The nobles of Batangara were seated on high, wrapped in silk and authority, murmuring with delight as the next entertainment duel was announced. Unlike the sanctioned tournament matches, this was a spectacle—one meant to impress and dazzle, to remind the world of the strength bred in Batangara's bones.
And so, when Theian, the Threadless princess, stepped barefoot into the sun-drenched arena, silence overtook the coliseum.
Ten royal knights in formation stood across from her. Armored in ceremonial black and silver, each bore threads that pulsed with power—earthbreakers, flamecallers, illusionists, shadowwalkers, and more. Veterans of dozens of campaigns, they bowed respectfully to the soft-spoken girl in a flowing blue wrap and hair like wind-kissed silk.
She bowed back with humility, her small hands clasped at her front.
"She has no Threads," someone whispered from the noble box."A show of symbolism perhaps?" another scoffed.
But Ari, seated at the lower platform beside Kaien, leaned forward—his fingers steepled. He'd seen the quiet power behind that soft gaze. He knew.
Theian closed her eyes.
There were no threads on her skin. No sigils. No shimmer of enchanted tools. Only a pendant of dual dragons coiled in harmony over her heart. And when she breathed in—
They breathed with her.
A ripple passed through the arena as ancient magic unfurled—not cast, not woven, but remembered.
In that moment, Ari saw it. Not a girl—but a vessel. A conduit to something vast.
And then the first knight charged.
His fist burned with incandescent flame, fire Threads spiraling into a spear of molten light. It never touched her.
Theian raised her hand, and Unna, the memory of winter skies, pulsed through her—her aura turning icy blue, as a shard of atmosphere itself froze the knight mid-lunge. His Threads—his very fire—was sealed in crystalized pressure.
A second came from behind with stone-threaded strength, slamming the ground into jagged columns.
Ry, the legacy of roaring flame, awakened.
Theian's eyes burned crimson, and with a flick of her wrist, molten lines erupted in her wake, searing the stone and slicing through the knight's defenses with ancestral technique passed from dragon to dragon. It wasn't her casting. It was her channeling 10,000 years of duels.
Another knight blinked into shadows, using stealth Threads to move unseen.
But Theian stepped aside, eyes closed, whispering a word in ancient draconic.
"Tihn'kara."
A shockwave burst from her, revealing all hidden movement—Unna's perception shared with her. The hidden knight staggered, disarmed by magic meant for eyes not mortal.
One by one, they came—and one by one, she did not counter. She remembered.
Every strike met an older, cleaner, perfected form of magic.Every enchantment fell before ancestral memory.
She wasn't fighting. She was recalling.
And the arena knew. They watched her twist midair with Ry's agility, move like wind with Unna's serenity, call forth illusions of dragons long dead and cast spells that hadn't existed in centuries.
A final knight lunged, striking with a dual-threaded spell of wind and stone meant to tear defenses apart.
Theian whispered again.
This time, both dragons spoke through her. Her aura split in two—a cyclone of fire and frost, coiling around her like divine serpents. The attack shattered, and the knight fell to one knee, unable to comprehend what had hit him.
Silence.
All ten knights lay unconscious or subdued.
Theian stood in the middle of the field, eyes glazed with the final echoes of memory before they faded back into her soul.
Then she bowed.
The arena—silent for long seconds—erupted in applause, not out of pride or pageantry but reverence.
Not one thread marked her skin. Yet she had fought as if her blood carried magic more ancient than the continent itself.
Ari leaned back, stunned. Kaien muttered a curse under his breath. Even Keem, lounging with a grape in hand, sat up.
"That wasn't a fight," Keem said, blinking. "That was a… a lesson."
Ari nodded slowly.
"That… was Theian."
And for the first time, nobles stopped seeing her as the Threadless princess.
They saw her for what she truly was—The Soulbearer of Ry and Unna.
A girl carrying the breath of dragons in her lungs,And the memory of millennia behind every step she took.