The following weeks, Rat had learned discipline.

While the matrons were strict, they were still normal people – some saw the children they cared for as their own, while others felt it was their duty to the Bright one. Both types cared for the children.

The Institute, and its Warden, was a different world.

Disobedience and hesitation were met with immediate correction, while success was rewarded with food, rest, and sometimes luxuries such as books or drink.

The first lessons were composed of a teacher who stood in one of the smaller courtyards of the Institute and instructed a group of 20 slaves. The topics varied, between the common trade language of the country, basic mathematics, and manners.

After the first week, any slave who failed an exam that was held in the main courtyard where they first met the Warden was taken away and never seen again.

This was a more terrifying experience than any beating the guards could deliver, seeing those poor sods cuffed and marched out through a pair of steel-bound doors in the middle of the night.

Everyone had begun walking faster to their lessons after that.

Rat had found the institute comforting, after a few days of crying himself to sleep.

It had taught him many things; how to make a shelter using a few branches and vines, or to do basic construction work, the proper way to carry loads. It had also taught him cooking, proper manners when addressing his superiors on the off-chance he’d be bought by a noble house, and even basic combat – if he had to distract a bandit so that his master could get away, he’d better be good at it, after all.

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After some two or three months, about half the slaves remained.

Around that time, the warden gathered the slaves around in the main courtyard, and introduced them to an old man who he only called “Sage”.

The slaves were made to stand in five columns, the first column on the right approaching the wooden platform. Each slave would stand in front of the Sage, kneel, and place both hands on a crystal sphere the Sage held. The Sage would then utter some words; the sphere would glow in colors and the Sage would write down something on a piece of paper.

Once Rat’s turn came up, He did the same and as the Sage uttered his lines, something different happened.

While most slaves would have the sphere light up in red, or brown, or blue or white, some would be different.

Some would simply not light the sphere up, making the Warden frown.

One slave had the sphere light up as mix of green and white, which pleased the Warden enough to crack a smile. Another had a rarely-seen yellow color come up.

Rat had lit up the sphere a mix of red and black.

The Sage immediately stopped, and then went to talk to the Warden.

After a few brief words, the Warden had made a gesture, which had a guard haul Rat through a small door into a simple room with a table and a chair, a sort of office.

He waited there, completely still as he was taught, for about an hour and a half.

Finally, the Warden himself came through the door.

As he did, Rat immediately knelt – the last time a slave had failed to do so, he had both his arms broken by a guard, and then taken to the healer’s chambers – somehow they managed to heal the injury but leave the pain, so the bastard had to suffer the pain for a month while being completely fine.

The Warden simply ordered “Rise, slave, and sit” – indicating one of the chairs.

This was unheard of, a slave sitting on a chair in the presence of the warden, not to mention at the same table as him, but he would not question the warden’s orders.

Rat sat down, and the Warden began speaking.

“You” he said, “Are trouble - Profitable trouble, that is. You’ve awakened with a lesser magical affinity, one for fire. Usually you would be sent either to be trained in specialized housekeeping or forging, but you also awakened another, far more problematic greater affinity.”

“Death.”