It happened so fast I barely had a chance to breathe, let alone prepare myself for the emotional train wreck that was about to barrel through the room and flatten whoever wasn't smart enough to roll out of the way.
Elvina took a single step back. Just one. A dainty little shuffle like she'd discovered a spider in her tea rather than the six-foot wall of impending judgment standing in the doorway.
Then she took another, heel sliding against the marble with a soft squeak that sounded suspiciously like a dying mouse.
Just then, she had the absolute nerve—or perhaps the absolute stupidity—to open her mouth in protest. "W–what… what are you doing here?!" she stammered, voice cracking so sharply it could've peeled paint from the walls.
I didn't blame her. If I'd been the one standing in the open, caught mid-sin and freshly responsible for reducing Quentin to a trembling mess of emotional debris, and then Iskanda appeared out of nowhere looking like the walking embodiment of catastrophic consequences—I'd probably have done worse than choke on my own panic.
Iskanda didn't speak at first. She didn't have to. She just walked forward with the calm, measured stride of someone who knew she didn't need theatrics because gravity itself was already shifting to make room for her.
She stopped only when she stood toe-to-toe with Elvina, who looked like she was about to faint or spontaneously combust—fifty-fifty.
Then Iskanda said one word, soft as a blade pressed to the throat.
"Move."
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. A crisp bite swept through the air, sharp enough to make me flinch. My breath fogged in front of my face, curling in pale, trembling ribbons. The sudden chill carried the kind of quiet threat that felt entirely intentional.
Elvina blinked fast, lips twitching with half-formed defiance, the kind she usually wielded like a cudgel. "E–excuse you, just who—"
She never finished.
The air collapsed.
Not gusted, not shifted—collapsed.
A wave of killing intent burst out of Iskanda like she'd torn a seam in reality and let all the suppressed rage she'd been storing since birth come roaring out in one hellish exhale. My knees nearly buckled. My lungs forgot how to exist.
It felt like someone slammed a mountain onto my shoulders—clean, simple, devastating—leaving me no choice but to grit my teeth and hope my spine didn't liquefy.
Elvina wasn't so lucky.
Her eyes blew wide, pupils shriveling to pinpricks as her whole body shuddered. She stumbled, a pathetic little hop backward—then another—and another, until her ankle gave way and she collapsed entirely. Her palms smacked the ground, her breath hitched in a gurgled squeak, and right there between her knees…
A puddle spread.
Clear. Unmistakable. Terrified.
"Oh gods," I whispered to myself, because someone had to narrate the situation, and clearly I'd been elected by fate.
Iskanda didn't glance down, didn't wrinkle her nose, didn't acknowledge Elvina in any way beyond stepping over her as though she were nothing but a discarded rag.
I would've pitied Elvina if I weren't so deeply invested in staying alive.
Quentin, to his credit, had managed to drag himself up onto one knee, panting through the remnants of his humiliation like he could negotiate his way back into dignity if he looked composed enough. He actually tried to smile—smile—up at Iskanda.
"Lady Iska—"
His greeting barely existed before she seized his collar, yanking him forward with such ferocity his neck practically yo-yoed. Then her fist shot out, fast and merciless, slamming across his face with a crack that echoed through the hall like a divine punishment landing on the wrong address.
Saints preserve me—the sound didn't just echo, it detonated. My entire skeleton shimmered like a tuning fork dipped in terror, and I jolted so violently I'm pretty sure I bruised a rib or three.
Blood sprayed in a thin arc, splattering across the stone floor in a pattern that would've thrilled any forensic painter. Quentin's head snapped to the side, eyes wild, mouth half-open in a gasp that got swallowed by shock.
His lip quivered once—pathetically, involuntarily—before his expression rearranged itself into rage. Real rage. The kind that makes idiots believe getting up is a good idea.
He turned his head back toward Iskanda with the determination of a man who'd just decided fate wasn't real.
Which was deeply unfortunate, because her second punch didn't even give him time to finish drawing breath.
This one landed square across the opposite cheek, snapping his head the other way so sharply I almost heard the bones protest. A narrow ribbon of blood trailed down his chin, bright and steady.
"W-wait—Lady Iskanda, please—! I didn't—this isn't—" Quentin sputtered, voice high, desperate, cracking spectacularly down the middle.
"Shut up," she snarled, voice so sharp it might've carved runes into the air.
Just those two words.
And he did.
Mostly because I think his mouth forgot how to open.
Iskanda didn't let go of him. She hauled him up by the collar, her movements crisp, efficient, and filled with the kind of anger that came pre-packaged with historical receipts. Quentin dangled between her fists like she was deciding whether to punch him again or simply fling him out a window.
Her glare bored into him like she was trying to set his skull on fire with the sheer willpower of her disgust.
"Do you have any idea," she hissed, "what kind of disgraceful, idiotic, reputation-shredding bullshit you've smeared across my name tonight?!"
Quentin blinked rapidly, probably trying to identify which part of that sentence was safest to respond to.
Spoiler: none.
"I—I wasn't—" he stammered.
"Oh shut the hell up." Iskanda shook him once, like she was trying to rattle the stupid out of him. "You really thought you could cover this up? You think the whole damned floor hasn't been whispering your name like some tragic hero sliding into corruption? Saints spit on me, Quentin, if I had a shard of patience left for your nonsense, I used it clearing your ass out the Labyrinth years ago—and look at you now."
Quentin's shoulders trembled under her grip. "That's not fair..."
"Not fair?!" she barked out a laugh, brittle and wild. "You want fair? Fair is you rotting in some gutter where none of this—" she gestured vaguely around the room, presumably at the shattered dignity, broken morals, and puddled shame "—would be my problem."
He tried to speak again, some mix of apology and argument poised on his tongue, but she bulldozed right over it.
"You are a Velvet," she hissed, voice trembling with fury. "A Velvet who decided to get on his knees for some half-witted, sharp-tongued brat with a god complex and ankles made of cowardice!"
I nearly choked trying not to laugh. She didn't even need to look at Elvina for that line to hit dead-center.
Quentin's lip curled. "I wasn't kneeling for her. I was—"
"Oh save it." Iskanda rolled her eyes violently enough to threaten atmospheric damage. "You disgrace yourself. You disgrace your rank. You disgrace every hour I wasted training you."
My eyebrows shot up. Training? Oh, that was new. I suddenly felt like I'd stumbled into someone else's family argument, except both family members could and probably would commit homicide if sufficiently annoyed.
Quentin's jaw clenched. "I'm not your student anymore."
"No," Iskanda spat. "Because my students don't turn into brain-dead embarrassments who let their status be dragged through shit like this." Her voice dropped low, vibrating with something older, something darker.
Quentin's nostrils flared with raw emotion—hurt, anger, something else he was too proud to show.
"I don't need your leash," he snarled. "I don't need you telling me how to breathe, how to kneel, how to damn well blink!"
"Oh, you need a lot more than I've given you," she shot back. "You need a muzzle. You need discipline. You need someone to hammer that little ego of yours flat before it drags you into a grave you're too stupid to see coming!"
Their voices collided—violent, blistering—ricocheting off the walls like two storms clawing for dominance. Quentin tried to argue, oh he tried, but every attempt at a sentence withered the moment it left his mouth, strangled mid-birth under the sheer weight of Iskanda's fury. She didn't let him finish a single thought.
"You don't understand—"
"I understand you're a damned fool."
"I was just trying to handle—"
"You couldn't handle tying your own boots without crying about it five years ago."
"I am not a child!"
"Then stop acting like one!"
The air cracked around them, tension spiraling, building, expanding, like the world was stretching to make room for their argument. For a heartbeat, everything fell silent. Quentin's chest heaved. Iskanda's fists trembled. The room felt too small to contain them both.
"You always do this," Quentin said finally, voice shaking with fury and something wounded beneath it. "You show up. You give orders. You expect obedience because you can't stand that I grew beyond you. I'm not your soldier anymore. I can make my own decisions."
"And look where that's gotten you. You've become nothing but a disgrace."
Quentin's face twisted. The space between them shrank to mere inches, their breaths colliding—hot, angry, trembling on the edge of violence. Every word teetered like it wanted to turn into a fist.
"Fine," Quentin spat, lifting his chin with the defiance of someone who'd clearly lost his sanity. "If I'm such a disgrace, then prove it!"
Iskanda's eyelids lowered half a millimeter. The kind of slow, predatory blink that suggested she was weighing which bone of his to break first.
"…What did you just say?"
"Challenge me," he repeated, his voice evening out with a brittle pride that cracked at the edges. "Fight me. Here. Now. If you win, I'll shut up and listen. But if I win—"
"You won't." The interruption hit like a blade.
"If I win," he continued anyway, teeth gritted, "you stop acting like you get to puppeteer my damn life."
The room froze. Oh saints, he meant it. He actually meant it. And Iskanda—Iskanda looked like she was seconds away from ripping his spine out and using it as a decorative curtain rod.
"You want a fight?" she whispered, and gods, her voice dripped venom thick enough to burn a hole through the floor. "After everything I've held back? After everything you've done? After everything you've thrown at me tonight—you really want—"
Then it happened. A sharp, vicious sound slashed across her words—
Shff—CRACK.
Ice.
Real ice. Forming violently, instantly, like the air itself had been weaponized. Two jagged pikes erupted from either side of her—long, gleaming, murderous—lunging straight for her head with perfect, unforgiving precision.
For the first time that night, Iskanda's eyes widened.
But not in fear.
In fury.
And that's when the real fight began.