MY MENTOR CAN HEAR MY THOUGHTS

The annual mana assessment at Wintervale Sanctum was supposed to terrify young mages.

For most apprentices, it did.

Under the glass dome of the Grand Arcane Hall, hundreds of students waited before a tower of blue-white crystal. The thing looked less like a testing tool and more like judgment handed down from heaven. One touch was enough to measure a student’s mana rating, assign their tier, and decide whether three years of study had earned them a place in the greatest magical order in the Violet Realm.

Or whether they would be sent home with a polite certificate and a lifetime of shame.

“Grul Marris,” the examiner called. “Mana rating: 4,212. Tier Four.”

Applause rolled through the hall.

Grul let out a breath so hard his shoulders nearly collapsed.

“Claire Voss. Mana rating: 5,001. Tier Five.”

That brought gasps.

A Tier Five apprentice was enough to make any family proud. It was also enough to make half the students in the hall look as if they had swallowed stones.

High above the testing floor, Archmage Nia Frostvale sat among the senior mages and tried not to look as worried as she felt.

She was the Seventh Archon of Wintervale, the Froststorm Archmage, a city-breaker-class sorceress who could freeze a battalion before breakfast. She had stood against demon raids, sealed cursed valleys, and once turned an enemy fortress into a very educational block of ice.

None of that helped her now.

Because below her, standing in line with one shoulder of his robe slightly crooked, black hair a mess, and the sleepy face of a man dragged away from a perfectly good nap, was Elias Vane.

Her apprentice.

Her most hopeless apprentice.

Three years, Nia thought.

She had taught him for three years. Extra lessons. Special books. Private demonstrations. Enough resources to raise any ordinary apprentice into a respectable mage.

Elias had remained aggressively unimpressive.

Not terrible. Terrible would at least be interesting.

He was worse than terrible.

He was always just barely acceptable.

Barely passed written theory. Barely completed practical spellwork. Barely remembered which end of a wand should point away from his own face. Every time Nia thought he might finally improve, Elias found a new and creative way to remain exactly where he was.

“You are worried about him?” a mage beside her asked.

“I am not worried,” Nia said.

Frost crept across the railing beneath her hand.

The mage looked at the frost and wisely said nothing else.

“Elias Vane!” the examiner called.

Whispers spread at once.

“Archmage Frostvale’s apprentice?”

“Isn’t he the one who barely passed basic rune theory?”

“I heard he once asked if mandatory practice was truly mandatory.”

“He’s handsome, though.”

“That won’t raise his mana rating.”

Elias walked to the crystal with a grave expression.

Everyone assumed he was afraid of failing.

He was not.

He was trying to decide how little power he could safely show.

One one-hundred-millionth?

Too neat. Too easy to remember. Also too much if his calculations were off.

Zero point nine of that?

Safer, perhaps.

But ugly.

Elias disliked ugly math.

He stopped in front of the crystal and stared at it as if the fate of the world depended on a decimal point.

The examiner scowled. “Are you going to test, or stand there until winter ends?”

“One moment,” Elias said. “This is important.”

A few students laughed.

Nia closed her eyes.

This boy was going to be the end of her dignity.

She could no longer stand it. She descended from the platform, crossed the hall, and placed a hand on Elias’s shoulder.

“Elias,” she said, softening her voice. “Do not be afraid. Even if you fail, you will still be my apprentice.”

Elias blinked.

“Master, that is not what worries me.”

Nia paused.

“Then what does?”

He looked at the crystal.

Then he looked back at her.

“Do you prefer one, or zero point nine?”

Nia stared.

The hall went very still.

The examiner opened his mouth, then closed it again. Somewhere behind them, a student whispered, “What does that mean?”

Nia had no idea.

But for some reason, she suddenly felt as if she were standing at the edge of a very deep hole.

At last, carefully, she answered, “One?”

Relief washed across Elias’s face.

“Thank you, Master.”

Nia had no idea what she had just chosen.

But as Elias turned toward the measuring crystal, a chill crawled up her spine.

It was the strange, unpleasant feeling of a woman who had just helped her apprentice decide how to lie.

Elias placed his palm against the crystal.

The Grand Arcane Hall fell silent.

“Relax your body,” the examiner ordered. “Let your mana form a circuit. Hold for ten seconds.”

Blue light spilled around Elias’s fingers.

The crystal began to hum.

Nia folded her arms and prepared herself for disappointment.

Then a voice sounded inside her head.

All right. Master picked one, so one it is.

Nia froze.

The voice had not come through the air.

It had appeared directly in her mind.

And it was Elias’s voice.

One one-hundred-millionth of my mana should be enough. If they discover how much I am hiding, I will have to move again, and I really do not want to pack.

Nia turned slowly toward him.

His mouth had not moved.

Impossible.

She knew Elias’s voice. She had heard him apologize, complain, mispronounce spell formulas, and ask whether waking up before noon was truly necessary for magical growth.

This was his voice.

But it was inside her head.

Wait, Elias thought.

His brow twitched.

One one-hundred-millionth was last year’s calculation.

Nia’s fingers tightened around her sleeve.

Last year?

Damn it. I got stronger. A lot stronger. One five-hundred-millionth should do it.

Nia’s fingers went numb.

One five-hundred-millionth?

What kind of monster measured power in fractions so small they sounded like clerical errors?

There, Elias thought. That should produce a mana rating of... two thousand three hundred twenty-one.

The crystal flared.

The examiner stared at his slate.

For a moment, he did not speak.

Then he cleared his throat.

“Elias Vane. Mana rating: 2,321. Tier Two mage. Passed.”

The hall erupted.

“He passed?”

“Wasn’t he barely above one thousand last month?”

“Archmage Frostvale’s student actually made it?”

Elias removed his hand and smiled like a humble young man whose hard work had finally borne fruit.

It was an excellent smile.

That made Nia dislike it immediately.

He had predicted the number exactly.

Not guessed.

Predicted.

Elias bowed to her. “Master Frostvale, I did not disappoint you.”

Learning is a strong word, his thoughts added. But staying here is useful. Beds, food, quiet libraries, and a mentor too stubborn to throw me away. Not the worst place to hide for another few hundred years.

Nia’s expression stiffened.

Another few hundred years?

Aloud, Elias said, “I will work even harder from now on.”

Absolutely not, he thought.

Nia smiled.

It was the sort of smile that made nearby apprentices take a step back.

“Wonderful,” she said. “Since you have passed, I will personally oversee your training from now on.”

Elias’s face remained polite.

His thoughts did not.

No.

No, no, no.

This is the worst possible outcome.

“At dawn,” Nia added.

At dawn? Gods help me. I survived divine execution just to be murdered by homework.

Nia’s heart skipped.

Divine execution.

Her useless apprentice had just thought the words divine execution as casually as another student might complain about breakfast.

For one long moment, the noise of the hall faded around her.

The applause, the whispers, the examiner calling the next name — all of it became distant.

Nia Frostvale realized three things in that moment.

She could hear Elias Vane’s thoughts.

Elias Vane was not weak.

And whatever he truly was, he had been lying to her for three years.