Page 421 of Axis of Fire

...and someone I had never seen before.

He was tall and lean, with strikingly sharp features.

High cheekbones.

Shoulder-length curls that seemed determined to go in every possible direction.

But what caught my attention most were his eyes.

They glowed with a soft violet light beneath impossibly long eyelashes—so long I could make them out even from across the arena.

"Who's that?" I whispered to my unofficial support group—Stasia, Gianna, Seris, and Kaeron.

I wasn't entirely sure how it had happened.

We still didn't talk all that much.

Yet somehow we'd grown closer.

Sharing the same struggles had turned us into something more than classmates.

Not quite friends.

A team.

Even if we trained in different groups.

"Cosmei," Seris answered quietly.

"He's one of the Strongest Twelve."

"His ability is probably the least understood of every type of magic we've documented," Stasia added.

"I guess you could compare him to a seer," Seris said thoughtfully.

"But even that doesn't really fit."

"So what exactly does he do?" I frowned.

"Predict his opponents' actions or something?"

Honestly, every explanation somehow managed to confuse me even more.

"...Something like that," Stasia admitted, sounding just as uncertain.

"Let's begin our final assessment before tomorrow's Selection."

Azriella's clear voice interrupted us.

Unlike the rest of the judges, she looked genuinely excited.

Almost radiant.

Everyone else seemed...

Tense.

Draksen rested his chin on a closed fist, studying each of us in silence.