The archive guardian’s clawed hand, momentarily arrested by my barrier charm, shrieked a metallic protest as it began to crackle. Azure fuel pulsed violently from its joints, threatening to overwhelm my already unstable magic. Nikolai, still frozen like a particularly stunned gargoyle, gaped at the scrap-heap behemoth. Sergei seized Nikolai by the collar, hauling him back just as the guardian’s strike shattered my shimmering shield. “Through here!” Sergei shouted, pointing to a dark, narrow passage I hadn’t noticed, usually concealed by a sliding panel of dusty tomes. He didn't wait for us, already darting through. Honestly, the man had a knack for finding secret passages. And for nearly dying on my behalf. My heart, or what was left of its functional parts, gave a particularly painful *thump-whirr* at the thought. We tumbled out into a rarely-used service corridor, covered in cobwebs and the faint, comforting scent of stale parchment. The distant crash of the guardian’s frustrated flailing echoed from the archives. Nikolai scrambled to his feet, brushing dust from his impeccable (and now slightly singed) dueling jacket. His face, usually a canvas of supreme confidence, was a study in ruffled indignation. “You… you *lied*!” he accused, his voice a low growl, directed squarely at me. “All this time, the ‘Iron Witch’ was just… a half-baked parlor trick to cover up… *this*?” He gestured vaguely at my still-glowing, trembling hands, which were refusing to settle. I scoffed, despite the bone-deep ache that made my knees feel like faulty springs. “My apologies, Rostova. I forgot to include you in my grand reveal. Perhaps I should have sent a formal invitation, ‘Kindly requesting your presence at the unmasking of the Koschev curse, refreshments will be served, please RSVP’?” Sergei stepped between us, his gaze steady on Nikolai. “Leave it, Rostova. What she’s dealing with is… beyond your grasp.” Sergei spoke with a flat weight that made Nikolai actually pause, something I hadn't thought possible. Nikolai bristled, his eyes narrowing. “Beyond my grasp? I, Nikolai Rostova, heir to the Rostova lineage, whose ancestors forged the first spirit-lenses, am incapable of comprehending a common curse? Please. The only thing clear to me is that you, Orlov, have been seen consorting with her. And *I* have now been dragged into her… *shenanigans*. My standing, my honor… it’s all in question now.” He glanced from Sergei to me, a sudden glint in his eye. “There’s only one way to settle this ignominious entanglement. A public demonstration. A duel. You and I, Koscheva. Lyceum Plaza, tomorrow at noon. Artificer’s rules. No excuses.” My initial reaction was a groan so profound it vibrated my teeth. A duel? Now? When my internal workings felt like a rusty carousel and the memory of my ancestor’s curse still churned in my gut? But then my pride, that stubborn, self-destructive organ, flared. “Fine,” I snapped, forcing my chin up. “But don’t come crying when your pristine pedigree ends up in the scrap heap, Rostova.” Sergei merely sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Must you two always gravitate towards the most dramatic solution?” *** The Lyceum Plaza was, as usual, a spectacle of polished chrome and whirring gears, packed with students and faculty eager for entertainment. Lissette, of course, was front and center, perched like a dainty viper in the VIP stands, her saccharine smile aimed directly at Nikolai. I could practically hear her whispering insidious suggestions across the plaza. And indeed, as Nikolai approached the dueling platform, a small, obsidian-black bauble glittered in his hand – an essence-snuffer. Banned, for good reason. It choked off ambient power, making high-level Artifice a sputtering affair. “A bit unsportsmanlike, don’t you think, Rostova?” I called out, projecting disdain. The Blight already made my mana volatile; a snuffer would turn it into a ticking bomb. Nikolai merely smirked, thumbing the mechanism with a theatrical flourish. A shimmer of distortion spread across the arena. “Drastic times, Koscheva. Some legacies are worth fighting for by any means necessary.” My turn. I stepped onto the platform, my custom Artifice brass-gloves feeling leaden. The suppression field instantly made my internal spirit regulator sputter. My usual calming pre-duel ritual, mentally assembling a defensive array of kinetic coils, dissolved into a chaotic mess of sparking wires and overheating conduits. This was going to be a disaster. The official, a stoic woman with a monocle that looked like a salvaged clock face, raised a glowing baton. “Commence!” Nikolai struck first, a rapid-fire volley of focused azure bolts from his glove. They weren’t particularly powerful, but the field meant I couldn’t erect a proper shield. I scrambled, deflecting them with clumsy, uncoordinated bursts of my own, each parry sending a jarring shock up my radius bone. The crowd, initially buzzing, started to murmur, sensing my struggle. “Her famous precision seems to have abandoned her!” Lissette’s voice, amplified by some unseen horn, carried across the plaza, a sweet, venomous whisper. “Perhaps the Iron Witch’s magic is as frail as her good name!” My face burned. I tried to focus, to channel the erratic energy of the Blight into something coherent. It backfired. Instead of a projected barrier, a small cloud of iridescent, highly corrosive gas erupted from my left wrist-cuff, promptly dissolving a section of the dueling platform. Oops. The crowd gasped, a mix of horror and morbid fascination. Nikolai, agile as a cat, dodged it, but his smile had vanished. “Still playing with dangerous toys, Koscheva?” he sneered, preparing a more potent offensive, a mesh of crackling blue threads designed to immobilize. This was it. Humiliation, public and total. Just as the net began to coalesce, a voice cut through the distortion, sharp and clear. “Rostova! Your suppressor’s frequency modulator has a harmonic resonance vulnerability at 117.3 gigahertz! A concentrated low-frequency pulse will overload its spectral interference array!” My head snapped to the side. Sergei. He was standing in the crowd, his face grim, his eyes locked on mine. He hadn’t shouted a warning about Nikolai’s assault, but about the *suppressor*. A loophole. A way to fight back, not against Nikolai, but against the insidious contraption throttling my power. Realization clicked into place. My erratic current might be a weakness, but it was also untamed. Unpredictable. I didn’t have precision under these conditions, but I had raw, chaotic *power*. Nikolai’s net was almost upon me. I squinted, taking a reckless gamble, pouring every drop of the curse’s wild energy, every sparking conduit, every overheating coil, into a single low-frequency pulse. It was less a calculated strike and more a controlled tantrum of raw current. The air shrieked. A blinding explosion of multi-colored light and sound erupted from my cuffs, not aimed at Nikolai, but at the very fabric of the suppressed space. The black contraption shrieked like a dying kettle, then exploded with a shower of harmless, spectacular sparks. The distortion in the arena vanished. Nikolai, caught off guard, stumbled back, dropping his now-useless net, shielding his eyes from the dazzling display. My core power, no longer suppressed, surged. And for once, it didn't betray me. Instead of a blast, I let it manifest as an incandescent, swirling vortex of pure light, a harmless aurora that danced around the plaza, illuminating every shocked face in the crowd. It wasn’t a duel-winning blow, but a statement. An assertion of wild, untamable power that disarmed Nikolai completely, not with force, but with sheer, overwhelming spectacle. The crowd erupted, not with boos, but with astonished cheers. Nikolai looked from the dazzling light show to me, his jaw slack—not in anger, but in profound, bewildered respect. I smirked, the familiar sting of pride returning, but this time, it felt earned. For the first time, I had turned the Blight’s chaos into something magnificent. And Sergei, from the audience, gave me a subtle, almost imperceptible nod. It was a victory, but it was also a new, terrifying precedent. I had embraced the chaos. What would it demand next?

Duels, Deceptions, and Dapper Attire