The midday sun beat down on the Plaza of Ascension, turning the marble tiles into a scorching mirror. For Kael, the air felt frozen, charged with a static electricity that made the hair on his arms stand on end. Around him, hundreds of twelve-year-olds waited in a deathly silence, stifled by their linen uniforms, a sea of pale faces and clammy hands.
It was Resonance Day. The moment when the destiny of every citizen of Primordia was etched into light.
"Don't shake," a soft voice whispered in his ear.
Kael turned his head. Mina was offering him a small smile, but he saw her fingers nervously kneading the fabric of her dress. She was the only one who hadn't treated him like a 'hopeless case' during their school years. Despite her own stress, she remained his anchor.
Suddenly, a sharp laugh rang out behind them. A laugh Kael would have recognized anywhere—the one that had haunted his nightmares since childhood.
"Look at him, Mina. He's already vibrating like a leaf before he's even touched the crystal," Alaric sneered.
The boy with raven hair stepped forward, flanked by two lackeys who snickered in unison. Since they were six years old, Alaric had never missed a chance to remind Kael that the nobility of the 'Valerius' name couldn't compensate for the mediocrity of his mana flow.
"You should save your energy, Kael. It takes at least a spark to avoid ending up as a street sweeper," Alaric added, shoving him aside with his shoulder.
Kael clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms. He didn't respond. The tension was already too high.
"Next: Alaric of House Thorne!" the Architect's voice boomed from atop the dais.
Alaric leaped forward. He climbed the steps with an assurance that seemed to insult gravity itself. When he reached the Source Prism—a translucent crystal block floating at chest height—he didn't take a single second to concentrate. He slammed his palm against the polished surface.
The air exploded. A column of crimson flames erupted from the Prism, roaring toward the sky like a furnace. The heat was so intense that the spectators in the front row had to recoil, shielding their faces.
"Fire Element. Intensity Grade: A+," the Architect announced with blatant admiration. "Exceptional potential."
Whispers rippled through the crowd like wildfire. "A Thorne, of course," a woman whispered. "Look at that control... He was born to lead," her neighbor replied.
Alaric descended the steps, head held high, his eyes still burning with a residual glow. As he passed Kael, he slowed down just enough to mutter: "Your turn to give us a laugh, failure."
Kael's heart hammered against his ribs. Alaric's arrogant success weighed on him like a mountain.
"Next: Mina of Everlight!"
Mina's turn was a breath of fresh air after the violence of the flames. When she touched the crystal, a blue light, liquid and soothing, rose in a harmonious pillar. It was beautiful, perfect, almost musical.
"Water Element. Purity Grade: A," the Architect declared.
Mina returned to Kael, her eyes shining. She was a mage now. A real one. She belonged to this world of light, while Kael felt himself sinking further into the shadows. She tried to take his hand, but he subtly pulled away. Her success, though it made him happy, only highlighted his own isolation.
"Next: Kael of the Valerius Line!"
The name acted like an electric shock. The silence that followed was more terrifying than any mockery. The Valerius family were legendary fire mages, war heroes. In the crowd, necks craned to see.
"Is that him? Elias Valerius's son?" "He looks so frail..." "They say he never even managed to light a candle in school," an anonymous voice snickered.
Kael climbed the steps. Each stride echoed in his skull like a funeral knell. He reached the top. The Source Prism waited for him, vibrating at a frequency that tickled his temples and made his ears buzz. He felt thousands of eyes pressing against the back of his neck: his father's disappointed hope, Alaric's disdain, Mina's anxiety.
He closed his eyes, took a trembling breath, and placed his hand.
He waited for the heat. He waited for the spark that would save his honor.
Nothing.
The silence stretched, becoming a physical, suffocating entity. Kael opened his eyes. The Prism remained desperately translucent, cold as a grave. But under his palm, something strange was happening. He didn't feel emptiness. He felt a rhythmic vibration, a complex pattern that seemed to hit an invisible wall.
Suddenly, his vision fractured. For a millisecond, he no longer saw the crystal, but an architecture of light—rigid threads of energy, interlaced in an almost... geometric way. At the center, he saw an anomaly. A flicker of black light twitching, a flaw in the fabric that no one else seemed to perceive.
"Touch it more firmly, boy!" the Architect ordered, annoyance piercing through his voice.
Kael pressed his hand until it hurt, his soul screaming for a single glow.
"Look at him, he's forcing it, it's pathetic," someone shouted from the crowd. "What a waste of the Valerius name..."
The Architect finally stepped forward. He passed his hand over the crystal, which immediately reacted with a small golden glow, proving the artifact was working perfectly. He looked at Kael with an expression where pity wrestled with disgust.
"No echo. No resonance."
He turned toward the plaza, his voice falling like a guillotine: "Kael Valerius. Mana-Less."
A thunderous laugh broke out: Alaric's. It was soon followed by others. The spectators were already turning away, incredulity having given way to contempt. A Valerius without mana was an aberration, a glitch of nature.
Kael descended the steps, his vision blurred by a haze of shame. He didn't see Mina trying to push through the crowd toward him. He only saw Alaric's predatory grin waiting for him at the bottom.
"I told you, Valerius. You're nothing. You're an error in this world. Don't ever set foot near the Academy again."
Kael didn't answer. He walked like an automaton, cutting through the crowd that parted before him as if he carried the plague.
Yet, as he left the plaza, a sensation persisted. In the bottom right corner of his vision, a tiny blue line, thin as a silk thread, floated in the air. It looked like no magic he had ever known. It vibrated, waiting, like a secret code that only he could decipher.
The Prism hadn't rejected him. The Prism simply didn't have the words to describe what Kael had become.