Blood Oath (Book 2 of Alfireán age)

Interesting Skills

The world shifted into golden hues as Olivia focused energy into her eyes and holy Ra'avah kicked in.

"How is he?" Drake asked from behind her.

She knelt beside Alf in a pile of snow and placed her hands on his chest. Tiny snowflakes settled on his nose and eyelashes, the snow a remnant of his shattered ice crystal. "He appears to be fine," she said in amazement. Alf's bones were all intact; his heart beat strong and steady, and his brain patterns appeared normal. "The spells here are unbelievable. An explosion like that must have hit him with the force of hundreds of thousands of newtons, yet there's not a scratch on him."

"I take it, it is safe to wake him?" Drake said.

"You can try."

Drake bent over, pulled a package of smelling salts from Alf's medallion, then broke it underneath his nose.

Nothing happened.

The prince snapped his fingers, and the smelling salts evaporated into a purple flash of fire, filling the air with a putrid stench.

Alf blinked in a daze then jerked back and scrambled to his feet, trying to get away from the awful smell. He glanced around, his brow scrunched and his eyes crossed in confusion, till he seemed to realize where he was at. "What in the world happened?" he blurted.

The youngest maid answered his question. "Whatever that weird guy did with his voice made your ice crystal go kaboom! It exploded everywhere," she said jumping and grabbing at the snowflakes still lazily floating down.

"And boy did it explode," the redheaded maid laughed. "It sent you flying and bouncing off the arena walls like some type of spinning fire cracker."

"Ow!" Alf said, rubbing his head. "I guess it's not always smart to store large amounts of water. Does anyone know how he did that?"

Olivia rose to her feet and shook her head. Alf looked at Drake.

The prince shrugged. "I don't know. To be honest with you, I can't understand how he did any of it. As far as I could tell, he didn't use magic at all."

"Same here," Olivia confessed. "His weapon has no spells embedded in it, and his armor only has a few light absorbing enhancements. Other than that, there wasn't anything."

"I don't understand then," Alf said in confusion. "How did he crush me like that without using magic when he obviously was?"

"Because I didn't," said a young man's voice from behind Olivia.

Olivia spun around to see the masked vice champion walking their way. Standing several inches taller than her, but shorter than Alf, the young man moved with the grace of an experienced warrior. His emerald green armor clung to his trim form, and golden scrollwork depicting serpentine dragons running along his forearms glinted in the sunlight. Dark eyes looked at them through a silver face mask.

"Are you okay?" the young man asked, his voice thick with concern as he jutted his chin at Alf. "I know the arena is supposed to stop anyone from taking any permanent damage, but my technique is a bit different, so I just wanted to make sure you're alright."

Alf stopped rubbing his head and nodded. "I'm fine. That weird ringing and nasty feeling in the back my head are gone. Though that's not an experience I want to repeat again. "

The warrior walked forward, laughed, and slapped Alf on the back. "That's good to hear. You're the first person I've met that can go toe to toe with me in a fight, and I'd love to have another go with you sometime. Maybe when you're a bit more trained," the vice champion added, a tinge of mirth in his voice.