The Royal Academy, Crownhaven. The first day of the Blossom Moon.
The great court of the Academy was so full that you could no longer see the cobbles.
Ren stood somewhere in the middle, wedged between Milo and a broad-shouldered farm boy who smelled of the stable and murmured prayers without pause. In front of them, behind them, everywhere stood applicants. Hundreds. Ren had tried to count them and given up at three hundred. They wore their best clothes, which mostly were not very good, and had faces pale with excitement or red with nerves or both by turns.
The nobles did not stand in the crowd. For them a low stand had been built on the right side of the court, with benches and an awning of blue cloth, under which they sat in small groups talking quietly, as if waiting for a play to begin. Servants moved among them handing out cups of watered wine.
Ren did not look. Not directly. But he knew where she sat.
Third row, at the very end. White hair under the blue cloth.
“There she is,” Milo whispered, nudging him with his elbow. “The one from the market. The Ice Queen.”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Why not? Everyone calls her that. I heard it in the tavern last night.” Milo craned his neck. “And next to her, that’s the princess. See? The one with the fair hair. Rosalind.”
Ren had already seen her.
She sat beside Emilia, but not the way friends sit side by side. More like two pieces on a game board that happened to stand on neighbouring squares. She was slighter than Emilia, with pale blonde hair worn in a simple plait, and a narrow, pale face that seemed unremarkable at first glance. She wore no gold, no jewellery. Only a grey dress and a grey cloak.
But her eyes moved. Constantly. Over the crowd, over the stand, over the masters gathering on the steps in front of the main building. She looked at everything, one thing after another, calmly and thoroughly, as if she were committing it to memory.
Ren remembered a ten-year-old girl beside a throne who had not yawned. Who had looked from his father to her own and back again.
He had not known back then why it sent a cold shiver down his spine.
He did not know today either. But the shiver was the same.
A bell struck. Once, deep and long, so that it vibrated in your chest.
The court fell silent.
On the top step of the stairs stood an old man. He was tall and gaunt and as straight as if a lance had been thrust down his back, with a long white beard and a robe of deep blue, on whose breast the crest of the Academy was embroidered in silver. The crown. Beneath it the flame, the wave, the mountain, the whirlwind.
“I am Ambrose Calloway,” he said. He did not speak loudly. But his voice carried into the furthest corner of the court, clear and distinct, as if he stood right beside every single person. Wind, Ren thought. He carries his voice on the wind. “Rector of this Academy for thirty-one years now. And in those thirty-one years I have stood on these steps every year on this day and looked into faces like yours.”
He let his gaze wander over the crowd.
“Most of you will go home tonight.”
A murmur went through the court. The praying farm boy beside Ren prayed louder.
“That is no disgrace,” Calloway went on. “The gift is unjustly distributed. It does not ask about diligence or birth or how much you wish for it. But those who remain today will in three years be among the most powerful this kingdom produces. And I expect them to prove themselves worthy of that power.”
He raised his hand and pointed behind him.
On a dais at the foot of the steps stood a pillar. Ren had seen it when he entered the court and wondered what it was. It came up to a man’s hip and was made of a crystal as clear as water, through which you could see the steps behind it, slightly distorted, as if looking through a stream. Its top was ground flat, and the imprint of a hand was set into the surface.
“The Touchstone of Arvendal. It is older than this Academy. Older than the crown. It does not lie, and it does not flatter. Lay your hand upon it, and it will show what is in you. Your element. And the depth of your mana.”
A pause.
“And, in the few who have it, what lies beneath.”
Ren felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
They called the names as the clerks read them from their lists, in no recognisable order. Nobles and commoners mixed together, without distinction. The only thing that day, Ren thought, that happened without distinction.
Beside the Touchstone three masters sat at a table. In the middle a thin, elderly woman with iron-grey hair tied in a severe knot and a face that looked as if it had not smiled in decades. Mistress Mabry, someone behind Ren whispered. Head of the trial. To her right a plump man with a red face who called out the names.
And on the left, with quill and ledger, spectacles on the tip of his nose, Silas Merrow.
He did not look at the crowd. He looked at his book and wrote.
The first applicant, a scrawny boy with sticking-out ears, climbed the steps to the dais on trembling knees and laid his hand on the crystal.
For a moment nothing happened. Then something began to glow deep inside the pillar. A faint, dull brown, like earth after rain. It rose a little, a hand’s breadth perhaps, flickered, and stayed there.
“Earth,” said Mistress Mabry. Her voice was dry as parchment. “Slight.”
Silas wrote.
The boy took his hand from the stone, and the light went out. He stood there for a moment as if he did not know what to do. Then he went down the steps, and Ren saw that he was crying.
The next applicant laid his hand on it. Nothing. The stone stayed clear. The boy pressed harder, so hard that his knuckles turned white. Nothing.
“No gift. Next.”
So it went on. Hour after hour.
Ren watched the stone glow in every colour. Fire was red and orange, water blue, earth brown and green, wind a pale, almost transparent silver that you sensed more than saw. Sometimes the light glimmered only at the bottom of the pillar. Sometimes it rose to the middle. Rarely, very rarely, it filled the pillar almost entirely, and then a murmur went through the court.
And sometimes the stone stayed clear. Then someone went down the steps with bowed head and disappeared through the gate into the city, and did not come back.
“Callan, Nora.”
Nora climbed the steps the way she did everything: calmly, straight-backed, without fuss. She had taken off her apron and wore a simple brown dress, and the burn scars on her forearms were plain to see. A few nobles on the stand whispered. Nora did not look.
She laid her hand on the stone.
The light came at once. A deep, rich brown, like freshly ploughed soil, rising up the pillar in an even wave, past the middle, almost to the top. The crystal hummed softly. Something creaked on the dais, and Ren saw the joints between the stones around Nora’s feet lift a little.
“Earth,” said Mistress Mabry. She raised an eyebrow, which in her presumably amounted to a cry of astonishment. “Strong.”
Nora took her hand from the stone and went down the steps without smiling. But as she passed Ren, she winked at him.
“Fairweather, Milo.”
Milo did not stand up. He was already standing. But he did not move.
“Milo,” Ren whispered.
“I know.” Milo’s voice sounded thin. “I know, I’m going. I just … my legs still have to understand.”
Ren laid a hand on his back and pushed. Not hard. Just hard enough.
Milo stumbled forward, caught himself, straightened his hat, and went. The blue jay feather bobbed with every step. On the stand someone laughed. Ren recognised the laugh. It sounded like a fanfare.
He did not look.
Milo laid his hand on the stone and squeezed his eyes shut.
At first nothing came. Ren held his breath. One. Two.
Then the inside of the pillar began to move. Not to glow, but to move. A pale, silvery shimmer that turned like mist in a breeze, slowly rising as it did. To the middle. A little past it. It whirled and danced, and for a moment it looked as if a little storm had been trapped inside the pillar.
NovelPhoenix carries the author's chapter, although this copy was made without permission; reading the chapter there supports the writer.
Mistress Mabry made a brief note. “Wind. Good.”
Milo opened his eyes. He stared at the stone. Then he turned round, and his face was the happiest face Ren had ever seen.
He ran down the steps and nearly knocked Ren over.
“That’s much better than slight.”
“I have to write to Wes.” Milo beamed. “Today. No, right now. Has anyone got paper?”
Around midday it was Cedric’s turn.
He climbed the steps as if they belonged to him, in a coat of black and red velvet, and laid his hand on the crystal without hesitating.
Red. At once. A deep, glowing red that shot up the pillar, fast and fierce, far past the middle. On the stand a few people clapped.
Cedric smiled. It was the smile of someone who had expected exactly that.
Mistress Mabry did not even look up. “Fire. Strong.”
Cedric took his hand from the stone, bowed curtly to the masters and went back to the stand, where Edmund clapped him on the shoulder so hard that he nearly stumbled.
Ren watched him go.
Strong. He had expected nothing else. Cedric Valemont was many things, but not weak.
And then Ren thought of something else. He thought of a library in Crownhaven, of a spark between his father’s fingers. Fire had only one sub-element, and only one house had ever reached it. A fire mage could practise as hard as he liked his whole life long; his fire would remain fire.
Unless he was a Ravenmoor.
The legacy of our house.
Ren slid his hand under his coat and laid it on his left arm. Beneath the leather bracer all was quiet. For now.
“Winterhall, Emilia.”
It went quiet. Not only on the stand. Across the whole court.
Emilia stood up. She did not walk fast, but not slowly either. She simply walked, in her pale blue dress, with the silver ribbon in her white hair, down the steps, across the court, through the crowd that drew back before her, and up onto the dais.
She did not look at the stone. She laid her hand on it as if touching a doorknob.
And the pillar exploded with light.
Blue. A clear, cold, radiant blue that shot up the pillar so fast that Ren could barely follow it, to the top and beyond, as if it wanted to burst out of the crystal. And at the heart of the blue, like a second heart, a second light. White. Hard and bright and icy, with fine, branching lines running through the blue like cracks through frozen water.
The surface of the pillar misted over. Then it froze. A thin layer of hoarfrost crept from Emilia’s hand across the crystal, across the dais, to the edge of the masters’ table, where Mistress Mabry lifted her quill before the inkwell froze.
In the court no one said a word.
“Water,” said Mistress Mabry. And then, after a pause in which she looked at the pillar, at the white light within it: “Sub-element ice. Exceptional.”
A murmur went through the court. Then applause, first on the stand, then in the crowd, until the whole court was clapping. Even Milo clapped, his mouth open.
Emilia took her hand from the stone. The hoarfrost melted. She bowed curtly to the masters, turned and walked back, through the applause, as if she did not hear it.
Ren did not clap.
He watched her go. He saw her face as she passed the crowd, only a few paces from him. And he saw what no one else seemed to see.
She was not happy.
She looked like someone who had completed a task. Like someone who had followed an instruction and was relieved it had worked. Not proud. Not happy. Only relieved.
He remembered a girl at a fountain who had turned round after the water froze, with a smile that changed her whole face.
Well? Still so clever?
That smile was gone.
“Rosalind of Arvendal.”
The princess stood up. She walked slowly, almost hesitantly, and Ren saw the court change. People bowed as she passed. A few even knelt. Rosalind did not seem to notice. She simply walked.
She laid her hand on the stone.
Silver. The pale, almost transparent silver of wind. It rose, not fast like Emilia’s, not fierce like Cedric’s, but steadily and calmly, like smoke on a windless day. To the middle. Past it.
And then something strange happened.
The stone began to hum.
It was a quiet sound, so deep that Ren felt it more in his teeth than in his ears. A hum like a bell you can still hear ringing long after it has been struck. The masters at the table looked up. Mistress Mabry frowned. Silas stopped writing.
Then Rosalind took her hand from the stone. Quickly. Before the hum could grow louder. It faded away.
“Wind,” said Mistress Mabry, after a pause that was a shade too long. “Strong. Sub-element …” She hesitated. “Undetermined. As yet.”
Rosalind smiled. It was a small, polite smile. She bowed to the masters and went back to the stand.
And in passing, for just a heartbeat, her gaze slid over the crowd. Over the hundreds of faces.
And caught on Ren.
He did not know why. He stood in the middle, between Milo and the farm boy, and had done nothing to draw attention. But she looked at him. Calmly. Thoroughly. The way she had once looked at his father, beside the throne.
Then she walked on.
Ren noticed that he had been holding his breath.
The sun was already low when the plump master called the name.
“Harlow, Ren.”
Ren went.
He felt the looks. Not many. Most of the applicants were exhausted from standing so long and hardly looked any more. But a few looks he felt. Milo’s, full of hope. Nora’s, calm and waiting. Cedric’s, from the stand, cold as a knife in the back.
And two more. A grey one, behind round spectacles, that did not look up from its book.
And a grey-blue one, under the blue awning.
He climbed the steps. One. Two. Three. The Touchstone stood before him, clear and cold, and in the handprint on its surface the sweat of the many hands before him still glistened.
Fire, he thought. Only fire. Nothing else.
He had told himself that half the night. He had practised it, in his head, over and over. He knew how to hold the lightning. Owen had taught him for three years, on the rock above Fernwick. From today you learn how to hold it. He held it every day. Every hour. Even in his sleep. He knew how to press it down, all the way down, beneath the fire, until you could hardly feel it any more.
But he had never pressed it down before a stone that was older than the crown and did not lie.
He laid his hand on the crystal.
It was cold. Colder than it looked. And then, in the same instant, warm. Ren felt the stone reach for him. Not for his hand. For something deeper. For the thread in his chest, the warm, patient one, the fire.
He let it. He pushed the fire forward, as much as he could, as brightly as he could, a wall of fire between the stone and what lay beneath.
Orange.
It shot into the pillar, bright and hot, a flickering, living orange like a hearth fire on a winter evening. It rose. Fast. Past the middle. Further. Two-thirds. Three-quarters. Ren heard someone in the court draw a sharp breath. Seven years, every evening a flame above his hand until everything went black before his eyes. Seven years in which his reserve had grown, breath by breath. Find the original chapter at g.com.
And then he felt it.
The stone reached deeper. Through the fire. It searched. It groped, like a hand in a dark room, and Ren felt it find something.
The crackle. The scratching. The thing that slept in the scars beneath his leather bracer.
No.
He pressed. With everything he had. He pressed the lightning down, deeper, beneath the fire, beneath everything, the way you hold back a dog by the collar when it wants to tear itself free. His left arm began to burn. Only slightly at first, then more strongly, a hot, stabbing pain creeping up from wrist to elbow. Sweat ran down his forehead.
Not now. Not here. Not in front of them.
The stone pulled.
And for a heartbeat, a single, tiny heartbeat, something flickered at the heart of the orange light.
Golden.
A spark. Nothing more. A single, hair-fine thread of gold that flickered through the orange like lightning through a thundercloud, so fast you could hardly see it. And then it was gone, because Ren wrenched it back with all his strength, and the orange was only orange again.
Ren took his hand from the stone.
The light went out. He stood there on trembling knees and stared at the clear crystal. His left arm burned as if he had held it in the fire. He did not dare look at the masters.
It was quiet at the table.
Mistress Mabry had narrowed her eyes. She leaned forward and looked at the stone, at the spot in the middle where the spark had been. The plump master beside her scratched his head.
“Did you see that, Merrow?” she asked. “In the middle. There was something.”
Silas Merrow looked up from his ledger.
He adjusted his spectacles. He stood up, slowly, like a man whose back ached, walked round the table, bent over the Touchstone and examined it. For a long time. Frowning.
Then he pulled the sleeve of his robe over his hand and wiped the crystal once. Over the spot in the middle.
“Dust,” he said.
Mistress Mabry raised an eyebrow.
“Dust, Mistress.” Silas held up his sleeve. It really was grey. “Three hundred hands since this morning, and nobody has cleaned the stone once. The light refracts in it. I’ve seen it twice already, with other applicants. You were busy with your notes.” He brushed off his sleeve. “If you wish, I’ll have it polished after the trial. It is older than the crown, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get dirty.”
Mistress Mabry looked at him. Then at the stone. Then at him again.
“Fire,” she said at last, slowly. “Very strong. No sub-element.”
Silas sat down again and wrote. He did not look at Ren. Not once.
On the stand someone stood up so abruptly that the bench scraped across the stones. Ren did not need to look to know who it was. A commoner from a village full of sheep had just been given very strong. A Valemont only strong.
“Next!” called the plump master.
Ren went down the steps. He did not know how. His legs moved, and at some point he was standing down in the court again, among the applicants, and Milo was hanging on his arm and talking, and Nora stood beside him looking at him with a strange expression.
“Very strong! Very strong! She hasn’t said that to a single commoner! Only to the nobles! Ren! Are you listening to me?”
“I’m listening.”
“You’re all pale.” Milo looked him over. “And you’re sweating. Are you all right?”
“The stone is tiring.”
“It didn’t do anything to me.”
“Then you’ve got less mana.”
Milo thought about it. Then he nodded contentedly, as if Ren had paid him a compliment, and began to describe what it had felt like when the wind danced in the pillar.
Ren was not listening. He held his left arm pressed against his body, under his coat, where no one could see. Beneath the leather bracer it throbbed, hot and dull, in time with his heart.
Nearly. It nearly gave you away.
“What was in the middle?”
Nora. She spoke quietly, so that Milo would not hear. She was not looking at him but at the Touchstone, on which a new applicant was just laying a hand.
“Dust.”
Nora nodded slowly. “Dust.” She folded her arms. “Odd dust. Lit up like a spark from the forge when you let the iron get too hot.”
Ren said nothing.
Nora looked at him sideways. Then she shrugged. “None of my business,” she said. “I told you that already.”
By the time the last applicant had touched the stone, it was dark. Torches burned in the court. Half the crowd was gone, through the gate into the city, heads bowed. The others stood about in little groups, exhausted and excited, waiting to be told what came next.
Mistress Mabry rose and announced that the second part of the trial would take place the next morning. Element and combat. Whoever had passed today should be back here at sunrise.
The crowd dispersed.
Ren waited until Milo and Nora had gone on ahead. Then he walked slowly towards the gate, along the edge of the court, in the shadow of the pillars.
At the foot of the steps stood Silas Merrow, packing up his books. He did not look up as Ren passed.
But someone else stopped beside him.
Ren recognised her before he saw her. By the grey cloak. By the fair plait. By the way she stood, quite calmly, hands folded, like someone who had time.
Princess Rosalind did not look at Ren. She looked at the Touchstone, which now stood in the torchlight, clear and empty.
“Master Merrow,” she said. Her voice was quiet and pleasant, a little husky, like a singer who had sung too long.
Silas paused. “Your Highness.”
“The stone ought to be thoroughly cleaned before the next applicants come.” Rosalind smiled. Politely. Kindly. “It would be a shame if more dust were to catch in it. One might otherwise see things that aren’t there at all.”
For a heartbeat it was perfectly still.
“I will see to it, Your Highness.”
“Thank you.”
She turned to go. And in passing, without turning her head, without slowing, so quietly that only Ren could hear it, she said one thing more.
“Good night, Ren Harlow.”
Then she was gone, a grey shadow between the torches.
Ren stood in the dark and felt the sweat run cold down his back.
Behind him Silas Merrow closed a book.
“Clean stone,” he murmured, without looking up. “Nothing like a clean stone.”
He took his books and climbed the steps, and Ren stayed behind alone at the foot of the Touchstone, in which the torchlight refracted, orange and yellow and perfectly ordinary.