For confirmed familiars, however, no one concerned themselves with treating them well.
Han climbed the steps with heavy feet, dread weighing them down. Sometimes, on this endless trudge spiraling upward through the stairwell that always managed to feel gloomy, despite the liberal distribution of fire elementals lighting the way, he contemplated what would happen if he refused to report.
There were stories—Convocation Academy lived and breathed stories—of students who’d run away. In the wildest tales, some had supposedly escaped the Convocation entirely, and were off living in other realms, magical and not. Han highly doubted the veracity of these stories, especially of familiars escaping to live outside the Convocation. Everyone knew that familiars would go mad if their magic wasn’t regularly tapped by a wizard. Unable to release magic of their own will, familiars needed a wizard in order to survive with sanity intact.
And wizards had no reason to escape the Convocation, a world created to enable their least desire.
“Come in, M. Haniel,” the testing proctor said with a bit of impatience. “You’re very nearly late.” Only in the Convocation was almost late as bad as actually late. Han bit back the observation that “very nearly late” also meant “on time.”
The proctors had no influence over the findings of the oracle heads—although Iliana sometimes speculated otherwise—but no sense antagonizing those who held so much power over his future. So he only inclined his head politely, murmuring, “Yes, proctor.”
The man flicked him an irritated glare, then pointed at the wooden chair placed before a table bare of anything but the tabernacle containing the oracle head. “Sit facing the tabernacle,” the proctor instructed, as if Han hadn’t done this more times than he could count.
But Han obediently sat, resisting the urge to scoot the chair back from the literally hair-raising magic the tabernacle emitted. Nobody knew exactly how the oracle heads were created, except that they were a result of an ancient collaboration between three High Houses. In a peaceful joint effort, that would be unlikely to occur today, given the intense competition between all the houses, let alone the high ones, Houses Hanneil, Ariel, and El-Adrel had come together to make an enchanted artifact—House El-Adrel’s aegis—from a human head, as metamorphosized by House Ariel wizards, and gifted with immense psychic powers from the best of House Hanneil.
Some people claimed they were once actual Hanneil wizards, chosen for their abilities, their disembodied heads preserved for eternity with magic intact. Han always countered with the obvious flaw that the mummified wizard head had no access to a familiar and no way to generate magic of its own, being lifeless, and that it required a wizard proctor to operate. Of course, that left the conclusion that the thing had been a familiar, which was even worse.
Either way, it was unsavory and downright creepy.
Once Han was seated, the proctor moved to open the tabernacle doors. Whoever had thought to prettify the monstrous things by sealing them in the decorated cabinets had missed the mark. Despite the ornate carvings and the delicate inlay that glittered in the exquisitely crafted arched doors of the box, nothing could disguise the ugliness of what lay within. Iliana, as a lover of life and living animals, particularly loathed the oracle heads. Though she’d been disappointed to be finally categorized as a familiar, her relief at never having to confront an oracle head again had been almost enough to balance it out.
Han braced himself as the proctor turned the miniature handles crafted to look like doorknobs and pulled the doors open to expose the head within. It looked like it was sleeping, eyes closed so the colorful scales of gemstones decorating the eyelids showed in artistic detail. Its brows and lips had been recreated from powdered gems as well, which did nothing to make the skin and features look anything but what it was: thoroughly dead.
Painted up corpses in short coffinsIliana called them with devastating accuracy, because that’s exactly what it looked like. Until it opened its eyes.
Those were not dead. They looked like normal, living eyes—as normal as living eyes could look in a mummified head—and, wizard black, they stared at him with disconcerting intelligence.
Han tried to think of nothing while the thing took his measure for the umpteenth time. Some students claimed they feltsomethingduring the testing, but Iliana said she didn’t sense anything either. Han cynically suspected that the ones who said they experienced this or that were simply trying to make themselves sound more talented than they were. In a society entirely predicated on one’s magical talents, exaggeration and hyperbole were common skills.
When he was younger—and considerably more idealistic—Han had tried to push the oracle head into declaring him a wizard, as if he could will it to be true. Now he just waited while the oracle took his measure, the proctor calling the traditional question in reverential tones. “What is your determination of the candidate?”
The head stared at him, unblinking, a moment longer and Han had a sudden and unsettling glimpse of what it might have looked like in life. A woman, with dark skin and long brown hair. The vision evaporated as quickly as it had flashed into his mind, and he almost fancied that the thing smiled, its thin, desiccated lips cracking the garnet gem dust into a sickle curve.
“The candidate,” it intoned in a voiceless whisper that nevertheless resonated in every corner of the room, “cannot be categorized.”
Han hadn’t been holding his breath, so there was nothing to let out, and yet he sagged slightly. Not in relief, not in sorrow. Just… whatever.
The proctor was far from sanguine, glaring at Han as if he’d somehow deliberately foiled the testing. The oracle head closed its eyes, returning to its slumber or death or stasis, or wherever they went when not activated. The proctor closed the tabernacle doors with deliberate care, activating the magical lock.
“You are twenty years old, M. Haniel,” the proctor declared, making that sound like Han’s fault, too, as he marked down notes in Han’s file. “Very nearly twenty-one. You will report for daily testing until your status can be determined.”
Oh joy.“Yes, Proctor.” What happened if he remained uncategorized forever—had there ever been a case like that? Only with someone with very low MP scores, he’d bet. Low scores made all sorts of categorization difficult because there was so little to measure. And, in truth, the Convocation hardly bothered themselves. A person with low MP scores was hardly better than a commoner. Anyone that mingily gifted could go find a life among the common folk, perhaps using their scant talents—if they manifested as wizards, no matter how minor—to do what they could to improve their situations.
But Han had high MP scores. Not off the charts like the star students, but enough to guarantee a nice contract with a High House if he manifested as a wizard, or for a bonding to a high-level wizard if he turned out to be only a familiar. Either way, though, he had to be one or the other. He couldn’t remain neither fish nor fowl for the remainder of his life, could he?
“Begone already, M. Haniel,” the proctor said on a weary sigh.
He stood to go, glad to be released, anxious to find Iliana.
“M. Haniel,” the proctor said just as Han reached the relative safety of the door. “I strongly advise you to settle your mind in the very near future. Fence-sitters never do well.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” he blurted before he thought better of it.
The proctor raised disdainful brows. “I suggest you figure that out.”
~ 2 ~
Iliana watched Hansaunter down the hallway toward the Tower of Testing, hands tucked nonchalantly in his pockets. His long, perfectly straight blond hair was tied back in a gleaming tail, giving him an innocent glow that was entirely deceptive. He moved with a dancer’s grace, even upset as he was.
