Elana had never anticipated that the Trial would be this long, or she would have planned better. None of the others had exceeded five hours. 

She wanted to conserve as many of her remaining spells as she could, but this was going to be too complex to convey without talking—even for them. She tapped his forearm with her thumb. 'Quick; thirty seconds.'

He relayed it back, confirming he was ready. 

Elana crushed the remaining mana stone containing Veil of Silence, activating it. They had thirty seconds to talk, without worrying about giving their position away. 

They couldn’t waste any time, but—

"You should have dodged, not taken my place!" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. "You can fight, I can’t. I’m the only one of us who can take something with a status effect attached. You need to be able to move freely, you know that."

Elana and Soren had already had this fight a thousand times, but his injuries bothered her no less now than they had the first time. Even if back then, she hadn't been able to figure out that she was bothered by it. 

“And who gave you permission to get hurt?” she asked. 

Soren's low voice was as calm and measured as ever. “Duke Vanquise charged me with your safety."

She resisted the urge to smack his leg a third time.

“Nevermind that,” Elana said, scowling. They didn’t have time to waste bickering, and she knew, from experience, that this fight could go on forever. “Can you still fight?” 

Soren flexed his hand, moving his arm around experimentally. “I think so.”

She couldn’t see his expression, but she could see from the corner of her eye that his range of motion was more limited than usual. And much more stiff.  “I didn’t ask what you think, I asked if you can.”

“I can, my lady,” he said—but a little too quickly, and with too much conviction, to be convincing.

Elana's lips pursed. Soren was downplaying his injury. It had to be bad, if he was trying to keep it from her. If they had the luxury of time, she would call him out on that here and now, but they didn’t.

If Soren couldn’t fight head-on anymore—which he couldn’t, or at least, not safely—then the only plan available to her was her back-up option. What she'd initially mapped out only as a last resort. 

Elana’s stomach churned at the prospect, but she had to push on. 

“Change of plans. We stay put until the countdown. If we can bar the door, they might mistake this as just another locked door on this level. By now, everyone should know that the rooms are dead ends.” Elana spoke as quickly as she could. The countdown on her artifact showed fifteen seconds left of Veil of Silence. “When the countdown starts, I want you to stay.”

“Absolutely not—”

“I’m your master.” Elana dug her fingers into Soren’s forearm, more desperate than she’d felt in a long time. She needed him to comply. She didn’t have time to convince him. “This is not a debate.”

“You’ll get yourself killed,” he hissed. “You don’t have mana, and you’re not a physical combatant, it’s too risky—”

“I don't need to fight. I have pre-loaded haste, reflect, and invisibility spells. I’m going to make a break for the checkpoint.”

“Then use them on me. I can take you.” 

10 seconds left.

“You think I can’t tell when my defender is injured?” Elana scoffed. “You can’t carry me across the finish line. All I need for you is to stay here.”

“Respectfully, no.” Soren’s voice was gentle, but firm. “Are you forgetting who you are, Lady Elana de Vanquise? How am I supposed to show my face in front of your father if you risk yourself to spare me?”

“You’re being insubordinate.” Elana clenched her jaw.

“I wouldn’t dare.”

5 seconds left.

Elana’s hands tangled in her up-swept hair, thoughts swimming. Soren was never going to agree to this. She could feel it in his body language, the complete rigidity in his back against hers. “You won’t be able to show your face in front of him if you’re dead either!”

“That isn’t a position you would put me in.” He sounded so dead certain that Elana wanted to rip her hair out. “The duchess called you a master tactician, didn’t she? You’ll find a way.”

How could he have such blind faith in her and, in the same breath, be so disobedient? “Tacticians need cooperative pawns,” she hissed. There was no time left, no back-up plan. She couldn’t protect both of them in a rush to the checkpoint.

2 seconds left.

As if he could sense her dismay, Soren gave her forearm a squeeze. “If you go, I go,” he said evenly. “So, find another way. I know you can.”

I can.

0 seconds left.

“I’m sorry, Soren,” Elana said, turning around in the cramped space. He went rigid as she placed the flat of her palm between his shoulder blades. “You can blame my mother for this one.”

“What—” 

Before he could get the words out, Elana crushed a mana stone in her hand, activating it with a whispered, “Petrify.”

End Prologue: In Medias Res

Chapter One: An Expected Invitation

90 Days Before the Third Trial 

“Gerard,” Duchess Marlena de Vanquise said, raising a crisp ivory envelope with an all-too-familiar wax seal. “It’s time.”

“Don’t tell me…” Gerard trailed off, recognizing it immediately. The duke bowed his head, dropping his forehead into his hands. “Elana’s summons are here.” 

Marlena nodded. Her face betrayed no emotion. Even before she had become his duchess, she had always carried herself that way. Ever regal. Ever composed. 

But Gerard could see the subtle cracks in her facade. Her posture, which was too ramrod straight to match the calculated indifference on her face, the tension in her hands, the faint clenching of her jaw. Marlena had feelings about this, just as he did. 

“We knew this was coming,” Marlena said, but her tone was more stiff, more formal than usual. “We’ve delayed this for as long as we can. She is sixteen years old, Gerard. By the time she graduates, she will be twenty.”

The Royal Magic Academy was the battleground on which all children of the nobility cut their teeth. Attendance was mandatory. There was no alternative. Children who did not attend were branded as illegitimate and hunted down by the Crown. Families often tried, and failed, to find ways around it—but there had yet to be a discovered attempt that did not end in public execution.  

Subsequently, every student that set foot in the Academy’s halls was prepared to fight tooth and nail for the opportunity to stand at the top. They had to be. Or they would easily lose their lives to someone more motivated. 

The strength of a student’s performance at the Academy dictated their future social standing. Graduation from the Academy not only permitted students to formally inherit their family’s title but offered them the chance to improve it. If a student earned a spot at the top in the Academy, a child born into a Barony could earn themselves and their family a Marquisate upon graduation. 

It was a clever design. The Academy was not only a tool to produce the next generation of the Kingdom’s elites, but one capable of holding the nobility in check. Status didn’t matter in the halls of the Academy; any family could lose their successor in the blink of an eye. But equally, status didn’t matter, so any family could raise their social standing. 

Duke and Duchess Vanquise, Gerard and Marlena, knew that better than anyone. Five of their seven children had already lost their lives to the Academy. 

And now it was their youngest who was being summoned. Elana, their sole remaining daughter. The one who worried Gerard most of all. 

“She has no talent for magic,” Gerard said, shaking his head. “Do you really think she’s ready?”

“It doesn’t matter if she is or isn’t,” Marlena said. “She has to go, Gerard. There is no alternative here.”

Gerard’s shoulders slumped.  “I have no wish to send Elana to the slaughter.” 

“Gerard de Vanquise. I do not recall marrying a coward.” Marlena crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes at him. “She may not have inherited your magical aptitude, or mine, but she is still our daughter. She has a quick wit and a strategist’s mind. She’ll make it.”

“I’m certain there must be a way for her to live comfortably elsewhere,” he said, more under his breath than to her. “Maybe somewhere far overseas, in an abbey.”

“You know as well as I do that those children get killed eventually, Gerard.” Marlena glared at him. “And even if she managed to go undiscovered, we would be losing our daughter, our last heir, forever.”

Gerard groaned, covering his eyes. In their otherwise harmonious marriage, discussions about Elana’s future had always been a source of contention. Marlena was as dead set on following the Kingdom’s stringent rules as Gerard was on trying to find a way around them. 

“But Marlena, we could lose her otherwise. Isn’t it better for her to survive in exile than it is to die at the Academy?”

“You would banish her to god-knows-where, with no hope of ever returning home, only for her to eventually be found out, dragged back by the Crown, and put to the guillotine?” Marlena’s voice was ice cold. “That’s the future you want for our daughter?”

“Marlena,” Gerard sighed. “Of course that isn’t what I want for her. But the Academy has already taken so much from us. We’ve already buried Brienne, Tobias, Marcella, Rhys, and Dion. I can’t bury Elana too.”

The ever-composed Marlena faltered. “It was the Maker’s will,” she said, after a beat of silence. Marlena’s mouth twisted, her hands clenching tightly. “We are powerless to change it.”

“My love,” Gerard said, pitching his voice softer. “If we can spare Elana that fate, do we not owe it to her to try?”

“No, Gerard. We’re not taking that risk.” In the blink of an eye, Marlena’s icy expression returned. “As the King’s advisor, you know better than anyone how ruthless he is.”

“Of course I do,” Gerard sighed, running a hand over his face. “That’s why I know he’ll make no exception, even for me. His own children attended the Academy. But if we fake her death, perhaps we can hide her well enough—”

“Why are you so convinced that her fate at the Academy is to fail?”