The cold of the marble balcony was a comfort. It was solid. Predictable. It was a clean, hard line against the chaos of the world below.
I stood three paces behind my father, Archon Sorin val-Valerius, my hands clasped behind my back. My posture was perfect. My breathing was controlled. Up here, in the private observation booth, the stench of the rabble in the plaza was just a faint, sour note on the wind, a problem easily ignored.
My father hadn't spoken in an hour. He didn't need to. His presence was a physical weight, a pressure that demanded absolute perfection. He was not watching the Qualifier for entertainment. He was here to inspect the new crop of assets.
I was here to prove I was above them.
"This is taking too long," a voice murmured to my left. Seraphina. She was leaning against the railing, her "unofficial" presence a calculated part of her family's social maneuvering. She was beautiful, boring, and my future was probably tied to hers. I found the thought exhausting.
"Patience, Sera," I said, my voice a quiet, level tone. "The dross must be burned away before the steel can be tested."
"It's just so... messy," she complained, waving a gloved hand at the arena below.
She was not wrong. The low-elite boy, Lek, was an embarrassment. He was toying with his opponent, his Aether-whip a sloppy, flickering thing that had all the control of a campfire. He was using magic for theatrics. It was inefficient. Distasteful.
And the girl...
I had dismissed her from the moment she walked in. She was a collection of rags, soot, and poorly contained fury. An animal. She'd pulled a knife. I'd almost scoffed out loud. Disgusting. Predictable.
I watched, unimpressed, as the boy herded her. When she finally fell, I glanced at my father. His expression was like stone. He was bored. This was a waste of his time.
And then, the girl... did something.
It wasn't magic. Not Aether. Aether is Animus. It is order. It is creation. It is pure, structured light, drawn from the Nexus and willed into shape by a disciplined mind.
What she did... was the opposite.
As she screamed, a sensation hit me. It wasn't a sound, or a sight. It was a lurch.
It was as if a string, tied to the very core of my own magic, had been plucked. Pulled. A sudden, cold, sucking sensation in my stomach. My Aether, the light I kept leashed inside me, stirred. It didn't just stir; it yearned. It wanted to rush forward, to pour into the... the hole that had just opened up in the world.
It was a cold, hungry, pulling.
I recoiled, my hand clenching on the marble railing so hard my knuckles cracked.
Down in the arena, the stone pavers had... un-made.
Revulsion. It had to be revulsion. That's all I felt. That raw, chaotic, unraveling was an obscenity. She hadn't broken the stone; she had told it to stop existing. She was a gaping wound in the world, and the pull I felt was my own magic, my Animus, trying to recoil from the pure Anima she had just unleashed.
It was a violation of the natural order. She was a walking blasphemy.
"Gods," Seraphina whispered, her hand at her throat. "What was that?"
But I wasn't looking at her. I was looking at my father.
My father, who had been a statue of bored indifference, was now leaning forward. He was perfectly still, his hands gripping the railing. His eyes, those cold, calculating eyes, were alight.
It was not with anger. Not with horror.
It was a look I knew. I had seen it when he'd first solved the equation for the Aether-forges. I had seen it when he first examined Lyras after... after he'd won.
It was the look of a man who had just found a new, powerful, and utterly terrifying tool.
He saw the girl, her body shaking, covered in dust, and he did not see a monster.
He saw an asset.
And that, I realized, was infinitely more horrifying.
Anya (POV)
Silence.
The only sound in the entire thousand-person plaza was the shh-shh-shh of my own breathing. It was too loud. My blood was a roar in my ears.
I was going to die.
I was still curled on the ground, my head spinning, my ribs screaming from where Lek had kicked me. But the pain was distant. My body was numb, vibrating from the wrongness I had just let out.
I had shown them the monster. And now they were going to kill me for it.
I waited for the thud of a guard's boot. For the scrape of a blade. For Varrick to roar "Blasphemy!" and put a spear through my chest.
The shout never came.
My head swam. I forced my eyes to focus. Lek was still whimpering in his pile of dust. Professor Varrick was frozen, his scarred face aimed at the stands.
I followed his gaze.
Up. Up to the private black-obsidian booth, high above us all.
I saw him. The man from the posters. The man who owned the air we breathed.
Archon Sorin val-Valerius.
He was a tall shadow, dressed in black, leaning over the railing. He was staring right at me.
And he wasn't angry.
This was the man who drained the magic from our land, who let our children fade and waste away. If he was angry, I could understand it. I could fight it.
But he wasn't angry. He wasn't horrified.
He was... interested.
He was looking at me the way a cog-jockey looks at a new piece of iron. The way a butcher looks at a hook. He was calculating. He was seeing something in me, and it made my skin crawl with a new, colder kind of fear.
A guard beside Varrick shifted, his spear heavy in his hands. "Professor?" he asked, his voice a nervous crackle.
Varrick didn't move. He was waiting. We were all waiting. For the judgment.
The Archon's voice cut through the silence.
It wasn't a shout. It was a cold, clear baritone that carried across the plaza as if he were standing right next to me. It was magic.
"Professor Varrick."
Varrick flinched, his whole body going rigid. "Archon."
"Her name?"
A new jolt of terror. He wanted my name.
Varrick fumbled with his clipboard. "Rostova, Anya. Sir. No house. From The Dregs."
A long, terrible silence fell. The Archon just... looked at me. His gaze was a physical weight, pressing me into the stone. I felt like a bug under his boot.
Then, he gave his command.
"Put her in."
Two words.
They hit me harder than Lek's shield. Put her in. He wasn't killing me. He wasn't having me arrested. He was accepting me.
Varrick, finally released, spun around. His scarred face was a mask of grim, new understanding. He looked at me, then at the cowering Lek, and spat on the ground.
"She won!" he roared, his voice like gravel again. "Clear the arena! Next pair!"
Guards rushed in. They didn't grab me. They grabbed Lek, hauling him to his feet and dragging him out of the ring like the trash he was.
I was still on the ground. Shaking.
Put her in.
The words echoed in my head.
I had done it.
I had unleashed the monster, and they hadn't destroyed me. They had rewarded me.
Slowly, using my aching ribs for leverage, I got my feet under me. My legs were shaking so badly I almost fell over again. But I didn't.
I stood up.
My head was high. I didn't look at the crowd. I didn't look at Varrick. I just looked at the exit, a dark tunnel leading out of the arena.
It wasn't relief I felt. Relief was for people who had just escaped danger.
I was just walking into a bigger, darker cage.
No, it wasn't relief. It was a triumph. A cold, sharp, and terrifying triumph that tasted like ash in my mouth.
I had my slot.