The thumping of iron-shod boots on stone summoned us from our cells like an Abbey bell calling the village to prayer.

I joined the line of people leaving their own private cells and heading to the common area. There were a lot of grim faces among them. This wasn’t a call to prayer as much as a call to judgement. I wondered how many had failed to finish their assignment this week.

When I reached the common room, I found that a Reeve had accompanied the soldiers this time.

An academy Master I didn’t recognize was standing by the same captain who’d delivered our results before.

He was short, slight, with stripes of gray skin criss-crossing his face like he’d been scarred by a whip. I didn’t know if he was here in a ceremonial role, or as an enforcer. Or maybe he was here to deliver the failure’s fate.

The captain pulled out a scroll and started reading from it without preamble, like he was eager to get through it.

“Silas Amberge, you have failed your assignment for the second time, and you will meet the failure’s fate. Go and stand behind Master Sectus.”

Silas had failed last week’s assignment, and now it looked like he’d failed this one.

He didn’t protest. He stood still for a few seconds under the glare of the captain, then went to stand behind the Reeve. His movements were leaden as he crossed the hall, like a man on the way to the gallows.

“Domine Beatrix,” the captain said next. “You have failed your assignment for the second time, and you will meet the failure’s fate. Go and stand behind Master Sectus.”

Domine moved quickly, starting to walk towards where Silas stood.

As she passed Master Sectus she reached into her robe. There was a flash of silver, and she suddenly was ramming a knife into the Reeve’s chest.

She planted the blade in him up to the hilt, then stepped back, breathing heavily.

Master Sectus looked down at the blade protruding from his chest with more curiosity than alarm.

He pulled it out carefully then held it out for her to take back.

Domine was staring at him, pale and out of breath. From the horror on her face I didn’t think she’d expected either of them to survive the attack.

She didn’t take the knife, instead walking numbly to a place next to Silas.

Sectus dropped the knife on the ground like it was a piece of lint he’d found on his robe.

The captain turned away from the Reeve and looked back down at his scroll.

“Olan Draxs, you have passed your assignment.”

The captain continued to read out names.

Almost half of the other students had failed, most of them for the second time. By the time the soldier reached my name, a crowd of eight gray-clad figures stood behind Sectus.

“Dorian Tisk, you have passed your assignment.”

I worked my aching jaw, forcing the muscles there to relax.

I was sure that I had passed, but there’d always been the faint possibility that Antonyx wasn’t who he appeared, that he had failed me out of spite, or for not finding some way to deliver the information he wanted to him.

“Adrian Wheatfield, you have passed your assignment,” the captain went on.

I let out a long breath. I didn’t know how they knew I’d fought with Adrian, but it seemed like they did, and it had counted as a duel.

The captain didn’t bother looking around for Adrian. He wouldn’t have found him if he had. As far as I knew he was still staying up on the wooded terrace.

The captain nodded to Sectus, and the Reeve turned to speak to the group of students behind him, the rest of us forgotten.

“All of you have failed to complete a simple assignment twice in a row,” he said. His voice was thin and reedy, not much more than a hiss. “You are failures as sorcerers, failures as students, even failures as human beings. As such, you will forfeit your humanity. From here you will be taken to the infirmary, where you will be gentled, and after that, reshaped into forms that will serve the empire. This is the failure’s fate. This is now your fate.”

His words made my stomach do somersaults.

I turned to look at the students he was condemning.

Most of them didn’t even understand what he was telling them. They hadn’t met Ba. They hadn’t seen the academy’s warbeasts, or hadn’t understood what they were. Products of sorcerous healing. The process of changing a useless student into a useful, obedient sorcererous beast. They weren’t going to die. They were going to be raw materials.

A couple of them looked like they had some inkling. Domine was standing with her teeth bared, crouched, as if she was going to try and tear the soldiers apart with her bare hands. Beside me, Olan Drax’s skin had turned white with shock, and he hadn’t even failed any assignments.

Run, I thought at them desperately. But they couldn’t hear me. I didn’t know the magic to make them hear me. And even if I shouted it, they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere.

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The soldiers started moving towards the door. The students shambled after them, desolate, uncomprehending, or desperately looking for an escape route.

Everyone left behind was so still, so calm and quiet. I couldn’t stand it.

“Wait,” I said.

The only person who listened was the Reeve, who turned to look at me. He stared at me with a cruel half smile.

How could I live with myself, if I just stood here and let this happen? How could I do nothing and still be myself tomorrow? I couldn’t.

Adrian had been right, even if he hadn’t said exactly what he’d been feeling.

Logically, I knew I was a prisoner, but in my heart I’d been getting comfortable here. I’d been starting to tolerate it.

If I just watched them go without trying to change it, then I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it any more. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate myself.

There were eight soldiers with the captain, but they weren’t mages, and they weren’t expecting an attack. Their swords were in their hands, but the ones with crossbows had them pointed at the ground. I was sure I could knock them all off their feet in one attack.

The Reeve was a bigger threat. I’d seen that a knife to the heart didn’t even inconvenience him, but he had discounted us too. We were too weak and inexperienced to threaten him, but if Force aspect couldn’t affect even a powerful Reeve, then why would they bother learning it? I thought I could at least distract him.

I had one chance. I couldn’t miss. With the soldiers knocked down and the Reeve distracted, the others might be able to run to the gate, find a way through, or get over the wall somehow. At worst they’d have a fighting chance.

I reached deep inside myself and found the humming energy of my core. Months and years of slowly accumulated maja sat in a dense ball at a point just below my heart, just above my stomach.

It had always been a comfort to me, even before I could use it.

Now I grabbed every drop it. I pulled at it, brought it bubbling and surging to the surface, where it prickled my skin like red hot needles.

I pulled the energy into my arms, raised my hands, and stretched my fingers apart. When my arms felt like they were going to explode, I let the maja overflow into my body, filling my flesh with it, letting it permeate my blood, bones, and mind.

My entire reserve of energy frothed up, racing along my skin, buzzing in my fingertips, leaking from my eyes.

Master Sectus felt something. He started to turn. I had to do it now.

I fixed the memory of Korphus throwing me through his door and pushed it into the maja. Then I let all of it go.

I was sure until the last moment that somebody would stop me. That the Reeve would wave his hand and destroy me, or that one of the soldiers would get their crossbow up in time to shoot me. Maybe one of the native Antorxian students behind me would stab me in the back

In the end, nobody did.

The force flew out of my body in an invisible wave, forward and outward, a crescent moon of dense hurling destruction.

It caught the soldiers closest to me first, throwing them off their feet, through the air, against the stone walls, where they broke apart into pieces.

The soldiers further back were next, arms and legs gracefully divorcing from their bodies as they were caught in the hurricane gale of force.

Swords were bent. Crossbows snapped like dry leaves. Helmets cracked and peeled apart.

I had time to see the captain’s world-weary face turn black then red as if his head were being crushed by an invisible bolder, and then he was dashed against the stone as well.

The force reached the Reeve. He smiled. His robe swayed in the breeze. A wake seemed to form in the wave, which parted around him. The prisoners behind him cowered, but were unaffected.

The wave hit the wall with the sound of a thundercrack, loosening stones and bringing down dust. Then it was over.

A second after it started, the only movement was limbs and meat falling from the bones embedded in the ceiling.

There was silence for a few seconds, then I heard the Reeve’s reedy voice.

“An adequate display of the Force aspect,” he said, approvingly. He raised his hand, gesturing as if he were inviting me to sit down. “Allow me to introduce you to its counter, Stillness.”

He made the slightest flick of his fingers.

An oily coldness settled over me.

He turned to leave. The failed students ran before him, stunned and panicked, but he didn’t seem to be worried about them getting away.

I tried to take a step after him.

I couldn’t move.

I strained at my invisible bonds, but I couldn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t even blink. I couldn’t even breathe.

I stood panicking as Sectus left, ignoring the mess of bodies behind him, corraling the students as the bent and broken doors swung shut behind him.

I was left locked in place, feeling the desperate pressure to inhale but not being able to.

I might have stood there for two minutes before I realized that despite the awful need to breathe, I wasn’t suffocating.

I was simply trapped, unable to move, unable to make a sound, unable to even black out from lack of air.

One of the native Antorxian students stepped out from behind me, safe, given his position, from the wave of destruction. He gave me a severe look, maybe respectful, maybe even nervous, then left.

I heard sandals on stone, doors opening and quickly closing, muttered conversation, but nobody else came into my field of view.

I just stood there, more deeply still than a statue, with no idea when Sectus’ spell would wear off, or if it even would, as the light failed, and the pitch blackness of the room swallowed me.