The chamber was bare stone. No weapons. No cages. Just a single table at its center, where five glowing tokens waited.
The proctor's staff struck once. "Take one. Leave the chamber."
Nothing more.
We were five: Lucen, Braun, Tessa, Calven, and me.
Braun frowned. "That's it? Too easy."
"Which means it isn't," Tessa said sharply. "There's a catch."
Lucen smirked. "So we figure it out. Five tokens, five of us—just pick one and go."
But the silence dragged. I felt it in my chest. Threads flickered in my vision—grey, tangled, restless. Not pointing at the tokens, but binding us together.
We reached out at once. Five hands. Five tokens claimed. Their glow hummed against our palms.
And still… nothing.
Braun broke the silence. "What if one's fake? Makes sense, right?"
Tessa nodded slowly. "Then the only way through is if whoever has it… leaves it behind."
Lucen's jaw tightened, eyes scanning the group. "So whoever it is drops it. We leave together, four tokens strong."
Calven's lips curled into a sneer. "And what? Whoever drops theirs gets branded the weak link? Don't play me for a fool."
Braun snapped, "It's not weakness—it's trust. That's the trial."
The air turned brittle, each of us watching the others.
Finally, Calven exhaled through his nose and loosened his grip. "Fine. Mine's the dud. I'll leave it." He tossed a token back onto the table. Its glow pulsed faintly.
"Good," Tessa said firmly. "Then we walk out together."
And we did. Shoulder to shoulder, tokens clenched. The exit glyph flared—white light spilling across the floor as we crossed the line.
For four of us, the light steadied.
For Calven, it hissed.
The glow in his hand sputtered, black smoke curling from his pocket. The token he'd hidden—the real false one—crumbled into ash.
The proctor's staff cracked like thunder.
"Calven Ironhide. Fail."
Calven staggered, face draining of color. "No—wait—I thought—" His words broke as the floor glyphs dragged him back into shadow, his protests swallowed whole.
The silence afterward was suffocating.
Braun spat on the ground. "Couldn't even trust us for five minutes."
Tessa's voice was cool as steel. "And that's why he failed."
I tightened my fist around my token. The threads in my vision steadied, faint but firm.
We passed. Because four of us had trusted.
And one had not.
The proctor's voice cut through the whispers.
"Four out of five—that's better than most teams manage. From this day, you'll be known as Team Dominion."
The word hung heavy in the air, drawing inevitable glances toward Lucen. His lips curved in the faintest smirk, as if the name had always been his.
I kept my head low, ribs aching, but inside I memorized the weight of that moment. Dominion wasn't his alone—not forever.
The proctor continued, staff ringing against stone.
"Your instructor will be Elric the Shadowweaver. Illusion, deception, and clarity—that is his domain. Learn well, or you'll learn nothing at all."
A man stepped from the edge of the courtyard then, hood drawn low, his presence quiet but suffocating. Shadows seemed to cling to him, though the morning sun blazed overhead. His gaze swept across us once, unreadable, before vanishing into stillness.
The trials were over.
The real lessons were about to begin.