The Gladiator Gauntlet recap

During her final period at the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft, Elaine develops a spatial Bookworm class, supports Iona's campaign against Roland, and fights in the Gladiator Gauntlet championship. Iona sweeps Roland's singles roster and Team Iona wins the match 25-0, while Elaine's school later defeats Happensburgs for the title. Elaine also proves that she wrote the Medical Manuscripts and receives a platinum thesis grade. An immortality rite restores her youth but curses her with a dangerous vulnerability to apples. The Valkyries survive by returning to itinerant service, though Roland is no longer a home for Iona. Elaine, Iona, Auri, and Fenrir leave for Sanguino in Exterrae, where they hope to settle and make a limited search for Knight. Elsewhere, Rangers pursue the Circus of Smiles, constructs abduct villagers, and Sanguino's Sentinel watches the city.

Previously: Elaine is a healer and student whose earlier life is tied to Remus and the Medical Manuscripts. She is partnered with Iona, a Valkyrie and paladin devoted to the moon goddesses Selene and Lunaris. Elaine shares a magical bond with the phoenix Auri, while Iona travels with the frost-wyvern Fenrir. Elaine also carries unresolved hopes that Knight and Night, figures from her past, may still be alive.

Elaine begins a spatial third class called Bookworm, gaining ways to store books, study them in sleep, and read through closed covers. Her status also reveals that old biomancy has made her a chimera elvenoid, a fact she hides because the school is hostile to chimeras. In a protected war exercise, Mormerilhawn exposes the depth of her combat experience to her classmates. Elaine then discovers and enters a concealed library section containing dangerous and restricted works. As Elaine weighs lasting skill choices, Iona helps her favor Parallel Thoughts and a healing-related magical option. Auri enters a baking competition, and Elaine's class advances into the Very Hungry Bookworm. Selene and Lunaris instruct Iona to answer a cultivator's insult. Elaine proposes using guards, administrators, and religious authorities instead of violence, and the goddesses approve that response. Elaine and Iona reaffirm their commitment while preparing for the coming Gladiator Gauntlet.

Elaine develops Channeled Blink, though it remains inaccurate and expensive, and becomes leader of the school's under-30 Gladiator Gauntlet team. A powerful wind elemental initially gives the team a decisive mobility plan. Separately, Elaine asks Marcella, Myron, and an archivist to investigate her claim that she originally wrote the Medical Manuscripts. Signature patterns and Myron's sudden level gain make the claim credible enough for a formal inquiry, but it is not yet proven. At the tournament, Iona learns that Roland's nobles say the Valkyries have been destroyed or dispossessed. Unable to join the completed school roster, she borrows an entry fee through Elaine and registers Team Iona, with Fenrir and Auri among its nominal members. Fighting alone at first, Iona sweeps an academy's seven singles contestants. Takatane Sakai then prepares Team Shining Shrine specifically to exhaust her, but an allied lord impersonates a referee. Mormerilhawn punishes the fraud with forfeits, and Iona defeats Sakai to reach the main event. Elaine still owes the silent lender the entry-fee loan with 16-percent interest.

The tournament disqualifies the school's wind elemental under an eligibility rule, leaving its teams short a member. Iona secures a match against Roland and publicly challenges its nobles over their treatment of the Valkyries. At the start of an unshielded contest with Roland's royal champion, Selene and Lunaris force an eclipse and visibly mark Iona as their paladin. The disturbance transforms werewolf spectators and causes casualties, but Elaine helps protect and heal people nearby. Mormerilhawn allows the divine aid as part of Iona's paladin powers. Despite severe injuries, Iona defeats the royal champion and every remaining Roland singles fighter for a 14-0 sweep. The goddesses then appear for the team fight and empower her until Mormerilhawn limits their direct interference and withdraws as referee. Team Iona routs Roland 25-0. The victory does not reveal what became of the Valkyries, and Iona withdraws from the Gauntlet after the match. Auri gains the class Phoenix of the Divine Flame during the celebration. Elaine and Iona commit to a future together with Auri and Fenrir, while the school advances to the championship final against Happensburgs.

The championship singles against Happensburgs ends tied. Elaine defeats a fire-using kobold but loses on tower control to a teleporting crossbow user whose unshielded status limits what her healer's oath permits. After the school concedes the remaining singles, the team fight decides the event. Elaine quickly removes key opponents and battles a harpy in the air, helping the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft win the Gladiator Gauntlet 21-14. Back at school, Marcella advises Elaine to activate a pending immortality curse while expert help is nearby. Iona learns that the Valkyries survived by abandoning territorial service in Roland and returning to an independent, itinerant existence. She and Elaine reject an offer to enter a Sahel family's protection. Elaine then uses an immortality skill to reset her age. The accompanying curse proves centered on apples: recent apple consumers can block her approach, apple injuries bypass several defenses and resist healing, and eating apple products can disable her healing until dawn. Tests with Iona and Auri establish important limits, but Elaine keeps the weakness secret.

Elaine completes her examinations and earns gold in Radiance Sorcery, while Iona finishes her own graduation tracks. Marcella arranges a special medical panel and then an island-wide thesis defense. Director Flora and Ratcatcher provide corroboration for Elaine's identity and signature history. The school publicly recognizes Elaine as the original author of the Medical Manuscripts and awards her a platinum medical thesis. Flora's survival from Remus strengthens Elaine's hope that Knight may also remain alive. Elaine and Iona choose Sanguino in Exterrae as their next home. Iona accepts a limited attempt to find Knight through vampire turning lines, provided it does not consume their future. After Auri organizes a farewell, Elaine, Iona, Auri, and Fenrir leave the flying school together, with Fenrir carrying their supplies. Roland remains unsafe for them, and Night's whereabouts are unresolved. The closing interlude widens the danger. Priest Deimos and Livia continue a Ranger mission against the Circus of Smiles near Palma. Elsewhere, unidentified constructs attack a village and carry survivors away, while a suspicious rat enters a grain ship. In Sanguino, a spider-like Sentinel senses movement through threads spread across the city.

Elaine's school wins the Gladiator Gauntlet, and Elaine's separate struggle for recognition ends with the school accepting her as the creator of the Medical Manuscripts and awarding her an unprecedented platinum medical thesis. She has also completed the age-resetting stage of immortality, but apples and several apple products can obstruct her movement, penetrate her defenses, resist her healing, or suppress her healing magic. The exact wider reach of that concealed weakness remains open. Elaine and Iona remain partners. The Valkyries have left their Roland territories and resumed independent travel, so Iona has no home there and the group intends to avoid the realm for one or two centuries. Elaine, Iona, Auri, and Fenrir fly from the school toward Sanguino in Exterrae with Marcella's introduction. Elaine may investigate Knight through vampire turning lines, but agrees to keep the search bounded; Knight's survival and Night's whereabouts are still unconfirmed. The closing interlude introduces further threats: Deimos and Livia are pursuing the Circus of Smiles, an organized construct force is taking villagers, a suspicious rat reaches a grain ship, and a city-spanning Sentinel network monitors Sanguino.