Strata IV didn't shine; it baked.
The sun pressed a hot palm on rooftops and asked every brick why it dared to stand. The wind dragged furnace-smell along the lanes like a stray dog hauling a bone, and the benches outside the row houses sagged like they'd heard too many promises.
Ezrion Veylan sat on a three-legged survivor of a bench and tapped his foot. The bench groaned as if it were filing a complaint with the gods.
"Ez," came the warning from the doorway, "Stop. That bench is older than you. Respect your elders."
He turned. Serenya Veylan leaned against the jamb, arms folded, silver eyes faintly aglow—the thin, steady glow of Artemis lodged in human pupils. Tier 5, eight stars. The family's miracle, the neighbors' envy, Ezrion's in-house torment expert.
"Sorry," Ez muttered. "It's not like today decides the rest of our lives. Worst case, we keep eating boiled rice until we die."
Sera didn't blink. "Correction—you keep eating boiled rice. I'm upgrading to noble leftovers."
"Wow." Ez stared at the sky. "Sister of the year."
"Don't worry." She smiled sweet and sharp. "I'll visit your grave with boiled rice offerings."
A heavier step sounded; their father arrived like a weather report. Darion Veylan's forearms were a field of scars, his hands blackened by decades of furnace work. Sparks popped and fizzled along his fingers—Igni's reluctant gift. Tier 2, two stars: a forgotten spark-deity's fragment that let him light forges and ignore heat better than most. Useful. Not respected.
He dropped onto the bench. The wood squealed but held. "Both of you, hush. If Ez survives the clinic, I'll light the celebration fire myself."
"Father," Ez said with reverence, "your sparks couldn't light a candle on a windy day."
"Careful, boy." Darion lifted one eyebrow. "I may be Tier 2, but I'm still your father. I can roast you without powers."
Their mother stepped out balancing a dented steel pot. Steam braided up from the rice inside. A soft green shimmer rolled across the grains where her hand hovered—Auxesia's blessing, Tier 3, three stars. The kind of power that kept food from spoiling as fast and urged stubborn seeds to try again. Not a ladder; a lifeline.
"Eat," Lira said, setting the pot down. "It will give you strength to pretend you're not scared."
Ez accepted a bowl. "Why does everyone roast me like I'm dinner?"
"Because you are the dinner," Sera said, stealing a mouthful from his bowl. "Lottery stew."
He leaned away and clutched the bowl. "I'm changing my name. People will respect 'Ezrion NotYourDinner Veylan.'"
"People will still eat you," Sera said, perfectly calm.
They ate on the doorstep as the district breathed in anxious unison. Children climbed crates; old men angled for shade that didn't exist; women shifted babies on their hips and muttered bargains with gods who might have been listening.
The public holo across the lane flickered, died, flickered again. An announcer's voice, polished and far away, rolled along the cracked bricks.
"This year, one million citizens have been selected for the Awakening Program. Selected citizens will report to their designated clinics within forty-eight hours. Please remember: awakening success depends on individual compatibility. The government does not guarantee results."
Ez tasted metal. Does not guarantee results was bureaucrat for we'll poke your DNA with god-genes and if you explode, that's on you. He shoveled rice into a mouth that had forgotten how to swallow.
Names marched across the holo in gold. Cheers burst like fireworks, thin and bright; sobs fell heavy and stayed. Somewhere three doors down, a woman screamed—joy—and then dropped to her knees as if joy weighed more than grief.
Ez's foot tried to tap again. He caged it with the other.
"Citizen ID Seven-Delta-Three-Nine-Eight-Five-Four. Ezrion Veylan. Strata IV, District Fourteen."
The bench forgot its duty and lurched; Ez almost followed. Sera shrieked into his ear and crushed him; Lira's bowl clattered as her hands flew to her mouth; Darion, who didn't shake for furnaces, trembled.
"You did it," his father said, voice thick. "Our sacrifices weren't wasted."
Ez blinked at the screen. "That's… me?"
Sera smacked the back of his head. "No, it's the neighbor's goat. Of course it's you, idiot!"
Neighbors poured from every doorway. A few clapped Darion's shoulder like they'd always known Ez would be chosen. A few murmured too brightly. Ez smiled at all of them in the way you smile when your heart is sprinting laps and your lungs are auditioning for retirement.
When the noise thinned, Lira pressed a cup of weak tea into his hand and cupped his cheek with her other palm, thumb drawing a crescent. "You will go," she said simply. "You will try. If you fail, you will come back. That is all."
Ez nodded, swallowing hard. "I'll come back."
Darion cleared his throat and looked away at nothing in particular. "I'll speak to Master Varian," he said, as if he were telling the weather to keep its distance. "He'll be glad for you."
Varian Stormborne—Strata II noble, Darion's employer, the rare sort who shook a Strata IV man's hand without wiping his own afterward. The loans that kept the Veylans afloat wore his signature. They also wore numbers with too many zeros.
Sera bumped Ez's shoulder with hers. "You hear that? You're the district's favorite lottery ticket."
Ez stared at his empty bowl. "And if I scratch wrong, I go in the trash."
"Don't dramatize," she said. "You'll be fine. Or not. Either way, I get your blanket."
"You can have the bench," he said. "It loves you so much."
"It loves no one," Sera said solemnly. "It only tolerates the worthy."
They fell into the kind of quiet that isn't empty. The district's sounds washed back in—bargaining voices, clatter of pans, a generator coughing into life. The holo shifted to the President's annual speech; every year he said the same things, and every year people listened anyway.
"Strata is not destiny," the President said, eyes bright with practiced sincerity. "Awakening is not privilege. I was born in Strata V. Some say power belongs to bloodlines. I say power belongs to those who carry others when they can barely carry themselves."
Darion snorted very softly. Lira smiled at nothing, like she was being kind to hope. Sera rolled her eyes and didn't argue.
Ez looked at his reflection in the holo glass—too thin, too ordinary. "Then I'll prove it too," he said, as if the President could hear, as if the district could. "I won't fail."
Wind moved. Air shifted. Somewhere high, a cloudless sky cleared its throat.
Thunder rolled—one soft, impossible drumbeat—across blue that had no business making noise.
Sera's silver eyes flicked up. "Did you hear—"
"No," Ez said quickly, heart jumping against ribs. "I heard nothing."
"Good," she said. "Hearing things is step one to dying in the clinic."
"Thank you for your support."
"You're welcome."
They laughed, because the other option would have been to fold in half. The bench held, out of spite and habit.
That night, when the neighbors finally stopped volleying congratulations and predictions, when the cheap lanterns were snuffed and the street became a darker kind of gray, Ez lay awake listening to his family breathe. Darion's breath, regular and heavy, engine-steady. Lira's softer, with the little sighs she made when she dreamed of planting seasons that cooperated. Sera's calm, measured, like a hunter counting heartbeats.
Ez closed his eyes against a ceiling that had seen too much of their fear. He mouthed it again into the darkness where promises went to prepare themselves:
"I'll come back."
The ceiling didn't answer. In the distance, thunder pretended it hadn't been caught once already.