For once, that freedom extended to me as well. My Emberkeep classes were excused, at least for now.
I entered the dining hall with Soehl at my side. The space was already crowded with students, voices rising and overlapping, but my attention drifted on its own, drawn toward the Dragontail table.
Lorik Draventh sat there, his caramel hair shining with the morning light, flanked by Ugo and Rory Rey, his gaze steady and unblinking, already fixed on me.
My muscles tightened as if his eyes alone could strike me with lightning. Heat spread through me, embarrassment first, then something worse. Shame, tangled with want. With need. His silver eyes sparked memories I didn’t want, memories my body remembered far too well.
Then, after a heartbeat too long, he looked back down at his plate. His expression didn’t change. Not a single muscle betrayed him.
And that was what I had asked for.
Distance. Silence. For him to stay away.
So why did it feel like I’d lost something the moment he did?
I buried the thought and turned back to Shakari and the twins as Soehl peeled away to join the auroric tables. I sat down for breakfast, pretending convincingly that I hadn’t noticed him at all.
From the Emberkeep tables, I caught Thalen watching me from the corner of my eye, waiting to see if I would return the look. I didn’t. He knew better than to expect my attention now.After his treason, I hadn’t given him any attention, and he knew I needed space,
especially when my focus was on the trials.
Around me, my friends were already deep in discussion, trading plans for the next three weeks of training.
Shakari wanted to practice navigating at night, learning to orient herself with the stars and the moon. In a fight, she was formidable, her water-freezing magic precise and terrifyingly controlled, but the trials would also demand strategy.
Rowan planned to refine his wind control, pushing for greater precision and endurance. Tran, meanwhile, insisted he needed to train in hand-to-hand combat without magic.
Despite his strength, he was convinced that Rory Rey would knock him out flat. Whether he truly believed it or was hiding nerves behind humor, I couldn’t tell. With Tran, it was always hard to understand.
For once, I didn’t feel lost about where to begin.
Now that I understood my magical trace, the second trial no longer frightened me the way it once had. I didn’t know the extent of it yet, but blocking mental magic came naturally to me. If I were going to be tested for this magical trace, I knew I could handle it. Orientation
and navigation in the forest wouldn’t be a problem either, it was practical, instinctive, the kind of thing I’d been trained for my whole life.
What worried me were the other two trials.
The first trial would demand fighting without magic, and I wasn’t finished sharpening myself in combat. And the last trial would require fire, control, and combat. The ability to face adragon and take the ruby from it without letting my emotions control my magic, and even though I had won in the Hall of Mirrors, I still had to practice magical combat.
So I knew where I had to focus my attention. I would spend every morning in the arena, where the professors had recreated last year’s dragon illusion for first-years to practice the third trial and learn how to claim the ruby. My own trial would be different, a dragon illusion shaped by Headmaster Marvek himself, forged with his unique illusion magical trace. It was always kept a surprise, changing every year, so the upper-class could never explain how they had defeated their dragon illusion.
Every afternoon, once the worst of the heat had faded and the sky began to soften toward sunset, I would train on the Sky Terrace with Tran and the other first-years, sparring until my muscles burned and my reflexes sharpened. We were preparing not just for the trials, but for the possibility of facing second-year students in combat. As Shakari reminded me, I didn’t have to win. I only had to show enough strength, enough control, enough valor for the gem to reveal itself to me.
And between sessions, I would spend time in the library reading and learning. I was going to enjoy myself now that I didn’t need to attend Emberkeep classes.
That morning, right after breakfast, I went to the arena to practice my third trial. Shakari, Rowan, and Tran had come to watch in support. Jan and Soehl were there as well, standing among the spectators, close enough that I could find them without searching.
Many students had gathered to observe the session, and the constant movement in the stands, the shifting bodies, the low murmur of voices, made it harder to settle into my focus.Still, I kept my eyes forward, grounding myself in the space.
Thankfully, Lorik and his entourage were nowhere to be seen.
When my name was called, I stepped into the arena, and the illusion surged on the other side of the arena. The dragon illusion was a magma dragon. It almost looked real. It rose from the ground, its massive red body as large as the one I encountered beyond the veil. From his mouth, lava dripped. I reminded myself of what I already knew: the heat was real enough to feel, but the lava could not injure me. It would only disqualify me if I let it touch me.
For this trial practice, I would only get five minutes. That was all I had to grab the ruby or give my spot to another student to try.
The dragon was waiting for me, positioned deliberately in front of the box with rubies. Its wings unfurled slowly, more magma coming out of its mouth. I drew on the fire magic to my hand, but I was not going to combat; I was going to use the controlled magic I had learned my whole life, the kind that answered instinct rather than violence. The flames from my hands wrapped around the dragon’s wings, not burning, not striking, but binding, threads of heat and brilliance tightening like glowing ropes. The dragon roared in fury, its body resisting as it strained against the restraint, and for a moment, I thought I had it.
Then it growled low and mighty, wings beating once, twice, before it surged upward and dragged me with it.
