“Garret, time to wake up. It’s your big day!”

I yawned as my mother came into my room, sliding open the curtains to let the sun shine through the large window. She carried a basket of wet clothes on her hip. She must have realized that I wasn’t awake yet on her way to hang the laundry out to dry. I slowly eased out of bed, not wanting to wake up yet, but knowing I must. I smelled the delicious scent of genoise. I pulled on my shirt, ran down the stairs, past my little sisters, and into the kitchen. My nose had not deceived me. I had arrived just in time for our cook, Maddie, to pull the pan out of the oven. She greeted me quickly, then began setting the table for breakfast. I helped her along, eager to devour the moist cake. This one was flavored with freshly picked apples and cinnamon from our family’s garden. I went back into the living room, grabbing Lucy and Lacy by the shoulders, pulling them into the kitchen, and seating them forcefully.

“Hungry this morning, young master, are we?” Maddie chuckled a bit. I grinned sheepishly. I was nervous, but I managed to have an appetite the size of an elephant. When the meal was finally cool, Maddie served it to everyone. If our family was poor, it would have not even been genoise. It would have been a single slice of bread each, along with a cup or two of water. Luckily, I came from a very privileged family. Just as I had finished scarfing down my delicious food, my father walked into the room.

“Da!” my sisters squealed. They leapt out of their chairs and tackled him, clambering onto his legs. He gave a chuckle.

“Can I please eat now girls? I’ve got important business to attend to today. It’s Awakening Day, you know!”

They slid off of him and he sat on his chair at the head of the table. He turned to me with a twinkle in his eyes.

“It’s an important day for you, too, isn’t it son?” I nodded. Today was the day that I would discover which guild I belonged to, where I would spend the rest of my life training and eventually working when I became of age. From behind his back, my father revealed a small object wrapped in butcher paper. He handed it to me and I ripped quickly through the wrappings, revealing a pin in the shape of a fox. He leaned over, taking the pin from my grasp and attaching it to the lapel of my jacket for me.

“There. Now you can remember where you came from, even if you don’t follow the family legacy.” He looked at me proudly.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. It was Karina, my best friend since the age of six.

“Come on, we need to go now! The ceremony starts in half an hour. If we hurry, we won’t be late!” We started off down the street. Karina’s house was right next to mine. We lived on the nicest street in the city. My house was a beautiful two story villa. Her’s was a similar design, but with light blue terracotta walls instead of red brick. She chattered on about random people from our old class and how much she would miss them as we traveled down the street to the Guild Hall. She had always been a socialite. I didn’t mind. Karina was the only person in the school that didn’t care about my family. She liked me for me. If this meant that I had to listen to things I didn’t care about, then that was fine by me. Our high class standing allowed us to attend school. We were lucky in that way. The street we turned a corner onto was covered in children and adults less fortunate than us. Their faces dirty and clothes tattered, they reached out to passerby in hopes of a tossed scrap of food or coin. I saw a particularly pitiful child, only about five years of age, with clothes so ripped you could see his nearly translucent skin underneath. My heart ached at the sight, and I pulled out my pocketbook. Karina saw my movements and tried to hold me back, saying that once I reached out to him, The rest would follow me home like nasty dogs. I didn’t care. At least this way, the poor would be better off, even if I would be worse. I shoved a coin at the child, and a few more towards the people around him. They gazed at me in shock, amazed that one of ‘my kind’ would stop to help them. The amount of emotion on their faces flipped a switch. I took my wallet and flipped it upside down, letting all of my savings fall onto the cobbled ground. Karina yelled at me for being so kind to them. I looked at her in disbelief, and walked off without her. After this, if we made it into the same guild, she would come to me to apologize for her selfishness. She always did. Karina didn’t see the point of helping them, believing the lie we were taught in school. The teachers told us to not help the less fortunate because they had to learn to get jobs and fend for themselves. They claimed our money made them even worse off than before. I was one of the few people that went against this. My goal was to create a hospitality center for the needy. After a few more minutes of walking past carts filled with goods and shops, I caught sight of the Guild Hall. It was in the center of the city, surrounded by some of the best houses and most wealthy merchant shops. The poor lived on the outskirts of Litalia. The founders of the city carefully planned out the straight streets stretching out like wagon wheel spokes from the heart of the capital of the city-state, Tesa. Tesa was a small city-state, but far wealthier than its neighbors. The Guild Hall was a large, tan brick building seven stories high. The building was separated into five areas, each capped with a large copper dome. The dome had small spaces for skylights to shine through.

I opened the doors and strolled into the chamber. It was a big, open room, similar to that of a church. Rows of benches line from the door to a stage at the end. People had already filled in all the seats. As I joined the end of the line, the Leaders of each guild stood up. The Water Ray Leader went first. He was dressed in the blue and silver colors of his guild. He stepped up to the raised platform, his voice amplified by the sweeping arches on the ceiling.

“Welcome to this month’s Awakening Day! I am the chief Guild Leader of the Water Rays, Lord Gwenoff. As most of you know, Guilds are our way to separate our city’s youth by their magic to learn. In them, the students are taught to control their magic and use it for the protection of our great city, Litalia. Today the Awakener will sort these children into their guild using the Summoning Stone. There are four guilds, Water Rays, Fire Foxes, Air Owls, and Earth Cobras. No guild is better than the other, because we all are equal.” The crowd murmured in agreement. Gwenoff returned to his seat, and the other leaders sat as well. Everyone clapped. It was time for the main event.

The Awakener took the stage after them, his robes a mesmerizing swirl of red, green, blue, and silver in representation of the four guilds. I hoped to be a Fire Fox. They were the most powerful of the four guilds. However, any of them would be alright, as long as I didn’t end up a clanless or a deadmage. The clanless were human beings who had no magic at all. They were doomed to a life of cleaning up after guild-members. A deadmage was even worse. They were cursed to be executed for having stolen trace amounts of magic from powerful mages. It didn’t matter whether you meant to or not, you would die. Magic was sacred, it was said to have been given to a small group of men by the Holy Ten. The Holy Ten were our gods and goddesses. All of this I thought of in the mere seconds before the most important moments of my life.

“Ingrid Stawell,” the scribe called out to the crowd. A girl to my right stepped forward. I remembered her from my school. Her family belonged to the Water Ray guild. Ingrid was quite shy, spending her time in the corner of the room drawing intricate artwork. She shuffled toward the center dais, pulling up her long skirt, to where an Awakener stood with the Summoning Stone. The Stone was said to be created by four mages from each clan combining their powers to forge an object powerful enough to awaken any dormant elemental magic within young children. Ingrid, hesitantly put her wrist on the stone. A gust of wind rustled through the expectant crowd. She then raised her wrist to the onlookers proudly, an owl emblazoned there forever. The crowd applauded. She had become an apprentice of the Air Owl guild. Her kinsmen standing guard were especially loud in their support.

“Jacob Armsmith,” the scribe shouted. A pudgy looking boy at the end of the line shuffled up to the Awakener, putting his wrist onto the Stone like Ingrid. Jacob looked at his wrist, then whimpered. He put his head down and his wrist up. It was blank. The audience sighed, one woman turned her head and cried into a man’s shoulder. I assumed that this was the poor boy’s mother. They wore the dark grey colors of the clanless, so it wasn’t a surprise that Jack had no magic. It was a terrible fate. He would spend the rest of his life cleaning up trash and doing other menial tasks just for enough money to buy himself a cheap meat pie. He would never have a good future.

I felt sad that I would most likely not have this problem. Usually, people who had magic were born into magic families. I was certain to be a mage in one of the four guilds, and I had pledged to myself to be proud no matter what guild I was. I just hoped that I wouldn’t be one of the small percentage of children from wealthy families that ran dry of magic or was a deadmage. That could be the worst. I would be thrown out if I had no magic. If I had stolen magic, I would be killed while my family watched happily.

“Blake Harper.” A young, slightly scruffy-looking boy stumbled out of the line, nearly falling on his face. The audience laughed along with the boys that had pushed him. For a second, he seemed like he was about to cry before mustering up his strength and laughed with them. I smiled sympathetically. His black bangs fell over his olive-colored eyes as he straightened, pushing his hair back and walking far more gracefully up to the Awakener, gently sliding his forearm onto the Stone. After a few seconds, he suddenly cried out in pain. The crowd gasped as the Awakener grabbed his wrist, then shoved him into the waiting arms of a pair of guarding Water Rays. Just before they shot him with a dart and dragged his chained, unconscious body off to the Tower of the Dead, the hall seemed to have been leached of all color, turning the bright colors of the banners lining the room a solemn black and white that matched the mood of everyone. On his limp wrist dragging past me was the tattoo of a rainbow-colored butterfly. I reached down to try and put his dragging arm onto his chest, but a guard swatted my hand away. In my haste to give the doomed boy one last kindness, I forgot that anyone that tried to help a deadmage would be chained up for being a deadmage supporter. I retracted my hand reluctantly and resisted the urge to try again. Once he was out of the room with the guards, color returned to the room, and the crowd settled into their seats once more. The whole room let out a collective sigh.

“Karina Bennet!” the scribe bellowed. Karina stepped out of her place in the center of the line, where she had surrounded herself with her female friends. They were much more like her, but she enjoyed the lack of drama that came with being my friend. She scanned the line for me. Once she found me, Karina gave me an apologetic look. She had already regretted her earlier outburst. As she stepped forward, the Awakener lifted the stone and pressed it to her wrist. A wave of heat, unusually warmer and longer than the average, rolled throughout the onlookers. She then raised her wrist proudly to the crowd for all to see the Fire Fox tattooed on her skin. The crowd cheered, the Fire Foxes only clapping. They were well known for strict public behavior and uptight rules. Karina would fit in well with them, as she fit in well everywhere. She learned the rules easily, unlike me.

“Garrett Fowler!” the scribe bellowed again. I stepped forward, trying to seem confident, but probably looking as terrified as Jacob. After what seemed like forever, I reached the dais. The Awakener stared intently at me, studying me as if he could see exactly which guild I belonged to, or didn’t belong to. I touched the Summoning Stone to my wrist, worried about how it would feel, but it was surprisingly cool. Suddenly, it turned unbearably painful, searing into my skin as though I had touched lava. I let out a strangled gasp of pain. The crowd yelled in fear and outrage.

“His eyes!” an onlooker yelled, before the pain subsided and I was grabbed by the forearm. It was the Awakener. He looked at my wrist once before shoved me away from the stone, and yelled at some nearby Air Owls, only about fifteen years of age, to put me in shackles. I could see my mother trying to rise out of her chair, and my father pulling her back and shaking his head. I looked away. My father had shame written all over his face. I stopped struggling and layed limply in the hands of the guards. They put a pair of handcuffs around my wrists and another set to my ankles with enough give for me to walk, and a large iron collar that’s weight nearly drove me to my knees. I didn’t understand. What was wrong? What had happened? The scribe, who was previously hiding in the shadows, walked up to the dais and exclaimed,

“Another deadmage!” My worst nightmare had occurred. Before I could think more on the matter, One of the Owls standing guard from across the room blew into a tube. I felt a small prick on my shoulder, and everything went black.