A court of ashes and ruins | A TOG x ACOTAR crossover

Chapter 8

Aelin

"Care to join us for training?" a sudden rush of excitement went through my body.

"Like sparring or just working out?" I asked, trying to hide the big smile growing on my face.

"We usually train by sparring, but of course we may have to go a bit easy on you since we are, you know, immortal warrior faeries," Cassian answered with a confident little smile.

"I can easily beat you all if I want to. Just you wait..." I said before I left the dining hall, heading towards my room to change clothes. I could hear Feyre's quiet laugh behind me.

They were probably expecting this to be an easy little play fight, but I would give it my best to beat them in my human form. I had trained the majority of my life for handling different weapons in both hand, I would definitely have an upper hand. But then there was magic, hopefully I could make them agree on fighting the traditional way.

I changed into some more practical clothes. A pair of leather pants with an airy shirt and a cloak. I also put on some leather straps to attach my weapons. I decided to bring Goldryn with me. I wanted it to be the sword making the defeating blows in the fight. My hair had grown pretty long over time so I decided to put it in a loose braid so that it wouldn't get in the way.

Deciding I was ready, I walked down the stairs and out through the back door to the fighting range. Everyone were already waiting for me, none of them had bothered to prepare with any armor. I smiled to myself. It would be fun to see their faces when I defeated them.

"We will all be fighting in pairs. Since we are an odd number of people, Amren has decided to just observe the matches. You can get the honor to choose partner first Celaena"

Who would I choose? I wanted to make a big show of my battle, so I had to choose one of the stronger ones in the group. Morrigan had the weakest powers, so she wasn't really an option. Feyre was the youngest out of them and probably had the least experience, so she was also not an option.

I didn't really want to fight Cassian, since we were on such good terms right now. Left were Rhysand and Azriel. Considering the position Rhysand had, it would definitely make a great impact. But at the same time I was really tempted to fight with Azriel. I hadn't really seen much of him and I had a feeling he would think the same as me and try to keep magic out of the fight.

But who to choose...

"I will go with Rhysand" I said with wink his way.

"If that's what you want..." he said with a shrug.

Feyre picked Cassian and Azriel picked Morrigan. Rhysand snapped his fingers and a big display full of weapons appeared.

"Well what do you wanna use?" he asked.

I took Goldryn out from where it was attached under my cloak.

"I will use this" I said, feeling the weight of Goldryn in my hands. "And this" I said as I picked out 10 throwing daggers.

Rhysand gave me a nod and I could feel the magic he had put on Goldryn slide away. He picked a thin silver sword.

"Any rules I asked?"

"No, we will just spar until one of us yields. I will use minimal magic, but I can't fully promise to not use it"

"Yeah, what is a fight without some advantages," I said as I entered the fighting range. It was pretty large, considering that they had 3 more placed next to it.

"Let's start this fight" I said with a wicked grin as we began circling each other.

After a minute, he made the first move. At inhumane speed he started sprinting towards me. I managed to bring up Goldryn just in time to block it. He put a lot of weight on his sword, making my arms shake with the effort to hold him back. I noticed that he had put a lot of weight on his toes, making him slightly unstable.