The scroll was taken from Cassian by a servant who moved like smoke...nearly weightless. His robes were ash-gray, blending into the stone walls as if he had been born from them. He didn't look at Cassian. He simply bowed and disappeared behind a velvet curtain at the rear of the chamber, taking Cassian's failure with him.
Cassian sat rigid, fingers clenched around his knees to keep them from shaking. He didn't know what was worse—the fact that he hadn't even been able to attempt the test, or the dread pooling in his stomach as the instructor returned, now holding a fan of transparent crystal slips. They shimmered faintly with runes and shifting color, and he knew—without being told—that these were the results.
She handed them out one by one, moving down the row like a judge delivering sentences.
Each crystal glowed with faint hues—blue, green, silver… and then his.
Red.
