At first light.

  That was what the orders had said.

  They arrived as the sky began to pale, boots striking stone in practiced rhythm. Blades rested at their hips. Arcane artifacts gleamed in their hands. Their armor was spotless, polished to a mirror sheen that reflected the cracked courtyard beneath their feet.

  They did not look at us as people.

  They looked at us as potential.

  Or waste.

  It didn’t matter which.

  All that mattered was that their quotas were met and the nobles made their selections.

  Standing in those lines never got easier. We shuffled forward inch by inch, drawn toward the raised platform like filings to a magnet. No one spoke unless spoken to. No one stepped out of turn.

  We were there to perform.

  The looks they gave us weren’t cruel. Cruelty requires effort.

  These were empty.

  Measured. Dismissive. Already done with us.

  My clothes hung loose at the seams, fabric worn thin from years of scavenging. The knee and shoulder pads were mismatched pieces I’d strapped on and restitched more times than I could count. They were the kind of clothes meant for climbing rubble and crawling through broken markets, not for standing beneath noble scrutiny.

  Finally, my name was called.

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  “Name?”

  The official didn’t glance up from his tablet.

  “Raevess. No family name. Sixteen.”

  The stylus scratched across the surface.

  “Magic test first. Right side. Physical test after. Left.”

  The same directions as every year.

  “Understood, sir.”

  The words came automatically. Polite. Sharp. Forgettable.

  The magic test was always first. A simple manifestation to gauge raw output. No technique. No training. Just power.

  Then came the sword.

  A double-handed longsword etched in runes, its metal faintly alive with restrained energy. If you carried enough natural magic in your body, the blade would respond. If you didn’t, it might as well have been part of the courtyard itself.

  I had never lifted it.

  Not once.

  When my turn came for the magic test, the evaluators gestured toward the elemental tablets laid out across the stone tables. Fire. Water. Wind.

  The usual favorites.

  I reached for stone.

  One of the evaluators raised a brow but said nothing. Stone wasn’t flashy. It didn’t spark or swirl. It required patience.

  I stepped into a horse stance and pressed my fingers against the etched sigil. The carving felt rough and familiar beneath my skin. Grounded. Heavy. Certain.

  I tried to be the same.

  I drew a slow breath and reached inward, searching for something solid. Something ancient. Something that would answer.

  Nothing moved.

  Not in the tablet. Not in me.

  Seconds stretched.

  A boy behind me made a crude noise with his mouth. Laughter broke across the line. Short. Predictable.

  Stone was slow. Stone was dull.

  Stone was useless in a spectacle.

  The evaluator sighed softly and motioned past me.

  “Next.”

  I lowered the tablet and stepped aside.

  Failure, as usual.

  I crossed the courtyard toward the swords, already feeling the weight of what would happen next. Every year I chose a different element. Every year the result was the same.

  Yet something strange always followed.

  As I walked, runes in nearby charms flickered.

  A spell someone attempted to cast to my left bent unnaturally, the flame tilting toward me before snapping back into place. A wind sigil shimmered, its edges trembling.

  It happened every time.

  Magic reacted to me.

  Just not the way it was supposed to.

  I didn’t understand it. No one did. And I had learned quickly that drawing attention to it only made things worse.

  So I kept my eyes forward.

  I reached the sword.

  Wrapped my hands around the hilt.

  And prepared to fail again.