It felt like I was walking across an arena as I eased deeper into the clearing, an arena with a lumpy floor, bulging with roots and tufts of grass, surrounded by spots of loose soil. The branches above me began to rattle, and at the same moment, the ends of my hair lifted in a sudden wind. I looked back at where Leland waited outside the ring about thirty yards away from me, standing in a space between trees.
“Is this supposed to happen?” I yelled, my mouth flapping inthe wind. As if the trees had distinct personalities, some moved gently and others clashed, instigating collisions, pitching and thrashing.
Leland gave a curt nod.Keep going.
Finally reaching the center, I spun in a slow circle, looking upward. By the branches, the trees were impossible to distinguish, wild and ancient things twining together like arthritic hands. But the trunks were immense, perfectly distinct, with yards of space between them.
Before I could even hope for a different outcome, the mental magic tree bent, lowering to where I could reach up and touch its branches. The dawn sky was the color of faded parchment, and there wasn’t much daylight here to begin with, but with mental magic hovering close above me, the clearing dramatically darkened.
My heart plummeted.
So I was to be a Mentalist. To study under the Echelon Helen Blackburn.
I don’t know why my eyes naturally reached out for where Leland was standing in the shadow of the quantum magic tree across the clearing, shining the light from his transmitter. I guess I wanted him to tell me we could go.
Whistling wind pierced my eardrums, followed by the loud groan of something stooping and cracking. I turned to find the tree of elemental magic bowing behind me, remaining lowered as the mental magic tree had.
Breath was restored to my chest. I wasn’t a Mentalist. I was a Seven, an Aspirant. The same as Ash, Goddess-blessed for all seven schools of light magic. It wasn’t the best news, but if I couldn’t get back home to Dad, at least there was a slim chance that one day I’d see Ash again. In Alchemia. If, you know, I graduated fifth year. Leland mentioned something about competing for it?
I looked at Leland to see if he was as surprised as I was, but it wasn’t surprise I found on his face. It was —
Something brutal struck me in the head. My head pitched forward, and I saw stars for a second as a branch the size of a body scraped down my back.
“Ow,” I said dryly, rubbing the sore spot, looking around in dazed confusion. It was the creation tree who had slugged me, I was sure of it. I dropped my hand, quietly apologizing.
Creation magic was the last to bow, and in the end, it went down grudgingly. Its ghoulishly long limbs broke free of the dark magic tree it was clinging to, and the gnarled branches of the seven bowed trees congregated to form a shelter around me.
I made up my mind that I was ready to leave, just as there came the sound of a sudden, ear-splitting crack. The tree of dark magic raged with fury.
I glanced in the direction of Leland to make surethiswas supposed to happen, but not being able to decipher much in the near pitch-dark, I had to rely on reasoning. Dark magic’s wrathwasconsistent with what Leland said about how poorly light and dark magic got along.
They didn’t.
But then it bent. The tree of dark magic bent. And at that point, I couldn’t even see an outline of Leland. I stood in darkness with all eight trees huddled around me. All eight schools of magic, bowing.
I shouted for Leland.
Branches clashed in a scraping frenzy as earth rumbled beneath my feet and drowned out my shouts. My knees trembled. I looked for a way out, the ground shaking harder. Whatever I’d done, the Circle of Seven was mad.
I dropped to the ground and scrambled backward. Back, back, back — until my hands were covered in dirt, aching, and raw. I couldn’t see. I didn’t know which direction to go to get to Leland.And the ground was unstable, shaking as though something ancient was pounding at its gate to be freed.
In the soil beneath my fingers, a crack opened. The clearing filled with the sound of crumbling boulders as the crack widened, the earth tearing open in a jagged fault line. I scrambled back farther until I struck a tree root big enough to hold on to.
My fingers clawed for the thick and snaking root, struggling to hold on as the earth threatened to swallow me, one thought resounding on repeat.No onewas blessed with eight schools of magic. Light and dark magic couldn’t coexist.
And if I had all eight of them . . .
The clash of power would consume me.
I pressed my eyes together and pictured calming things. Dad’s face. Good memories of Gray. I tried not to think about the final moment, whether it would hurt when the ground fully caved in, or if all I would feel was this.
“Ember, let go of the root!” Leland bellowed. “Now, Ember.Let goof the root.”
Blood roared in my ears. My heart pounded wildly.
I took a breath. And I let go of it.
CHAPTER
