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"Your hand."
Valen stared at the servant holding the silver knife. Behind him the ice bowl waited, carved from a single block of glacial magic. Three drops of blood and everyone would know.
He was fucked.
"Now," the servant said.
Valen held out his palm. The arena had gone quiet after they dragged Eliza off the platform, her scream still echoing in his skull. Forty feet to the gates. Ten feet before the archers put him down. No weapons. No exit. Just the knife coming down and his blood about to light up like a gods-damned beacon.
The blade bit in. Cold. Sharp.
Blood welled up, dark against the scar lines they'd burned into his hand ten years ago. Four hours with hot iron, scraping off every mark that said he was a Frostblade heir. He'd passed out twice. Woke up a dead boy who hadn't died yet.
"Let it fall," the servant said, turning his wrist.
One drop hit the ice.
Two.
Three.
The arena held its breath.
Valen felt time pull thin, stretching, his pulse hammering in his throat. Maybe the burns had worked. Maybe there was nothing left of the boy he used to be. Maybe—
The ice exploded with light.
Blue. Pure blazing blue, bright as his father's eyes, bright as the royal banners before the coup burned them all. It crawled through the bowl like veins, spreading, forming a shape. The Frostblade crest. Rising up through the ice like a ghost clawing out of a grave.
The crowd lost its mind.
"Silence!" The Trial Master's voice cracked like a whip. The noise cut off. He stared at the glowing crest, then at Valen, then at the royal platform. "This is impossible. The Frostblades are all—"
"Dead." Gareth stepped into the center of the arena, hand on the sword hilt. Valen's father's sword. His face was calm. Too calm. Like he'd been waiting for this. "Every single one. Executed for treason ten years ago." He looked at Valen. "So tell me, Carlos. How's a dead man's blood end up in your veins?"
Valen said nothing. Deny it? The ice didn't lie. Run? Archers already turning, arrows nocked. Fight? They'd taken everything before the test.
"I'll tell you how," Gareth said, pulling the blade free. Silver and cold in the light. "He's a pretender. A fraud. Stole royal blood, drank it maybe, bathed in it, I don't know. But he's not a Frostblade." He raised his voice to the crowd. "The real Frostblades are dead. I watched them burn. My father made sure of it."
The crowd murmured, uncertain.
"But the law's clear," Gareth continued. "Anyone caught impersonating the royal line? High treason. The sentence is death." He turned to the Trial Master. "Immediate execution. No trial."
The Trial Master hesitated. "The tournament rules—"
"Don't apply to traitors." Gareth's smile came back, sharp as the blade in his hand. "Bring the headsman."
Movement at the gates. Two guards dragged a hooded figure through, massive black axe in his hands, the edge honed to a mirror shine.
Valen's blood turned to ice.
Gareth walked toward him, sword loose, almost lazy. He stopped three feet away. Close enough that Valen could see the embroidery on his sleeve—silver thread, the execution mark. Same mark the coup guards wore the night they dragged his father out of bed.
"Last words?" Gareth asked.
Valen looked at the stolen sword. At the crest still glowing behind them. At ten thousand faces waiting to watch him die.
He smiled.
"Yeah," he said. "I've got a few."
Gareth's eyes narrowed. "Make them count."
Valen opened his mouth—
The arena gate exploded.
Not the headsman's gate. The opposite one, the east entrance, the one leading to the royal quarters. Iron bars blew inward with a scream of tortured metal. Smoke poured through. The crowd screamed. Guards spun, weapons up.
A figure stepped through.
Eliza.
She wasn't screaming anymore. Hair loose, dress torn at the hem, and in her right hand a short blade, the edge slick with blood.
"Stop," she said. Her voice carried, clear and cold. "Stop right now, or I'll tell everyone whose blood is really on that sword."
Gareth froze.
Eliza walked forward, past the guards, past the Trial Master, until she stood between Valen and the headsman. She looked at Gareth. "You wanna execute him for treason? Fine. But first you're gonna answer a question." She pointed at the sword. "Where'd you get that blade?"
Gareth's jaw tightened. "It's a trophy. Spoils of war."
"It's evidence," Eliza shot back. "That's the king's personal sword. The one he had on him the night he died. The one that went missing after the coup." She raised her voice to the stands. "The one that was used to kill him."
Dead silence.
Eliza turned, addressing the crowd. "My name is Eliza Silverthorn, third princess of the Thornlands. I was sent here as a hostage to seal the peace. I was thirteen when the coup happened." She looked back at Gareth. "I saw your father murder the king. And I saw you standing behind him, holding that sword."
Gareth went white.
"So here's my question," Eliza said softly. "If all the Frostblades are dead, and you killed them, why are you so scared of a little glowing ice?"
She turned to Valen. Their eyes met. Hers were fierce, burning, daring him to move.
Her lips shaped one word.
*Run.*
The headsman raised his axe.
Gareth lunged.
Valen grabbed the ice bowl and hurled it at Gareth's face—
And the crest exploded into a thousand shards of frozen blue light.