Dawn in The Dregs was just a rumor, a slight lightening of the gray. But here, in the plaza, the sun was a weak, watery knife, striking the top of the obsidian college and making the black stone glitter.
Down here, it just made the cold worse.
I'd spent the night sitting on my cot, my back to the wall, watching Elara's chest rise and fall. Her breathing had been shallow, a tiny, rattling sound that scared me more than any guard's shout. Sleep hadn't come. Fear was a stone in my belly, heavy and sharp.
Now, that fear was all that kept my legs from buckling.
The plaza from yesterday was gone. The mob of hopefuls had been culled and sorted. Now, a roped-off square of stone defined the "arena." Maybe fifty of us remained, huddled inside the ropes, a miserable herd of sheep waiting for the slaughter.
The crowd was different, too. Spectators.
On one side, a silent, grim mass of people from The Dregs, their faces all shadows and hunger. They weren't here to cheer; they were here to watch. On the other side, seated in raised wooden stands, were the elites. Students from the college, wrapped in fine wool cloaks, drinking from steaming flasks, their laughter like the chipping of ice. They were here for the show.
A man stood in the center of the arena. He was tall, built like a brick wall, and a web of silver scars covered the entire left side of his face, pulling his eye and mouth into a permanent, grim snarl. This had to be Professor Varrick, the Trials Master.
He held a clipboard. His voice was like gravel.
"Qualifier, Day Two. Trial by combat. Single elimination. You will fight until your opponent yields, is incapacitated, or... is removed. Do not show mercy. Mercy is a lie."
My stomach twisted. Incapacitated. Removed. He was permitting them to kill us.
"First pair!" Varrick barked, not looking up. "Lek val-Aris!"
A boy from the low-elite crowd, one of the ones who had mocked me yesterday puffed up his chest and swaggered into the ring. He had clean, blond hair and a stupid, smug grin. He wore a "focus-glove" of soft, black leather, studded with small, dull-glowing gems. A crutch. It meant his magic was too weak to shape on its own.
"Versus..." Varrick paused, and his scarred eyes scanned the huddle of Dreg-rats. "Anya Rostova!"
A cold, electric shock went up my spine. Already?
The crowd of hopefuls parted, shoving me forward. I stumbled into the center of the ring. The contrast between us was laughable. He was all clean wool and polished leather. I was soot, patches, and a coat that was two sizes too big.
The elites in the stands laughed. It was a bright, cruel sound.
"Oh, this will be quick," one of them called out.
"Ten silvers says she doesn't land a single hit!"
Lek laughed with them, bowing to the stands. He turned to me, his smile a sneer. "You can yield now, rat. Save us both the trouble."
"Don't you... Talk to me," I whispered, but my voice was stolen by the wind.
"Begin!" Varrick roared.
Lek didn't hesitate. He wasn't a fighter; he was a bully. He raised his gloved hand, and the gems flashed. A thin, crackling whip of yellow Aether, pure, shining light, snapped into existence. It wasn't solid, not like the "hard-light" constructs the true elites could make. It was just energy. Flashy, but weak.
He cracked it in the air. The snap was loud, and it sent a shower of harmless sparks.
"Dance for them, little rat!" he giggled and lashed out.
I was no mage, but I was a Dreg-fighter. I didn't wait for the hit. I dove, rolling on the hard stone, and came up with my knife in my hand. The crowd oohed.
"A weapon!" Lek scoffed, like I'd just insulted his mother. "How common. You can't bring steel to a magic fight!"
He lashed the whip at my hand. I jerked back, but not fast enough. The Aether strand hit my knuckles. It felt like being snapped by a white-hot rope, a stinging, electrical burn. I cried out, my fingers going numb, and my knife clattered to the stone.
The elites howled with laughter.
"Pathetic!" Lek shouted, high on their praise. He was performing.
He snapped the whip again, this time at my feet. I jumped back. And again, at my shoulder. I ducked. It became a game. He herded me around the ring, the whip cracking, forcing me to dodge and weave, a rat in a cage, just as he'd wanted. He never hit me again, but he didn't have to. He was humiliating me.
I was fast. I was a shadow. But he had magic, and I couldn't get close. Every time I lunged, the whip would snap, forcing me back.
"Is this all you Dreg-rats can do?" he taunted, his breath pluming in the cold. "Just scurry and hide?"
My blood was fire. My knuckles throbbed. I was breathing hard, my lungs raw from the cold air and the shame.
"Tired?" he asked, his voice sickly sweet. He cracked the whip just for fun, watching me flinch. "I'm getting bored. Just fall over and let this be done."
He was getting cocky. He stepped forward, raising the whip for a big, theatrical flourish.
I saw my opening.
I didn't lunge. I fell, dropping all my weight, and swept my boot across the ground, kicking my fallen knife. It wasn't an attack; it was a distraction. The spinning blade skittered across the stones right at his feet.
As he flinched, just as I knew he would, I exploded up and forward, driving low, aiming for his stomach with my shoulder.
I almost made it.
He yelped, panicked, and his magic reacted. He didn't swing his whip; he just threw up a wall of Aether. A shimmering, dinner-plate-sized shield of light flashed into existence right in front of my face.
I slammed into it, full-force.
The impact was brutal. It was like hitting a wall of solid, unmoving light. The air blasted from my lungs, and I was thrown backward, landing hard on the unforgiving stone.
My head cracked against the pavement. The world went white with pain, and all I could hear was a high-pitched ringing.
The crowd in the stands was on its feet, roaring.
Lek was breathing hard, his smug mask gone, replaced with the real, panicked fear of someone who had almost been touched.
"You... bitch!" he spat, the word full of venom. He raised his Aether-whip high, his face red with fury. He was done playing.
He stalked over to where I lay, gasping, trying to get the world to stop spinning.
"You people don't know your place," he seethed. He kicked me in the ribs. I curled in on myself with a groan. "They should just leave you all in The Dregs to rot. It's what you're good at."
Rot.
The word.
It was the wrong word.
It was the word for Elara. For her fading smile, for her paper-thin skin. For the wasting sickness.
The ringing in my ears stopped.
The pain in my head disappeared.
All I could feel was a sudden, terrible, cold.
It wasn't a power rising. It was a hole opening. A void in my stomach, sucking all the warmth from the world, sucking all the light.
"No," I whispered, my voice a dead, flat thing.
Lek didn't hear. He was too busy posturing. "This is how we deal with rats"
He raised his whip for the final, show-stopping blow.
And I... pushed.
I didn't push at him. I pushed out. I pushed the cold, empty nothing inside me out into the world.
I screamed.
It was a raw, broken sound, more animal than human.
And the world unraveled.
It happened in a single, terrible second.
Lek's Aether-whip, the one he held high? It didn't just break. It shredded. The strand of light turned to a million glittering, dead particles and just... blew away like dust.
His Aether-shield, the one he still held up in panic? The light frayed. It looked like a piece of cloth being un-woven in fast motion, the edges turning to gray, limp threads before dissolving into nothing.
Lroze, his arm still in the air, his mouth open in a perfect, stupid "O" of shock.
My magic didn't stop.
The void, the Anima, hit the ground where he stood. The thick, stone pavers of the plaza didn't crack. They didn't explode.
They un-made.
Like the crate of apples, all those years ago. The stone just... dissolved. The edges turned to gray dust, the solid rock unraveling as if it had never been rock at all. It created a shallow, five-foot crater of fine grit and powder.
Lek screamed, a high-Fpitched shriek, as the ground vanished from under his feet. He fell into the dust, scrambling backward, his face white with a terror so pure it was almost beautiful. He was covered in the gray dust of the street he had been standing on.
And then... silence.
The roaring of the elites stopped.
The grim, silent watch of The Dregs broke, people gasping and shuffling back.
Professor Varrick, the man of gravel and scars, was completely still.
All I could hear was my own breathing. It was loud. Too loud. Hoo... hoo... hoo...
I looked at my hands. They were shaking so badly I could barely see them.
What did I do? Oh, gods. What did I do?
This wasn't Aether. This wasn't magic. This was wrong. This was the monster-magic. This was the magic that got people dragged away in the night by the Archon's personal guard, never to be seen again.
I was going to be executed. Right here.
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the shout. Waiting for the blow. Waiting for Varrick to roar "Blasphemy!" and end me.
It never came.
I opened my eyes.
Lek was still sobbing in his pile of stone-dust.
The crowd was a sea of shocked, pale faces.
I looked at Professor Varrick. He wasn't looking at me. He wasn't looking at Lek. He was staring, his one good eye wide, at the ground. At the crater. At the un-made stone, his scarred lips pulled back in a grimace that was almost... a smile?
And then I saw him.
High in the elite stands, in the private observation booth, a figure stood up. He was too far away to see clearly, just a tall, imposing silhouette in black. But he wasn't looking at the crowd. He wasn't looking at Varrick.
He was leaning forward, his entire focus aimed, like a weapon, right at me.
Archon Sorin val-Valerius.
And he wasn't angry. He wasn't shocked.
He was interested.
A guard stepped forward, his spear leveled. "Professor?"
Varrick finally tore his gaze from the crater. He looked at me, my entire body shaking, and then at the whimpering Lek.
He spat on the ground.
"She won," he growled. "Clear the arena. Next pair!"