The Admissions Hall was a chastened contrast to the city's external pomp. It was a mood of unadorned, official efficiency. The queue stretched on, twisting between brooding, sentinel stone golems. The applicants were a diverse selection from the Continent: pale blue-eyed northerners as icy-looking as their eyes, dark-faced southerners with square face tattoos, two elves who somehow made the air within their vicinity feel cool, and a huge scaled creature from distant Dragontooth Mountains. Felix, with his tattered attire and plain features, felt utterly faceless. It was a comforting experience.Hours later, he stood before a high, dark wood desk. The administrator behind it didn't look up. She was a severe-looking woman with a face that seemed set in a mild disapproval permanently, her fingers tapping on a floating slate of crystal that glowed with runic script."Name and origin?" Her voice was cold, no warmth, a data-extracting tool."Felix. Of the Northern Reaches." He'd picked the m

The written exam was conducted in the Grand Scriptorium, a chamber so expansive that the vaulted ceiling was lost in shadows. There were thousands of desks in pristine rows, each one containing a quill that never needed ink and a scroll of unblemished vellum that had no end.The atmosphere was thick with the smell of anxious sweat and evaporating ink. Felix remained in his assigned seat, under the weight of a number of thousand gazes. His display of proficiency in the physical Gauntlet had not been forgotten. Whispers had made the rounds about the "Orrery Nullifier," the enigmatic probie who could eliminate magic. The torment had subsided, giving way to suspicion and active hostility from a few.There was an Archon at the hall entrance, his voice somehow amplified to a gentle, but audible voice that could be heard at every desk. "Three hours. The test will assess your fundamental knowledge of Mana Theory, Historical Precedents, and Applied Thaumaturgical Ethics. Your answers will be g

The notice pinned on the central board in the Arcadium, a simple list of names under the heading "Preliminary Examination Results - Top Quartile." Already a crowd stood, faces alight with excitement, faces pale with disappointment.Felix fell behind, and the crowd jostled and pushed against him. He didn't want to look at the list. He already knew. Hi. performance. would've gotten him either on top of it or out of the game. No middle ground.Kaelen pushed through the crowd, a self-satisfied grin on his lips. "Quadrant Seven makes their presence known. They've put me in the College of Artifice. A good one. And you, Felix? I'm sure you shattered all hopes."Felix was about to offer some comment when another wave of muttering passed through the crowd. It had nothing to do with the list.He cut through the students like a shark cutting through minnows. He was taller than Felix remembered, his shoulders broader, and the sharp hunger of his face smoothened by a rough, burnished aura of confi

The victory in the Hall of Disputation was pyrrhic. Felix had shut down his aristocratic critics, but he had also put a bullseye on his back that glowed in the dark. He was now the话题 of the Academy, a man of intense scrutiny. Everything he did was watched, every word parsed.He spent the next few days in the only place where he felt at ease: the bottom-most, oldest sub-levels of the Grand Library. A labyrinth of deserted stacks, the air thick with centuries of dust and light from floating, ethereal lumen-orbs being the only source of illumination for the room. There, amidst shelves stacked high with yellowed scrolls and books on outdated magic, he could breathe. He was seeking something—a mention of void magic, to personal skills, to others who might have been like him.It was during one of these study sessions, his fingers tracing over the ancient, worn ink of a pre-Sundering bestiary, that it happened.A searing, slashing pain sliced through his temples, behind his eyes. He gasped,

Days went by with the Banned Wing a constant obsession in Felix's head. It was a siren's call, a storehouse of horrors and questions that were intertwined. He avoided Liora, not prepared to deal with the sheer scope of what she'd shown him. The Crimson Annotations in that room were brimming with a history the Academy had tried to keep hidden, a history of power that was wild, unyielding, and hugely dangerous.His own Codex, the Unseen Tide, was where it belonged. It was turbulent, itsAnnotations flashing more hungrily whenever he recalled the titleless black-bound Codex. Never that one, Liora had warned. Which, of course, made it the central point of his obsession.He waited until a time when the library was almost deserted, only sounds being the faint hum of the city's magical center in the distance. Using the order Liora had instructed him to use, he stepped into the passage and entered the Banned Wing alone.The night air was more dense, the quiet more profound. The Crimson Annotat