Annabelle.

She walked into the rooms with a relaxed demeanour, her hands resting on her sides and her eyes scrutinising the room. She showed no surprise with the lavish furniture of the room, ignoring it as if it was normal. Her eyes paused on one of the paintings for a moment but she tore her eyes away from it almost forcefully. She looked at us, her charcoal-black eyes assessing us. “So everyone here made it,” she said without even a trace of hesitation or doubt.

Vera frowned. “How do you know that?”

Annabelle raised an eyebrow at her and scoffed like it was the most apparent thing possible. “The other person in my group went before me, yet he isn’t here. That means they separated people after their interview. The only logical conclusion would be sorting people into fail and pass because otherwise, they would have done it earlier. Right after the second phase of the Culling most likely. Ten people came into the interview phase and each year there are eight students. That means two people are eliminated here, but there are three people in this room so this can’t be the fail room and hence must be the room where everyone passed.”

She stopped and yawned disregardfully. “Anyway, this has to be the passing room because I’m here and well… it’s not like I could fail something as easy as this.”

I activated my Gift but Annabelle materialised a blade of blood in the air in front of me with a twitch of her foot. The blade pressed gently against my neck but didn’t draw blood. Ironic. Silently impressed by her level of control, I didn’t move.

“You,” she said to me warningly. “If you try to read my mind, I’ll make sure I’ll be in the first class to graduate with seven people.”

How does she know my Gift? Only Vera, the Ruler, Christopher and the Seer should know. I know almost for certain that non of them told her. “How do you know what my Gift is?”

She grinned contemptuously. “I have a drop of almost everyone's blood from the second Culling. From it, I can tell when you’re using your Gift, what you’re feeling and I also know your body better than you do yourself. Among other things.” She stopped talking for a moment when she realised the disbelief shown on my face.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“You don’t believe me do you?” she said with a chuckle. “Check your left leg. You can see the cut I made there. Did you really think all I could do was move around some blood?”

Of course, her power lets her do more than manipulate blood, I thought sardonically. As if she wasn’t powerful enough. I looked to the Ruler for help but realised that he wasn’t going to do anything. “Fine,” I said. “I won’t read your mind. Not that my Gift is even strong to read much of your mind anyway.”

She laughed and the blade of blood disappeared. “For now it isn’t. But it’s called the Academy for a reason. You’re going to learn how to use your Gift here and I’ll rather you get into the habit of fearing me before you start to become dangerous. After a few years in the Academy, you’ll probably be strong enough to fully read anyone's mind in seconds.” She looked at the Ruler as if asking him to back up what she said. He nodded.

“She’s not wrong,” he said without inflection.

“That’s not how Gifts work,” I said insistently. “They’re not something you can train. They’re something fixed like your hair colour or eye colour.”

Annabelle snorted. “Maybe you didn’t know because you were raised a peasant, but Gifts don’t work like that. They’re given at a certain level at birth and stay that way until you reach around sixteen to eighteen. From there, the degree to which your actions and training influence your Gift increase by orders of magnitude. That period where you can really make an impact on your Gift ends around the age of twenty.”

Surprisingly the Ruler interjected. “There’s more to it than that. At this age, you can not only make your Gift stronger, but you can also change it fundamentally. For example, if Vera trained her Gift to change the atmosphere, her Gift might change into weather manipulation. Or, she could practice both wind and weather manipulation, getting a weaker version of both. You can only change it to related things though,” he added as he saw the surprise on my face.

“What could I change my Gift into?” I asked, trying to keep the hope out of my voice.

He looked at me. “You? Mind abilities can be changed into a lot of things. You could probably learn mind control. Maybe telekinesis. The Instructor would know more than I would.”

He shrugged, completely unaware that I was reconstructing the way I saw myself and the world at that moment.