By the passing of the equinox, the entire front lawn and back courtyard lay buried beneath a thick layer of snow. The Novices had to shovel it without the aid of magic. If the drifts grew too high, they brought in the Talents to blast them with Thermal Magic. Which meant the Novices had to clean the muddy slurry that remained. It was backbreaking, repetitive labor. But at least the constant work kept Lucian warm under his thick winter robes. Most of the time.
The days grew short until what remained of “day” was about as long as a typical Earth day. That meant the mages of the Academy spent most of their hours in darkness. Lucian’s spirits fell along with the sun, and he noticed a similar reticence in the other Novices. It was getting harder to remember what it was all for.
He knew he needed motivation that went beyond survival. But he didn’t know what that was.
Vera had foretold that there would be no room for self-expression in this place. Not for the first time, Lucian noted how right she had been.
Here at the Volsung Academy, it was either the Transcends’ way or no way at all.
For all his inner rebellion, Lucian did exactly as he was told. Two more months ticked by, and the anticipation of the Trials grew closer. Lucian had lost count of the standard calendar. He was almost one hundred percent certain his birthday had come and gone, which would make him twenty-one. He didn’t bother telling anyone. It seemed there was never any reason to celebrate here unless it was a tangible milestone. A Novice breaking their block might earn special food, but there was little to look forward to beyond that.
And as much as Lucian wanted to learn about the Trials, Tested Novices were forbidden to speak of them. And trying to pry information from the Tested was like pulling teeth. They set themselves apart from the Untested, and unless you were good friends with them, they just weren’t going to share their secrets. The Trials pitted the Novices against each other. A small bit of advice might be enough to tip the scales. The Transcends only selected a few Talents every year, and sometimes they raised no Talents at all.
When the rolls opened for the Novices to enter, Lucian signed up on the first day. He knew he wasn’t likely to pass. Generally, it took at least two years of dedicated training and study to even have a chance. But the knowledge of the Trials alone would be worth the price of participating, and anyone could join if they had been at the Academy for at least six months. And Lucian didn’t want to wait another year.
Besides, the Novices who didn’t try out would be stuck doing the chores of those who did. For that reason alone, Lucian thought it would be worth it.
Assuming the Transcends chose him—which he knew wouldn’t happen—the next step was to take a year to decide which Aspect to dedicate himself to. He would become a Talent of one of seven Transcends. Transcend White herself did not teach, aside from her personal Psion, Gaius.
There was still so much to learn. And like most of the Novices participating, Lucian was nowhere near ready. Only the ones who had been here for years had a chance of wearing the gray robes and colored sash of a Talent.
Rhea, of course, was one of the top contenders. Though she had only been here a little less than two years, she'd had promising results in last year’s Trials. Damian seemed confident that he’d learned enough as well, despite being at the Academy for only a year and a half.
As for Lucian, he didn’t have much hope. Though his progress had picked up, he still lagged behind most of the others.
No new Novices had arrived since the equinox, nor had any been sent home. More experienced Novices whispered it was after the Trials that dismissals would come. Lucian tried to keep his mind off that, as difficult as it was.
As the Trials neared, as the late autumn snows fell, Lucian labored all the harder. He could identify and stream the basics of all six of the Aspects permitted to him, even his weakest Aspect, Dynamism. His streams would not be as practiced and efficient as someone like Rhea, but he was proud of how far he had come.
The question was, would it be enough?
At last, the day came.
After a crowded breakfast, around fifty Novices and a third of that number of Talents gathered in the Spectrum Chamber for Trial assignments. Lucian was surprised that there were so many.
It only meant more competition. Not that he had a chance anyway.
It was at least an hour before the subdued murmuring subsided. The Transcends stole into the room, taking up their stone seats. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Gray, and finally, White. As each sat, the sides of their seats lit with colored flames, casting the chamber in rainbow brilliance. Lucian’s eyes widened at the sight, and he noticed several other Novices staring as well. The Transcends’ colorful robes shone with a radiance that was almost too bright to look upon.
All attention was on Transcend White, seated in the far-right seat. Rarely did they get to see the entire Spectrum arrayed in their dazzling colors.
Soon, the Novices would know who would rise, who would stay another year, and who would be sent away.
Transcend White’s steely gaze scanned the assembly. “Today marks the first day of the Volsung Academy Trials. You will be split into seven groups of equal numbers, and the Trials will last for the next seven days. For those of you unfamiliar, this is how it works. You will spend each day with one of the Transcends. They will test you on their respective Aspect. If you fail any of the Trials, then you will not be raised to the mantle of Talent. These Trials are a basic competency test that will form the basis of more advanced training.” Transcend White allowed a pause to let the point sink in. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Transcend White,” came the unified response.
“Good,” she said. “Then let the Trials commence!”
The Novices were split into their Trial groups by the gathered Talents. The assignments must have been decided for a long time because they went fast. Lucian was placed in a group with Damian, Rhea, and a newer Novice named Marcus. There were fourteen groups in all. Half of those groups would undergo the Trials in the morning, the other half in the afternoon. Lucian was in the morning group.
None of the Novices dared to break the silence. The Trials may have already begun, and Lucian figured no one wanted to mess that up.
They waited while the Transcends conferred among themselves. At last, Transcend White nodded. Each of the Transcends went to a predetermined group of Novices. Transcend Blue was making his way over to Lucian’s group. His dark, grandfatherly face, with its trimmed gray goatee, betrayed no emotion.
“Your first Trial will be with me,” he said. “It will be in a training room on the second level.”
Transcend Blue, without a word, led the way down the corridor outside the Spectrum Chamber. They went up the staircase to the second level.
The second level wasn’t much different from the first. A long corridor stretched before them for well over a hundred meters. Blazing torches lined the walls, and many open doorways and arches led into interior rooms. Most of the cells they passed were dark and empty. The sun still hadn’t risen, despite it being past midmorning.
About halfway down the corridor, Transcend Blue entered an archway on the left. It opened into a spacious room with training mats spread across the floor. A large chest stood in the middle of the room. The setting made Lucian wonder if they were going to be pitted against one another in duels. Mages could certainly use Binding in a fight.
Looking around at everyone else’s nervous faces, Lucian could see he wasn’t alone in wondering what came next.
“Stand in a line, about a couple of meters apart,” Transcend Blue instructed.
They hurried to do as instructed. Transcend Blue was already opening the chest. He retrieved a spherical stone, about thirty or forty centimeters in diameter.
“We are starting with Novice Damian,” Transcend Blue said. “Take this sphere from my hand using a Binding tether.”
Damian’s eyes widened. He looked at the other Novices for a moment, as if shocked he’d have to perform in front of everyone else. That had to be purposeful. The Transcends wanted to see if the Novices could stream under pressure.
Damian extended his hand with his palm facing outward, closing his eyes. It was dead silent for a long moment. Damian had often bragged that Binding was one of his strongest Aspects, but Lucian knew that couldn’t be the case because he also claimed Thermalism was his strongest, and that was on the opposite side of the Septagon. Now, Damian had the chance to put his money where his mouth was. A small part of Lucian wanted him to fail. Humility was not Damian’s strong suit.
Just as Lucian had this thought, the side of the sphere emitted a bluish aura. It shot toward Damian’s open hand, also glowing blue, while a line bridged the two points. Upon contact, Damian’s fingers clasped the sphere. The Novice opened his eyes and let out a breath.
Lucian had to keep from gaping; Damian had made it look easy.
Transcend Blue nodded. “All right. Now, bind it to the chest to put it back in.”
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This part didn’t take as long. After a short moment, the top of the open chest glowed blue, and the sphere shot out of Damian’s hand. It bounced off the lid’s inner casing to land snugly inside. He closed his eyes, breathing a sigh of relief.
Next up was Novice Rhea. As soon as her Trial began, a good five minutes passed without anything happening. To Lucian’s surprise, Transcend Blue didn’t call anything off. He only watched her intently. Lucian couldn’t help but feel bad for her.
But that feeling subsided when, in a sudden burst of energy, the sphere glowed and shot into Rhea’s hand. It moved so fast that it had to have hurt when it made contact. However, Rhea betrayed no pain in her expression.
“Now, bind it into the chest,” Transcend Blue said.
Rhea did so in even less time than Damian. But the effect was ruined when the sphere bounced too hard, causing it to roll across the floor.
Transcend Blue retrieved it with his own binding, placing the sphere inside smoothly. Rhea’s pale complexion burned red with embarrassment.
“Novice Marcus.”
The nervous youth had been at the Academy for almost as long as Lucian. Lucian had never seen him stream. They had to wait for at least half an hour. Sweat collected on the Novice’s brow, dripping on the mat below. His face was a mask of intense concentration.
After a few more minutes passed, Transcend Blue cleared his throat. “That will be enough, Novice Marcus.”
He sputtered, his eyes widening. “Transcend Blue, if you could give me but a moment longer . . .”
“You have had your chance, Novice. Thank you.”
That cut off any more arguments. Marcus nodded, his face coloring.
That was when Transcend Blue’s attention turned to Lucian. “Novice Lucian. Tether the sphere, if you would.”
Lucian drew a deep, centering breath, closing his eyes as he formed his Focus. His stone appeared in his mind’s eye. Hours upon hours of practice had manifested into perfect calmness. He was no longer in this Trial. There was nothing but the Focus, his breath, and his pool of ether waiting beyond consciousness.
There was the stone of his Focus, and then the sphere Transcend Blue held. That sphere would become the bound object. Both floated and melded in his mind’s eye. But even beyond his Focus was the desire to succeed, to outdo the rest of the Novices. To prove himself the best and most worthy.
At this thought, the hairs on his arms stood on end. He felt the coolness of the chamber in sharp relief.
Now, all he had to do was stream in the way the Blue Talents had taught him.
He reached through his Focus, feeling the smooth outer surface of the sphere in his mind. That surface became infused with blue Binding Magic. The binding now only awaited a focal point toward which to be drawn. That point would be his hand.
He might be the first to complete the Trials with less than a year of training. Who said it wasn’t possible? If he was the first, then his position would be secure. No one could ever doubt him again. It was fuel to keep going. To keep pushing.
While maintaining the anchor point on the sphere, Lucian streamed the focal point on his outstretched hand, just as he had been taught. Lucian tested the tension between the anchor point and focal point; balance between the two was important. Too much power in the focal point, and the stone would fly too fast, causing injury or even death. Too little, and it would move too slowly, unable to resist the pull of gravity. Something as seemingly simple as this had a lot of moving components, and Lucian’s concentration couldn’t slip for a moment. He was competing not only against this group here, but against all the groups that would go through this same Trial. Was it worth the risk to add his own flourish to catch Transcend Blue’s eye?
Lucian had delayed too long, already proving himself less proficient than Damian. If he wanted to stand out, he had to do something special.
Before he could doubt himself, he streamed more magic into both the anchor point on the sphere and the focal point on his hand. When Lucian opened his eyes, he saw a long line of brilliant blue extending from his open palm to the stone. What was this? There was no time to wonder at it. He increased the magic in the focal point and watched as the stone floated slowly toward him, spinning at the same time, the air filled with a curious thrumming.
Ether burned through Lucian in a torrent. Whatever he was doing, it was draining his pool too quickly. Cold sweat trickled off his brow. There was nothing left but to see this through. A fire was burning beneath his skin, with intoxicating hints of sweetness coupled with flashes of pain. That pain—the same he had felt during the fight with Dirk—was a sure sign he was overdrawing. It wasn’t supposed to hurt like this.
But to complete the Trial, he’d have to stand the pain. And below that, the sweetness of the additional ether made it difficult to let go.
He had to finish quickly before anyone could guess he’d crossed the point of no return. Lucian sped the rate of the stone’s passage a bit. When it touched his hand, he closed the stream with great effort, cutting himself off from the Manifold. He let out a gasp, his arm shaking, and his skin bathed in a cold sweat. When reality returned, an acrid taste burned his tongue, and the fire beneath his skin was a molten afterglow. It felt as if he had a sunburn beneath his skin while he was panting as if he had sprinted for five minutes straight.
Now, for the hard part: moving the sphere to the chest. He had already used up all his ether, but to complete the Trial, he had to overdraw again. He knew what he should do—refrain from doing the rest of the Trial. But even if he failed this one, he still couldn’t get out of the rest of the Trials. The Transcends had made that clear. Once a Novice took part in the Trials, they had to be completed unless the Novice was somehow incapacitated during them.
All Lucian had to do was the same thing, only flipping the anchor point and the focal point, so that the focal point was streamed onto the top of the chest. He drew more ether, which entered his Focus like white-hot fire. The sphere shot from his hand, bouncing off the top of the casing and bouncing inside.
He let out a breath and let go of his stream, his arm trembling.
“Good, Novice Lucian.” Transcend Blue’s neutral mask betrayed no emotion.
Did he know he had overdrawn? Lucian couldn’t begin to guess. Certainly, he had never created a stream so strong, except perhaps when he had destroyed that iceberg.
In contrast to Transcend Blue’s neutral expression, the other Novices stared at him. Marcus’s eyes burned with envy and anger. Rhea’s face was pale, even ashen. Damian seemed suspicious, with a single eyebrow arched.
“This concludes the Binding Trial,” Transcend Blue said. “Tomorrow, you’ll meet with Transcend Gray in the entry hall after breakfast. Don’t be late.” Transcend Blue looked at each of them in turn, and Lucian last of all, seeming to watch him longer than the others. “You are dismissed. Use this time to rest and study for the Gravitonics Trial tomorrow.”
The Novices left the training room, walking down the stone corridor to the stairs that would take them to the first level. Lucian hung back, hoping the others would go ahead of him. But Damian walked by his side, only speaking when the others were well ahead.
“What was that?” he whispered. “What did you do?”
“I’m not sure,” Lucian said. Maybe he could play dumb. “I think I streamed too much by mistake.”
“You think?” Damian asked dryly. “You overdrew, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve been here over half a year and you still don’t know your limits?” Damian shook his head. “It starts to hurt like a muscle cramp, but all over. Like your entire body is on fire. As soon as you feel that, you know you’ve gone past your limit.”
Well, that answered that. “I don’t know. I guess it felt a bit like that.”
“Tch. Yeah, okay. Do you realize you can get kicked out for streaming too much? They will end you.”
Lucian realized that he had already gotten a pass back when he had destroyed the iceberg. If Transcend Blue knew he had streamed too much, drawing beyond his limits . . .
“I know it’s tempting,” Damian continued, “but you’ve got to control yourself, man. It gives you an unfair advantage over the rest of us who are trying to pass fair and square.”
“I wasn’t trying to cheat,” Lucian said. He couldn’t help but feel defensive, even if he knew Damian was right.
“Sure,” Damian said. “It’s only a friendly word of advice. They aren’t just testing us on our skills, Lucian. They’re testing for other things, too.”
“Other things, like what?”
By now, they had made it to the first level. They stopped in front of the staircase.
“Do you really have to ask?” Damian asked. “I can’t prove you overdrew, but no Novice can do what you did. If I was thinking it, others were, too.”
“I’ve felt that fiery feeling before. Several times.”
“Then you better watch it. I’m only trying to help you. Good luck tomorrow. You’re going to need it. They say the Gravitonics Trial is always a killer.”
When Damian walked away, Lucian couldn’t help but be glad. This wasn’t Damian’s business, even if the older Novice had something of a point.
Even if overdrawing had been a bit painful, it had also felt . . . rapturous, for lack of a better word. He wanted to stream again if only to catch that feeling.
But sanity prevailed. The last thing he needed was more ether. He needed rest, especially if the Gravitonics Trial was going to be as difficult as Damian hinted. He hadn’t had much training in Gravitonics. All he’d learned in that Aspect was to stream anti-gravity discs to levitate stones and the like.
Lucian made it to his room. The last thing he wanted was to be around people. Having time to rest was rare, so he wanted to take advantage of it.
Lucian could only relax when he closed the door behind him and had the candles lit. He sprawled on his bed, a wave of exhaustion coursing through him. He was spent, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
Before he knew it, he was dozing off. When he awoke, he was unsure how much time had passed, and he had a throbbing headache. That acrid taste on his tongue was back, his entire mouth feeling as if it were coated in filth. An effect of overdrawing, perhaps?
He got up, brushed his teeth, and vigorously cleaned his tongue. It helped. Until a sudden wave of nausea sent him into a dry heave.
He couldn’t get sick. Not now.
He lay down a few minutes longer until the world stopped spinning and nausea subsided. He needed to eat to keep up his strength. For all he knew, it was evening now. But he had no appetite at all. Is this what happened when a mage went beyond his or her limits?
Damian was right. He’d streamed far too much. He was sure his pounding headache, foul breath, and nausea were side effects of reaching too far. Ether was poisonous, a fact proven by the fraying.
He would have to learn from this mistake and resolve not to give in to the temptation again.
Lucian left his room for the dining hall.
When Lucian returned from dinner, all he wanted was to sleep. He was about to do so until he saw the book.
The Prophecy of the Seven by Arian was so unassuming on the nightstand, with its plain and worn leather cover. There it had sat for the past two months, so long that Lucian had nearly forgotten it. A thin coat of dust had even settled on it.
But Transcend Blue’s story returned to him. Despite his weariness, he lay back in the bed, propping his back against the wall. By the light of the candles, he began reading.
He forced himself to read through paragraphs of nonsense. He didn’t understand why. There was something about the words that was intoxicating, as if he were reading poetry in another language. That sentiment was reflected in the actual text. Words out of order, words made up, all running together in a nonstop stream of consciousness.
Because of that, he reeled when a voice spoke in his mind, a voice that was not the words he was reading. It startled him so much that he nearly stopped reading altogether. But for whatever reason, he couldn’t help but home in on the words being uttered within his psyche . . .
I saw the Seven Aspects, floating Orbs in the Black Void. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, and Gray. The Aspects of Magic. Ether unadulterated. They spun like jewels of a Septagon crown, whorls of color and heavenly light. I stared for eons into the timeslip of eternity. They . . . whispered to me, secrets of Starsea and Creation . . .
They told me to find them. They told me to bring them together. The Starsea Cycle must be completed. And then, the lights faded, and with each fading, it felt like death untold.
And then there was an Eighth Orb, shining like a black sun in the center of the Seven. And it spoke unto me . . .
Find them, it said. Bring them to me. I can cure the darkness. I can stop the Cycle . . .
Starsea shall rise again.
Lucian shut the book, unable to make himself go on. When he forced himself to read that gibberish again, the voice was gone. He searched the pages from the beginning of the book. But there was no longer any voice.
He didn’t know why he was bothering. Perhaps he was just hearing things. Besides, he had much greater concerns, so this was the last thing he needed. If he allowed distractions, it could mean the difference between passing and failing the Trials.
Despite the troubling nature of his thoughts, he was quick to fall asleep.