The South Cradle reeked of sweat, rust, and quiet hunger. Nyxar recognized the scent as well as he was familiar with his rough, callused hands. Smoke spiraled from blackstone chimneys, a persistent shroud over the drooping roofs and unstable pathways. Below, kids dashed without shoes through puddles mixed with ash, their laughter faint. Merchants barked over rotting crates of wildroot and dried bonefruit, swatting at flies with hands too tired to care. Everything here leaned, cracked, or burned, a landscape Nyxar had never known a day without.
He knelt at the market's border, a coarse satchel draped across his shoulder, watching the fruit seller whose tolerance was less than his wallet. The apples looked awful...one had a worm poking out, waving like it wanted to fight. Nonetheless, it was much better than having nothing.
"You're delaying," a voice murmured next to him.
Nyxar didn't look. "I'm thinking."
"You always say that right before you get caught."
"I never get caught."
"Because I'm always the one distracting the guards."
He glanced sideways. There she was...small, fast, wiry as a whip. Tash. She had a scar across her nose and the most dangerous grin in all of South Cradle. His best friend. His only friend.
She straightened her patched jacket. "Well? You gonna snag it or stand here flirting with rot?"
Nyxar gave a quiet sigh, pushed to his feet, and started toward the fruit stand. One apple. One step. Quick hands.
He was almost there when he felt it again...a flicker in his chest. A pull. Like something ancient had stirred inside him, cold and curious. It didn't hurt. It never hurt. But it always came before something strange.
"Nyx..."
He moved too fast. The apple didn't fall. The ground did.
Beneath his foot, the stone cracked. Not chipped. Not crumbled. Cracked...deep, wide, and loud.
People turned.
The vendor roared.
Then tash shouted, "Run!"
And they did.
They laughed as they climbed the decaying staircases that took them to the rooftops, avoiding laundry lines and stepping over lifeless pigeons. At the top of one leaning tower, they collapsed beside each other, lungs burning.
"Did you see his face?" Tash wheezed.
"I saw his club," Nyxar coughed.
Tash held up the prize...two bruised apples and a shriveled pear. "Feast of kings," she declared.
They divided the loot and remained quiet for some time, gazing at the smoke-stained skyline.
"You sensed it again, didn't you?" she asked.
Nyxar nodded. "Yeah."
"What is it?"
"I don't know."
He did. It was there. In him. Something that wasn't quite him. Something… waiting. Sometimes, he thought it was whispering.
Tash tilted her head. "Maybe it's magic."
He snorted. "Slum rats don't have magic."
"Maybe one does." She bumped her shoulder against his. "Maybe you do."
He smiled—just a little.
Then a gust of wind blew past...and with it came the bells. Vaelcrest's bells. They rang low and deep. Not for time. Not for warning. For choosing.
Tash sat upright. "It's today?"
"Selection Day," he said.
She stared at the sky as if it had just insulted her. "You're leaving, right?"
He didn't answer.
"I told you not to sign up..."
"I didn't. The old keeper did. Said he saw me light a lamp that had no oil."
"Maybe it was a fluke."
"Maybe."
"Maybe it wasn't."
He looked down at his hands. Callused. Cut. Slightly trembling. "What if they do choose me?" he said softly.
Tash stared at him. "What if I leave?"
"You better."
He blinked. "What?"
"If that place wants you, go. Because no one here's going to give you more than an early grave. Go make something burn."
Nyxar stood before the towering gates of Vaelcrest Academy, still smelling of smoke and old bread, even though his clothes were clean. He hadn't said goodbye to anyone. Not even Tash. She'd vanished the night before he left, a silent farewell.
Now he stood among twenty others. Mostly highborns. Gowns, emblems, shining symbol-accessories. They stared at him as if he had spit in their drinking water. He didn't mind though.
They spoke softly. Names like Alren of the Hallowgrove and Fenrille, Daughter of the Amber Court. One boy said his father owned three cities. Another claimed his bloodline could trace directly to the Ember King. Nyxar didn't even know his own last name.
"Candidates," came a voice from the upper steps. The Examiner. Robed in blacksteel, face veiled in silver, she radiated pressure like a storm cloud wearing boots.
"This is not your trial," she said. "This is merely the Test."
"Test of what?" someone muttered.
"Of acceptance," she replied.
Then, one by one, they were led into a grand chamber lined with floating orbs of pure element...fire, wind, water, stone.
The test was simple: touch the orbs. Let them choose you. If they did, you were marked. Bound. Placed in a Discipline House. Given a crest and a purpose.
One by one, the students passed. Flames flared. Winds howled. Stone shivered. Water pulsed.
Then Nyxar stepped forward. Nothing.
The fire flickered once. Then faded. The wind curled around him...and passed. The stone orb trembled. Cracked, and died. The water hissed like a snake. Then went still.
The room was silent.
The Examiner tilted her head. "Curious."
"Does that mean I failed?" Nyxar asked, jaw tight.
"It means," she said, "that the elements find you… incomplete."
Another silence. Then: "Wait."
A single orb remained. Not fire. Not water. But shadow. Buried in the far corner. Forgotten. The Examiner hadn't mentioned it. It wasn't part of the formal Test.
But it flickered now.
Nyxar walked to it. He didn't touch it. It reached for him. And the world around him went still. The other orbs dimmed. A black light bloomed. In the silence, something ancient stirred again inside him. And smiled.
The Examiner's voice came faintly. "…We'll need more time. Come back in one year."
One year later....
Nyxar returned. Stronger. Smarter. Marked...but unbound. The elements had still not claimed him, but Vaelcrest had seen his potential. Unaligned. Untethered. Unknown.
They gave him a room in the low-tier dorms, a schedule of mixed classes, and a probationary badge. The stares were worse this time.
He met Solaryn in a kinetic arts class. They had fought on opposite sides, then together. Over time, a quiet respect...a brotherhood...formed. Nyxar respected him, but he never trusted the light that burned in his friend, a light that felt like it could either collapse or consume everything around it.
He saw her once, from a distance, during a chaotic spell exchange in the courtyard. She had deep copper red hair tied in a loose tail, Warm ivory skin and sharp green eyes that makes it looks like she's reading you without trying. Kaela was arguing with a Flameborn senior twice her size and refusing to back down. She looked furious. She looked alive. She looked like trouble.
Nyxar had always liked trouble.