7. The Proving
The Proving
The world ripped apart beneath my feet.
The sensation was like being grabbed by invisible claws and hurled through space. My stomach lurched, and my vision shattered into fragments of light and shadow, but before I could even scream, I slammed back into existence.
I stumbled, nearly crashing face-first into white stone. Instead, I collided with warm flesh and expensive fabric. A young man with mousy brown hair.
"Easy," he said, steady hands catching my shoulders before I could fall.
My power hit me like a tidal wave. Days. It had been days since I'd last released it, and whatever magic had been suppressing my abilities in that cursed palace was gone. Now it roared through my veins, demanding release, threatening to pour from my hands.
I gritted my teeth until I tasted blood, forcing the inferno back down. Not now. Not yet.
"Thank you," I managed.
I lifted my head and took in my surroundings, my breath catching in my throat.
We stood in an arena that made every grand theater I'd ever imagined look like a child's playhouse.
The ground beneath our feet was polished marble so smooth I could almost see my reflection.
Crystalline walls spiraled upward, piercing the deep purple dusk above.
But it was the air that made my skin crawl. Shimmers rippled through the space around us. Distortions that bent light in unnatural ways. The viewing portals Lyralei had told me about.
I spun wildly, searching for Thatcher among the handful of figures scattered across the arena floor. My heart hammered against my ribs when I didn't see him.
"Do you know where everyone else is?" I asked the man who'd caught me.
"Well, a lot more were in the waiting area," he replied, brushing imaginary dust from his outfit. "I suppose they're bringing us out in groups."
"Was anyone called from the waiting area before you?"
"No, I think we're first."
I forced myself to look around. Only five other contestants shared the arena floor with me, each dressed in garments that matched the absurdity of my own.
The sky above us deepened, and the first stars began to emerge. But it wasn't the heavens that made my breath catch—it was what waited below them on a platform.
Thrones.
They were arranged in a perfect semicircle. Most were occupied by beings that made every instinct I possessed scream in warning. Only one sat empty.
The moment my eyes scanned over them, a tightness gripped my chest. It wasn’t fear—No, I’d felt fear plenty of times. This was different. A new sensation that made my pulse skip and my mouth go dry. Like facing apex predators head-on.
I'd never been in the presence of a god before, and now, perhaps, I understood why people built temples and offered sacrifices. It wasn't devotion—it was self- preservation.
These were the Legends. The beings I needed to impress. The ones I needed to convince to spare my brother's life.
They were all devastatingly beautiful, but in ways that were wrong. Too perfect. Too sharp. Too utterly divorced from anything resembling mortality. The kind of beauty that made you want to look closer, even as every instinct screamed that doing so would be the last mistake you ever made.
They spoke amongst themselves, voices pitched low in the casual way of people discussing dinner plans.
Not one of them was looking at us. One with flowers woven into her gown gestured lazily at something her companion said, covering a laugh with jeweled fingers.
Another leaned back in his throne, eyes closed, as if he might actually fall asleep.
Right. We were nothing to them. They couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge we existed.
Charming.
"Aren't they incredible?" The contestant from earlier asked over my shoulder, startling me from my observations. His voice held pure, nauseating awe. "That could be us one day."
I could think of nothing more horrifying than becoming one of those beautiful, soulless creatures. But I couldn't exactly say that out loud.
"Could be," I said instead, letting enough dryness into my voice that anyone with half a brain would catch my meaning.
Unfortunately, this one seemed to be running on a quarter.
"What gift have you been blessed with?" he asked, turning toward me with bright, eager eyes.
But before I could open my mouth, he launched into an enthusiastic monologue about his own abilities—something about poison and plants. His tone took on the particular cadence of someone who'd never met a silence they couldn't fill with the sound of their own voice.
Perfect. One less conversation I'd have to navigate. I let his words fade into background noise .
The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stood on end. Something had changed—the air was charged with a new kind of danger. I turned without thinking, my body reacting before my mind caught up.
He was just... there. One moment empty space, the next moment him, like he'd always been standing on the arena floor and I'd simply failed to notice. Except that was impossible, because everything about him made it impossible to look away.
He was tall and lean, built like a weapon wrapped in divine flesh.
Bronze skin stretched over sharp cheekbones and a jaw that could cut glass.
His hair was braided and woven with golden beads.
But it was his eyes that stole my breath—one burned pure gold, bright and predatory as a hawk's.
The other was completely black. And settling over his full lips, hung a golden ring pierced through his nose.
He moved toward the empty throne with unhurried steps, but the moment he appeared, the conversations shifted.
“Well,” one of the Legends said. She had a floral gown and pale blonde hair that flowed down her back. “I was beginning to think you'd decided not to grace us with your presence after all.”
“Nyvora.” His tone was polite. “I wouldn't dream of disappointing you.”
A Legend with black armor huffed a laugh. “Come now, Xül. We both know punctuality was never your strong suit. Remember the last time you kept the Council waiting?”
“I remember you timing it, Drakor. How... thorough of you.” Xül settled into his throne. “I trust you found something to occupy yourself while you waited.”
“Oh, I always do.”
Another voice cut in, cold and distant. “Some of us actually take our responsibilities seriously.”
Xül's mismatched eyes found the owner of the voice with lazy interest. “And some of us are effective enough that we don't need to arrive early to compensate, Chavore.”
Chavore. My half-brother. Fuck . He looked so much like Thatcher. Like me. With his dark hair tied down his back and his structured jawline.
Nyvora's laugh echoed through the arena. “Boys, please. We're all here now, aren't we? That's what matters.” Her gaze lingered on Xül and I recognized the look. If they weren’t already fucking, she sure wished they were–
"Begin."
The voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere, shaking the walls and reverberating through my bones. The six of us looked at each other in confusion, waiting for further instruction that didn't come.
What happens now? Panic fluttered in my chest. Do I just... do it?
The Aesymar finally looked upon us, countless golden eyes studying us like we were insects.
Footsteps echoed from my right—a contestant in liquid silver was walking forward.
Did I miss something? As if she’d received some instruction the rest of us hadn’t, she raised her hands and drenched the space around us in heat.
Just as she cocked her head to the side, fire erupted from her palms.
The fire-wielder's dance weaved past a second contestant that was breathing rapidly, waves of energy leaking off of him, coating his body in shimmers.
The mousy-haired man from earlier was making elaborate sculptures rise from the arena floor, vines with sharpened thorns twisting into gnarled masses.
I took a step back—away from them all—and lifted my face to the bleeding dusk above.
Power writhed beneath my skin, begging to get out after days of being leashed.
I let it loose with a shuddering breath, feeling that ancient, wild magic spark through my veins.
It started as a whisper in my fingertips before roaring up my arms as I reached, reached, reached for that thing that called to me from the infinite dark.
One star flickered in answer. A single pulse against the dying light.
Then another. And another.
Like warriors answering a battle cry, they blazed to life—dozens upon dozens of stars igniting with savage brilliance. The arena drowned in their light as I dragged night into day with nothing but will and that feral thing inside me that had always belonged more to the sky than the earth.
The world went utterly, terrifyingly still.
Every contestant froze. Every breath in that godsdamned arena ceased. I could taste their shock on my tongue, could feel the weight of their stares like brands against my skin. The Legend's attention was a living thing, pressing against me.
I bared my teeth in something that might have been a smile—and pulled .
The power I'd caged for so long detonated from my chest with such ferocity that I nearly screamed. It wasn't enough. I needed more—needed everything the stars could give me. I pulled harder, desperate, until something inside me began to crack.
The sensation was terrifying. My carefully maintained control, the discipline I'd clung to for so long, was fracturing. My instinct screamed to stop, to reinforce those walls, to maintain the boundaries I'd lived within for so long.
Instead, I let them fall.
The moment those internal barriers shattered, power flooded through me in a torrent so overwhelming I couldn't have contained it if I tried. My head fell back, a sound between a laugh and a cry escaping my lips as years of restraint dissolved into nothing. The release was unexpected ecstasy.
My power shredded through whatever flimsy veil separated our world from the heavens, and the stars?—