Veil of Amethyst

ChapterThree

Yay, the proving is here. Sarcasm intended.

Staring at my reflection, I noticed my hair had a lighter shade to it this morning, almost flaming under the window light. My eyes, on the other hand, looked almost lifeless, some shade I’d never quite settled on myself, shifting depending on the light, the mood, the day. Nothing about today felt exciting. The dress I’d chosen was simply grey, unremarkable by design. Even blending in, it still had to fit well, my own small rebellion against invisibility. No jewelry.

The carriage rolled through the heart of Azydon before the arena came into view, and I couldn’t help but take in the town as we passed. It was beautiful, if I do say so myself, in the particular way anything can look beautiful right before it becomes a battlefield. The houses lining the streets were built to nearly identical proportions, as if someone had once decided fairness could be measured in brick and timber, but the plaques fixed to each corner told the real story. Rank. Standing. Whose ancestors had done what, and for whom.

The Verdants and Azures kept close to one another, their neighborhoods threaded together by trade and old alliances, their powers woven visibly into the town’s growth, vines curling along fences that never needed tending, orchards fruiting weeks earlier than they should. Their rivalry between them was almost friendly, the kind of competition that showed up in market stalls and festival prizes rather than anything vile.

The Amethysts lived out on the edges, tucked near the quiet border of the province, treated less like neighbors and more like something to be managed. People were generally uneasy around our clan. Without ever really trying to understand us, simply because our abilities touched the mind, they’d decided fear was the safer response, and distance was how they acted on it.

The Clarets lived closest to the ruling quarter, grand houses catching the first and last light of the day, and the Sables served them, close enough to matter, never quite equal, and everyone in Sable territory seemed to know it. I’d heard it said that a Sable child learned to read a room before they learned to read words, that their whole clan had built itself around proximity to power rather than power itself. Maybe that was unfair. Maybe it wasn’t. I had always wondered why any of it mattered, if we were supposed to be equal.

From what we were taught growing up, only a few parts of the old lessons ever really stuck with me. Azydon was founded five hundred years ago, when our ancestors went searching for the cure to the Venaz that plagued them. What they found instead was the Toraq. It cured them and split its power five ways between them, one part to each ancestor, each part settling differently depending on the person it chose. That was why the clans’ abilities had never matched each other, why the Amethysts moved minds, and the Verdants moved growing things, and the Sables moved rooms full of people without ever lifting a hand. But the parts had never stayed whole. Passed down through five hundred years of bloodlines, split further with every generation, the power had thinned the way a river thins the farther it runs from its source. Some families still carried enough of it to matter. Others carried barely a flicker, a shimmer that came and went and meant nothing at all in a room full of officials looking for proof. No one knew where the original Toraq had gone, only that whatever remained of it now lived in fractions, in some of us more than others, and in some of us, apparently, in almost nothing.

I was beginning to suspect I knew exactly which category I fell into.

The carriage jolted to a stop, pulling me out of my thoughts. I stepped down and spotted Phyn almost immediately, dressed in deep red, a color I’d chosen for her on purpose. I wanted her to stand out and win the whole thing.

The arena rose ahead of us, far larger than I remembered from the last Ascension, tiered stone benches climbing high enough that the people at the top looked like smudges of color against the sky. Banners for all five clans hung from the upper ring, amethyst, claret, verdant, azure, and sable, snapping in a wind that seemed to move faster the closer we got. The stone itself looked old, older than the banners, worn smooth in places by five hundred years of hands and feet and nerves just like mine. It didn’t feel like a place for tryouts. It felt like a place built to decide things that couldn’t be undone.

Phyn, my darling, don’t you look gorgeous, I said, reaching for her. I love what you did with your hair.

She looked me over, frowning slightly. Thank you. But you didn’t do anything with yours, Z. You could have at least tried. I glanced around, already done with the subject. We are not having this conversation. Let it be.

The ladies around us moved in a rush of excitement, voices overlapping, laughter tangled with nervous chatter. As a designer, I couldn’t help but notice it really was a beautiful sight. Every fabric, every color, chosen with care. Elegant, all of it, and underneath the elegance, something tighter. Everyone here wanted to win, and everyone here was doing the math on who might beat them.

For a moment, I nearly forgot why I was even standing there.

Trying to blend into the crowd, I shifted to one side and bumped straight into someone.

Oh, sorry,I said quickly.

It’s alright, she replied, smile bright and immediate. I’m Vera of the Azure clan.

I’m Zaya.

Her eyes lit up. Zaya Dawton?

Just Zaya.

Well, it’s nice to meet you, she said warmly. I’ve been looking forward to this for so long. I just hope I make it to the Ascension.

You and me both, I said, mostly to be polite.

Another girl turned toward us from behind. Nora, she said, confident, chin lifted slightly. Verdant clan. Nora Verdane. I’ve been training for this since I can remember, she added, like it was simply a fact of her life, not a boast.

I blinked. Training?

Yes, she said, frowning at the question itself.

I glanced at Vera, who looked just as lost as I felt.

What exactly are we training for? I asked, honestly curious.

Vera hesitated. I’m not really sure.

The criteria change every time it’s held, Nora said. They pick based on ability. Maybe family status too. No one really knows for certain. We were all just guessing.

Great, that’s comforting.

Then the officials arrived, and the noise in the arena dropped almost instantly, like someone had pulled a curtain over the whole crowd. Five of them, one from each clan, took their seats in a single row. But the arrangement wasn’t as simple as it looked. Each official had been placed to judge a clan that wasn’t their own.

A Verdant assessed by a Claret. An Azure by a Sable. An Amethyst by anyone but their own. No bias, no way to predict who you’d face, only scrutiny, close and unblinking.

The line began to move, painfully slow. Do not stand out, my father’s voice echoed somewhere behind my ribs. We inched closer, one girl at a time. My chest tightened despite every effort not to.

Next!

One by one, they stepped forward. Questioned. Observed. Dismissed. Some impressed the officials without trying. Some visibly tried too hard and paid for it. Some simply failed and walked away with their composure barely intact.

I stepped forward. Zaya Dawton.

Five pairs of eyes settled on me, though I already knew which one would matter. Not an Amethyst. A Sable.

The Sable official leaned forward slightly, presence calm but heavy, the kind of watching that felt like being weighed. State your purpose.

To participate?.. Was there a different purpose?

Ability?

I lifted my hand slightly. Beneath my sleeve, I let my fingers curl in the small, practiced motion I’d taught myself years ago, a quick turn at the last second that dulled whatever wanted to rise before it ever reached the surface. A trick, nothing more. Something to keep my hands looking like they belonged to a girl with nothing worth noticing.

Nothing happened. No shimmer. No flicker of amethyst light.

He watched closely anyway. Too closely, for someone looking at what should have been an empty hand. Step forward.

I did. His gaze lingered, not just on my hands, but on my face. My eyes, specifically, like he was searching for something in them he expected to find and hadn’t yet.

Place your palm here.

I set my hand down. Still nothing. Whatever the surface beneath my palm was meant to read, it read absence, the same absence my family had learned to expect from me at every dinner table, every gathering, every moment someone asked what an Amethyst could do and I had no answer worth giving.

It was, if I was honest, the easiest kind of blending in there was. No one questions a girl who has nothing to hide because there’s nothing there to find.

A pause stretched a beat too long. Then, Next!

That was it. Dismissed. I stepped aside, exhaling slowly, the same old ache surfacing quietly beneath the relief. It was one thing to choose to blend in. It was another to be invisible already before you’d even tried.

The rest of the day dragged on in the same rhythm. Names called. Girls stepping forward, performing, being dismissed. Some hopeful. Some visibly crushed. Some pretending very hard not to care. Me, somewhere in that last category, or trying to be.

By the time it ended, the sun hung low over the arena, throwing long shadows across the stone. We were told to wait where we stood for the results.

I folded my arms and exhaled slowly, willing the knot in my stomach to loosen.

Now we wait, Vera said beside me.

Now we wait, Nora echoed, as Phyn walked up to join us, her face grim in a way that made my stomach drop further. We stood there together, the four of us, watching the officials confer at the far end of the arena, and waited.