The Crown Prince In Hiding

Chapter 21

Imagine The Fire

Begin!

The tip of the red-glowing blade shot straight for Princess Nora’s face almost instantly.

She snapped her head back to evade and countered with her own weapon, smashing against Rafinya’s sword with a thunderous crack. The two of them tore into each other in the center of the stage as if they’d forgotten this was an exam at all.

On a scale of ten, the pace leapt to an eight or nine with a snap of the fingers.

Professor Foden could feel it…

What these two students were doing here had nothing to do with grades. They were fighting for something beyond their teachers’ understanding—an all-out clash of towering egos.

Casca let out a soft, “Haiya…”

Roma glanced over.

“Are those really human kids?”

“Hell if I know, Roma.”

After being knocked off the stage by Dan last time—and knowing she would face the princess who had slain the beast Iskaryx—Rafinya went all-in from the very first second with her family gift: the “fire” of House Pauli, a crimson battle-enhancing sorcery forged for their bloodline.

“Rosefire,” everyone called it, matching the Pauli emblem of a rose, an emblem of womanly grace befitting the beautiful Rafinya; when it “caught,” it meant the duelist burned with honed, blazing strength, the pride of her house.

Rafinya no longer swept her blade around like a common knight… She was a duelist. Her cuts were made from the smallest, tightest ranges—short, economical, and efficient every time. They came fast, from every direction. House Pauli’s fire could melt Nora’s black ice.

Sparks burst from red sorcery as blades collided. Nora sprang in, boot slamming into Rafinya’s chest, and while airborne swung a great axe of ice down on her.

Rafinya reacted in time, bringing her personal blade up to guard. The impact boomed.

The ice axe shattered into glittering shards that flashed with light—beautiful—and yet those same fragments dusted Rafinya’s body.

So when Nora snapped her fingers to revert them—

Ice spikes bloomed and stabbed into Rafinya from every angle.

“Ghk—!”

She didn’t scream the way Dan and Zeedee had, but from where he watched, Dan knew it hurt like hell.

The princess didn’t stop. The instant her feet hit the floor, she gathered a mass of frost and detonated it into a storm of razor ice, raking Rafinya full on.

The duelist’s body flew, blood freezing midair and fracturing from her face.

Rafinya dropped to her knees, one hand braced on the ground, blood beading and dripping, wounds torn open all over…

Seeing that, Nora seized the chance and conjured a giant hammer—but—

Rafinya laughed.

“!”

The princess froze for a heartbeat.

The entire stadium went dead silent.

She thought she’d misheard. She hadn’t.

Rafinya was laughing.

It made Nora’s skin crawl. When Rafinya lifted her face—blood masking her brow—her crimson-pink eyes burned with exhilaration.

She was grinning.

“This is what I wanted!!!”

She screamed it, thrilled and terrifying.

“!”

Not only Nora on stage—Dan in the seats felt a chill too. He knew this state—Rafinya had entered the same mode as the day she hunted him.

In a flash, Rafinya surged up, set her blade, and charged. Her speed didn’t flag; her wounds might as well not exist.

Nora stayed composed. Her fist clenched—and in the blink of an eye, the ice sorcery worked again. The entire arena erupted with seventh-rank ice, sprouting at a snap.

She had turned the field into an ice biome.

Friction plummeted. Rafinya, sprinting in, skidded and nearly fell. It was a golden opening to finish. Nora’s giant hammer was poised to smash her face. But—

Rafinya smirked.

She had expected this. From the moment she stepped out and tested the marble’s feel, she’d known this trick was coming.

She had waited for it.

The needle tip of Rafinya’s straight blade burned scarlet.

Using the very slip of her fall, she drove the point into the ice at her feet.

Nora: “!?”

When blazing heat met biting cold, the result was a burst of energy as the ice’s lattice exploded into vapor at once.

Nora’s conjured icefloor erupted into billowing white steam that swallowed everything from every side.

The crowd roared. Dan swallowed hard. Even Casca, and the four royal guards up above, were struck speechless.

“That’s what happens when something really hot hits something really cold,” Casca said.

Nora knew she’d erred.

She glanced left and right into the whiteout. Steam thickened by the second—not good. Recalling the ice would take time… and the longer it went, the worse the blinding veil became.

Within the white, Rafinya opened her eyes.

At this range, her Red Velvet gaze caught the heat of the princess’s body. There—she saw a warm, orange silhouette gripping twin blades, tense and wary.

As she stepped closer, Rafinya felt the ice receding underfoot.

The princess had realized it.

Too late.

But just then—

Sssss!

“!”

“There you are.”

!?

Princess Nora snapped to lock onto Rafinya’s direction and fired a burst of ice flechettes straight at her!

“Eh?! How—?”

“Ice,” Casca said.

“Come again?” Zeedee, slow on the uptake, muttered at Casca. “What are you babbling about?”

“Idiot.”

“?”

“If you think Nora was recalling the ice, you’re wrong.”

“She had to recall it! Leave it there and fire only makes more steam!”

“You’re too shallow. Look.”

Casca pointed. When Zeedee and the others peered closer—

They saw Nora hadn’t drawn the ice back at all.

She had shattered it into powder and flung it in every direction under her control.

A property everyone overlooked:

When those fine ice grains hit fire and flash-boiled, they hissed—ssssaah.

Nora was using the sound to locate Rafinya.

She knew the arena had nothing to obstruct the shot.

So if her flechettes hit nothing, they’d whistle on into the stands—but if they struck something—the only “something” here, Rafinya—

They’d meet that red aura and pop, giving away her position.

CLASH!

Rafinya’s sword swept, batting the oncoming spikes aside.

And Nora rushed in with twin ice knives, colliding for a second, even fiercer exchange.

Two styles, two nations.

Rafinya fought as a “knight.”

Nora Ophilis fought as a “hunter.”

“The fire you’re so proud of just turned into a weakness.”

“The opposite, Princess.”

“!?”

Rafinya lifted a finger between their faces and snapped.

“You stepped into exactly the right range.”

At once—

Crimson sigils marked Nora from four directions; beneath her feet, a magic circle bloomed in the shape of a “rose.”

“The problem with barbarians is they think like barbarians.”

With that, Nora’s whole body dragged—as if a thousand-kilo weight yanked her down.

“Kh—?!”

The rose circle at her feet was why: four points, four directions, all converging on Nora.

They were there for Rafinya to strike.

Damn it. I can’t move!

No matter how she tried, Nora’s body wouldn’t respond in time. Rafinya dashed behind her, rapier wreathed in red fire, and—

Rafinya slashed. The blade bit into Nora’s back, searing a grievous wound branded with the same rose sigil—just as a quarter of the rose at Nora’s feet shattered away.

Blood spilled from the princess’s lips. Her nerves screamed, heat lashing through her like hellfire.

It looked like a “simple” hit, but in truth, one of Nora Ophilis’s four “fatal points” had been destroyed. She had lost a quarter of her fighting capacity.

This was Rafinya’s personal art:

Expose the enemy’s four “death points” and strike them. If she marked and landed all four, she could subdue an opponent with certainty; in real battle—kill them. All the fatal points, erased.

If Nora couldn’t protect her death points, then once all four blows landed, a royal execution would play out in this very stadium.

Which was why Rafinya would stop at three.

CRASH!!!

The rose circle beneath Nora had fallen from four to two points. One quadrant had been smashed earlier when Rafinya was hit; now the princess stood on even footing again only in appearance.

It was vicious—so vicious Casca was shocked such a technique sat in the hands of an eighteen-year-old.

“I thought killing a dragon made you strong… At this rate, I could have killed it too.”

Rafinya spoke as her blade thrust for Nora—and—

Thock!!!

Her sword punched through the princess’s shoulder, bursting out the back.

Blood fountained. Dan no longer sat. A hard unease rose in him.

This wasn’t an exam anymore.

But—

Before he could move—

Rafinya felt it.

That thrust hadn’t hit the third death point.

Nora had angled herself on purpose to let the blade pierce her body.

And now—

Black ice jutted from the wound. From the blood of a cryomancer like Nora, every drop that spilled froze into black crystal—locking Rafinya’s blade in place, refusing to let it move.

“Got you.”

…!

On the receiving end of a hunter’s gaze from the snowlands, Rafinya’s skin prickled. The princess, face composed, seized Rafinya’s wrist and pinned it to her.

“Luminus are cowards… Watch closely. Welcome to Snowhaven.”

With that, lances of ice erupted from every inch of the arena, tearing it to pieces, tiles shattering and flying.

Ninth-rank ice.

Everything froze beneath a single colossal mass of ice—Rafinya included.