The week before the Trial passed not like a storm, but like the pause before one.
There were no speeches. No dramatic farewells. The orphanage barely acknowledged them. The director had signed their forms with a smudge of ink and returned to his ledgers. The other children kept their distance, unsure whether to envy or pity them.
Inside their small world, though, the three of them prepared like their lives depended on it.
Because they did.
Day One
Lena woke to find a half-dozen knives laid out on a linen cloth, their blades dulled and weights slightly altered.
"You'll train with these this week," Caelan said, without looking up from the scroll he was annotating.
"They're off-balance," she noted, testing the heft.
"Exactly. Balance is a luxury. You'll be tested in chaos. Get used to it."
Lena said nothing, but something in her spine straightened. She didn't like being trained—but she liked being underestimated even less.
Day Three
In the back garden, Garric carried two buckets filled with stone dust. Each step forced his aura to adjust, to hold, to control.
"Feel it. Hold it. Let it pulse," Caelan instructed from the fence. "When you go into the Trial, they'll expect wild power. You're going to show them poise. That's how soldiers rise. Not with rage. With control."
Garric grunted. "You sound like you've been in their army."
Caelan smiled faintly. "I've been studying their instructors."
Day Five
Caelan spent most of the night in the shed. Mortar, pestle, notes spread out like a language only he could read. He didn't just brew — he calibrated. He layered the scent profile of his formula with two decoys. He altered the viscosity so it couldn't be duplicated without the exact temperature sequence.
The final vial was tucked in a wooden box wrapped in cloth.
Lena peeked through the crack in the door. "You still haven't told us what's in it."
"You wouldn't understand."
She smirked. "Try me."
Caelan looked up. "Fine. Four base components, two stabilizers, and one catalyst made from something this world calls waste. You mix them wrong, you get a tonic that tastes like ash. Mix them right... it rewrites pain."
She was quiet. Then: "You're not from here, are you?"
He didn't answer. Just corked the vial and blew out the lantern.
Trial Day
The walls of Aetherhold Academy were older than most of Eldrun. Black stone, veined with silver. Towers that cast long shadows over the testing grounds. Even the air felt different here—charged, expectant.
Commoners gathered in tight, silent clusters. Nobles watched from the higher balconies, wine in hand, curiosity in their eyes. For them, this was sport.
The Talent Window Trials weren't meant to uplift. They were designed to sort.
Caelan stood with Garric and Lena near the edge of the courtyard. All three wore simple tunics, no symbols, no crests. Just names on a slate board and expectation hanging thick around them.
He turned to them quietly.
"This is it. We don't need to be perfect. Just undeniable."
Lena's eyes were sharp, calm. Garric rolled his shoulders like he was made of stone.
A steward called out, "Combat Trial! Garric of Thornebrook. Step forward."
Caelan leaned in as Garric turned. "Remember: you're a storm in slow motion. Let them think they've seen your limit."
Garric nodded and walked into the arena, where a hulking construct of stone and magic waited. The Trial wasn't about defeating it — just surviving it for one minute without collapsing.
Garric lasted two.
His aura flared, held, then receded like a tide. He didn't roar. He didn't flinch. And when the judges whispered to each other behind raised hands, Caelan allowed himself one quiet breath.
The next name was Lena's.
She didn't look back as she stepped forward, twin knives hidden at her waist.
Her test was a reflex gauntlet — platforms that shifted, targets that appeared and vanished, magic pulses designed to disorient. The test rewarded not speed, but precision under duress.
Lena danced. Her body moved like water over glass. One judge raised an eyebrow. Another muttered something about "too trained."
But then she deliberately stumbled once — just enough. Missed a mark she could have hit. Human. Fallible. Believable.
When she walked back, she wiped sweat from her brow and said nothing. Caelan handed her a water flask and nodded.
And then, they called him.
"Caelan of Thornebrook. Talent Window: Medicine."
There was no arena for him. Just a table, a panel of four robed evaluators, and a patient: a boy with a dislocated shoulder and partial tear across the collarbone. Clearly induced.
Caelan approached, carrying the wooden box.
The lead examiner — a woman with silver eyes and a bored expression — spoke.
"You requested a live demonstration. This injury qualifies. Do you agree to the terms?"
"I do," Caelan said calmly. "But I require a condition in return. My sample will be used once, under supervision. No copies, no analysis, no retention. Agreed?"
They laughed. Then saw his eyes.
Eventually, the silver-eyed judge nodded. "Fine. Impress us."
Caelan knelt beside the patient, opened the box, uncorked the vial. The scent that wafted up was unlike anything they'd smelled — not floral, not medicinal. Clean. Electric.
He whispered something the boy didn't quite catch, then carefully poured half the vial along the edge of the wound. Massaged the joint back into place with clinical precision.
The pain dropped from ten to zero in seconds.
The boy blinked. Moved his shoulder.
No wince. No delay.
The judges sat straighter. One leaned in. "What's the base compound?"
Caelan recorked the vial. "I said one use. You agreed."
The silver-eyed judge studied him. Then smiled.
"You're dangerous."
Caelan bowed his head slightly. "I hope so."
Back in the waiting chamber, Lena and Garric waited.
He entered last. Sat down. Let out a slow exhale.
"Well?" Garric asked.
Caelan looked at both of them. For the first time in a week, his shoulders relaxed just a little.
"They'll take us."
Lena leaned back, a smirk ghosting across her lips.
Garric cracked his knuckles. "Then what happens?"
Caelan looked toward the massive tower that loomed over Aetherhold.
"Now," he said, "we step into their world."
"And start building ours."