THE VOID THRONE

Wei Liang was ten years old the first time the world told him he was nothing. He didn't forget it. You don't forget things like that. They get pressed into you like a stamp into warm wax — deep, clean, permanent. You carry the shape of it for the rest of your life whether you want to or not. The day it happened was supposed to be the best day of his life. --- The Spiritual Root Ceremony only happened once a year at Goldstone Academy. Every child between ten and twelve years old from the four surrounding districts got brought to the big main hall. They lined up in rows. They waited. And one by one, they walked up to a flat grey stone altar at the front of the room — the Stone of Roots, everyone called it — and pressed their hand down on it. The Grand Elder, who was very old and had a very long white beard and moved like someone who had decided long ago that hurrying was beneath him, would then touch ten silver needles to the child's skin, one at a time. The needles connected to the stone. And the stone showed everyone what you were made of. If you had fire roots, the stone lit up red — bright and hot like a little sun. Water roots made it glow blue, soft and deep. Earth roots burned amber. Wind roots flickered like candlelight in a breeze. And if you were really special — if you had two types of roots, or three, or the incredibly rare four — the stone would light up in different colours all at once, and the whole hall would go loud and excited, and the parents at the back would grab each other's arms and forget to breathe. That was what the ceremony was. A room full of people finding out what they were. Finding out where they fit. Wei Liang had been thinking about it for months. He'd lain awake at night imagining the stone lighting up for him — imagining the colour, the shape of it, imagining his mother's face when it happened. He'd thought about fire roots most. He liked the idea of fire. It suited something in him. He'd told himself not to get too excited. He'd gotten too excited. --- His parents had come all the way from their village. The road was long and his father's sandal broke halfway and they had to stop and fix it with a piece of twine they found in a ditch. They arrived late, just as the ceremony was beginning, and had to stand at the very back of the hall near the doors because all the closer spaces were taken. His mother was wearing her green dress. The one she saved for important things — weddings, festivals, the one time a government official came to their village and everyone dressed up. His father had combed his hair flat with oil, which he never did, ever, and the awkward hopefulness of it — the effort visible in every stiff hair — made something ache in Wei Liang's chest just from looking at him. "We believe in you," his mother whispered before he joined the line. She squeezed his hand. "Whatever happens. We believe in you." He held those words through the whole wait. There were forty-seven children ahead of him. Some cried from nerves. Some couldn't stop bouncing on their heels. One girl — she had ribbons in her hair and kept checking them nervously — went up to the stone and produced four roots at once. The whole hall erupted. People were cheering, actually cheering, and her mother burst into tears of happiness at the back and her father lifted her off the ground when she came back, lifted her completely off the ground and swung her around. Wei Liang watched that and held his mother's words tight and told himself: *soon.* He walked up to the stone.