Artemis

  He let the words settle, weighty enough that everyone listened.

  The Magister swept his gaze across the two soldier platoons first, then finally to us, the scattering of conscripts he hadn’t bothered to place anywhere more dignified.

  “Platoon Beta,” he said, nodding toward the Lieutenants’ group, the one with Rusk and the weaker men. “You will continue south under Lieutenants Kerran and Varin.”

  Kerran straightened, jaw tight. Varin mirrored him. Neither looked surprised, which meant the conversation I hadn’t heard had been more than simple orders.

  “You will take the Orvain road,” the Magister continued. “Send word ahead and carry my message to Governor Veylan.”

  That platoon shifted uneasily, a current moving through them. A few looked toward the southern trail as if it had grown teeth.

  The Magister didn’t seem concerned either way.

  He lifted his chin toward the other soldier platoon – the stronger one – and then toward us.

  “The rest of you are with me.”

  A ripple went through the group. Relief for some, dread for others. I kept my face still, but my mind moved.

  Traveling with the stronger platoon meant trouble. Stronger soldiers meant tighter discipline, sharper eyes, and fewer mistakes.

  But the company was now split clean down the middle.

  A smaller group was easier to study. Easier to predict.

  And easier to escape from.

  Suddenly, the Magister gave the two Lieutenants a curt nod. They answered with identical bows of the head, then snapped orders at their platoon. One of the soldiers jogged toward their supply cart and returned carrying something.

  My stomach tightened.

  Wrapped in a dark cloth, its surface exposed, lay the charcoal-black Ashpire Stone, Its surface veined faintly with the ruby shimmer of dormant energy.

  Aeris sucked in a breath beside me. Viola’s fingers twitched near her belt.

  The Magister regarded the stone like an executioner testing the weight of his blade.

  “Before we part ways,” he said, voice cutting clean across the forked trail, “we verify the strength of every company under my command.”

  The Magister didn’t wait for questions.

  “You,” he said, pointing at the front of our ragged line.

  One of the unnamed conscripts stiffened, then stepped forward on unsteady legs. He looked half-broken, bruises still blooming along his throat and jaw. He shot a glance back at us, then kept moving.

  On the opposite side, the Lieutenant barked an order of his own. A soldier from Rusk’s platoon stepped out, young, sturdier than most, his jaw clenched as if bracing for a blow.

  “Hand,” the Magister instructed.

  Both men extended one arm.

  The soldier carrying the Ashpire Stone set it between them on the ground. Up close, the ruby veins pulsed slow and hungry, like something just beginning to wake.

  The stone lay where the first soldier had set it. The younger man hesitated for half a breath, glancing at the Magister as if seeking permission. The Magister didn’t nod, he simply looked at him.

  That was enough.

  The soldier bent, scooped up the Ashpire Stone and held it deftly in his hand. The ruby veins pulsed with a hungry glow, sensing contact. The Stone always hungered for power, but it didn’t truly drink until a Caster dared to feed it.

  The conscript swallowed hard, then pressed his hand to the Stone, and the drain began instantly.

  At first it was subtle, just a tightening of his jaw, a tremor in his fingers. Then the Stone’s glow deepened, ruby veins threading brighter as it pulled more from him. His breath hitched and his shoulders locked.

  The soldier held firm. A small, knowing smirk touched his lips as he sensed the imbalance between them. The Stone’s veins throbbed brighter, feeding on both of them now, drawing strength from each connection.

  Seconds stretched.

  The conscript’s arms shook. His face went gray around the edges, sweat beading along his hairline. His knees buckled once, then again, and this time they didn’t catch.

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  He dropped, collapsing to both knees with a strangled gasp as his hand tore free from the Stone.

  The glow dimmed slightly.

  The soldier wavered on his feet, exhaustion dragging at his features, but he stayed upright. He blinked hard, steadied himself, and forced his spine straight.

  The Magister didn’t praise either of them.

  He simply watched.

  And then, in the same flat tone: “Next.”

  As the next pair stepped forward, a new conscript, a different soldier, I watched more than the Stone.

  The pattern was too deliberate to ignore.

  One conscript drained to the edge of collapse. One soldier drained from the weaker platoon.

  At first glance it looked like a test of strength. A balance from each side.

  But balance had nothing to do with it.

  The Magister wasn’t testing strength – he was managing it.

  With each match the conscripts wilted further, arms trembling, faces paling as the Stone drank them down. Even those with larger cores, and those who normally could have held steady for twice as long, buckled faster under the weight of exhaustion. Rusk’s little game last night hadn’t just bruised us; it had carved holes in our capacity.

  Worn bodies leak power. And the Magister was exploiting that to the last drop.

  The soldier’s he chose were never the ones from his own platoon. Never the strongest. Always the ones he could afford to weaken.

  They were being used as controlled siphons to drain us clean without sacrificing the real strength of his own unit.

  A clever strategy. Cruel, but clever.

  I watched as Aeris staggered forward, pale and shaking. The next soldier stepped opposite him with steady feet. The Stone pulsed between them.

  And for the first time since the fork in the road, the escape I’d been considering solidified. Something that is slowly becoming more urgent… and more difficult.

  Because now I understood the rules of the game.

  And the man who was writing them.

  The line shortened slowly. Seven conscripts. Ten soldiers. Enough pairings to grind every one of us down to the marrow.

  Aeris stumbled back into place after his turn, barely catching himself before he fell. Viola reached out to steady him, but the Magister’s voice cut across the yard again.

  Her jaw tightened.

  She stepped forward before anyone could call her name.

  The soldier chosen to face her was a large man, older than most from the weaker platoon, but still not one of the Magister’s elite.

  Viola held longer than I expected.

  Her mouth set in a thin line, shoulders shaking as the ruby glow brightened under her palm. The soldier across from her grit his teeth, sweat gliding down his temple as the stone drank from both of them – but harder from her.

  Viola went gray, and then her legs buckled. She hit the dirt on both knees with a pained sound she tried to swallow.

  The soldier lurched back, panting hard but still upright.

  The Magister’s eyes slid down the line. One conscript left.

  Me.

  But I was already moving.

  I stepped forward before my name left anyone’s mouth, before the Lieutenant could lift his chin in my direction. I’d seen enough.

  Viola still knelt behind me, breath hitching, Aeris half-braced against her shoulder. Jarl lay on his side in the dirt, shaking through the last of his tremors. The others looked no better, ashen and spent.

  Every one of them hollowed out.

  I lifted my gaze.

  The Magister watched me with a slow, knowing smile. Not warm, not mocking. Just… satisfied. As if he’d been waiting for me in particular, as though this was the pairing he’d wanted since the moment he ordered the Stone brought out.

  Across the way, the last three soldiers from the weaker platoon straightened abruptly. Rusk among them. They shifted on their feet like men being marched to the edge of a cliff. I saw the fear in their eyes. Of course they remembered. We’d been introduced the day I went against Thames and didn’t fall.

  One of the Lieutenants – Kerran – dragged his gaze from the Stone, then lifted his voice.

  “Rusk!”

  Rusk flinched.

  His mouth opened, closed, then opened again around a silent curse. His face had gone the color of old chalk, and for a moment I thought he might refuse outright.

  He stepped forward. Every muscle in him was tense, as if holding his bones together by force alone. His eyes darted to the Magister, then to me, then to the Stone pulsing faintly on the ground between us.

  Kerran barked again, sharper this time.

  “Face him.”

  Rusk obeyed.

  He met my eyes only once. Just a flicker, just long enough to the see truth: he wasn’t afraid of the Stone. He was afraid of me.

  I rolled my shoulders back despite the ache still lodged deep from last night’s current. The bruises, the welts, the shock still running faintly under my skin. None of it mattered. I’d lived through worse.

  The Magister stepped closer, the corner of his cloak brushing the dry earth. He looked between the two of us, gaze bright with interest.

  “Begin.”

  Rusk swallowed so hard I heard it.

  I picked up the Stone first.

  It thrummed the instant my fingers closed around it, ruby veins flaring like it had finally found the meal it wanted. Rusk hesitated only a breath, then, he pressed his palm to the opposite side.

  His eyes flicked up to mine…

  And I didn’t wait.

  I fed it, not gradually or carefully, but with a torrent of energy. The Stone pulsed violently, veins bursting bright enough to stain the dirt red. The drain snapped across the connection like a whip, and Rusk’s entire body jerked.

  His eyes went wide as the drain pulled forcefully at him. The Stone was ripping through him in one long, merciless drag.

  He gasped once, a strangled, high sound, and his free hand shot up, clawing at his wrist as he tried to tear himself away from it.

  But he couldn’t.

  The Stone held him fast.

  My power held him fast.

  His fingers slipped on his own skin, desperate, shaking hard enough to rattle bone. The glow deepened again, brighter still, and Rusk’s knees buckled. He sagged, half-collapsing, but his palm stayed fused to the Stone like it was melted there.

  “Sto—"

  The word broke in his throat, swallowed by another violent jolt.

  His spine arched, and then he fell fully, dropping hard to his side, hand still locked against the Stone as his body seized.

  Only then did I stop.

  The moment I cut the flow, the Stone dimmed.

  Rusk’s hand slipped free at last, fingers twitching once before falling limp into the dust.

  He collapsed into stillness, chest heaving, limbs jerking in fading spasms as the last of the shock bled through him.

  A hush fell over the line.

  Even the soldiers stared.

  I stood there with the Stone cooling in my hand, pulse steady, breath even. The ache in my bones still burned from the night before, but none of it showed.

  I turned the Stone over once, letting its ruby veins gutter to a faint flicker.

  Then I turned to the Magister. His smile had returned, small but pleased. Exactly what he’d wanted to see.

  “Good,” he said loudly. “Very good.”

  It didn’t feel like praise or satisfaction.

  It felt like recognition.

  Understanding slid coldly into place. The trials. The pairings. The perfect timing of exhaustion and opportunity.

  He wasn’t testing loyalty or strength, he was selecting tools.

  He was testing me.

  And I’d just proven myself the sharpest one he owned.