Hours bled into days, and days into weeks. Lucian threw himself into his training and studies, using them to forget his old life. He dedicated himself as he never had before. Isolated on the island of Transcend Mount, there were no distractions. There was only the training and those beside him on the same journey.

  It was amazing how quickly the concerns of the outside world fell away. Even the fear of a new Swarmer War seemed distant, and through force of will, he set aside his grief for his mother. He was always aware of it, but as the days passed, he dealt with his daily training as well, or even better than before. As he acquired new knowledge, former mysteries began unraveling. When he wasn’t learning about the mages, their history, or the Seven Aspects, he was meditating on them, strengthening his Focus, learning to isolate each Aspect with precision, and streaming each Aspect under rigorous concentration.

  Some were easier to grasp than others. Psionics came easiest to him, while Dynamism was a greater struggle. Still, he trained, building his Focus until he could imagine the stone with perfect clarity and hold the image for hours.

  And then his Focus changed. One day, when he imagined the stone, he could see seven lights floating around it: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and gray. At first, he thought he was losing his concentration. But the more his meditation deepened, the more vivid the colors became.

  When Lucian shared this with Damian, he nodded as if it were normal.

  “You’re transitioning.”

  “Transitioning?”

  “The stone you chose is just a training tool. A mage’s Focus—their true Focus—is them using their mind to connect to the Manifold. And the way that reality manifests in our mind’s eye is the Septagon, the shape upon which all seven Aspects are placed.”

  “The Septagon?”

  “There are some charts you can look up in the library, but it’s basic Manifoldic theory. They don’t teach the Novices early on because they don’t want them getting distracted. But as a mage’s Focus grows, the Septagon naturally becomes their new Focus.”

  “So, should I start imagining this Septagon?”

  “No!” Damian said with a laugh. “You aren’t ready for that yet. Let it transition on its own, but now that you are aware of it, you won’t be alarmed as it happens. In the meantime, try to sense it, isolate each of the Aspects upon it, and stream through those lights. Now you know why we call each Aspect by its color. It’s because those lights you’re seeing are common to all mages once they become strong enough to detect them.”

  Strong enough. Was he finally getting the hang of things? He might not get expelled after all.

  As Lucian trained further, he tried to do as Damian said. He continued to use the stone as his Focus rather than the Septagon. In the meantime, he did his own reading on the subject, checking out a book from the library—the correct one this time.

  The first time he saw the Septagon, with its labeled Aspects, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. It was rendered almost exactly as he had imagined it in his mind. It looked like some strange, occult symbol, something that would scare the living daylights out of a Believer if they ever saw it. It not only showed each of the Aspects placed upon one of the Septagon’s seven corners, but also lines interconnecting the Aspects. Aspects were connected by the border of the Septagon, but additional lines connected Aspects two apart.

  He learned what the lines meant: the closer the Aspect to one’s primary, the more easily and efficiently it could be streamed. Dynamists, for example, found streaming Atomicism and Radiance easier than streaming Gravitonics. Lucian wondered if his primary was Psionics since it was the easiest for him to stream. It would explain why he found Dynamism so difficult and unnatural, which was three slots away from Psionics.

  Then again, he learned there was another school of thought that said the Septagon shouldn’t be taken too seriously. If a mage believed they would be bad at something, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Belief was an important component of streaming. It was generally agreed that a mage had one strength, one or two secondary Aspects they were middling in, and tertiary and quaternary Aspects that were far weaker. Lucian was still too early in his journey to know exactly where he fell.

  Five months into his training, the autumn equinox passed, and the days grew ever shorter. By now, Lucian could almost always stream, even if it was only a little.

  At least he was no longer the least accomplished. New Novices had arrived, and one day, without any sort of warning, another was exiled. She was a quiet young woman named Katya, who had jumped at every shadow. What was more, she was one of the Tested. The Novices talked about that in hushed tones the day they realized she was gone. And after that, she was never mentioned again.

  After that, the Novices worked much harder at their studies, with less joking and laughter. No one wanted to be next. And the Trials were on everyone’s minds, drawing closer and closer.

  Lucian tried not to concern himself with the successes and failures of his peers. And he did his best to not let emotion enter the picture. At night, he only felt numbness. The only way he could weather his inner turmoil was by not acknowledging its existence. The change startled him, but in his mind, it was a necessary change.

  If emotions ruled him, he would never make it here.

  Even his feelings for Emma, which had seemed so powerful at first, had dampened. Or had they merely been displaced? Whatever the case, that prospect of being with her was receding into the past. Yes, his heart still ached at seeing her. But those feelings threatened to undo his accomplishments. Every day he denied them, the closer he came to walking the Path of Balance.

  He was changing. He didn’t allow himself to think about whether that change was for the better. This was reality, and any change was for the sake of not being the next exile.

  As the weeks passed, he and Emma saw less and less of each other. Aside from mealtimes, he hardly saw her at all. She focused on her studies, and he on his. They were assigned to different Talents and different Aspects almost every week.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  From Psion Gaius, Lucian learned Psionic theory, the manipulation of kinetic and mental magic. He learned to recognize its pulsating flow with greater ease than the other Novices. Each Aspect had its peculiarities. Psionics was all about releasing powerful waves of magic, with almost no control. And for some reason, Lucian showed much promise at it.

  Dynamism remained challenging. It seemed to rip right out of him and had to be held tightly to remain in control. Thermalism was steadier than Dynamism, but once it built up, it became powerful. The classic test for the Novices was to either heat a pot of water to boiling or freeze it into a block of ice—using a forward stream or a reverse stream, respectively. He found it easier to control than Dynamism. Damian far surpassed him in Thermalism, a fact Lucian learned when both were paired with Talent Relisa for training. Damian could instantly cool a pail of water into ice and sublimate it within seconds. Relisa all but doted on him, even more so because she was from Luddus, too.

  And so it went with each of the Aspects. Every week, the Transcends paired Novices with a new Talent. That Talent taught the Novices everything they could about their Aspect. A few times a month, they might receive advanced instruction from the Transcends. But as autumn took hold, this happened less often. The Transcends were busy with their own concerns.

  By his sixth month, Lucian could stream basic Psionic, Thermal, and Binding Magic with confidence. The other Aspects—Radiance, Gravitonics, and Dynamism—came with greater difficulty, mostly because he had received less training with them. But he could at least tell the difference between the Aspects now and how they manifested. The one Aspect he did not learn was Atomicism, which was not permitted on Academy grounds due to its danger.

  As always, the conversation shifted to the Trials. Novices who passed would rise to the mantle of Talent. If they failed, they had to wait until the next year’s Trials. And of course, failing them too often or too spectacularly placed a Novice in danger of expulsion.

  By the end of his sixth month, there was only one Aspect Lucian had yet to learn about: Atomicism. The subject was only taught twice a year, in the spring and the autumn, in dedicated day trips to a distant island.

  Talent Isaac, one of the Academy’s two Orange Talents, informed the Novices that the trip would take place the very next day.

  The deck of Lightsail was a welcome escape from the dour Academy grounds. The day even proved warmer than the past few weeks, though the breeze was still bitingly cold. Before setting sail, the Academy’s two Orange Talents, Isaac and Hamil, gathered the Novices near the bow. The Talents didn’t speak until the chattering Novices had settled down.

  “Before we leave, we need to review Atomicism,” Talent Isaac began, his sandy brown hair whipping in the wind. His heroic, square-jawed face seemed to be carved from stone. More than a few of the female Novices were gazing at him in admiration. “First, it’s the only Aspect that Novices are not allowed to stream. Besides being difficult to master, it is dangerous. We only allow two lessons a year, and that lesson consists of listening to everything we say. And not attempting to stream or following our streams.” He looked around. “Is this understood?”

  Lucian could not help but notice the disappointed faces around him. One of the Novices, named Erik and a native of Volsung, spoke up. “I understand Atomicism is dangerous, but how are we supposed to learn anything if we can’t even stream it, much less follow along?”

  Talent Isaac watched him sternly. “No one can stream the Atomic Aspect until he or she is accepted as a Talent by Transcend Orange. The Atomicists under Xara Mallis laid waste to entire systems with their magic. They also overloaded the fusion reactors of League warships. They were perhaps the greatest weapons of the Mage War.”

  Isaac looked at each of them to better let his point sink in. The Novices, having received that lesson, remained silent.

  Talent Hamil stood at Isaac’s side, his thick, hairy forearms folded beneath his barrel chest. That thick arm hair was a sharp contrast to his completely bald head. His defining feature was a long scar slashing from his left temple to the bottom of his nose.

  When he spoke to the Novices, his voice came out in a low growl. “We’re heading to a nearby island for the demonstration. Should take a few hours.”

  “Are you going to create a nuclear reaction this time?” Damian asked. “Last time, it was only a bit of transmutation.”

  Talent Hamil growled in response. “We are not here for your entertainment, Novice. If you disagree, maybe scrubbing the bathhouse floors for the next week will be lesson enough.” That made Damian go quiet, and the rest of the Novices stood to attention. “Creating a viable nuclear reaction takes a lot of ether. A lot. Enough to make us fray, even. And a frayed Atomicist is the last thing you want to deal with.”

  “So, how is Atomic Magic applied in real life?” Lucian asked.

  “Finally, a good question,” Hamil said.

  Lucian blinked in surprise. Was that praise from one of the Talents for once?

  Hamil continued. “Say a starship is low on fuel. Well, it would be possible to transmute some simple matter into the helium-3 needed for a starship’s reactor. It would only need to behave as helium-3 for as long as it took the reactor to use it. Now, true transmutation that sticks around takes a lot more work and is more dangerous. Flux transmutation—that which only lasts a moment—is easier and more common. Assuming there is enough matter on board, Atomicists could keep the ship going without the need to refuel. The fleets commanded by Mallis, for example, moved more quickly than conventional fleets. They could maneuver in ways that were impossible without Atomicists.”

  “They were close to winning, weren’t they?” Damian asked.

  Talent Hamil surprised Lucian with his answer. “Yes. Mallis was perhaps the most powerful mage there ever was. She was a brilliant strategist, albeit half-mad with the fraying.” He shook his head. “Half the things we know about magic and the Manifold are because of her, for all the ill she’s done.”

  “Why did she start the war?” Emma asked.

  “We’re getting off track,” Hamil growled. “Time to set sail.”

  The questions were cut short as the Talents went to the bridge, and Lightsail embarked. Despite the cold wind and choppy water, Lucian couldn’t help but smile. It was the closest thing to freedom he had experienced since his arrival. Nothing made him happier than seeing the gray, dismal island of Transcend Mount shrink into the west.

  For the first time in months, the Novices could laugh, play, and joke around. At least, until the two Talents gathered them on the deck to make use of all the directionless energy. Within minutes, the Novices were back to practicing meditation and forming their Focuses. Forming his Focus was simple for Lucian now; it should have been after six months of doing little else. The stone floated in the void of his mind. His feelings were something to be considered, not embraced. Even the cold, whipping wind was something far away.

  More than that, the stone seemed to thrum with potential power. Lucian knew he had only to allow that power to grow, and he would be streaming. Beyond his Focus was the Manifold itself. Against that, his ether was but a speck of dust against a star, or maybe against the entire universe. He couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like to stream that kind of power.

  A dangerous thought. The kind of thought that had surely started Xara Mallis on her path to destruction. Lucian refocused on the stone, as he had been taught. Any kind of thought while streaming could be dangerous.

  Time itself slipped away as Lucian held his Focus. When his eyes opened, the boat was slowing. The temperature was warmer, almost pleasant, and the sun shone brightly. Before the ship rose an island. Nothing more than an outcrop, really, but it excited Lucian all the same.

  The other Novices were emerging from their meditations as well. Everyone went to the bow to watch the ship approach. There was only a single landing point, so they anchored in the surf about fifty meters out. They cast off in two rowboats, each holding a Talent and eight rowing Novices.

  Once on shore, they ate their packed lunches on the rocky beach. Once done, they climbed the steep slope to the plateau above.

  Lucian wondered what the Orange Talents had in store for them.