I couldn’t crane my neck back far enough to see the top of the Orders’ towers. They rose and rose and rose, like
two walls of gold and silver, disappearing to misty clouds. I had been nearly unconscious the last time I stood at the entrance to the towers. Certainly not conscious enough to be amazed by the staggering height, staggering presence, staggering everything. Now, I had never felt smaller in my life.
Almost as a nervous tick, my fingers drew a circle on my palms, as if trying to capture the Stratagrams that still evaded me.
The four of us — me, Max, Sammerin, and Moth — stood in their shadows, anxious energy hanging between us.
“I haven’t stepped through these doors in a very long time,” Max muttered, eyeing them. Then Moth. “Nervous?”
Moth fidgeted. “Well,” he said, with faux-confidence, “it took some work, but I think I’ve finally got energy distortion right. So, I think I definitely won’t have any accidents.”
Max and Sammerin exchanged a look, one of those silent ones that batted unspoken words between them.
“Moth has gone an entire week without destroying even one thing,” Sammerin said. “We’re all very proud of him.”
“Except for the pitcher,” Moth added, “but that wasn’t really my fault.”
Sammerin winced. “Except for the pitcher.”
“Thankfully, I don’t think they’ll have any pitchers at the evaluations, so you should be in the clear there.” Max looked at me. “And you?”
“Fine.” My voice did not betray my anxiety, but I’m sure he knew how nervous I was. Normally, I found Moth endlessly amusing, but today I couldn’t so much as crack a smile at his oblivious antics. At least for Moth, this was only one of six yearly evaluations he would be given. If he failed this one, he could redeem himself next year. I had no such luxury.
Sammerin and Moth began making their way to the doors, and I went to follow, but Max gently caught my wrist.
I spun around.
“I want you to know, Tisaanah, that I have complete and utter faith in your ability to do this,” he said. “Now let’s go show those bastards what you’re capable of.”
Even though I was so nervous that I quaked, a smile tightened my cheeks.
“Yes,” I agreed. “I like this plan.”
And with that, we opened the doors.
 |
IF I HADN’T BEEN SO nervous, the first stage of the evaluations would have been utterly hilarious.
Max and I could not possibly have stood out more. Max was the only Solarie there, one messy splotch of color among a long row of pasty-skinned, white-haired Valtain teachers. And if the sheer peculiarity of a Solarie training a Valtain wasn’t enough, his reputation took what might have perhaps just been mildly awkward and made it outright
hilarious. No one seemed to know what to do with him. Every interaction was a tumble of awkward handshakes and confused raised eyebrows and hesitant, surprised greetings. During my personal favorite of these interactions, one Valtian said to him, “I thought you didn’t do this anymore.” When Max flatly provided, “What, Order bullshit?”, the Valtain shook his head, flailed his hands weakly, and said, “I meant, well…the world.”
I snickered through all of this, grateful to have at least one small sliver of my brain occupied by enjoying Max’s highly visible, highly amusing social discomfort instead of my own nerves. Noticing this, Max prodded my ribs. “Don’t get too comfortable,” he grumbled. “Just you wait.”
And oh, he looked like he was enjoying that grin when the evaluations began and I was rounded up with several dozen other apprentices…. all of which were, at most, twelve years old.
Needless to say, between the fact that I was nearly twice as old as my fellow students and my Fragmented skin (though, to my pleasant surprise, I did spot two other Fragmented students in the crowd), I earned just as many confused stares as Max did. But unlike Max, who glowered and squirmed through these interactions like a collared cat, I drank up the attention.
I needed to impress, after all. And if the eyes were already on me, that was only easier.
And impress, I did.
We were led through a series of structured exercises as a group, forcing us to demonstrate refined control of our abilities. And gods, it was easy. These exercises were simpler — more boring — than anything I did under Max’s instruction on a daily basis.
So, I showed them what I could do.
Asked to manipulate water, while those around me struggled to maintain a smooth orb, I peeled out into perfectly crafted butterflies. Asked to conjure, I summoned
two, three, four illusions at a time, twining them around each other in a — perfectly controlled, as Max would emphasize — dance. Asked to steel our minds against the sneaking tendrils of each other’s thought-sensing abilities, I shoved out my partner, then turned around and echoed his own thoughts back to him.
Every request, met with an easy smile and a “yes, and?”
By the time the first part of the evaluations concluded, I was feeling very pleased with myself.
“I’m both disgusted and impressed by the delight with which you flaunt your superiority over a bunch of children,” Max said, when I rejoined him between stages. “At least try to look like you aren’t enjoying it quite so much.”
“Why?”
“Some might call it distasteful.”
I gave him a sly smirk. “But not you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “No,” he admitted. “Not me.”
I knew he loved every minute of it just as much as I did. And just as there was no use in him denying that, I couldn’t deny that his support curled around my heart and squeezed.
Still, I was nervous about what lay ahead. Too nervous, at least, to eat much of anything, so instead Max and I used the recess to slip across the lobby to the Tower of Daybreak and peer in on the Solarie evaluations. One look at Sammerin sitting in the spectator’s area, sagging in his chair, staring through the windows with a look of what I could only describe as resigned horror, told me exactly how Moth’s tests were going.
I grimaced. “Poor Moth.”
Max chuckled. “Poor Sammerin.”
We heard the faint echo of a crash, a flurry of activity from the next room, and whatever Sammerin was seeing made him put his head in his hands and let out a heaving sigh.
We took that as our cue to leave.
When we returned to the Tower of Midnight at the end of midday recess, Willa was waiting for us. Her face brightened as we approached.
“There you are! I wanted to congratulate you on those group evaluations, Tisaanah. You were terrific.”
“Too early for congratulations,” I said, but found myself suppressing a grin anyway.
She gave a cheerful shrug. “Well, still. I don’t think anyone could argue. All that’s left now is your individual evaluation. That’s why I’ve come to get you, actually.”
A knot tugged in my stomach. I had been particularly nervous about this part, mostly because I had no idea what to expect. My eyes found a group of other apprentices heading down a hallway, and I nodded. “I’m ready,” I said.
I began to walk in that direction, but Willa’s voice stopped me. “Oh, no, dear — yours will be somewhere else.” She gave me a faint smile. “Come with me.”
I hesitated. Exchanged a brief, nervous glance with Max.
A good thing, maybe, I told myself. I was clearly an unusual case. Of course, my test would be different.
“Alright,” I said, and I followed her.
