“Laurent Boivin,” the principal said, glaring directly at the boy she called.

There were at least four other students also sitting in the hallway, but it was no surprise that she knew who Laurent was, given how frequently he had visited her office.

Madame Vigneau was a short woman who liked to wear pastel-colored dress suits and bleached her hair to near-white. The color of the day was a pale blue. She tapped her long, white-painted nails on the door frame of her office.

Laurent stood from his seat, and he smirked at the older woman.

“Salut,” he said.

Madame Vigneau rolled her eyes at him for pretending to be so familiar with her, but she motioned for him to follow her as she went into her office. The room was just as he remembered it, smelling of wine and full of pictures of her beloved cats.

Then, there was the Champion in the room. It was Hai Yu, the previous generation’s Champion of the Star Maiden. His hair was shorter than he had seen it in interviews, and there was a long scar across his cheek that he had gotten during the Trial of the Gods. He also had purple circles under his eyes, a sign that he had been traveling without much of a break for a long time.

Laurent had heard before that the Champion had grown quite fond of Javela, but Laurent had never imagined he would get to see the man, despite living in the same country.

Laurent heard a click, and he glanced at the other door in the room. He had been left alone with Hai Yu.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Yu,” Laurent said, bowing like someone from Yu’s home country.

The Champion chuckled. He bowed as well, but he remained sitting in his chair.

“Forgive me for not returning the gesture,” Yu said in the Javelain language. “I had an accident last week, and I broke and fractured my leg in a few places.”

Laurent frowned at that, wondering what kind of accident the older man had gotten into, but he said nothing as he took a seat in front of the principal’s desk when Hai prompted him to.

“I was reading through your files here,” Hai said. “You have excellent grades. Perfect attendance. You just get into trouble every once in a while, yes?”

Shame brought some color to his cheeks. His tendency to sometimes be disruptive in class—that being the mildest of his offenses—had never bothered him until this man, someone who had struggled hard to bring back a celestial being to Her rightful place in the sky, read about it in his file. Laurent laced his hands together in his lap to stop himself from fidgeting.

“Oui, Monsieur.”

Hai gave another chuckle.

“No worries. If I had not become a Champion, I might have driven my teachers insane. My offenses were worse than this, I assure you.”

That failed to make Laurent feel better, but he nodded, forcing a smile on his face.

Hai Yu asked him to turn away from him, closing his eyes and holding out a hand behind him. It was a strange request, but he did it anyway. An object fell into his hand, but as he turned to look at it, he found himself staring at a wall of sand—or rather a pyramid made of sand-colored bricks. He turned all around himself in a circle. There was a river, and trees—mostly palm trees, but he could not recognize the rest—growing along it. Large lizards basked in the sun on rocks, and he thought he saw crocodiles swimming in the distance. Beneath his feet was sand, and in his hand, he was holding a leather-wrapped crystal.

Laurent heard the flutter of wings, and he turned to it. A falcon the size of a person had perched on the sloped side of the pyramid, and it tilted its head as it watched him.

“Laurent Boivin,” a rather deep voice said, and it was coming from the same direction as the enormous bird. “Do you recognize where you are, child?”

He found himself unable to look away from the falcon’s eyes. They were purple, but they were so dark that it was difficult to notice the tint of it.

“You’re the Radiant Falcon, aren’t You?” Laurent said, ignoring the God’s question. “The Sun God.”

“Indeed.”

“So, does this mean that I am a Champion?”

“It does but not of mine. You will be my wife’s Champion.”

“The Lunar Huntress?”

“Yes, but of course, she cannot choose a Champion for herself. I must do it in her stead.”

Laurent felt a pleasant flutter in his chest at the confirmation. A grin spread slowly on Laurent’s face, but he was speechless, unable to think of anything to say to the Sun God before him.

“Will you answer the question, child?”

Laurent startled, the grin disappearing as he tried to remember what the God had asked.

“Oh, I—Forgive me! I seem to have forgotten the question.”

“Do you know where you are, child?”

There was a was a hint of mirth in his tone, but Laurent was unsure if that was just in his head or not.

“This is Mizra,” he said. “We’re by the Hapy River.”

“Yes, and we are near my Temple, where my wife is trapped inside her body.”

Laurent gulped. He felt the urge to apologize, but he also was afraid of incurring the Sun God’s wrath upon himself.

“It is all right to speak, child,” the Radiant Falcon said, leaning closer to Laurent. “You need not bite your tongue.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You need not be. I chose you for an inner strength that even I, a God, can admire.”

“Admire?”

“You are a child abandoned by his mother and bears no memories of his father or anyone else in his family. You were treated as a burden by your foster families. Despite all of this, you are resolute in taking care of yourself. That is indeed admirable, child. It will serve you well as a Champion the God Trials.”

Laurent nodded, and he clutched the crystal thing tighter in his hands.

“Of course,” the God continued, “there is anger within yourself that you must work hard to understand so you may defeat my avatar at the Temple of Patience.”

“Your Avatar?”

“Yes, I, the Sun God, have more than one avatar. One rests in my Temple, and the other rests in the Lunar Huntress’s Temple.”

“Oh, I see, and I must fight you because the Huntress cannot.”

The Falcon raised his head, and then he dipped it. Laurent realized he was trying to nod his head similar to the way a human would.

“I must let your consciousness return to the Champion Hai Yu,” the Falcon said. “I wish you well in the coming Trials.”

The Falcon stretched His Wings, and then large feathers dropped toward Laurent’s face. He closed his eyes and lifted his arms out of reflex, but when he opened them, he was staring at the door he had used to get into Madame Vigneau’s office. With a gasp, he spun in his seat to look at Hai Yu, who was staring at his hand with a solemn expression on his face, and he saw that he had a crystal in his hand. It emitted a red light

Laurent’s heart raced in his chest as he held up the glowing thing.

“I’m a Champion!” he exclaimed, grinning.

Hai's eyes widened in surprise, and then he chuckled.

“I see that, and you’re the Champion of the Moon Goddess.”

“Is that why this thing is red now?”

“The Huntress represents the sin of wrath in the Trials, and red is the color associated with it. Also, that ‘thing’ is called a Handle. You’ll get to learn more about it soon, but for now, I need you to place it in his bag. We’ll ship it to you at the place where you will be trained for the Trials.”

Hai Yu placed a leather bag on the desk, and Laurent placed the Handle inside the bag.

“Now I must ask you to exit the room through the second door. Your principal will be waiting for you with papers for you to sign, and someone will be there to escort you to your home.”

Laurent stood from the chair, and he reached over the table to grasp Hai’s hand in both of his. Hai’s eyebrows rose surprise.

“Thank you so much for this, Monsieur.”

“No, no, I had very little to do with this.”

Laurent continued to shake the older man’s hands and thank him. It was not until he felt tears slide down his cheeks that he realized that he had been crying. His face turned warm, and he excused himself. He left the office.