Oraeus caught her off guard.

The Zothirian forces advanced faster than she expected, not trying to stick in any defensive formation or screen one another. He had predicted that she’d take advantage of her mobility to take the high ground and wanted to get his forces into the mountainous terrain as quickly as possible to block line of sight. They couldn’t make it there immediately, but Shaya knew she only had one turn of open shooting.

Except it got worse.

Oraeus committed his pegasus knights immediately, the unit swooping in at the militia she had teleported atop the cliffs. It wasn’t merely a reckless maneuver, it was an insane move – pegasi were some of the fastest flyers in the Empire, but they were also the most vulnerable to massed fire. It would have been a blunder in almost any other situation, but not this one. Shaya didn’t think Oraeus would commit his reserves so early in the battle and didn’t relay any contingency orders to her units to fire upon flyers as they swooped in.

Her mountaintop militia unleashed hell from their position. Their orders were simple: destroy the squad of entropomancers and whittle down nearby archers. The swooping pegasi interfered with her plans however, one of her units panicking and shooting the closer threat. Shaya was almost thankful they did so. What the militia may have lacked in skill and training, they made up for in the quality of their equipment, Vayeira’s sheer wealth ensuring they were armed with the strongest arbalests gold crowns could buy.

The panicking unit spun and unleashed their bolts into the charging pegasus knights. Dice thundered as Shaya rolled them into the ornate mahogany tray Zaal provided, but before she could pick out the dice that had hit Oraeus interrupted her.

“Hold,” he said, placing another figure on the table, “the pegasus knights are led by Serra Caeda, the Winged Spear. As her personal retinue, her pegasus knights are harder to hit.”

Titan spit. What an insane investment into a special character, but if I kill her his entire army will be demoralized...

Shaya picked up far fewer dice than she would have liked, the militia’s accuracy found wanting with not only no circumstantial bonuses, but also a surprise penalty. But the shots that hit had no difficulty wounding, the raw power of the arbalest letting them punch through the lightly armoured pegasus knights. Oraeus flinched as his knights were still cut in half despite Caeda’s presence, leaving her vulnerable.

Her other two militia units rained bolts down into the advancing Zothirians, Their heavy shots managed to pick off half the Amethyst mages, buried as they were amongst his archers, and cause significant damage to the units around them. The height bonus made an appreciable difference to the militia’s accuracy, but Shaya needed more. A lot more.

Her final unit panicked as well, firing into the heavy infantry advancing upon them. Vayeiran arbalests were strong, but Zothirian-forged platemail was nothing to scoff at. A few of the heavy infantry dropped, but it was an ineffective volley overall and she wished their discipline had held.

But Oraeus was right, the Vayeiran units were over-costed for their capabilities. To make up for it, Shaya relied upon the surprise of playing Vayeira in the first place as well as her army’s sheer mobility to pick the fights she could win, where the advantages were stacked so much in her favour they overcame the poor training to maximize the power of her units’ equipment.

The Zothirian reprisal wasn’t as bad as Shaya feared, Oraeus’ lack of familiarity making him underestimate how durable her Vayeiran militia were. Silken padded jacks and wooden pavises shrugged off the massed fire of his levied archers and their loose formation meant fireballs only killed a few of them at a time.

Caeda and her pegasus knights were another matter, the saint scything through an entire unit of Vayeiran militia and carving deeply into a second unit. Shaya cursed the saint’s combat effectiveness, her offensive power staggering for the normally pillow-fisted pegasus knights.

Shaya focused on the silver lining, dismissing her growing frustration while she was at it: Caeda and her pegasus knights likely amounted to a third of Oraeus’ strength and she had caused severe damage to them at the cost of maybe a quarter of her own power. Overall, she had likely come ahead in the turn, and her mind whirled as she plotted out the next round – and several rounds beyond.

The battle went back and forth, she and Oraeus exchanging blows as each escalated the conflict, calling in and committing more of their reserves. She sent in her one lance of warmages to deal with Caeda and her pegasi, and forced him to commit one of his to counter them. She teleported another unit of crossbow militia to the opposite side of the battlefield to harass that wing of his force as they moved to secure their objectives, then used one of Vayeira’s famed bards to outflank the other side with a unit of blademasters. They carved through his back ranks and she sowed chaos with the bard’s Azurite magic.

As that flank buckled, he committed his last reserve lance to hold it. The iron-clad blademasters held their own against the warmages, forcing the warmages to engage them in melee by virtue of being stuck into his ranks too deeply. Zothirians were too noble to fire into a swirling melee that included friendly units and Shaya found it a little insulting that every northern kingdom had no issue doing so by the game’s rules.

As good as the Vayeiran blademasters were, the tide slowly turned against them as the Zothirian knights slammed into them alongside the warmages. Shaya was forced to commit more of her reserves, mere spear militia, to the carnage, hoping the flanking bonus would be enough to turn the tide. She wished she could have brought more blademasters, but they were too expensive for their abilities, which left her too reliant on the crossbows which Oraeus had devastated early on.

The artillery mages got off one volley from atop the attuned ley-line, inflicting heavy casualties on her stranded crossbows, but causing themselves significant damage from the overflowing aether current as well. While Shaya’s lance held off Caeda and her supporting lance, her last mountaintop crossbows picked off the remaining Amethyst mages and moved their fire into the Ruby mages to eliminate them as well. With Oraeus’ dedicated counter-spelling unit out of the fight, Shaya’s Sapphire mages could finally begin teleporting units around the battle and supporting them again; she just hoped it wasn’t too late to make a difference.

Her units danced across the battlefield, teleported by their Sapphire mages. Each move let her contest a lightly guarded objective, hit the flank of a vulnerable unit, and stay out of the reach of Oraeus’ deadly infantry. Her friend’s frustration grew as the battle went on and the tide seemed to turn against him, but she couldn’t deliver any decisive blows to have him call the battle. Her lance of warmages fell, failing to eliminate Caeda and freeing the saint to chase down Shaya’s annoying units with her extreme mobility.

Slowly but surely, the battle looked to be hers. Her blademasters fell, but they took out the other Zothirian warmages and most of that flank alongside her bard. Shaya was sure Samorn would be proud of the damage she was able to cause with an Azurite mage, though would likely not have been pleased to know the bard died horribly in the process.

Then her general failed a casting roll to teleport their unit to safety.

Caeda slammed into the unit, her retinue long dead to crossbow fire. Shaya was shocked at Oraeus’ relentless use of her in high-risk situations.

One hundred militia swarmed the saint with pavises and short swords, hoping to bring her down and protect Shaya’s general.

They failed.

An enraged Caeda, barely clinging to life, rammed her famed winged spear through the Sapphire mage’s heart, killing Shaya’s general. With his dying breath, her general lashed out and killed Caeda in return.

Panic swept through both their remaining forces and they each picked up dice to instill discipline in their armies, hoping to prevent them from routing.

Shaya rolled the dice for her units: most of them fled, their poor militia morale unable to withstand the loss of their general.

It’s fine, even if only a few of his flee I’ll have more units on the table.

Her heart hammered in her chest louder than any forge as Oraeus rolled the dice for his units.

They held.

Celestial throne...

He beat me.

Numb from shock, she lifted her eyes from the dice tray to Oraeus. His normally cool demeanour was frazzled, sweat beading his forehead from the stress of the match. He looked as surprise as her.

Both of them drew in a deep breath at the same time, then shook hands over the table.

“Congrats,” Shaya said, smiling, “Very well played, you surprised me a few times with how aggressive you played.”

“Thank you,” Oraeus gripped her hand, “I learned a lot from our matches, on how to focus on more than just raw numbers and conservative plays. I... couldn’t have beaten you without you.”

“I’m happy to have helped in my own downfall,” Shaya chuckled, thrumming with excitement as her mind went over their match, analyzing their decisions and figuring out where she could have done better, “Don’t rest on your laurels though, I won’t let you beat me again.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he smiled, turning his attention to packing up his figures.

They still had plenty of matches to go.

Oraeus finished packing before her and strode off to use the spare time between matches to grab some food. Shaya figured she should do the same, given how her limbs quivered, but she couldn’t tell if that was from the healing magic leaving her drained or the adrenaline still coursing through her at that match.

“You let him win,” Zaal accused, cold eyes narrowed on her.

“What!?” Shaya’s head jerked up, “No I didn’t! How dare you accuse me of that!”

“You let him win,” Zaal accused again, “Where was your off-putting banter? Your emotional manipulation? You were barely your obnoxious self that game, when you should have been smug as sin with how underhanded your army was.”

“I...” Shaya stammered, thinking about it, “I didn’t think it would work against Oraeus, he’s far better at maintaining his composure than our peers.”

“True,” Zaal said, “but to make no effort? Did you fear for your friend’s feelings? Or perhaps he manipulated you into passivity, knowing that he could best you if the battle came down to pure math.”

Shaya blinked.

“Is that really how you view the world, Za- Professor?”

His eyes bore into hers as he responded, “You know as well as I do that Oraeus has warmed to you. It would not have been difficult to put him off balance, and even a minor shift in his decision making would have guaranteed your victory.”

“I was too caught up in the difficult decision making that I had to make for my complex force,” Shaya retorted with a glare, “why would you think I’d let him win?”

“The simple fact of the matter is that you lost, yet you’ve already recovered from it and moved on,” Zaal replied, sulphurous eyes still locked on hers, “but had Oraeus lost, he would not bounce back from it as readily. The loss would have impacted the rest of his games, unless he had grown more resilient in the past month. And now we will never know if he has, because you let him win.”

“No I didn’t!” Shaya snapped, “How dare you accuse me of collusion in this! I would never-!”

She stuttered, thinking about throwing her match against Azreon.

For a substantial pay-off.

With a deep breath, she centered herself and continued with a calm voice, “Which you already know, why are you bringing this up?”

“You cheated your ally,” Zaal said, “the best way of showing respect for your opponent is to do everything in your power to destroy them. You’ve shown today that you don’t respect him, and I hope you don’t make the same mistake again. Especially in your duel against Azreon.”

“I won’t,” Shaya sighed, “even if Azreon is an idiot, he’s a deadly one.”

“Good. Now will you become my apprentice or die a mediocre, stupid Amber mage?”

“No," Shaya answered honestly, “and I deny this binary fate you’re trying to convince me of.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to make the offer to Oraeus,” Zaal said, shaking his head in disappointment, “and see if I can mold him into something worthwhile.”

“What if I warn him to stay away from you?”

“Reinforcing again that he’s merely second pick? That he can only succeed when fortune smiles upon him? You don’t think he’d resent you for the rest of your life for insinuating that?”

Shaya’s eyes narrowed at the Professor, restraining her desire to punch him in the face or argue against the constant black and white binaries he insisted upon painting the world in.

She packed up the rest of her figures in silence, fuming the whole while, but forced herself to calm down for her next games.

She had to acknowledge that Zaal was at least right about one thing: losing to Oraeus didn’t stop her from crushing the rest of her opponents during the exam.

+++++

“Throne...” Bri uttered, eyes wide when Shaya joined her, Cerud and Licurian that evening for practice, “Are you ok-”

“Just don’t,” Shaya gave her girlfriend a hug, but shook her head, not wanting to talk about it or be asked what was wrong for the hundredth time that week, “I appreciate it Bri, I really do, but not right now.”

She wished she was already a Ruby mage, gods knew she had enough anger that she wanted to vent in the form of fireballs.

“Let’s just try to kill each other, for practice,” she sighed.

“Convenient that our exams are so complimentary,” Licurian smiled, a scorching sirocco swirling around his hand already, “You need to practice defending against destruction, and we need to practice destroying things.”

“Though I’m not sure why you felt the need to involve us,” Cerud added, “We could have easily practiced within our own lances.”

“Well," Shaya said, “I don’t think our exams are going to be as simple as defending from one direction, or from one type of magic. A live fire exercise with attacks from different directions and with different targets is more likely.

“And,” she continued, “I want to practice my ward against Amber magic.”

Cerud chuckled, “You think Basillo is going to test our ward against Amber? There’s almost no offensive spells at our disposal, what would be the point?”

Shaya smiled without joy, “To be honest, that’s more for my duel against Azreon.”