CHAPTER 1 RAYA
RAYA
Certain futures can be trusted no matter how incompetent the seer.
The sun will always come up in the morning, the shadows will always welcome a Shade home; everything else is up for .
. . interpretation. The key word there being interpretation—given that the future doesn’t much like to be known.
Glimpsed, yes. Altered, maybe. But never known with an infallible degree of certainty.
Not even to an Indigo Shade. And especially not to me.
Raya Wryvern. The seer who can never get the answer right.
Never mind the answer—I can’t even ask the right questions.
Which is how I find myself here, in a storage cupboard at the forgotten end of the Academy, covered in sweat, and cobwebs, and a fine sheen of rage.
Akari did it again.
She tricked me.
Veiled her intentions so that I’d interpret her future wrong.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. I bang a fist against the shelves, filling the air with an angry wafting of dust. The future that Professor Lyons asked me to predict wasn’t even that complicated—all I had to do was discern where in the castle Akari would hide her flag.
And while his instructions to her were to try and confuse my vision, this close to guild selections, I’m supposed to know how to account for those lies.
I shouldn’t still be failing the most basic of tasks—not to mention failing to live up to my potential.
Of all the Indigo Shades at the Academy, my power is the strongest; I proved that much years ago.
I see more futures than anyone else.
With more clarity than anyone else.
Across more questions than anyone else.
Good stock, they call it. The product of a long and esteemed line of Indigos who upheld the sanctity of their magic by refusing to marry across blood color, with none that ever dallied with a different color of Shade, or—Gods forbid—stooped low enough to bed a typic.
But power and pedigree can only take you so far when they’re not supported by natural instinct or skill, and while the fates may be inclined to answer my questions, there’s nothing they hate more than being asked the same question twice.
That’s why it’s imperative to ask the right questions. In the right order. At the right time.
It’s the difference between asking: can I win this fight, and: can we win this fight. A subtle change in phrasing that might lead to two completely disparate visions, so you have to be sure before you reach for the magic and whisper the words in your mind. Commit to a direction.
Which is where I struggle.
I’ve simply never been that good at choosing my words in a way the future considers right. A problem since getting it wrong means getting the wrong vision, chasing after a future that’s unlikely to come to pass.
Ending up in a fucking store cupboard.
And to think, the Council is convinced that Green Shades have it hardest, when in reality, healing must be a cakewalk compared to this.
What I’d give for a guaranteed, replicable result that works one hundred percent of the time.
To not have to constantly guess at how best to cajole the future. Not offend it into growing teeth.
I make my way back to class slowly, grudgingly, steeling myself for the rebuke that is sure to come.
Around me, the Gray ripples like an ocean of obsidian night, the shadows curling through the air like vapor, dulling the world of its tint.
A monochromatic rainbow, Akari calls it, and we’re the lone specks of color penetrating the haze.
Safe from the typics in this realm they cannot reach.
Safe from the dangerous elements in our own ranks, too, since it’s impossible to phase in or out of this building—the Academy is unique in that regard.
Where the rest of the Gray exists as a perfect overlay of the physical realm, the Academy has no direct counterpart to speak of.
We are a pocket among the shadows. A castle made entirely of magic that exists in the absence of place, accessible only by portal, though when it’s plotted on a map, it sits at the very heart of Sarotuza.
The city of sun, stone, and sea. Famed for its beauty—and its distinctive palette of reds, golds, and teals.
A vista I used to miss when I first came to live in the shadows, though it’s amazing how fast you adjust to living in a world stripped of color.
Better that than living in a world steeped in iron and fear, where the Church is doing its twisted utmost to outlaw your kind. Cleanse the continent of magic.
“So where did Raya go wrong?” By the time I make my way back to the seeing tower, Professor Lyons has already predicted my failure, the disappointed scowl of his deep-set features setting a flame to my cheeks.
“She wasn’t specific enough in her question,” Akari is quick to say.
Outside the classroom, she’s on my side.
Always. Inside it, she’s a pit viper biting at my heels.
Just as I need her to be. Because if she doesn’t do it, then someone else will.
And because she knows as well as I do that if I don’t prove I can direct my visions—definitively, without constantly seeing the wrong thing—then come graduation, I’ll be hauled in front of the Council to have my magic bound.
That’s the price of not learning to control my power when they’ve given me chance, after chance, after chance to hone my skills.
Too many chances, some would say, on account of who my parents are.
If not for the position they hold as co-heads of the seers’ guild, the decision to bind my color would have been made six months ago, when I failed to pass my initial trials.
Instead, I was allowed to continue on to guild training.
The future demands a relationship as well as aptitude, my mother had said. A Shade with her degree of power deserves more time to establish that rapport with the fates.
So they gave me more time.
Which makes it all the worse when I fumble my assignments in such an obvious way.
“That’s right, she wasn’t specific enough in her question,” Professor Lyons repeats. “What did you ask, Raya?” He turns to appraise me, the judgement in his expression pinching his broad face sharp.
“To see which door Akari opened before dropping the flag,” I mumble, staring at my feet instead of the sea of eyes scrutinizing my mistake.
Not just other Indigos, but Shades from the other six specializations, as well.
In the year leading up to guild selections, we’re all taught together, so that we can learn to better understand each other’s gifts, facilitate the other shades of magic and help minimize their weaknesses.
So instead of keeping my embarrassingly flawed logic to myself, I have to share it with an entire rainbow of classmates, steep in their judgement and hear them mutter insults under their breath.
Fate-touched has become a particular favorite, an Indigo who’s lost the ability to talk to the fates.
“The idea was that she could think of a hundred different rooms in which to place the flag, but she’d have had to physically open the door to the one she left it in.” I try to ignore their sniggers, to ignore the fact that the whole Academy believes that I’m destined for nothing
but disgrace.
A bound Shade is a pariah.
As useless as a typic but with the added stain of shame—the kind that would irrevocably tarnish the Wryvern legacy.
My parents are barely coping with the humiliation of an inept daughter; a powerless one would send their last nerve up in flames.
If the Council casts me out, they’ll quickly follow suit and disown me.
Hells, they wouldn’t even need persuasion.
“And what should Raya have asked?” Professor Lyons poses the question to the other Indigos in the class.
“Which door Akari closed once she relinquished possession of the flag.” The answer comes from Anders brown-noser Prince, a self-righteous annoyance of a Shade who has none of my raw power, but an insufferable amount of skill.
“Very good, Mister Prince.” Professor Lyons rewards his star student with a nod. “And why is that the correct framing?”
“Because dropped the flag isn’t specific enough; it allows for the possibility that the flag was picked up again as a means of muddying the future.
Whereas relinquished possession implies a finality of intent.
Less likely to be misinterpreted.” It seems so obvious once Anders explains his reasoning.
Then again, that’s always been my problem: I’m no good at thinking around the mud, particularly when I’m casting on the spot or under pressure.
“That’s right,” Professor Lyons says, turning to address us all.
“Remember, the best way to see the future isn’t to look forward, but to work back, account for as many eventualities as possible so that your questions elicit the path least likely to change.
That’s why you must choose them with care.
” The afternoon bell rings loud with his assertion, marking the end of the day’s classes.
“You need to stop rushing, Ray,” Akari says as we speed towards the dorms. When we’re in the Gray, we don’t have to walk, we can shimmer, shed our physicality and wisp through both shadow and wall.
Within reason, of course; we’re not allowed to wisp into rooms uninvited or circumvent a closed door, not in the Academy and certainly not when we’re out in the wider world.
No shimmering into places we’re not supposed to be; that’s the Council’s official stance on exploiting our ability to transcend the bounds of the flesh, their way of keeping the typics from losing their minds entirely, declaring us too big of a threat.
“Did you hear what I said?” Akari bristles at my lack of reply. “You’re so busy trying to prove that you can read the future as fast
as that twit Anders, you’re not thinking through your questions properly.”
“I’m not going to have time to think through my questions during