"Allow me to bite him," Typhon suggests, and there's a slight note of urgency in his tone. "I could leave him alive and only remove a few pieces of his meat sack."

"No biting. But if he kills me, I give you permission to kill him back."

I feel a pang of reluctance and irritation through the tether, but also acceptance.

I dodge two more strikes, try to get in range to land a blow with my rapier, and earn a vicious kick to my stomach that sends me crumpling to the ground.

I clench tight as waves of sudden nausea roll through my body twisting my insides like a wet rag being wrung out.

Okay. New plan.

I reach into the water saturating the air, drawing scraps of power into my body. Yes, I'm going to cheat, but only a little. And only in a way that nobody will notice.

Sweat runs down Titus' scalp, so I reach out and direct as much of it as I can into his eyes as I get back to my feet, weapon drawn.

He flinches, blinking through the stinging salt and nearly dropping his guard to wipe his eyes.

I don't wait.

I'm already dashing toward him, spinning as he tries to strike, and then I'm behind Titus. My blade is pressed to the side of his neck. "Yield," I say, breath still coming in hard gasps.

Titus tenses, and I think he’s about to push his luck and fight on. But finally, he relaxes. "I yield."

My victory earns a few secret smiles from Beck, Ambrose, and Mireen, but nobody else visibly reacts. Well, unless I can count the way Raith is looking at Titus as a reaction. It almost looks like Raith is thinking about dismembering Titus limb by limb. The orange on his mark flares suddenly, pulsing quickly. I've learned from our training sessions that it pulses when his emotions are running high.

The other first-year fires, including those who were affinities before Confluence Day, gather around Raith and drag his attention away with something that looks relatively urgent. They’re all speaking quickly to him as he listens, nodding his head. Serena is the only notable absence.

Word spread about what she tried on Confluence Day, and now she's more or less exiled to spend time with Malakai and the other waters who follow him. Nobody else wants anything to do with her.

But other than Raith and my friends, nobody dares to show a reaction to the outcome of our match. The official announcement of the Crucible completely erased any of the relaxed tension of the past few months. Surviving Confluence Day is in the past, now, and surviving the Crucible is on everyone’s minds. Worse, many already seem driven to do whatever it may take to win. Even if it means murder.