The first thing I noticed was the ceiling.
It was high above me, carved from pale stone with thin lines of gold running through it in patterns I didn't recognize. Sunlight poured in from somewhere on my left, bright enough that I had to blink a few times before my eyes fully adjusted. For a moment, I just stared upward, trying to understand why the sky wasn't broken apart by trees, platforms, or falling stone.
Then my body reminded me I was awake.
A dull ache sat deep in my legs and shoulders, heavy enough that even shifting under the blanket felt like a bad idea. It wasn't the kind of pain that made me think something was broken. It was worse in a different way, the kind that told me every part of my body had been used too much and was now making sure I knew about it.
I turned my head slowly.
Rows of beds stretched across a massive hall, one spaced evenly with a small table and folded blanket beside it. Some were empty, the sheets already fixed and tucked away. Others still had participants lying in them, either sleeping or staring blankly at the ceiling like they had woken up and immediately regretted it.
Near the far wall, two healers moved from bed to bed. One of them was speaking quietly to a boy with a wrapped arm, while the other replaced empty cups of water on the tables. Nobody in the room sounded fully awake yet. Even the people talking kept their voices low, like the room itself was too tired for anything louder.
For a few seconds, I couldn't remember how I got here.
Then the last moments of the trial came back.
The collapsing platforms.
The jump.
My hand reaching forward and missing.
That awful drop in my stomach when I realized there was nothing under me anymore.
And then her hand around my wrist.
I looked down without thinking, my fingers curling slightly.
There was no mark there. No bruise. Nothing to prove it happened. But I could still feel it clearly enough—the sudden pressure of someone grabbing me, pulling me back when I was already falling.
Blue eyes.
A calm face.
A voice that didn't sound like she had done anything impressive.
"You owe me."
I pushed myself upright.
That was a mistake.
My back tightened immediately, and I had to sit still for a moment before the ache settled back into something manageable. I rubbed my hands over my face, feeling the mess of hair falling across my forehead. I probably looked terrible, but considering the last thing I remembered was nearly falling into nothing, terrible was better than gone.
Someone across from me shifted.
"You're awake."
I looked over.
The boy in the bed opposite mine had dark skin, tired eyes, and short twists tied loosely behind his head. One of his arms was wrapped from wrist to elbow in clean bandages, and a thin shaved line cut through one eyebrow. He looked like he had been awake for a while, but not awake enough to be happy about it.
"Yeah," I said, my voice rough. "I think so."
He watched me for a second, like he was trying to place where he had seen me before.
Then he nodded slightly.
"You're the one who almost fell at the end."
I paused.
So that was going to follow me.
"Yeah," I said after a moment. "That was me."
"I thought you were gone."
"So did I."
He gave a small breath of a laugh, but it barely lasted before he pressed his good hand against his side and winced. One of the healers near the wall looked over instantly, like she had been waiting for him to do exactly that.
"I told you not to laugh," she said.
The boy sighed. "I barely did." He leaned back against his pillow, clearly deciding that arguing would take more energy than he had.
I almost asked his name, but his eyes were already drifting shut again, and I didn't want to be the reason the healer looked at me next.
My sword rested against the side of the bed.
Seeing it there made my shoulders loosen more than I expected.
I reached for it before anything else, sliding the blade just far enough from the sheath to check the edge. The white steel caught the morning light, clean and unbroken. The dark blue hilt still felt familiar in my hand, and the three empty slots along the blade were untouched.
Good.
Igon would've somehow found out if I damaged it during the first trial, even from Redmere. Then he would've yelled at me loud enough for the entire capital to hear.
I strapped the sword across my back and stood fully.
My legs almost disagreed with the decision.
I caught the side of the bed with one hand, waiting for the stiffness to stop spreading through my knees. It took longer than I wanted. The clothes I was wearing weren't mine either—a plain white shirt and dark pants, both clean and comfortable enough, but clearly given to everyone who had been placed in the recovery hall.
After another glance around, I moved toward the closest open doorway.
Nobody stopped me.
The hallway outside was even larger than the room.
Tall stone walls rose on both sides, broken up by massive arched windows that let sunlight spill across the polished floor. Banners hung between the pillars, some carrying Rivenden's crest while others showed symbols I didn't recognize. Different kingdoms, probably. Or old families. Maybe both.
Participants moved through the hall in loose groups.
Some leaned against the walls with cups in their hands. Some limped carefully beside friends who were doing a bad job pretending not to help them. A few looked completely fine, which annoyed me more than it should've.
Ethereal Knights stood near the corners where hallways split off. They weren't blocking anyone, but they didn't need to. The way they watched people made it clear enough that this building had rules, even if nobody had bothered explaining them to me yet.
The place didn't feel relaxed.
It felt controlled.
We were allowed to move around, but only because someone had already decided how far we were allowed to go. I wasn't in the mood to test that. Not before I knew where the food was.
My stomach growled.
Loudly.
A girl passing by with a tray slowed just enough to look at me. She had toast in one hand and a cup in the other, and for a second she seemed to be deciding whether to say anything at all.
"Dining hall's downstairs," she said.
I blinked. "Was it that obvious?"
She looked at me, then at my stomach, then back at me.
"Very."
Fair.
She pointed down the hall with her elbow since both her hands were full. "Stairs at the end. Once you're down there, follow the noise."
"Thanks."
She nodded once and kept walking, already taking another bite before she turned the corner.
I followed where she pointed.
The farther I walked, the more awake the building became. Voices drifted from open doorways, sometimes low and tired, sometimes loud enough to make me wonder how those people had recovered so quickly. Somewhere below, someone laughed, and another voice immediately told them people were still sleeping.
By the time I reached the stairs, the smell of food had already found me.
Bread.
Eggs.
Roasted vegetables.
Something fried enough that it probably wasn't healthy but absolutely did not matter.
The stairway curved downward into a wide lower hall. The sound reached me before I fully reached the bottom, a heavy mix of voices, scraping chairs, clinking plates, and footsteps crossing stone. When I stepped into the dining hall, I stopped just inside the entrance.
It was massive.
Long tables stretched across the room from one side to the other, nearly all of them filled with participants from across Tristerria. Some wore bandages around their arms or shoulders. Others had bruises along their faces, small cuts near their brows, or the kind of exhausted stare that made it obvious they had slept badly even if they slept for a long time.
A few were laughing like nothing happened.
I didn't know whether that made them strong or stupid.
Maybe both.
For a second, I didn't move.
Back in Redmere, walking into a room was easy. Jasper usually sat in the same place, and Kendra was never quiet enough for me to lose her. Even if they weren't there, somebody knew me, somebody waved, or somebody asked where Mom was.
Here, nobody cared that I had walked in.
That should've made things easier.
Instead, it just made me feel like I was standing in the way.
"Kin."
I turned toward the voice.
Jaki sat near the middle of the hall, one hand raised just enough for me to spot him through the crowd. He didn't stand on the bench or call out louder than he needed to. He just looked like he'd been watching the entrance and expected me to show up eventually.
For some reason, that helped.
I made my way over, slipping between benches and trying not to bump into anyone carrying food. Jaki had a plate in front of him, mostly finished, and an untouched one across the table. Bread, eggs, fruit, and a small bowl of something warm enough to still be steaming.
He nodded toward it when I sat.
"You looked like you'd need that."
I glanced at the plate, then at him. "You got me food?"
"Not exactly," he said. "They brought extra to the table before anyone sat there."
"So you took it."
"I kept it from getting cold."
"That's different?"
"A little."
I looked at him for a second.
He looked back, completely calm.
I was too hungry to argue.
For the first few minutes, I barely spoke. I ate quickly, not because I meant to, but because my body had apparently been waiting for me to realize how hungry I was. The food was good. Not like home, but warm enough and filling enough that I stopped thinking about most things until half the plate was gone.
Jaki didn't rush me.
He leaned back with one arm resting on the table, his eyes moving around the room in that quiet way of his. He looked relaxed, but I was starting to realize relaxed didn't mean careless with him. He noticed things. People. Conversations. Who was sitting alone. Who kept looking toward the exits. Who laughed too loudly.
After I finished the eggs, I finally looked up.
"How long was I out?"
Jaki took a drink before answering. "About a day and a half."
I stopped chewing.
"A day and a half?"
"Yeah."
He nodded toward the upper floors.
"You weren't the only one. Some people woke up the same night, but a lot of you were completely out. The healers said the trial hit people differently depending on how hard they pushed near the end."
I looked down at my plate.
That made sense, unfortunately.
The end of the trial came back in pieces. My legs burning. My lungs hurting. The platforms collapsing behind me. That strange moment where fear started turning into something else, something closer to excitement, and I kept moving even though part of me knew I should've slowed down.
I hadn't realized how much that took until now.
"So I missed yesterday."
"Most of it."
"Anything important?"
Jaki didn't answer right away.
That was enough to make me look up.
His expression had changed slightly. Not serious in a dramatic way, just quieter than before.
"They announced how many passed."
My grip tightened around my fork.
"How many?"
"Three hundred."
The number sat there between us.
Three hundred.
Out of a thousand.
I knew people had failed. I had seen it happen over and over during the trial. People slipped, froze, chose wrong, missed jumps, or ran out of strength before they could reach the end. Still, hearing the number made it feel different.
Seven hundred people didn't make it past the first trial.
I looked around the dining hall again, and this time the noise didn't feel the same. The room was full, but not as full as it should've been. There were empty spots at benches. Small groups that looked like they were missing someone. A boy near the windows sat with two plates in front of him, eating from one and ignoring the other.
Yesterday, this building would've needed more space.
Now it had enough.
"I didn't know any of them," I said quietly.
Jaki followed my gaze. "Yeah."
"But it still feels weird."
"It does."
He turned his cup slowly between both hands.
"I kept thinking I'd recognize more people this morning. Then I realized I wasn't really remembering faces. I was remembering where people used to be standing."
I looked at him.
He didn't say it like he wanted sympathy. He said it like the thought had been sitting with him for a while, and he was only now putting words to it.
"That makes sense," I said.
"I don't know if it does."
"No, I mean…" I paused, trying to explain it properly. "During the trial, I kept passing people. Some were ahead of me, some were falling behind. I didn't know most of their names, but I still remember seeing them there."
Jaki nodded slowly.
"And now they're just gone."
"Yeah."
For a while, neither of us said anything.
It wasn't awkward.
It felt like both of us had reached the same thought and didn't know what else to do with it. Around us, people kept eating, talking, laughing, and pretending the number didn't sit in the room with everyone else.
Eventually, the quiet broke from the table behind us.
"You pulled too early."
"I pulled before he kicked me in the face."
"He was falling."
"He was falling toward me."
I glanced over my shoulder.
Two boys sat a few seats away, close enough that I could hear them without trying. One of them was impossible to miss. He was big for our age—tall, broad-shouldered, and built like he had spent most of his life lifting things heavier than people. His deep blue hair was cut short on the sides and thicker on top, though one side was flattened from sleep in a way that made him look less intimidating than he probably wanted.
Across from him sat a much smaller blond boy, he had a silver clip fastened neatly to his collar. He ate slowly, barely reacting to the argument happening directly in front of him. If anything, he looked like this was a conversation he had already been forced to hear more than once.
"I'm just saying," the blue-haired boy continued, leaning over his tray, "if I waited half a second longer, he might've cleared the gap himself."
The blond boy didn't look up. "He wouldn't have."
The blue-haired boy opened his mouth.
Then he closed it.
Jaki's mouth twitched a little.
I looked back at him.
"You know them?"
"No," he said. "But they've been arguing about this since before you got here."
The blond boy finally glanced over, his eyes moving from Jaki to me, then back to his food. The larger boy noticed us a second later and turned fully in his seat.
"You two heard that?"
Jaki didn't pretend otherwise. "Most of it."
"Good." The boy pointed toward the blond. "Tell him I'm right."
The blond sighed quietly. "They don't know what happened."
"They heard enough."
"Not really," I said.
The blue-haired boy looked at me, "During the ruins section, this guy slipped near one of the broken platforms. I caught him before he dropped, but Milo here thinks I pulled too hard."
The blond, apparently Milo, set his cup down.
"You dislocated his shoulder."
That changed the table.
Even Jaki stopped smiling.
The blue-haired boy rubbed the back of his neck, not exactly embarrassed, but close enough.
"He passed."
Milo looked at him for a few seconds.
"That doesn't make it fine."
The boy didn't answer immediately.
For the first time since I started listening, he looked unsure of what to say.
Milo's tone softened a little, though his face barely changed.
"I'm not saying you shouldn't have grabbed him. He would've failed if you didn't. I'm saying you used too much force because you were worried about being too late."
The bigger boy stared down at his tray for a moment.
Then he nodded once.
"Yeah."
It was quiet after that.
I looked at my own wrist again before I could stop myself.
The girl from the trial hadn't pulled too hard. She didn't hesitate either. She grabbed me cleanly, like she knew exactly how much strength she needed and didn't waste anything more.
I wondered if she had thought about it afterward.
Probably not.
Jaki noticed me looking at my wrist, but he didn't say anything.
The blue-haired boy finally pushed his tray a little closer to our table, then shifted seats without asking much permission. Milo watched him move with a tired look before picking up his own tray and following more slowly.
"I'm Rook," the larger boy said once he sat at the end of our table.
"Jaki," Jaki said.
"Kin."
Milo settled beside Rook, careful not to place his cup too close to the edge. "Milo."
There was a brief silence after that.
Not uncomfortable.
Just the kind that happened when names had been exchanged and nobody knew whether that meant the conversation was supposed to keep going.
Rook kept it going.
"You're the one from the final platform," he said, looking at me more closely. "The one that girl caught."
I nodded.
"I didn't see it happen live," Milo said, adjusting his glasses. "Only after I finished. They had screens showing some of the remaining participants."
"There were screens?"
Jaki nodded. "In the waiting area after we passed. Not for everyone, just the last sections. People started watching when the platforms began collapsing."
That explained too much.
I leaned back slightly, suddenly aware that a lot more people had seen me nearly fall than I wanted to think about.
Rook must've noticed my face because he gave a small shrug.
"If it helps, most people weren't laughing."
"Most?"
He hesitated.
Milo looked at him.
Rook sighed. "Nobody was laughing."
I wasn't sure if that was true, but I appreciated the correction.
Jaki rested his forearms on the table. "People were more surprised than anything. You were moving well near the end, then everything started falling apart at once."
I looked at him.
"You saw it?"
"Some of it."
"And?"
He paused, thinking before answering.
"You looked tired."
"That's all?"
"You also looked like you were having fun."
I didn't answer right away.
Because he wasn't wrong.
There had been a moment in the ruins where everything started moving too fast for me to think properly. The ground broke, the paths shifted, people yelled, and somehow I didn't freeze. I moved faster. I smiled. I didn't even realize I had until after.
I looked down at my plate.
"Maybe a little."
Rook leaned back, the chair creaking under him.
"I get that."
Milo glanced at him. "You spent most of the trial complaining."
"I complained while enjoying parts of it."
"That's different?"
"It is to me."
Milo didn't argue further, which made me think this was another conversation they'd already had.
For a few minutes, breakfast settled into something easier.
Rook talked the most, but not constantly. He had a habit of speaking with his hands, moving them when he explained things, occasionally getting close to knocking over his cup before Milo silently moved it farther away. Milo didn't say much unless he felt like something needed to be said, but when he did, the rest of us usually listened.
Jaki asked better questions than I did.
Not strange ones.
Just questions that made people explain more than they probably meant to.
At some point, Rook mentioned his Matter.
Forge Matter.
He didn't announce it like he was showing off. It came up because he kept flexing his fingers, and I noticed the burn marks across his hands. When I asked about them, he lifted one palm and let a faint bronze shimmer gather around his fingers, heat bending the air just enough to blur the edge of his hand.
"Forge Matter," he said. "Heat, harden, bend metal if I'm touching it. Not enough to make anything perfect in the middle of a fight, but enough to change the shape of something if I've got a few seconds."
I stared at his hand longer than I meant to.
Igon would've had questions.
A lot of them.
Probably insults first, but questions after.
"That sounds useful," I said.
"It is," Rook said. Then, after a second, he added, "When I don't overdo it."
Milo looked at him.
Rook noticed.
"I know."
Milo said nothing.
Jaki looked toward Milo. "And you?"
"Thread Matter."
He said it plainly, without trying to make it sound better or worse than it was.
At first, I thought of sewing thread. Something thin and easy to break. Then I remembered what Rook said about him tying someone during the trial, and the thought changed.
"How do you use it?" I asked.
Milo looked at me for a second, like he was deciding how much of an answer I actually wanted.
"Mostly for control," he said. "Movement, balance, redirecting force. People think about binding first because it's obvious, but that's usually not the best use."
"What is?"
"Not being noticed."
Milo picked up his cup and took a drink, like he hadn't said anything interesting at all.
I looked down at my own hand under the table.
Dark Matter was nothing like thread. It moved wrong, hummed too loudly, fought me when I tried to shape it into anything small. Most of the time, using it felt like trying to hold water in my fist and getting angry when it slipped between my fingers.
But control.
Movement.
Redirecting force.
The idea didn't become a technique. Not yet. It just sat there in the back of my mind, quiet enough that I almost missed it.
Maybe power didn't always need to be bigger. Maybe sometimes it just needed to go somewhere better.
Rook shifted in his chair, looking toward the open doors at the far end of the dining hall. More contestants were starting to gather outside now, some carrying wooden practice weapons, others moving just to watch. The sound of wood striking wood echoed faintly through the hall, followed by a low wave of voices from the courtyard beyond.
Rook's attention went there immediately.
Milo noticed and sighed before Rook even said anything.
"You're going over there."
Rook didn't deny it. "Yep."
"You just woke up sore."
"So did everyone else."
"That doesn't make it smart."
"No," Rook said, standing and picking up his tray. "But if I sit here all morning, I'll start thinking too much. I'd rather watch people hit each other with sticks."
Milo stared at him.
Rook looked back.
"What?"
"Nothing." Milo stood too, gathering his tray with more care. Rook waited for him without making it obvious, his eyes still drifting toward the courtyard like he was trying to guess what was happening out there.
He looked back at me and Jaki.
"You two coming?"
Jaki glanced at me.
I still felt sore enough that walking sounded questionable, but sitting in the dining hall all morning suddenly felt worse. The room was starting to empty around us, and the noise from outside kept rising in small bursts whenever something happened.
I picked up my cup and finished the last of the water. "Yeah," I said. "Might as well see what everyone's doing."
Rook nodded like that was the only answer that made sense.
The four of us left the table, trays in hand, moving with the slow crowd heading toward the courtyard doors. As we got closer, the air changed slightly, warmer from the open sunlight outside and sharper with the smell of training dust and polished wood.
Rook reached the doors first and nudged one open with his shoulder.
The sound from the courtyard spilled in all at once.
Wooden blades cracked against each other.
Someone shouted.
A small crowd reacted.
And without really thinking, I stepped forward with the others.
**
The moment we stepped outside, the atmosphere changed.
The castle halls had been filled with conversations that stayed just above a whisper, people speaking like they were afraid to disturb the quiet that had settled over the recovery wing. Out here, nobody seemed to care. Voices carried across the courtyard from every direction, mixing with the sharp crack of wooden practice swords and the occasional cheer whenever someone landed a clean hit.
The courtyard itself was enormous.
Stone pathways cut through patches of trimmed grass and small gardens before opening into a wide training square paved with smooth gray stone. Wooden weapon racks stood near the edges, already missing half their contents, while several Ethereal Knights watched from the perimeter with folded arms. None of them looked particularly interested in stopping anyone. They were just… observing.
It reminded me that the trials hadn't really stopped.
We weren't being tested at that moment, but it still felt like someone was watching to see what we'd choose to do with our time.
Contestants had naturally divided themselves into groups.
Some had already started sparring with wooden swords or staffs, taking advantage of the downtime to shake the rust out of their bodies. Others sat beneath the trees lining the courtyard, talking quietly or simply enjoying the fresh air after spending the last day recovering indoors. A handful wandered alone, looking around the grounds with the same curiosity I felt.
"…A lot more people than I expected," I admitted.
Rook nodded absentmindedly, his eyes already scanning the courtyard.
"I figured everyone would've stayed in bed another day."
"I don't think anyone wants to."
He glanced at me.
"What do you mean?"
I looked around again before answering.
"If I stayed in bed any longer, I'd just keep thinking about the trial."
For a second, nobody said anything.
Milo understood first.
"So you'd rather distract yourself."
"…Something like that."
He gave a small nod.
"That makes sense."
Rook rubbed the back of his neck. "I was thinking the same thing." He laughed quietly to himself before continuing.
"I woke up this morning and thought about going back to sleep. Then I realized I'd probably spend the whole time replaying everything that happened."
"What'd you decide?" Jaki asked.
"That I'd rather do literally anything else."
We continued down one of the stone paths together, taking our time rather than heading anywhere specific. Every few steps something else caught my attention—a group comparing bruises from the first trial, two contestants arguing over the quickest route through the ruins, another participant sitting by himself with a notebook balanced across one knee.
It was strange.
Yesterday every person here had been competition.
Now…
They were just people.
"You notice something?" Jaki asked.
"Hm?"
He gestured vaguely toward the training square.
"Nobody's talking about who came first."
I blinked.
He was right.
People talked about everything.
Someone almost falling.
Someone getting lost.
Someone carrying another contestant across part of the course.
But nobody's talking about who finished first.
"I guess it doesn't really matter anymore."
"It mattered yesterday," Jaki replied.
"Today…"
He shrugged.
"…everyone here has already passed."
Rook looked toward one of the spars taking place near the center of the courtyard.
"I don't think people are trying to prove they deserved to pass anymore."
"What are they trying to prove?" I asked.
He thought about it for a second.
"I don't know."
His answer came with an almost embarrassed smile. "I've been asking myself that since breakfast."
He bent down, picking up a smooth stone near the edge of the path before tossing it lightly from one hand to the other.
"When I was younger…" His eyes stayed on the stone. "…becoming an Ethereal Knight felt simple."
"Simple?" Jaki asked.
"Train hard."
"Pass the Trials."
"Keep getting stronger."
He caught the stone again before dropping it back onto the path. "Now we're actually here." His voice became quieter. "…Turns out everybody else trained hard too."
I found myself looking around the courtyard again.
He wasn't wrong.
Watching the First Trial from the outside would've been easy.
Watching it as a participant had been something else entirely.
Every person still standing had fought through the same uncertainty.
Different routes.
Different obstacles.
Different decisions.
Yet somehow we'd all ended up here together.
"I used to think…" I started before stopping. The words didn't come out the way I wanted.
The others waited. "I used to think people who'd participle were…" I searched for the right word. "…different."
"Different how?" Milo asked.
"I don't know."
I laughed quietly at myself.
"Stronger."
"More confident."
"Like they'd know what they were doing all the time."
I looked toward a nearby spar where one boy missed a swing so badly he nearly spun himself around. His opponent burst out laughing before helping him get his footing again. "…Turns out they're just people."
Rook smiled. "I was hoping you weren't going to say monsters."
"I was thinking about it."
Milo folded his hands behind his back as we continued walking. "I think that's why they make us stay together after each trial." The rest of us looked at him.
He continued. "If everyone went home after today and came back two days later…" He looked across the courtyard. "…we'd only remember the trial."
He nodded toward the contestants scattered throughout the grounds.
"This…"
"…we'll probably remember longer."
The thought lingered.
I watched two contestants I'd never seen before arguing over the proper way to grip a spear.
Nearby, a girl sat on a low stone wall reading while three others unsuccessfully tried convincing her to join their spar.
Someone else had fallen asleep under a tree despite everything happening around him.
None of it had anything to do with passing the Trials.
It was just…
Life.
I hadn't expected that.
For some reason, I thought everyone would spend the downtime training nonstop.
Instead…
Most of them looked like they were simply getting to know each other.
"Guess it makes sense," Jaki said eventually.
"If we're all getting into the Academy…"
He looked around.
"…there's a good chance we'll be seeing a lot of these people again."
That thought hadn't crossed my mind.
I'd been so focused on passing the Trials that I hadn't stopped to think about what happened afterward.
The Academy.
Classes.
Training.
Years spent with people I hadn't even met yet.
It suddenly felt much closer than it had yesterday.
Rook suddenly stopped walking.
"What?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he looked toward a crowd gathering near the far side of the training square.
More contestants were drifting in that direction now, curiosity spreading through the courtyard almost on instinct.
Even a couple of Ethereal Knights had turned their attention toward whatever was happening.
"I think something's about to start."
Jaki shaded his eyes against the sunlight.
"Looks like it."
We stood there for another moment, watching the crowd grow larger.
I couldn't see what everyone was looking at yet.
Only that something—or someone—had everyone's attention.
"…Come on," Rook said quietly. "I'm curious now."
Without really thinking about it, the four of us started making our way toward the gathering crowd, weaving between contestants until the conversations around us slowly gave way to a different kind of anticipation.