The tunnel releases us into the light, and for a moment, the sheer scale of the world expands until it feels like the sky might crush us.
We step out onto the sands of the Colosseum, and the breath catches in my throat. I have seen the exterior, the looming black obsidian walls that dominate the valley, but the interior is a different beast entirely. It is a hollowed-out mountain of stone and violence, a bowl designed as if by giants to watch ants tear each other apart.
The seating tiers rise up around us in steep, dizzying concentric circles, stretching so high that the students at the very top must look like specks of dust against the clouds. Massive stone pillars, thick as ancient redwoods, support the upper arches, casting long, jagged shadows across the arena floor. The architecture is archaic, brutal, and magnificent a callback to an era before the Empire, perhaps, or a deliberate homage to the Berserkers of the Old World history books Melnyk threw at us.
"Move," Proctor Afia Balogun commands, her voice cutting through my awe. She doesn't stop to admire the view. She marches us toward the designated seating for the First Years.
We are herded like cattle into the first few rows of the stands, closest to the arena floor. The stone benches are cold, sucking the warmth from the spring air right out of the seat of my pants. I sit down, adjusting my cloak, and look around.
The layout is deliberate. It is a hierarchy carved in stone.
To my left, across a wide, empty buffer zone of stone stairs, I see the Second Years filing in. There are about three hundred of them as well, ushered by a Proctor I don't recognize. The Second Years look different from us. They move with an air of a pride, their backs straight uniforms polished.
Above them, the Third Years. Their numbers have thinned compared to our year and the seconds. Maybe two hundred and twenty of them. They seats higher, looking down on us with a mix of boredom and superiority. To my right and above, the Fourth Years. About two hundred them maybe a little less. They move with a rigid, military discipline that makes the rest of us look like a mob. They take their seats in synchronized silence, their eyes fixed forward.
And finally, at the very top, occupying the highest, most prestigious tier directly behind us, are the Fifth Years. The Seniors.
There are maybe a hundred and twenty of them. They don't march; they saunter. They sprawl across the benches with the casual arrogance of people who have everything at their fingertips.
The apex predators of the Academy.
I blink, slightly bemused by the sheer distance the Proctors are maintaining between the classes. There are massive gaps of empty stone between each section, monitored by patrolling proctors some I don't even recognize.
I shrug, turning my attention away from the seating charts and toward the center of the arena.
Proctor Evanora stands as a solitary figure amidst the vast, bleeding expanse of red sand. She needs no podium to command attention; she simply dominates the space. Arms crossed over her black armor, she stands immovable while her white robe billows in the wind. It is a striking image the purity of the cloth clashing against the jagged scar on her face and the cruel, burning pink of her eyes.
Her pink eyes sparkle with cruel amusement as she slowly turns, surveying the complete student body of the Imperial Academy.
I do the math in my head.
Three hundred First Years. Three hundred Second. Two hundred Third. Two hundred and twenty-five Fourth. Maybe one-fifty Seniors.
Roughly one thousand students.
One thousand Elites at this Academy.
That's it?
The thought hits me with the force of a physical blow. I frown, leaning back against the cold stone. The Empire spans over most of the continent. We rule over hundreds of millions of people. We have an army of markless infantry that number in the hundreds of thousands if not million.
But us? The Awakened? The Elites?
I had forgotten, in the daily grind of survival, just how rare we Awakened actually are. To the common people, an Elite is a myth, a monster, a savior. To the nobility, we are precious resources to be hoarded. No wonder the Empire had yet to conquer the federation. They are made up of the Northern countries we must be matched almost equally in terms of Awakened power.
Rare, the voices whisper, slithering through the back of my mind like oil. Precious. Divine.
I suppress a shiver as they wake up, sensing my realization.
Look at them.A thousand souls touched by the One... A thousand divine sparks. But you shine brighter than all of them.
I roll my eyes, still staring at Evanora. Don't start I hiss back at them
It is the truth, they insist, their laughter bubbling up like magma. They have one Mark. One little gift from the One. The prince out there is the only one with Two. But you have three. You are the trinity of ruin. You are special. They should be bowing. Why aren't they bowing?
I scoff, ignoring their whining. Fucking Narcissistic parasites.
the last student takes their seat. The silence that falls over the Colosseum is instant and heavy. The wind whistles through the high arches, the only sound in the world.
Evanora raises her chin.
"ATTENTION!"
The word explodes outward. It isn't a shout; it's a shockwave. Her voice is amplified by some artifact or Mark I can't tell, booming off the walls with enough force to rattle my teeth.
The reaction is Pavlovian.
The entire student body one thousand of us surges to our feet in unison. The rustle of fabric is a single, sharp swish. Two thousand boots slam together.
One thousand fists slam into chests.
"VIVE SICUT SERPENS!"
The roar is deafening. It echoes, bounces, and amplifies until the air itself vibrates.
Evanora nods, a small, satisfied smirk playing on her lips.
"At ease."
We sit back down. The unity breaks instantly, dissolving back into the shifting of bodies. I scoff quietly. Pointless theater.
"Students," Evanora says. Her voice has stripped away the ceremonial boom, leaving only a cold, hard clarity that carries to the furthest seat. "Today is a special day. Though I suspect you will not find it a happy one."
A ripple of unease goes through the crowd but no one makes a noise.
"The Federation," Evanora continues, pacing slowly across the sand, "has launched a massive offensive into the Western Territory. Into Verion."
Verion. The industrial heart. The source of the Mana Crystals.
My eyes narrow. That's impossible. Verion is protected religiously by the Empire.
"They have employed a new technology," Evanora says, her voice dripping with disgust. "A new type of vessel. A ship capable of full submersion. A boat that travels beneath the waves."
Murmurs break out instantly. Each section of students whispering furiously. Even the Fifth Years are leaning forward, their expressions narrowing into frowns.
My mind races. A boat that goes underwater?
Iron whales, I think, trying to visualize it. They bypassed the surface blockade. They went under the guns.
"Each of these... submersibles," Evanora spits the word like a curse, "was accompanied by an Awakened Water User. They used the pressure of the deep ocean to mask their approach. They surfaced inside the harbors of the coastal cities. They overpowered the Elites we had stationed there before they even knew an attack was coming.
She stops pacing and turns to face the First Year section directly.
"The Federation has taken over forty percent of Verion in less than three days."
The Colosseum goes dead silent.
Forty percent.
That means the mines. That means the crystal quarries. The federation was taking control of out resources.
The power, I realize, a cold knot forming in my stomach. Melnyk said it. Verion powers the Empire. Without those crystals we are set back centuries. We lose our Amulets and our one major advantage in this long war our rail systems stop.
"Their ambush took us wholly by surprise," Evanora admits, and the admission of failure hangs heavy in the air. "We lost too many. The garrison at Port Vrey was wiped out. The defenders at a lot of our mines were slaughtered."
She resumes her pacing, her cape swirling around her.
"The reason you are all gathered here is simple. We need more Elites to deploy. We need to take back Verion, and we need to do it before they fortify the mines they have taken from us."
She pauses, her pink eyes flashing.
"We are stretched thin. At the same moment the Federation struck the west, the bastards at the head of the organization the Nation of Lumor launched a suicide invasion into our northern border. It was a distraction. And we took the bait."
My mind reels at the revelation. I think about the map Melnyk drew. The cities closest to the northern border... Leyross.
"They struck Leyross," Evanora says, her voice rising in fervor, feeding off the tension in the arena. "These agents of Chaos struck at night. A strike team of two hundred and fifty Awakened appeared out of the darkness, bypassing our scouts and all of out detection methods somehow.
Two hundred and fifty Awakened, I think in shock. That's a quarter of our entire student body.
"They burned the city," Evanora shouts, her voice echoing. "They slaughtered the civilians and our guards and ten Elites we had stationed there to draw our attention and reinforcements North, while their underwater ships took the West."
She stops in the center of the arena and turns, gesturing grandly to the far side of the Colosseum. "We are at a crossroads, students. These agents of Chaos have escalated the stakes of this war and we will not allow them to win."
She waves a hand toward the figures sitting separate from the student body.
My eyes lock onto the people sitting there. Even from this distance, their presence is undeniable.
There is an older woman, easily in her sixties, sitting with a posture that suggests she has never slouched a day in her life. She has long, flowing white hair that cascades over shoulders draped in the white robes marking her a Proctor. Her eyes are a piercing, electric blue that seems to see everything.
I realize I know this women even though I have not met her in person. This was Headmistress Seraphine Voss. The woman who runs this asylum. I've only seen portraits of her. In person, she looks like she could freeze water just by looking at it.
The others I haven't the faintest idea who they are but thankfully Evanora points and introduces them one by one.
Next to the headmistress sits a man in a standard Elite military uniform black with gold threading and a black cloak around his shoulders. He has dark, curly hair and eyes the color of dried blood. His shoulders are massive, his build thick and powerful. He looks like a boulder poured into a uniform.
General Callum Icepelt.
Beside him is a younger officer, he has blond hair and light yellow eyes that dart around the arena nervously. Second Lieutenant Vled Viges.
But then my eyes slide to the fourth figure.
Sitting slightly apart from the others, shrouded in heavy black robes with their face covered by a deep hood. An Inquisitor. I frown, why would an Inquisitor be here for what I assume is to be a military matter. Most of the Inquisitors who are at the academy are strictly monitored by Proctors when they interact with us.
Also I can tell by the frame slender, that this Inquisitor is a woman. My thoughts are interrupted by Evanora who starts pacing again, drawing my attention back.
She pauses as she looks at the hooded Inquisitor and hesitates before breathing out.
"And Inquisitor Cecilia Lakeborn."
The world stops.
The name hits me like a bucket of ice water dumped directly onto my soul.
My blood goes cold. My heart gives a single, violent thump against my ribs, then starts hammering a frantic, terrified rhythm.
Cecilia.
I stare at the hooded figure.
She hasn't moved. She sits there, a statue.
How? My mind flashes back to our last meeting and how we never even got to say goodbye to one another.
"They are here by request of the Holy Church of Aren and the Crown," Evanora explains, oblivious to the fact that my internal organs feel like they are liquefying. "They will be determining which of you Awakened are advanced enough to be deployed from this Academy early. We will be conducting a contest. A tournament if you will."
I stop listening.
The words "contest" and "tournament" bounce off my brain like pebbles off a tank. I grip the edge of the stone bench so hard my knuckles turn white. It takes every ounce of my self-control not to bolt.
I just stare at the hooded figure.
Did she follow me? I wonder, a desperate hope warring with a sickening dread. Is she here for me? Did she really love me like she implied? We barely knew each other though.
The voices in my head suddenly surge forward, wrapping around my mind with a sickening, amused warmth. They sense the spike in my pulse, the flood of pheromones and memory.
Look at her, they croon, sounding delighted. "She followed you so far...
"Shut up," I think, my thoughts frantic. "She's an Inquisitor. She's here on business."
No, no, no, the voices laugh, a sound like silk sliding over a blade. She didn't come for the war, Little Child Of Light. She came back to worship you.
I blink, fighting the dizziness.
She saw your power, they whisper, their tone dripping with possessive arrogance. She knows what you are. She knows her place is at your feet. She is just a pilgrim seeking her god.
"She isn't a pet," I snarl internally, though my eyes never leave her.
She belongs to us, the voices hiss. And she knows it.
I ignore them. I ignore the twisted way they interpret everything.
My eyes are locked on Inquisitor Cecilia Lakeborn. My what? Ex Girlfriend?
She hasn't moved. She hasn't acknowledged the crowd of students. She hasn't waved at the mention of her name.
But then, as if she can feel the weight of my gaze burning across the distance of the Colosseum, the hooded head turns.
Slowly. Deliberately. She turns toward the First Year section as if she could feel my gaze.
But she can't possibly see me. I'm one of three hundred faces in a sea of black uniforms. I'm just a speck.
But I feel it.
I feel the connection snap into place like a loaded weapon.
She knows, I realize, my breath catching. She knows I'm here