The valley woke before the sun. Mist clung to the creek like a blanket refusing to be folded away. Roofs sweated dew; a rooster bragged at nothing. The first cookfires sighed into pale blue and turned it gray.
Ren sat on the orphanage steps and watched the village breathe itself into the day. His own breath curled in front of him, slow and small—as if he didn't want the morning to notice him.
A thin vein of silver cracked the sky—so quick the eye could doubt it. No thunder followed. Only the pop of wet wood in a stove, a cart's wheel complaining, a bell at the baker's shop.
Lightning? On a clear morning? His hand rose halfway, then fell. Stories adults told weren't arguments worth winning.
He stretched, shook the cold from his arms, and began the morning that never changed: the pump's squeal, the rush of water, the kitchen, the trough. The hen eyed him like it had seen too much. He split kindling—poorly.
"Ren!" the matron called from inside, voice measured and certain. "Don't forget the big logs behind the dormitory."
"Yes," he answered. The word curled in on itself, polite and small. He didn't mind the work. The ache afterward made him feel brighter somehow, like something beneath his skin remembered it was alive.
"Still no glow, huh?" a boy at the gate jeered as Ren passed with an armful of wood. The scar on his lip stretched when he grinned. Laughter followed—thin, familiar. "Bet he's the only one at the Trials who lights nothing! Maybe he'll invent a new Nature—nothingness!"
Ren looked at his hands. Clean. Empty.
Yesterday he'd tried again, out beyond the fields. Thumb to finger, willing the knot of power to answer. It never did—just a tremor, just air.
He wanted to tell them I'm trying, but trying didn't count.
The matron met him at the door and handed him a wrapped loaf. "Take this to Dayne on the east road," she said. "He's leaving before the market opens."
"Why me?"
"Because you won't eat it on the way. And because you're quick."
That part was true. If he couldn't summon fire or light, he could at least outrun the ones who could.
He jogged through the waking village. Mist lifted in ribbons, and for a few minutes the world felt unsure enough to grant him anonymity.
At the east road, a trader argued with his mule. Dayne looked up, saw the bread, and smiled—lines fanning from his eyes.
"Save me, lad. What do I owe?"
"Nothing. Matron said."
Dayne broke the loaf with careful hands. "Are you thinking of standing out there with the other hopefuls?"
Ren hesitated. "At the Trials?"
"That's the one. Valenreach hosts 'em next week. Anyone under sixteen can test. Even the unnatured."
He watched Ren's face. "You didn't hear?"
"I heard."
Wanting hurt more than silence.
Dayne nodded toward the fog-spined road. "Don't let them think for you. They don't pay your rent."
Ren almost smiled. Dayne flicked the reins. The mule grudgingly obeyed. As the cart rolled off, the man called back, "Lightning's quiet before it's loud!"
Ren stood in the road until the sound faded. Lightning's quiet before it's loud.
He went to the hill behind the fields when chores were done. The hill was nothing special—stubborn grass, one dying tree that cracked when the wind came hard—but it was his.
He sat, legs stretched, palms on his knees, and breathed. Find the knot. Not with your hands.
His mind offered everything except quiet: the scar-lipped boy, the flash of dawn, the knight who once told a six-year-old, Never fear the storm. At the time, he thought the man meant rain. Now he wasn't sure.
In. Out.
A hush slid over the grass. Hairs on his arms lifted. A gnat drifted aside, nudged by something unseen.
Ren opened his eyes too soon. The hill looked the same: brown, green, stubborn. His hands were empty.
"Again," he muttered. Saying it out loud made it real.
He tried until the sun bled behind the ridge and his throat tasted of metal. Tried until trying became sitting, and sitting became pretending.
When he returned, the village glowed copper in the fading light. Children shouted victory over chores. Someone had made stew out of everything; everything tasted of salt. He ate on the steps. Alone was a habit.
Two older boys leaned on the fence.
"He's going," one said. "To the Trials."
"Maybe the Prism'll see something we don't."
"Maybe he comes back burned." Their laughter fell short.
The matron sat beside him without looking. She handed him another piece of bread.
"You heard the talk?"
"About the Trials."
"It's a door," she said. "Doors don't open for anyone sittin' outside waitin'. You knock, or you rot out here."
He stared at the bread.
"What if I can't—"
"What if you can?" she cut in, voice tired but kind. "Either way, you'll know. Most folk die wonderin'."
When she went inside, he stayed until the steps cooled beneath him. The creek whispered; smoke thinned; the sky bruised. Clouds crept in, thick-bellied and impatient. The first drop struck his cheek like a coin slipped by mistake.
He climbed the hill again. The wind turned suddenly and sideways. Grass lay flat. The dying tree reached up with black fingers.
Rain came hard, stitching the field white. He tilted his face to it and let the day wash away.
Then—light.
A white rib split the sky, bright enough to carve shadows in mid-air. The world froze, each raindrop a bead strung on invisible wire.
In that frozen light, he saw himself: a thin figure holding out empty hands. And he felt it—not in his skin, but behind his ribs. A held breath, waiting to exhale.
The air tasted of metal and snow. The world leaned toward him. A pulse circled his body—cool, deliberate, alive. Not a voice, but a rhythm forming around him like a question with no language. It tightened once, twice, then withdrew, leaving only the echo of movement.
Ren's knees gave. The pressure eased. Breath returned like a slow apology. The light went. The rain remembered its fall. Far off, thunder arrived late—heavy, human, final.
It sounded like a heartbeat.
When the storm broke, the world smelled new. By dawn, the mist was already rising again.
Ren packed what little he owned: a loaf, a threadbare cloak, and the stubborn hope that hadn't yet left him. He didn't tell the matron goodbye. He didn't have to.
The road into Valenreach was slick and gray. Mud clung to boots, puddles reflected rooftops jagged against the sky, and the air tasted of rain that had yet to fall—metallic, charged.
He followed the line of candidates up the ridge until the academy gates swallowed them.
Beyond, the training grounds spread wide and disciplined: chalk rings etched into sand, banners snapping in the wind, and a courtyard of mirrors that hummed faintly, as if each pane were holding back a storm.
At the center stood the Prisms—glass towers no taller than a person, pulsing faintly with color. Blue, red, green—some vibrant, some dull. They drew mana from the air, searching for a match.
Ren joined the queue. Most around him wore uniforms stitched with crests—family marks and quiet inheritance. He wore travel clothes, still damp with morning sweat.
A boy behind him muttered, "Still no glow, huh?"
Ren glanced back. Recognition, faint. "Maybe it's saving itself," he said.
The boy laughed once—a short, sharp sound—then fell silent.
When his turn came, Ren stepped forward. The official beside the Prism looked tired, repeating the same lines.
"Place your hand flat. Breathe. Don't force it."
Ren obeyed. The glass was icy under his palm—too smooth to trust.
For a heartbeat, nothing. The crowd shuffled, bored and restless.
Then—a faint static crackled beneath his fingers. Barely more than a whisper before lightning. A ghost of shimmer, pale and fleeting, danced across the Prism.
The examiner frowned, leaning closer, adjusting a rune beneath the glass.
"Flicker," she said. "Unstable resonance. Mark it gray."
Gray. Not a color. Not a promise. Just absence.
He stepped back. Behind him, the next candidate pressed her hand. Green exploded across the glass—pure, steady. Cheers followed, sharp and warm.
From the far edge of the yard, Instructor Alis Dren paused. Eyes narrowed, she noted the shimmer that had already faded from Ren's Prism. Unstable resonance—gray. Then she moved on.
Ren walked toward the benches, each step brushing against the faint glow of others' successes—a dozen small suns blazing where he held none.
The second phase unfolded in the old lecture hall: cold stone, ink-stained air, candles flickering over rows of desks. Supervisors whispered as they passed, eyes scanning, pens poised.
Ren read the first sheet: theory of mana flow, elemental balance, tactical ethics. Words twisted in unfamiliar ways. But he understood balance—how currents moved, how weight shifted when wind pressed against walls.
He wrote slowly, deliberately. Each stroke measured. Mistakes came, but never carelessly.
Beside him, a boy scribbled frantically, lines and words Ren didn't recognize, envy sharpening against the rhythm of his own pen.
Time ended like a knife dropped. Quills still. Chairs scraped. The air smelled of wax and nerves.
Outside, dusk crept across the courtyard. Candidates gathered again, voices rising and falling in nervous excitement. Ren leaned against a wall, letting the noise wash past him.
An instructor stepped onto the platform, voice slicing through the hum.
"Phase one and two results will be posted by dawn. Those marked green or higher proceed to combat assessment." She paused, scanning faces. "Gray marks will report for observation."
Observation. A polite word for barely passing.
Ren nodded once. Relief or fury flickered across other faces. A few clapped one another on the back. No one clapped him.
He started toward the dorms when a familiar laugh cut through the noise—louder, sharper than the rest.
Across the yard, Marek—the boy who'd once shared his orphanage roof—stood among new friends, his uniform embroidered with a noble crest. He didn't see Ren. Or pretended not to.
Ren adjusted the strap of his satchel and kept walking.
Thunder rolled faintly beyond the hills—deep, slow, unhurried. The storm had not returned, but neither had it vanished.
He looked up once, toward that distant rumble, and smiled without knowing why.
"It's enough," he whispered.
For now.