“Feris Voss, next,” the mage called out.
A shorter boy with black hair stepped up to the mark.
The same routine played out — the mage finished the spell sheet, and the pressure began its work.
Feris lasted less time than the Khal girl had, buckling at eight seconds flat.
“Eight seconds,” the mage said, marking it down.
“Average.”
A few more names went by after that, most of them landing somewhere close to the same range — a girl at nine seconds, a boy at seven who looked almost relieved to have survived that long, another at ten who got a flat “average” without so much as a second glance from the mage administering the test.
Then Rian’s name was called.
He walked up with the same loose confidence he’d carried through the affinity test, rolling his shoulders once like he was warming up for something physical rather than a test of standing still.
“Ready when you are,” he said, and the mage didn’t even bother asking if he meant it.
The pressure came down, and Rian’s knees dipped — but only slightly, catching himself almost immediately, jaw setting into something more focused than Wren had seen on him all morning.
Five seconds passed easily.
Ten.
His breathing stayed controlled, measured, like he was pacing himself for a distance rather than fighting a single overwhelming moment.
At fourteen seconds, sweat had started along his hairline.
At sixteen, his knees buckled properly, and he caught himself on one hand against the floor rather than going down entirely, breathing hard, grinning despite it.
“Sixteen seconds,” the mage said, and for the first time all morning, something like genuine approval crept into his voice.
“Excellent.
Good for a Kaiser.”
Rian pushed himself back up, waving off the small ripple of murmurs that went through the line behind him, and caught Wren’s eye on his way back — an easy, half-proud grin, the kind of look that said beat that, if you can.
Wren didn’t know yet whether he wanted to.
“Wren.
No family name,” the mage called next, and Wren realized, with a small, cold drop in his stomach, that there was no one left standing between himself and the mark on the floor.
He stepped up to the mark in front of the desk where Rian had been standing just moments prior.
The mage administering the test barely looked at him—just another name on the list in front of him, another few seconds before they could be done for the day and go back to whatever it was they were doing.
“Stand still.
Longer you stay standing up, higher the score.
Ready?”
“Ready.” Wren said, and meant it less than he wanted to.
The mage finished the circle on his book.
The air thickened around Wren the way it had around the rest of the aspiring apprentices.
It didn’t stop at thick.
It kept going, pressing in on him in every direction at once. New chapters come out on g.com first.
A weight settling onto his chest, his shoulders, the top of his head.
He locked his knees and held.
Five seconds.
Ten.
His teeth ground together, and somewhere behind his ribs the familiar dull ache stirred awake, quiet and patient, the same way it always did right before something in him gave.
Fifteen seconds came and went.
The mage’s brow twitched — the exact number that had made Rian’s result “excellent” only minutes ago — and he didn’t call it.
Twenty.
Wren’s legs had started shaking in earnest, sweat sliding down the side of his face, but some old, stubborn thing beneath all of it refused to let his knees bend any further than they already had.
Just a little longer.
Just a little longer than that.
Thirty seconds.
The murmuring behind him had gone quiet, and Wren caught the exact moment the mage’s expression stopped being routine and turned into something closer to concern.
He heard Rian’s voice, low, meant for someone else in line — “That’s not normal, right?
That can’t be normal” — and couldn’t spare the breath to agree with him.
Forty.
Fifty.
The pressure hadn’t lessened at all, and every part of Wren’s body screamed at him to simply let go, to fall the way everyone before him eventually had, because that was how the test was supposed to end — and still, some deeper, quieter part of him refused, the same part that had once drawn a full circuit alone in the dark with no one there to steady his hand.
At fifty-eight seconds, the mage broke first.
He dropped his hand mid-cast, and the pressure vanished all at once.
Wren staggered, chest heaving, ears ringing, but didn’t fall — and found himself staring at a man who looked considerably less bored than he had a minute ago.
The room had gone entirely silent.
“That’s…” The mage looked down at his own notes, as if they might explain themselves better than he could.
“That’s not — I’ve never had to end a test early before.”
Wren straightened on unsteady legs, and became slowly, uncomfortably aware that every single person in the evaluation hall was staring directly at him.
Not knowing what else to do, Wren walked back to where he’d been standing before the test.
“Dude, are you…
even human?” Rian asked him, in a low voice.
“What are you talking about?” Wren asked back, sounding more annoyed than he meant to.
“That didn’t seem as bad as it looked.
I’m sure something went wrong with the cast.”
Rian just stared at him, the easy grin from earlier nowhere on his face now.
“Something went wrong with the cast,” he repeated flatly.
“Wren.
You lasted almost four times that, and the guy running the test looked like he’d seen a ghost by the end of it.
Nothing went wrong with the cast.”
Wren didn’t have an answer for that.
He looked down at his own hands instead, like they might explain something his mouth couldn’t.
The mage who’d administered his test was still standing at the desk, saying something low and urgent to the mage beside him — the same words repeated twice, low enough that Wren only caught fragments of it.
Servant boy.
Solo circuit.
The other one, from a few weeks back.
The second mage’s eyes flicked toward Wren for a half second before sliding away again, quick and deliberate, like looking too long might mean having to do something about what he’d just heard.
They’re going to tell him, Wren thought, and didn’t need to ask who “him” was.
The Tower Master’s going to hear about this before the day’s even over.
He wasn’t sure, standing there with his legs still faintly trembling and half the room still stealing glances at him, whether that thought frightened him or not.
It should have.
He noted, distantly, that it didn’t frighten him nearly as much as it probably should have — one more small, quiet thing about himself he didn’t have a good answer for, filed away next to all the others.
“Come on,” Rian said eventually, nudging his shoulder, some of the easy warmth creeping back into his voice even if his eyes hadn’t quite caught up yet.
“Let’s get out of—”
“If I could have everyone’s attention.” Sebastian’s voice cut across the hall before Rian could finish, flat and carrying in the way that suggested he’d said this exact sentence to exactly this many people more times than he cared to count.
“Those who did not pass evaluation, please follow me down to the second basement level.
Servant quarters and duties will be explained there.” A pause, and something almost imperceptibly softer in his tone.
“The rest of you — apprentices, congratulations — will be shown to your dormitories on floors two through four.
Rooms have already been assigned and marked with your names.”
The hall split in two at that, one cluster of apprentices peeling off toward Sebastian with the particular stiff-backed dignity of people trying very hard not to look like they’d just lost something, the other drifting toward the stairwell, already trading names and nervous excitement.
Rian glanced at Wren, grin returning halfway.
“Guess I’ve gotta go find my room, then.
You know where any of this is, or are we both getting lost together?”
“I already have a room,” Wren said.
“Second floor.
Had it a few days now.”
“Course you do.” Rian didn’t sound surprised so much as amused.
“Alright, lead the way, then, servant boy who apparently isn’t a servant boy anymore.
Show me where I’m supposed to be living for however many years this takes.”
Wren managed a small, tired laugh, and started up the stairs — Rian easily beside him, still glancing over every few steps like he hadn’t quite decided whether to be impressed or unsettled by what he’d just watched happen in that hall.
Neither, Wren thought, would have been the wrong reaction.