to mess with her. I wave it off.
"Oh, what?" I ask. "Don't you want a little bit of fun, Samos?" I push as she closes her eyes before opening them, revealing cold and unfeeling orbs staring back at me.
"Challenge accepted." She whispered as we both walked towards the arena.
"Thank you." Mare whispered, her voice brushing against my ear.
When we're both on the court, Evangeline raises her fists to point it at me. She's one year older than me, and she's never seen me fight, because nobody dares challenge the gem of the nation, the princess of Norta. Evageline raises her fists and smiles at me as I smirk back.
She strikes first, her daggers of death gleaming at me, and rushes towards me, threatening to cut my skin. I lazily dodge them, my agility coming in handy. All those years of running, of toning my muscles have finally came in handy besides looking good for the camera. The knifes dive towards me once again, but I twist and turn. Evangeline's black, hopeless eyes narrow at me as she moves her metal even faster and more elegant than ever. I dodge them all with ease, each time a dagger comes close to pirecing my warm skin and drawing silver blood, I twist away and easily get loose.
I can tell this is pissing her off. A lot. I haven't even used my power and she's having trouble pinning me down. Her daggers follow me everywhere, like a silent promise that death will come, as I keep sprinting. Twisting and turning, leading the daggers into the middle of nowhere before ramming them into a wall. She concentrates solemnly on me and then, after a minute of this harsh, boring game of cat and mouse, I hear him.
I hear my brother calling my name.
"Finish her, Eliza."
As if that was the trick to flip the switch, a flash of silver is about to touch my skin as I turn and create a wall of horrifying fire.
Clearly catching Evangeline off guard, she stumbles back a tad, giving me the perfect opportunity. My hands move elegantly as I shoot a blast of burning fire onto her foot that was caught off balence. She falls before quickly recovering and shooting daggers of metal right at my face.
But my reflexes are quick, as I make a ball of fire, surrounding my entire being. When the metal even tries to push through, it melts, falling flat on the floor. Then, I start with the offence.
I easily shoot fireball after fireball at her. The flames move so fast, and Evangeline is only so much coordinated. She's surrounded, all her metal dripping down, weak from the power of my fire. Sweat burns through her forehead as I take a step forward and conceal her in a flaming ball of death. Then, just for the pure fun of it, I whisper into her brain.
Boo. I say, and that simple gesture, that word, made her flinch as I slowly enclosed her in flames until, she's about to burn into a crust. I can see the sleek oil in her hair begin to catch on fire when I finally say the word.
"Yield?" I ask and I can see Evangeline's desperate desire to save face, but its obvious who's going to win this game.
"Yield." She whispers and the fire falls. I smirk at her and her pathetic form and walk away, happy at my accomplishment.
But then, I hear it. I don't hear her thoughts, I don't hear anyone's thoughts.
I hear the distinct sound of metal flashing through the air.
My hand is the first to react, and my hot flesh closes around the crisp iron. She must've had another knife stashed away in her coat, obviously.
I can feel my skin, my soft, smooth skin, getting torn apart as I melt the metal down into a soft, silver puddle. I stare at it and raise an eyebrow at Evangeline, who's seems rather frightened and intimidated. I'm about to say something when I hear another voice, this one much more teared apart with anger and disappointment.
"It is not proper to attack your opponent after you concede." I hear. Evangeline's father. "Evangeline, come with me."
I watch Evangeline's poor form as she walks out of the arena to be scolded by her father. As her figure disappears into the distance, I turn to the rest of my classmates, who all stare at me with bewilderment. Perhaps nobody truly knew how finely tuned my powers truly were.
"Anyone else?" I ask, and not a single soul steps forward.
*E*
