"Water."
The instructor finally looked up, eyes scanning the floating thread of liquid, then the lingering traces of the smoke.
A short pause. Then a small, audible exhale. Not disappointnt—more a resigned sort of understanding.
"I thought so," the instructor murmured. "You’ve been practicing into resistance. It fits, but... not cleanly."
The water flickered briefly in the student’s palm before being dispersed.
"You’ll be given tailored instruction," the instructor continued, voice level. "It’s too late to fully restructure your mana circuit from the ground up—that foundation’s already taken root. But we may be able to apply modular corrections. Ease so of the inner conflict between flow paths."
The student nodded slowly, uncertain. "Will that change anything?"
"It will make it harder to break yourself," the instructor said, dry but not unkind. "Which is generally preferable."
Then, with a curt gesture, they signaled to the assistant nearby. "Next."
The student gave a shallow bow, turned, and stepped off the platform.
Elara watched the departing student’s shoulders round with relief, the lingering haze of blue-green smoke thinning into nothing. Beside her, Lucavion’s reflection cut and reford over the black-veined marble—jawline, cup, the small twitch at the corner of his mouth when he was thinking and pretending not to.
She didn’t look at him directly.
Just the tilt of an eye. Just enough.
’Not now.’
’Stop chewing the sa wound.’
’One week. Seven days. Pass, adapt, breathe.’
She exhaled once, slow and exact, and let the rhythm of the hall take her—the asured pulse in the floor glyphs, the hush of bodies moving forward, the instructor’s even cadence.
This would be her first ti. Eveline had never bothered with these.
’You don’t need a machine to tell you what your hands already know,’ Eveline would say, a fingertip tapping the ridge of Elara’s wrist until the veins seed to echo frost. ’You listen. You test on your own flesh. Instrunts congratulate the living for what the living already are.’
Eveline had called them useful for the diocre; elegant toys that sotis caught misalignnts if you lacked the teacher—or the pain tolerance—to hear them yourself. The rest was expense and noise.
’Yes, you can retune a circuit,’ Eveline had conceded once, bored and precise. ’But it is surgery without blood. It costs. It leaves you clumsier where you were born clean. Even mages are not as fluid as we like to pretend.’
Elara’s gaze slid to the nearest sphere as another student stepped up, palms flat to glass. Pale light threaded their sleeves, a net of fine silver that made the hairs lift at Elara’s nape. The smoke rose—white to soft amber, then a sudden prickle of green. The assessor’s tablet flickered in response.
"...~"
The instructor muttered and then the student winced and nodded and stumbled away, wringing their fingers like they’d just dipped them into winter.
Lucavion shifted half a step closer, shoulder to shoulder without touching. His voice ca quiet, nearer than the noise deserved.
"First ti?"
She kept her eyes forward. "Yes."
"For what it’s worth," he murmured, "it’s more theatrics than knife."
Her mouth curved, not quite amusent. "You would know."
"Occupational hazard."
He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. The line crept. The spheres humd. Her thoughts tried to fray back toward old corridors, iron doors, and a laugh she might have misread.
She strangled the impulse in its cradle.
’Focus.’
’Do the thing in front of you.’
’Everything else is noise.’
Two students left. One stepped up.
On instinct, she flexed her fingers once, feeling the familiar scrape of chill along her knuckles—not conjured, only rembered. The hum underfoot threaded with the sphere’s resonance, a counter-lody she could not na. What will you taste in ? The question rose without permission and she let it drift past, unheld.
The left sphere coughed a thin ribbon of smoke, the instructor’s voice blurring into categories and cautions. The middle sphere cleared. The assessor to its side lifted their tablet and glanced along the line.
"Next."
Elara stepped forward with the line, a asured shuffle that barely counted as motion. The sphere ahead dimd and brightened in steady breaths. Another student peeled away, fingers flexing as if to convince themselves they still belonged to their hands.
Lucavion leaned in just a hair, voice pitched for her ear alone. "You’re wondering."
She didn’t answer.
His grin crooked anyway. "About mine."
’Of course I am.’ The thought rose, cool and unhelpful. ’Black fire that behaves like it rembers night. What else would I be thinking about?’ She kept her gaze fixed forward, lashes low. ’Don’t na it. Don’t give it shape.’
He laughed—soft, genuine, annoyingly pleased. "Elowyn," he said, like he’d caught her reaching for a blade she hadn’t drawn, "I don’t know either."
Her eyes slid, just once, to his profile. "You don’t... know."
He lifted a shoulder. "Never taken this test."
"...You?"
Lucavion’s mouth quirked, the movent small but precise. "Do I really look like soone who’s been raised around rich masters and special institutions?"
Elara almost snorted. ’Yes.’ The word arrived too fast, too certain. It sat bitter against her tongue. ’You move like soone trained to command the room. You don’t flinch at silence. That’s not wildness, it’s masked chaos? Or sothing like that.’
She didn’t say it. Of course she didn’t. But her silence lasted a fraction too long. Her eyes flicked to his face, and that was enough.
Lucavion’s grin thinned, the edges sharpening into sothing less amused. He angled his head slightly, a shadow cutting across one cheekbone. "You really think that, huh?"
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t answer.
But her pulse gave her away.
’Of course I think that,’ she wanted to bite back. ’You were Isolde’s hound. The Duchy’s pet. The one who stood beside her while she smiled and called it rcy.’
He shouldn’t look like this—relaxed, careless, alive.
Not when she rembered that hall, those torches, the way his silhouette lingered behind Isolde’s shoulder like a second commandnt.
The thought coiled, poisonous, familiar. She pushed it down, until it pressed against her ribs like a hand.
Lucavion’s eyes narrowed—not with anger, but precision. "You’re thinking too loudly."
Elara’s lips curved, brittle and dry. "I wasn’t aware my thoughts required your comntary."
"Oh, they don’t," he said, tone bright again, that lazy drawl returning like a curtain over a blade. "But they’re easy to read when you stare like you’re rehearsing a murder."
"I wasn’t—"
He cut in, smiling now. "You were."
Her jaw tightened.
Then, abruptly, he laughed. The sound broke whatever careful rhythm the hall had settled into, drawing a glance or two before fading back into the din. "Relax, Elowyn. I’m teasing."
"You’re failing."
"That’s subjective."
The next student stepped up to the sphere. White light, a hiss, the instructor’s murmur: "Wind-primary. Trace ether bleed." The noise gave Elara sothing else to focus on—sothing that wasn’t his voice or the pulse of her own resentnt.
But Lucavion wasn’t finished.
"You’re right, though," he said after a mont, tone softer. "I’ve never been in places like this. Never had a sect."
"Explains a few things," she muttered.
He grinned wider. "Probably."
And yet... she didn’t quite believe him. Everything about him scread contradiction—trained reflexes under the guise of spontaneity, deliberate carelessness, cultivated ease. People didn’t move like that unless they’d been taught—or forged.
Still, she said nothing.
Because what could she say? That he reminded her too much of the kind of person who should have known better?
He must have read sothing in her silence again, because the humor crept back into his tone like smoke. "Though," he added, tilting his head toward the crystalline pedestals, "I have seen one of these before."
That pulled her gaze back to him despite herself. "Where?"
He smiled—slow, sharp, infuriating. "Not telling."
"...Then why ntion it?"
His teeth flashed. "To make you annoyed."
Elara blinked once, the picture of restraint. "You succeed easily."
"Another talent," he said lightly.
The line moved. The instructor gestured again, slate flickering. One more student between them and the test.
Lucavion’s voice dropped low enough that only she could hear. "Maybe after you’re done, I’ll tell you where I saw it. Or maybe I’ll wait until you guess."
"I won’t."
He humd, a quiet sound, pleased anyway. "Then it’ll be a very long day, won’t it?"
Her reply was a thin exhale, colder than words.
The sphere ahead flared blue. Smoke rose.
"Next."
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