Chapter 23 #2
The next four weeks passed in a blur of studies, sweat, and the faint ozone tang of spells worked too often in the confined space of a classroom.
Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, Mundise ran us through their sample challenges with the relentless efficiency of someone who believed that the only proper way to learn was by failing repeatedly until you got it right.
The rest of the time, I tried to keep up with the exhausting grind of studies, lab exercises, and homework.
To my relief, Lukhan and his friends appeared to be too occupied with their own preparations for the Trials to resume tormenting me and the other commoners.
During those weeks of preparation, the Circle of the Open Hand gathered every evening in the downstairs common room in the Western Tower dormitory.
There, those students who had taken part in previous Aurelian Trials compared strategies, tutored us on elemental sequences, and, increasingly as the Trials drew closer, warned us about traps and pitfalls.
On the night before the Trials began, the Open Hand met with the promise that veterans of previous years’ Trials would share important competition tricks and tips with us.
When my sisters and I entered the common room, I spotted Dante Santinus sitting at the largest study table with a cup of tea steaming between his palms.
He waited for everyone to settle down before he spoke.
“The first thing you first-years need to know,” he said, his voice measured and calm, “is that the Crystal Sequence puzzle is a trap.”
The room went still. I opened my notebook and leaned forward.
“Every year, at least one team of first-years is assigned the Crystal Sequence in Round One,” Dante continued.
“The advice that gets passed around by the upperclassmen is that you solve the Crystal Sequence by channeling Water first. They’ll tell you it’s the foundational element, the one that sets the harmonic resonance for the entire puzzle. ”
He took a sip of his tea. “To put it plainly, that’s a load of horse manure.”
A ripple of laughter went through the room. Dante didn’t smile.
“The true solution begins with an Air spell. Not Water. Air.” He tapped his mug with one ringed finger.
“The Water-first approach will get you through the first alignment, maybe even the second, but by the third sequence, the puzzle will reset and you’ll be back at beginning with most of your time run out. ”
I glanced over at Elio. He was already writing, his pen moving rapidly across his notebook.
“The upperclassmen like to preach the Water-first tip because it works well enough to make you think you’re on the right track,” Dante said. “It’s designed to waste your time and energy. By the time you realize it’s wrong, your opponents are three sequences ahead.”
“How do you know this?” Juno asked.
“Because I fell for it last year,” Dante said with a wry smile.
“I watched a team of aristos finish the Crystal Sequence in under two minutes while Mavia and I were still realigning the third rune. After the tournament, I asked one of the fourth-years how they’d done it. He laughed and told me the truth.”
“The second common trap is what we call the Panic Bell,” said Mavia. She had close-cropped black hair and the confident air of someone who had spent her childhood negotiating in the markets of Camarcon.
“During the Round One puzzles—usually when you’re about halfway through a challenge—the puzzle will blare a warning sound.
Runes will flash crimson. There might even be smoke or flames.
” Her gaze moved around the room. “The mage-instructors call it a ‘stress-test element.’ It’s when a lot of first-time competitors abandon a correct solution because they think something’s gone wrong.
I watched a second-year commoner team—brilliant students, top of their class—drop a nearly completed puzzle because bells went off.
By the time they realized what had happened, the other team had finished the puzzle and won the round. ”
I wrote myself a note, though I knew I wouldn’t forget this tip.
“Stay focused,” Mavia finished. “Ignore the distractions and just trust your spells.”
The third veteran of the Trials was Varrix Carbo, a tall, sharp-featured fourth-year who spoke with the capital’s clipped accent. He stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the brick fireplace, and waited until Mavia had finished before he spoke.
“There’s a rumor making the rounds,” he said. “About Severin’s Elemental Harmonies thesis. Supposedly it contains the solution to all the Round One puzzles, coded into the theoretical passages. It doesn’t.”
Elio whistled. “So that’s why all the copies were checked out of the library today.”
Varrix snorted. “Severin was a third-rate theorist who published one mediocre thesis fifty years ago. The rumor about his work holding the key to the puzzles makes the rounds every year. I think it’s designed to send first-time competitors down a rabbit hole of irrelevant studies right before the Trials. ”
He pushed off from the mantelpiece. “If you want to prepare for the puzzles, memorize Mage Sancola’s textbooks and listen to Mage-Instructor Mundise’s advice. They can both be dry and boring, but they’ll both prepare you for any test you face in the Trials. Reading Severin is a waste of your time.”
The room absorbed this in silence. I looked down at my notebook, with its pages of scribbled notes and warnings, and felt gratitude wash through me.
Around the table, my fellow competitors were busy writing.
Elio’s notes were a marvel of organization, color-coded and cross-referenced in at least two languages.
Mira wrote in neat script, underlining each key point with a ruler-straight line.
Juno’s notes were scrawled and interspersed with diagrams of puzzle mechanisms, arrows, and little stars next to the notes she considered most important.
Dante, Mavia, and Varrix spent the next two hours sharing all that they knew about what we could expect in Round One of the Aurelian Trials.
We listened and wrote until our hands cramped.
“Remember,” Dante said as the meeting broke up, “the Trials aren’t just about magic.
They’re about knowing your partner’s strengths and weaknesses, and out-thinking the mage-instructors who designed the challenges.
Every puzzle and challenge has an assumption built into it.
Don’t approach solving it the way everyone else does.
Look for the twist.” He looked at me directly. “Don’t give them what they expect.”
Later, as we climbed the stairs to our rooms, Elio walked beside me with his shoulder against mine, his notes tucked under his arm.
“Think we have a chance tomorrow?” he asked quietly.
I thought about the Crystal Sequence, about crimson runes and panic bells, about misleading rumors and wasted time. And of how the Circle of the Open Hand had come together to help us prepare for the Trials, sharing their wisdom and hard-learned lessons.
I hoped that when Elio and I faced our first challenge, we would do them all proud and make them feel they like they hadn’t wasted their time helping us.
“I think,” I said, “that with everyone’s help, we have a better chance than we did last month.”
He smiled down at me and gave me a hug.
“Now, all we have to do is get a good night’s sleep,” he murmured into my hair.
“You expect to sleep?” I asked in mock surprise. “I’m planning on tossing and turning and marinating in worry.”
He laughed and tightened his arms around me.
In the dim light of the stairwell, with the sounds of the common room fading below us and the mass of everything we’d learned churning inside my head, his embrace felt like something I could build on.