The evaluation room was large — large enough to hold everyone in line comfortably, with three mages seated at a long table at the front, administering the tests one by one.
“Adeleine Khal,” one of the mages Wren didn’t recognize called out.
A girl with long, silvery hair stepped out of line and walked toward the table.
“That’s a member of the Khal family,” Rian said.
“Known for their mastery of Ice magic.”
“Ice magic?” Wren asked, confused.
“That wasn’t in the guidebook.”
“It’s not really its own element, not exactly — more like water and wind mixed together just right.
Common enough that it gets treated like its own category anyway.” Rian shrugged.
“The Khal’s have been doing it for generations.
Old family, older grudge against anyone who tries to copy their technique.”
She stepped up to the table and placed her hand on the orb sitting in front of one of the judges.
Without pause, the orb lit up, faint and pale, almost colorless — the way wind itself was never really a color so much as an absence of one.
“Ahh, she’s a Wind type,” Rian said, sounding genuinely interested.
“What does that mean?” Wren asked, sounding more confused by the minute.
“Everyone’s got one main affinity they’re naturally strongest in.
Doesn’t mean you can’t practice, or even get proficient, in others.” Rian held up his own hand — Wren noticed, for the first time, strange tattoos etched across his knuckles.
“For her to carry on her family’s legacy properly, she’ll need to master both Wind and Water, before she can combine them into Ice.”
She moved to the side of the room at the mage’s instruction, and the next name was called.
This continued for a while, until finally—
“Wren.
No family name.” The mage said it plainly, like a detail noted for the record rather than an insult, though it landed like one anyway.
He’d done this before, plenty of times now, and still felt that same lingering fear that it simply wouldn’t work this time.
He channeled his mana into the orb, and the familiar dull ache flared up behind his ribs again.
Gold light poured through the glass — brighter, he thought, than it had been the very first time.
“Metal affinity, A-.
Congratulations.” The mage said it without a trace of being impressed, already looking past Wren toward the next name on his list.
Wren stepped back to the side of the room, where the others who’d already finished this test were waiting.
“Rian Kaiser,” the same mage called out.
Rian ambled up to the table with the same loose, unhurried confidence he seemed to carry everywhere, and pressed his palm flat against the orb without a moment’s hesitation.
Gold light answered almost instantly — brighter than Wren’s had been, thicker somehow, pouring through the glass in a way that made the whole table glow faintly for a second before settling.
The mage’s eyebrows lifted, just slightly.
“Metal affinity, S.” He said it slower this time, like the letter itself deserved a beat of its own.
“Impressive.
Especially for a Kaiser.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Rian waved it off, already turning to walk back toward the line, though the grin on his face said he wasn’t quite as unbothered by it as he wanted to look.
“Family name’s gotta be good for something, right?”
Wren watched him go, something small and unpleasant twisting low in his own chest.
S.
An entire letter grade above mine, and he didn’t even seem to try.
He told himself it didn’t matter — that affinity was just a starting point, not a verdict — but the thought sat there anyway, quiet and stubborn, refusing to leave just because he’d asked it to.
The rest of the tests continued at a slower pace after that.
Fewer bright results, fewer quick ones — as the line worked its way toward the back, more and more apprentices stood at the table for longer stretches, palm pressed to the orb, waiting for a light that simply refused to come.
Wren watched a boy try three separate times, jaw tightening a little more with each failed attempt, before the mage finally waved him off toward the far wall without so much as looking up from his ledger.
Nobody explained what the far wall meant.
Wren already knew, the way you know a smell before you can name it — he’d spent three years on the other side of exactly this outcome, whether he could remember earning it or not.
By the time the line finally finished, roughly half of everyone who’d arrived that morning stood clustered along that same wall, quiet in a way that had nothing to do with patience.
Three failed attempts at the orb, and you were moved on.
No second chances, no appeals, no mage bothering to explain what, exactly, had been found lacking.
Most of them, Wren guessed, would end up exactly where he had — mopping halls, hauling water, waiting to see how many years they’d get before the tower found some use for the rest of them too.
“Alright, that concludes the affinity and talent test.
We’re moving on to the willpower test,” a different mage called out.
I wonder how this one is done.
The order stayed much the same as before.
The Khal girl was called up first.
“Stand still.
A spell’s going to be cast on you — the longer you stay standing, the higher your score.” The mage looked her over once, unbothered.
“Ready?”
She nodded, jaw set, feet planted like she’d braced for worse than this before.
The mage raised a hand, and the air around her seemed to thicken all at once — not visibly, nothing Wren could actually see, but he felt the change ripple outward from where she stood, the same way you feel a door open in another room by the shift in air pressure alone.
The girl’s knees buckled almost immediately.
She caught herself, jaw clenched tighter and held.
Three seconds.
Five.
Her whole body had started to tremble by the eighth, sweat beading along her hairline despite the coolness of the room, and at eleven she finally dropped to one knee, breath coming out of her in a single ragged exhale.
“Eleven seconds,” the mage said, marking something down.
“Adequate.”
Wren watched her walk back to the line on unsteady legs, and felt his own stomach tighten in quiet anticipation of whatever was about to be asked of him next.