Aurelia watched from the high rail as the hall became a chamber of held breaths.
Below her, the students began to paint.
Not with canvas or pigment, but with intent, Aether sketched into the air, Aura pressed into posture and motion, tools lifted and given meaning.
Futures took shape in half-formed silhouettes: a steadier stance here, a sharper focus there, the echo of a weapon not yet forged or a spell not yet named.
It reminded her of watching artists work without seeing the page, hands moving, choices made, something taking form before it could be named.
Painting without a canvas. Only the self as the surface.
Some visions were timid, flickering like under-mixed color, students hesitating as if afraid to commit to a line they might later regret.
Others were overworked, too bright, too perfect, layered with borrowed ideals that rang hollow even from a distance.
Aurelia could feel which ones would not last. They shimmered, then wavered, already tiring under the weight of pretending.
Her attention drifted, then caught, again, on the girl with constellations in her eyes.
The light there did not flare. It arranged itself.
Aurelia leaned forward slightly. That isn't ambition, she noted. It's alignment.
The student wasn't reaching upward or outward, she was refining inward, letting something already present sharpen into clarity. The future she painted was not larger than life. It was truer to it.
Aurelia felt an unexpected warmth settle in her chest. This trial isn't about power, she realized. It's about honesty. About whether a person could look forward without lying to themselves.
She watched another student falter, their projection cracking as doubt crept in.
You can't force a future that doesn't believe in you, she thought, remembering how her own magic had first resisted her—how Remembrance had demanded truth before obedience.
Around the hall, the air thickened with effort. Sweat beaded on brows. Aether hummed under strain. Some students adjusted, repainting lines, softening edges, choosing again. Others froze, brush hovering, uncertain where to place the next stroke.
The Academy did not ask them to be extraordinary. It asked them to be real, to choose a future they could carry without breaking.
Her gaze returned to the constellation-eyed girl as the student steadied her vision, the light settling into something quiet and durable.
Aurelia straightened, resolve firming. If you can paint yourself truthfully, then you deserve to stand here.
A subtle shift rippled through the hall.
The pressure that had been building, quiet, coiled, eased around a single figure as her vision settled into place.
Aurelia felt it before anyone spoke. Completion. Not collapse, not release, but the sense of a line drawn cleanly to its end.
The girl with the constellations in her eyes lowered her hands.
The light around her did not vanish. It resolved.
Veyron straightened at once, his attention sharpening. "You may step forward," he called, voice carrying easily across the chamber.
The student obeyed, her projected future-self lingering for a heartbeat longer before folding inward like a finished thought. What remained hovered just enough for all to see.
It was her, older, steadier, eyes still alight with constellations.
But the stars were wrong.
They did not match any chart Aurelia knew. Their patterns refused familiar myth, unfamiliar arcs burning softly where no names existed. Not brighter, not grander, but new.
Aurelia's breath caught. Unknown constellations… Not borrowed power. Not inherited meaning. Discovery.
Veyron inclined his head, a rare note of approval threading his expression. "State your name."
The girl swallowed, then lifted her chin. "Estelle Rowan."
A murmur passed through the hall.
Veyron gestured toward her lingering manifestation. "And your envisioned self?"
Estelle's fingers curled slightly at her sides, not in fear, but in resolve. "I want to record what hasn't been recorded yet," she said. "The constellations that don't exist on any map. If the sky changes… I want to be the one who notices."
Her future self shimmered once, the unknown stars pulsing as if in quiet agreement.
Veyron's voice rang clear. "Estelle Rowan is the first to complete the second trial."
The hall stirred, surprise, awe, a trace of envy, but Aurelia barely heard it.
She was still looking at the unfamiliar stars reflected in Estelle's eyes, at a future that did not chase legend but intended to write one.
Remember that name, Aurelia told herself. The sky will.
Cesare Varare watched Estelle's light settle and felt a small, sour bubble of irritation. She beamed like someone who'd just shown the room a private trick. Show-off, he thought.
Her projection hovered steady and sure, his own attempts were still sputters of Aether that smelled faintly of warm yeast and unfinished heat.
He glanced up at the pocket watch Marlec had set on the lectern. Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to make a self that didn't sound like a daydream in a baker's apron.
Am I going to be a baker forever? The stupid question flitted across his mind, then he shoved it away as if it were a hot tray.
I came here to get out of kneading dough at dawn. If I fail, I inherit the oven.
There was no shame in the bakery, his father woke before dawn and made bread like a prayer, but it was the life his parents had neatly planned for him, and he'd wanted something else.
Magic. Movement. A way to not be defined by who came before him.
Still, he refused to pretend the bakery was irrelevant.
The smell of yeast was stitched into the way he thought of rhythm and temperature, the heft of dough had taught him patience.
If I can't be a full mage, he told himself, then at least let my magic be a baker's magic—warm, steady, useful.
He imagined a projection: himself older, hands dusted but wrists intense, conjuring heat and rising dough into small constructs, an imaginative compromise, not flashy but honest.
He wagged the thought away with a frustrated chuckle. He needed sharper lines, not metaphors. Time drifted faster than the watch's tick.
Then someone's name snapped through the room.
"Klaris Kaiser has passed the second trial," Veyron announced, and clarity hit him like a chill.
Panic rose, manageable and cold. You have thirty minutes, he told himself. Shape it. Don't apologize to fate. Use what you know.
He set his jaw, pushed the flutter of doubt down, and let his hands find their motion again.
Flour-dusted fingers curled, Aether gathered like warm steam, and the bakery's rhythm, proofing, folding, timing, became the map he steeled himself to follow.
There was no time for resentment now. Only work.
Time thinned and stretched, marked by soft announcements and the hush between them. One by one, futures took shape—or failed to.
Some projections stabilized quickly, their creators stepping back with startled laughter or quiet relief as Veyron called their names.
Others flickered, half-formed silhouettes dissolving into nothing as doubt crept in. A few students stood rigid, hands trembling, unable to settle on a single image long enough for Aether or Aura to obey.
Sweat darkened collars. Breaths grew shallow. The hall filled with the faint crackle of spent effort and the sharper scent of strain.
Some passed cleanly, their ideal selves standing transparent and honest before them—older, surer, still recognizably human. And some struggled, chasing visions too grand or too borrowed, watching them fracture the moment confidence wavered.
Time did not pause for anyone. The watch on Marlec's lectern ticked on, indifferent, as the line between success and failure quietly, relentlessly, made itself known.
———
The hour finished with a soft, exhausted exhale. Marlec closed his watch, and the hall fell into a hush as if the room itself were counting results.
"From the two hundred fifty who began," Veyron announced, "seventy did not complete the second trial within the hour." The numbers landed like stones. "One hundred eighty remain."
Cesare's lungs felt tight—burned with the effort of shaping himself into something steadier than a baker's son. He'd imagined the moment a hundred ways: a quiet nod from a professor, the relief of the ledger, the sudden softening of his father's face if he could return without the bakery as his fate. When Veyron called his name, the world prised.
"Cesare Varare—passed."
He couldn't help it. The sound tore out of him: a whoop that startled even himself. Heads turned. Some students smiled, some clapped politely, and a few watched with a tight, green edge of envy. For a scattered second, he felt unstoppable—like heat that finally rose, like dough that would not fall.
Then Veyron called another name. "Tomas Merrin—did not pass."
Tomas stepped forward, the color gone thin from his face.
Veyron's tone softened as he added, "You will have other opportunities: next year's intake, or you may apply to the sister academies. This is not the end of learning."
Tomas's hands trembled. He swallowed and looked like a man who had been handed a door that would not open today.
The assembled students shifted. The offer sounded generous, but its edges were sharp. For many, the trials were not merely academic, they were thin bridges to a different life.
Cesare's glee thinned as he watched Tomas. The spark that had lit him a heartbeat ago dimmed into something quieter. He heard, in his mind, the imagined shouts of his own triumph and felt—sudden and odd—the rawness in the other boy's jaw.
This was more than a test for him, Cesare thought. For some, it's a way out. For others, it's the only way forward.
He had wanted freedom from the oven and the timetable, a chance to fold magic into his work and, perhaps, leave the bakery's claim to his father's hands.
For Tomas, it might mean food on a table, a safer town, or simply the dignity of choice.
Cesare's chest tightened with the small, uncomfortable knowledge that his victory did not erase another's loss.
He stepped closer to where Tomas stood, breath still heavy. When Tomas looked up, Cesare offered the smallest thing he could—a smile, not triumphant now, but human. Tomas nodded once, something like gratitude and grief braided together.
Around them, Veyron called more names, pass, fail, possibilities. The hall was a tide of outcomes, some faces brightened, others folded inward.
Cesare folded his own relief into his shoulders and thought, with a steadier calm than the scream of victory had given him,
I have a chance. So do they. We all have paths now—different, yes, but real. That means something. I'll do what I can with mine.
Veyron raised a hand, letting the murmurs settle before they could swell. "The third trial will begin shortly," he said. "Until then, you may take a moment to—" his mouth curved, just slightly, "—admire your work."
Seris laughed outright, a bright sound that cut through the tension. Marlec shot her a sharp look that could have peeled varnish from a desk. She only grinned wider and folded her hands behind her back, thoroughly unrepentant.
Cesare let the noise fade and turned inward, eyes finding the figure that still stood before him.
It was him. Older, certainly, his shoulders broader, posture steadier, the soft uncertainty burned off by years of use. He looked a little taller, too, or maybe that was confidence stretching him.
But the thing that mattered was the thing that had let the projection hold, which was what the figure carried.
Bakery.
Not an apron or an oven, but the craft itself, folded cleanly into his magic.
Heat shaped with intent. Dough expanded into barriers. Sugar crystallized into cutting edges. Yeast-risen forms that could cushion a fall or bolster an ally.
The smells weren't there, not truly, but the memory of them was, warm bread, burnt sugar, the patience of waiting for something to rise.
He exhaled, slowly.
I'm not running from it, he realized. I'm taking it with me.
That was the truth he'd been circling without naming. He didn't want to inherit the bakery as a cage, but neither did he want to discard it as if it were shameful or small. In his future self's hands, it wasn't less. It was a foundation.
Attack, defense, support—it didn't matter. It was still his.
Cesare squared his shoulders, meeting his older self's gaze. For the first time since stepping into the Academy halls, the future didn't feel like a wall he had to climb or escape.
It felt like something he could build.
Klaris Kaiser stood very still.
Around her, the hall breathed again, soft footsteps, low voices, the scrape of nerves trying to settle, but she barely heard any of it. Her eyes were fixed on the figure before her, on the shape she had pulled from herself and made real.
So that's me.
Her future self didn't glow. There were no dramatic power flares, no theatrical displays meant to impress watching professors.
The woman who faced her stood straight-backed and steady, hair tied, hands marked with the faint calluses of constant work. Not noble-soft. Not delicate.
Reliable.
Klaris swallowed.
She looks… ordinary.
The thought stung before she could stop it. For a heartbeat, doubt crept in, familiar as an old bruise. Is that all I amount to? After everything?
She forced herself to look closer.
The posture wasn't stiff—it was practiced. Balanced. Every movement economical, nothing wasted. Aether rested around her future self like a well-worn cloak, not loud, not flashy, but responsive in a way that spoke of thousands of hours spent listening to it. When the figure shifted her weight, the magic adjusted instinctively, as natural as breath.
No shortcuts, Klaris realized. No miracles.
Just mastery earned the hard way.
Her chest tightened, and this time it wasn't disappointment, it was recognition.
This wasn't a vision of sudden talent blooming out of nowhere. This was the end of mornings that started before dawn, of drills repeated until her arms shook. Of corrections made one small, stubborn step at a time.
I didn't imagine something impossible, she thought. I imagined something honest.
Her future self met her gaze, neither smiling nor stern, but calm. Certain. As if to say, "You already know how to get here."
Klaris let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Her shoulders loosened, just a fraction.
I don't need to be gifted, she told herself, firmly. I need to keep going.
The projection held steady as stone, as Klaris smiled at it.
The twins stood a short distance apart, close enough to see each other clearly, far enough that the space between them felt deliberate.
The boy shifted first, rocking on his heels, eyes bright as he stared at the figure he and his sister had shaped together. It looked like him, older, broader through the shoulders, posture easy with confidence. Too easy.
"This is weird," he muttered, breaking the quiet. "I thought it'd feel… bigger."
His sister didn't answer right away. She was watching her own projection, hands clasped behind her back, gaze thoughtful rather than impressed. Hers stood straighter than the present version of her, eyes sharper, expression calm in a way that suggested decisions already made and lived with.
Is that really me? she wondered. Or just who I think I'm supposed to be?
She glanced sideways at her brother. He caught the look immediately.
"What?" he asked. "You're doing that thing again."
"That thing" earned him a faint scowl. "Thinking," she said. "You should try it."
He grinned. "Rude."
But the grin faded as he followed her gaze, back to the space between them. To the distance they'd chosen without being told to.
The first trial lingered like an echo. The way their burdens had reacted when they stood too close. The fracture that hadn't broken, but had warned.
His voice came quieter this time. "Back there… you were right."
She stiffened. "About what?"
"About us." He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly unsure. "If this is supposed to be… who we become." He gestured vaguely at the projection. "Do we stay like this? Together all the time?"
Her fingers tightened.
I don't know, she wanted to say. The truth pressed heavily against her ribs. I don't know if I'm afraid of being alone—or afraid I'll never be.
She took a breath. "I don't think the trial's asking that," she said slowly. "Not exactly."
He frowned. "Then what is it asking?"
She looked at her future self again. Not at where it stood, but how. Grounded. Self-contained.
"I think," she said, choosing each word carefully, "it's asking who we are when we're not leaning on each other."
That landed harder than either of them expected.
The boy went quiet. His projection wavered for a heartbeat, then steadied again, this time standing just a fraction more upright, feet planted on its own.
"…Hey," he said after a moment, forcing a lightness into his tone. "I'm still gonna be taller than you."
She snorted despite herself. "You're an idiot."
"Repeat it when I am," he shot back.
She shook her head, but there was a smile there now, small, genuine. "Hikaru," she said, using his name like an anchor. "You know that's not the point."
He blinked, then laughed softly. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."
He met her eyes. "Hiyori."
The sound of her name, spoken plainly, without panic or dependence, settled something between them.
They didn't move closer.
They didn't move away either.
Instead, both twins turned back to their respective projections and, for the first time, shaped them separately. Not abandoning the other. Just… allowing space.
And strangely, that space didn't feel like a loss.
It felt like balance.
Veyron clapped once, sharp enough to make the dust settle, and the hall obediently quieted.
"Enough admiration," he said. "Most of you probably guessed what Trial Three will be."
A ripple of eager, nervous energy went through the students. Someone called out, half-joke, half-hope, "Combat?"
"It's combat," Veyron confirmed, smiling thinly. "But not what you think."
A hand shot up from near the front. "What about support types?" a student asked, voice pitched with genuine concern. "Healers, artisans, rune-crafters, are we expected to fight in the same way as duelists?"
Veyron's eyes flicked to the boy. "Why do you assume this will be a straight one-on-one?" he asked calmly. "Battle needs shields and minds as much as blades. The point is to test role as much as prowess. You will not be pitted only against students."
He turned, palms flat on the lectern. "We, the faculty, will be your opponents."
The hall sucked in a breath.
"You will be split by discipline," Veyron continued. "Aether users into two groups, each of those groups will face Seris and Marlec, respectively. Aura users will be split to face Professors Weiss and Leonhard. Support types: healers, rune-smiths, artificers, will be matched with Selvara."
A murmur ran through the ranks, some relief, some new fear.
Veyron held up a hand. "There will be handicaps on the faculty," he said. "We are not here to crush you. We are here to teach. But we will not make it impossible."
He listed them off with the same precise patience he used in lectures.
"Aether professors: limited to basic elemental casting. No complex lattices, no layered patterns, simple, reliable elements.
Aura professors: cannot augment speed, only their strength may be used. You will see blunt force without unnatural quickening.
Selvara: for support encounters, she is limited to defensive runes and non-offensive gadgets. No offensive artificing."
Eyes turned to Selvara, she inclined her head, expression unreadable but steady.
"The rule for victory is simple," Veyron said. "Touch a professor, physically, or with a spell, or with a tool, once. That single touch counts. Do so within six hours, and your entire group passes Trial Three. Fail to touch them in time, and the group fails."
A low, incredulous laugh escaped someone. Six hours were long. The 1-touch rule was both merciful and merciless.
"There are two further constraints," Veyron added. "Professors may not leave their assigned arenas to stall. If a professor attempts to evade contact by leaving their ring, they forfeit the match immediately."
Seris, perched at Veyron's side, clapped slowly. "This favors clever coordination as much as power," she said. "Think in roles: screeners, distractors, bridges. Protect your support and your channelers. Move as teams, not as eager gladiators."
Marlec's pen scratched a quick line in his notebook, always cataloguing.
Weiss and Leonhard exchanged a look, respect intertwined with a hint of competitive hunger.
The students' expressions ranged from fired-up to white-faced.
For many, the idea of reaching across the ring to touch a mentor, someone who could break them in an instant, sparked equal parts dread and resolve.
Aurelia folded her hands on the rail, watching the shuffling waves of faces below.
Six hours, she thought. That's a long time to hold a decision. That's enough for mistakes and for cleverness. It will take more than force.
She watched groups cluster, Aether hands drawing tight, Aura users finding center, quiet makers gathering around each other. This will show who is a team and who still thinks they're an island.
Now was the moment to divide them.
Veyron lifted one hand, fingers spreading as if prying open the air itself.
The hall answered, space stretching with a quiet, stomach-turning lurch. What should have been walls slipped away from one another, depth folding inward until the Academy's great chamber was suddenly far larger on the inside than any sane geometry would allow.
Stone groaned, then settled.
Five colosseums unfurled from the expanded space, rising in clean arcs of white and slate, arenas shaped by intent rather than masonry. Each one sealed itself with a low, resonant hum, boundaries etched in light.
With a second gesture, Veyron scattered the students like constellations, each finding its place.
Aura practitioners vanished first, forty-three landing in Professor Reinhard's arena, forty-three more before Weiss. The air there thickened immediately with restrained power, the sound of breath and shifting feet sharp and eager.
Aether users followed, forty-one to Seris, forty-one to Marlec, light bending subtly as currents reoriented themselves, magic already testing the edges of its leash.
The remaining thirty-three support types found themselves standing alone across from Selvara.
Runes glimmered faintly at the arena's rim, defensive arrays already awake.
Aurelia stared, breath caught somewhere between awe and disbelief.
This isn't just teleportation, she thought, fingers tightening around the rail. He rewrote the space itself. Folded it like paper.
Her hand clenched without her realizing it, excitement sparking hot in her chest. I'll get there. I will. Someday I'll do magic like that, clean, effortless, unquestionable.
Veyron clapped once more. "You have time to plan. You have time to breathe. Rest now, then prepare. Trial Three begins at dusk."
Students hurried into knots of plans, voices tight with purpose, instructors gathered, already plotting fair handicaps and the small tests they would use to teach as they beat and were touched.